Often people find it’s better to avoid predicting the future in case  you  end up looking foolish: “Next Christmas the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput” – Sir Alan Sugar, 2005

“We’ll kill spam in two years” – Bill Gates, 2004

“We stand on the threshold of rocket mail” – U.S. postmaster general, Arthur Summerfield, 1959

“Britain doesn’t need telephones” – Chief engineer at the Post Office, Sir William Preece, 1878

With the speed that technology is evolving it’s becoming even harder to know what is going to happen next week, let alone in the next 10 years. But we need not accept defeat.

When predicting the future, the singularity can assist us.  By practicing predictions from accelerated feedback loops, we can begin to grasp a tighter understanding of future events. Accelerated feedback loops were especially helpful for the development of the mobile web following the fixed line, with smart devices leading to a digitally responsive generation producing comprehensive records of their lives’ activities.

With this in mind, I predict that within the next ten years we’ll be tracking our lives end-to-end with a multitude of personal sensors – think Nike+ – and openly sharing the information. The opportunity for data gathering from this would be huge, making the loyalty schemes of today appear insignificant.

Here are a few feedback loops for you to explore:

WiFi body scales – WiFi blood pressure – Mass market sensors – Life achievement apps – Life achievement visualisations – Rewards for being active

If you’re thinking this all seems rather Orwellian, let me try to convince you otherwise.  I believe with an enhanced understanding of our lives, we will be better equipped to seek out the things that make us happy, and avoid those which cause us pain.  

As stated in Good to Great, the best businesses find concrete numbers to judge and manage themselves by, why then, not apply this to our lives?

However, I’m also inclined to agree with Alan Kay that “The best way to predict the future is to invent it”.