Emerson Exchange 365

By Jim Montague

Seeing the future is easier if you take off blinders in the present. That's because many potential and upcoming innovations are already foreseeable given today's capabilities and tools. What's needed to reveal them is awareness and the humility give up stuck-in-a-rut thinking patterns that stifle useful questions and possibilities. Then the will to action can turn these desired futures into new realities.

This is easier said than done, of course, but futurist Jack Uldrich lit some sparks in his keynote address to Emerson Global Users Exchange delegates. Uldrich has written more than 10 books, including his latest, "Foresight 20/20."

"The futurist's job is to focus on the big picture, and point out the 800-pound gorillas that others are missing because their attention is focused elsewhere," said Uldrich. "I want to help future-proof your businesses against all the changes that are coming tomorrow. Many business models are changing quickly, while others are fading away, so it's important to be aware of changes you might not be able to see."

Uldrich reported that developing this keener awareness begins with "jumping the curve" to learn about and understand seemingly futuristic technologies that are already being applied now, but are rapidly dropping in price, increasing in capabilities, and about to mushroom in the mainstream. Uldrich identified 10 major technical areas in which presently available technology and tools can enable future ingenuity and innovations:

1. Wearable devices, such as Google Glass, that could be used in some remote oil and gas applications to call up mentors and videos to provide immediate technical expertise and advice.
2. 3D printing, which is moving beyond making plastic trinkets in desktop boxes to additively manufacture metal in much larger, stronger forms. "GE reports it's going to print aircraft engines in a couple of years," said Uldrich.
3. Oculus Rift virtual reality goggles, which quickly raised $1 million in Kickstarter funding, $25 million more in venture capital, and was recently sold to Facebook for $2 billion. Uldrich reported Tesla Motors already is using the goggles to visualize designs in three dimensions before it prints them.
4. Nanotechnology embraces a variety of different technologies. Some highlights include: Water is Life's Drinkable Book with silver nanoparticles for filtering contaminated water in undeveloped, poor and remote places; the first superconducting, electric power transmission lines in Essen, Germany, which are reportedly five times more efficient; and graphene-enabled batteries that may allow electric vehicles to be changed far more quickly.
5. Robotic innovations, such as Baxter's touch-sensitive robotic arms that can work directly with humans, Amazon's proposed delivery drones, and Google's self-driven cars project.
6. Sensors, microprocessors and RFID tags embedded in far more varied and widely distributed settings, including bridges and smart buildings. Uldrich added that Emerson's instrumentation, Pervasive Sensing, and wireless solutions are reducing maintenance costs, and identifying problems before breakdown occur.
7. Genomics is doubling its capabilities every four months, according to Uldrich, which will revolutionize the health care and pharmaceutical industries, but will also aid applications like genetically modified bioreactors that can work with the sun to turn CO₂ into biodiesel or ethanol, and make both commercially viable.
8. Computing power, in which solutions from IBM's Watson to Apple's Siri are increasing their data processing power exponentially, so they can soon supply answers to users' questions before they think of them.
9. Renewable fuel sources that Uldrich says can both assist and be enabled by the other primary innovation areas.
10. Collaborative consumption that changes business models for goods like automobiles, which don't need to be individually owned in urban areas, but can instead be checked out as part of subscriber-based cars-to-go programs.

"Many large industries say change can't happen fast, but North America was looking at importing natural gas just 10 years ago, and now we're going to export it thanks to the development of new drilling and fracking technologies," added Uldrich. "The opportunities for ingenuity are being greatly extended, but we must have humility, keep an open mind and be aware of them. However, we're conditioned to see the world in one way. So, when something really new stares us in the face, it can be hard to see. So, we have to work at seeing it, gaining the confidence to innovate into the future we want to build."