The Future Is Like A Butler

Imagine someone gave you a butler. Completely paid for. No termination date on the contract. What would you do?

At first, you’d probably do nothing. You’ve never had a butler. Outside of movies, you’ve probably never seen a butler. You might even feel a little nervous having this person in the room with you, always there, always ready to help. 

Once you got over your nervousness, you might ask the butler to do something simple, like iron your shirts or make you some coffee. “Hey,” you might think after a while, “This is pretty nice! I always have ironed shirts, and my coffee is always the way I like it!” 

Next, you’d ask your butler to do other things, more complicated things. Pretty soon, you might not be able to imagine your life without a butler.

The parable of the butler isn’t mine, of course. It is a rough paraphrasing of a story told by Michael Crichton in his 1983 book, Electronic Life. Crichton, more famous today for blockbusters like Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, and WestWorld, was writing about computers, specifically personal computers, back then. Crichton correctly predicted that personal computers would become ubiquitous, and the main goal of Electronic Life was to help people become more comfortable with them. 

The story of the butler was a launching point for his broader argument that personal computers were only going to get more useful with time, and that now was the time to start adopting the technology. It worked, too. Shortly after I read his book, I bought my first computer, a Commodore 64.

Today’s Army faces much the same problem. The difference, of course, is that the future presents today’s military with a much broader set of options than it did in 1983. Today, it feels like the Army has been given not one but hundreds of butlers. Quantum computing, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, 3D printing, robotics, nanotech, and many more fields are arguably poised to rapidly and completely change both the nature and character of warfare.

Despite the deluge of options, the question remains the same, “What do I do with this?”

The answer begins with Diffusion of Innovations theory. In his now classic book of the same name, Everett Rogers first defined the theory and the five types of adopters. Innovators, who aggressively seek the “next big thing”, are the first to take up a new product or process. Early adopters are the second group. Not quite as adventurous as the innovators, the early adopters are still primarily interested in acquiring new technology. Early majority and late majority adopters sit on either side of the midpoint of a bell-shaped adoption curve and represent the bulk of all possible adopters. Finally come the laggards, who tend to adopt a new innovation late or not at all.

(Source: BlackRock White Paper)

For example, the uptake of smartphones (among many other innovations) followed this pattern. In 2005, when the smartphone was first introduced, only 2% of the population (the Innovators) owned one. Three years later, market penetration had only reached 11%, but, from 2009-2014, the smartphone experienced double digit growth each year such that, by 2016, some 81% of all mobile phones were smartphones. This S curve of growth is another aspect predicted by Diffusion of Innovations theory.

Not all innovations succeed, however. In fact, all industries are littered with companies that failed to achieve critical mass in terms of adoption. While there are many reasons that a venture might fail, management consultant Geoffrey Moore, in his influential book, Crossing the Chasm, states that the most difficult leap is between the early adopters and the early majority. Early adopters tend to be enthusiastic and eager to try the next big thing. The early majority is more pragmatic and is looking for a solution to a problem. This difference in perspective accounts for much of the chasm.

Source:   Agile Adoption Across the Enterprise – Still in the Chasm

The Army is aggressively addressing the innovation and early adoption problem by developing sophisticated plans and tasking specific units and organizations to implement them. The need to innovate is, for example, at the heart and soul of several recent policy announcements, including the 2019 Army People Strategy and the 2019 Army Modernization Strategy. Beyond planning, the Army is already far along in doing some of the hard work of innovating. Indeed, organizations and projects as small as TRADOC’s Mad Scientists and as large as the Army Futures Command Synthetic Training Environment are examples that show that Army senior leaders understand the need to innovate and are acting now to put early adoption plans into motion.

But what about the rest of the Army? The part of the Army that isn’t directly involved in innovation? The part that is not routinely exposed to the next big thing? That hasn’t, to get back to the original point, ever had a butler?

Again, Diffusion Of Innovations theory provides a useful guide. Rogers talks about the five stages of the adoption process: Awareness, persuasion, decision, implementation, and continuation. For the rest of the Army, awareness, and, to a lesser extent, persuasion, should be the current goal. 

While this may seem simple, in a world of hundreds of butlers, it is deceptively so. With so many technologies poised to influence the Army of the future, it becomes extremely difficult to focus. Likewise, merely knowing the name of a technology or having some vague understanding of what it is and what it does is not going to be enough. No one in the Army would claim that you could learn to fire a rifle effectively merely by watching YouTube videos, and the same holds true for technologies like autonomous drones, 3D printing, and robots.

The only way to engender true understanding of both the strengths and weaknesses of an innovation is to provide a hands-on experience. Cost alone should not be a significant impediment to exposing the bulk of the Army to the technologies of the future. Autonomous drones are now available for under $1000, entry level 3D printers can be had for as little as $200-$700, virtual reality headsets are available for $300-1000 and build your own robot kits are available for a couple of hundred bucks. 

None of these products are as sophisticated as the kinds of products the Army is considering, of course, but putting simpler versions of these technologies in the hands of soldiers today would likely significantly improve the Army’s odds of being able to cross Moore’s chasm between visionary thinking and pragmatic application in the future.

How and where should the Army implement this effort to familiarize the force with the future? Fortunately, the Army has a good place, a good concept, and some prototypes already in place--at the library. The Army library system contains over 170 libraries worldwide. While many people continue to think of libraries as silent spaces full of dusty books, the modern library has been re-imagined as a place not only for knowledge acquisition but also as tech centers for communities.

Nowhere is this more clear than in the “makerspaces” that are increasingly woven into the fabric of modern libraries. Typically offering access to equipment that, while relatively inexpensive, is outside the budget of most households, or to technology that is best first experienced in a hands-on, peer learning environment, makerspaces allow users to try out new technologies and processes at the user’s own pace and according to the user’s own interest. 

3D printers, laser cutters, video and podcasting equipment are often combined in these makerspaces with more sophisticated traditional equipment such as high end, programmable sewing machines. Most times, however, the makerspace has been tailored by the local librarians to meet the needs of the population that the library serves. Indeed, the Army already has at least three examples of makerspaces in its library system, the Barr Memorial Library at Fort Knox, the Mickelsen Community Library at Fort Bliss and The Forge at the US Army War College.

Imagine being able to go to the post library and check out an autonomous drone for the weekend? Or to sit down and 3D print relief maps of the terrain you were going to cover on your next hike? Understanding the basics of these new technologies will not only make the future force more comfortable with them but also allow soldiers to think more robustly about how to employ these technologies to the Army’s advantage.

While the cost of such a venture would be reasonable, acquiring the funding for any effort on the scale of the whole Army cannot be taken for granted. More challenging, perhaps, would be the process of repurposing the space, training staff, and rolling out the initiative. 

But what is the alternative? To the extent that the Army, as the 2019 People Strategy outlines, needs people at all levels “who add value and increase productivity through creative thinking and innovation,” it seems imperative that the Army also have a whole-of-army approach to innovation. To fail to do so risks falling into Moore’s chasm, where the best laid plans of the visionaries and early adopters fall victim to unprepared pragmatists that will always make up the bulk of the Army.

How To Think About The Future (Part 2 - What Do You Control?)

Click on the image above to see the full mindmap.

I am writing a series of posts about how to think about the future.  In case you missed Part 1, you can find it here:

How To Think About The Future (Part 1 -- Questions About Questions)

These posts represent my own views and do not represent the official policy or positions of the US Army or the War College, where I currently work.

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The great Stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote, 

"Work, therefore to be able to say to every harsh appearance, 'You are but an appearance, and not absolutely the thing you appear to be.' And then examine it by those rules which you have, and first, and chiefly, by this: whether it concerns the things which are in our own control, or those which are not; and, if it concerns anything not in our control, be prepared to say that it is nothing to you." (Italics mine)

There are good reasons to focus on questions about things you control.  Things you control you can understand or, at least, the data required to understand them is much easier to get.  Things you control you can also change (or change more easily).  Finally, you only get credit for the things you do with the things you control.  Few people get credit for just watching. 

Whole disciplines have been built around improving what you do with what you control.  MBA and Operations Research programs are both good examples of fields of study that focus mostly on improving decisions about how you use the resources under your control.  Indeed, focusing on the things you control is at the center of effectual reasoning, an exciting new take on entrepreneurship and innovation (for example, the entire crowdfunding/startup Quickstarter Project was built on the effectuation principles and are the reason it was as successful as it was).

On the other hand, another great thinker from the ancient world once wrote,

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

Sun Tzu went on to outline the exact impact of not thinking about things you don't control:  

"If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat." 

Things outside of your control are much more squishy than things under your control.  The data is often incomplete, and what is there is often unclear.  It is pretty normal for the info to be, as Clausewitz would say, "of doubtful character," and it is rarely structured in nice neat rows with data points helpfully organized with labelled columns.  Finally, in an adversarial environment at least, you have to assume that at least some of the info you do have is deceptive--that it has been put there intentionally by your enemy or competitor to put you off the track.

People frequently run from questions about things that are outside of their control.  The nature of the info available can often make these kinds of questions seem unresolvable, that no amount of thinking can lead to any greater clarity.

This is a mistake.  

Inevitably, in order to move forward with the things you do control, you have to come to some conclusions about the things you do not control.  A country's military looks very different if it expects the enemy to attack by sea vs. by land.  A company's marketing plan looks very different if it thinks its competitor will be first to market with a new type of product or if it will not.  Your negotiating strategy with a potential buyer of your house depends very much on whether you think the market in your area is hot or not.

The US military has a saying:  "Intelligence leads operations."  This is a shorthand way of driving home the point that your understanding of your environment, of what is happening around you, of the things outside of your control, determines what you do with the things under your control.  Whether you do this analysis in a structured, formal way or just go with your gut instinct, you always come to conclusions about your environment, about the things outside your control, before you act.  

Since you are going to do it anyway, wouldn't it be nice if there were some skills and tools you could learn to do it better?  It turns out that there are.  The last 20-30 years has seen an explosion in research about how to better understand the future for those things outside of our control.

More importantly, learning these skills and tools can probably help you understand things under your control better as well.  Things under your control often come with the same kinds of squishy data normally associated with things outside your control.  The opposite is much less likely to be true.  

Much of the rest of this series will focus on these tools and thinking skills, but first, we need to dig more deeply into the nature of the questions we ask about things outside our control and precisely why those questions are so difficult to answer.

(Next:  Why Are Questions About Things Outside Your Control So Difficult?)

How To Think About The Future (Part 1 -- Questions About Questions)

We don't think about the future; we worry about it.

Whether it's killer robots or social media or zero-day exploits, we love to rub our preferred, future-infused worry stone between our thumb and finger until it is either a thing of shining beauty or the death of us all (and sometimes both).  

This is not a useful approach.

Worry is the antithesis of thinking.  Worry is all about jumping to the first and usually the worst possible conclusion.  It induces stress.  It narrows your focus.  It shuts down the very faculties you need to think through a problem.  Worry starts with answers; thinking begins with questions.

What Are Your Questions?

“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.” – Francis Bacon
"The art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it.” – Georg Cantor
“If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.” – W. Edwards Deming

Given the importance of questions (and of asking the "right" ones), you would think that there would be more literature on the subject.  In fact, the question of questions is, in my experience, one of the great understudied areas.  A few years ago, Brian Manning and I took a stab at it and only managed to uncover how little we really know about how to think about, create, and evaluate questions.

For purposes of thinking about the future, however, I start with two broad categories to consider:  Speculative questions and meaningful questions.  

There is nothing wrong with a speculative question.  Wondering about the nature of things, musing on the interconnectedness of life, and even just staring off into space for a bit are time-honored ways to come up with new ideas and new answers.  We should question our assumptions, utilize methods like the Nominal Group Technique to leverage the wisdom of our collective conscious, and explore all of the other divergent thinking tools in our mental toolkits.  

Speculation does not come without risks, however.  For example, how many terrorist groups would like to strike inside the US?  Let's say 10.  How are they planning to do it?  Bombs, guns, drones, viruses, nukes?  Let's say we can come up with 10 ways they can attack.  Where will they strike?  One of the ten largest cities in the US?  Do the math--you already have 1000 possible combinations of who, what, and where.

How do we start to narrow this down?  Without some additional thinking strategies, we likely give in to cognitive biases like vividness and recency to narrow our focus.    Other aspects of the way our minds work--like working memory limitations--also get in the way.  Pretty soon, our minds, which like to be fast and certain even when they should be neither, have turned our 1 in 1000 possibility into a nice, shiny, new worry stone for us to fret over (and, of course, share on Facebook).

Meaningful questions are questions that are important to you--important to your plans, to your (or your organization's) success or failure.  Note that there are two criteria here.  First, meaningful questions are important.  Second, they are yours.  The answers to meaningful questions almost, by definition, have consequences.  The answers to these questions tend to compel decisions or, at least, further study.

It is entirely possible, however, to spend a lot of time on questions which are both of dubious relevance to you and are not particularly important.  The Brits have a lovely word for this, bikeshedding.  It captures our willingness to argue for hours about what color to paint the bikeshed while ignoring much harder and more consequential questions.  Bikeshedding, in short, allows us to distract ourselves from our speculations and our worries and feel like we are still getting something done.

Next:  What do you control?

Does The Future Belong To Robots? (Institute For the Future)

The Institute For The Future does some interesting long-range analysis. In the past they have focused on a variety of issues including things such as health and food but recently they decided to take on robots.

The method in this most recent effort seems to be a more or less straight line extrapolation based on existing trends but, as with all deep-future work, one of the real benefits of the analysis is the mental model of the question.

The Institute sees robots participating in our lives at three levels (see the embedded graphic below for more details or download the PDF). The first, automation, appears to be where we are now, with robots automating processes that were formerly done by humans. The second level is augmentation, where robots add to our existing capabilities, such as driving the car for us. The final level is understanding, where robots begin to interact with us in ways that are indistinguishable from the ways we interact with other humans.

The Institute is also very good at visualizing their data and this chart is no exception. I think visualizing the results of analysis is a pretty important skill for all analysts, so I always take a look at their stuff for new ideas. The small embed below may be difficult to read or navigate so I strongly suggest downloading the PDF file so you can examine the style of report more easily and in more detail.

Another thing that might be interesting to readers who don't track this technology very closely is how many examples of each of these levels (and in how many areas) the analysts at the Institute were able to find. It seems that the robot future may be closer than we think. It is thought-provoking analysis on many levels.

Mailer And McLuhan (Google Video)

Norman Mailer died recently and there is a good bit about him in the press as a result. One of the most interesting interviews I have seen of him is this Canadian documentary of him with Marshall McLuhan. If you are not that familiar with either Mailer or McLuhan you probably should be and this is an interesting introduction to their thinking. The language they use can be a bit difficult to follow at times but it is worth the concentrated effort it takes to sit all the way through it.

(Thanks to Snarkmarket for finding it!)