Its been a good bit since we’ve taken a swing at looking at things a bit further out than a copule years, and so I found it pretty refreshing to come across an article in which several mobile, web, and tech thought leaders took at asking the question what will work look like in 2020? Its a neat question and one where I think we both over-estimate what could happen and under-estimate what does happen. Here’s a piece of one of the views from Helen Keegan from Heros of Mobile:
…It’s hard to predict the future of work, and seven years is not that far away. Seven years ago was 2006. I had moved to a Symbian Smartphone – probably the N70 at the time. I was using the odd app and game and had limited use of mobile web. I had started to use Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Fast forward to 2013 and I’m using an Android smartphone with email, web, games, music, alarm clock, messaging, social networking and more. I’m still using my laptop for ‘work’ stuff but my media consumption is primarily mobile. By 2020, we’ll have devices that are lighter and smarter, with better battery life. We may have broadband connectivity across the whole of the UK. All sectors will be affected in some way by mobile technology – whether it’s remote monitoring of our health or checking that our washing machines are working properly. People will need to adapt and learn and not be afraid of technology. It should be seamless and invisible to take the fear away and proper respect should be given to privacy and data. Whether we’ve worked that all out by 2020, time will tell…
There are several things to like and dislike from these kinds of viewpoints. I thought Helen’s was one of the better balanced ones in that it didn’t paint the broad “this will happen” brush. And yet, I still think that parts of this view of work is based too much on information-heavy industries, and middle to upper-middle class workers in thsoe industries. I see a lot more disruption for pretty much everyone else. And as such, I think that its probably a bit better to look at what a worship community might look like in 2020 to get a view of general tech trends:
- I see many faith communities beginning to move away from Facebook; not because its not capable, but becaue they will utilize another upcoming comms/connection service that has a bit less of a presence in security scares
- I see more new faith communities opening with shared online and offline community spaces as normal (not just a website, but online, interactive streaming media)
- Sure there will be more devices used in hand, but fewer variations outside of mainstream smartphone platforms as by then, most smartphone owners will have swapped out whatever they are using now at least 2x
- Trust for cloud services will need to be brokered by churches and their leaders as personal trust levels will have diminished in increasingly larger circles
I’ve probably got a few more items to throw out there. I’ve weeded out things like multi-media sermon elements and bible study apps because they are here. There are too many gradients of faith communities to call those something that all will implement. Still, its a true-ism in the USA, and probably in some other countries, where the faith community goes, so follows the rest of culture.
What are your thoughts? Will 2020 look different or more like normal for faith communities?