I recently presented at a state behavioral health association meeting where, to put it mildly, the execs in the audience thought my five-year projections were a bit 'wild'. I heard many comments like, "That will happen eventually, but certainly not in five years…"
But even my view of the future of the health and human services field was given a 'big shock' by the remarks of Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando. Mr. Schmidt was asked to answer the question, "What will the Internet look like five years from now?" Here are a few of the trends he is working into the five-year strategic plan for Google:
- The next five years will outstrip the factor of ten that we now know as Moore's Law—computers’ capabilities will be doubled (speed, storage, reduced cost, etc.) in five years—and not ten
- Within five years, there will be widespread broadband access well above 100MB in performance—in other words, super-fast bandwidth for real time audio and video communication
- Distinctions between TV, radio, and the web will go away—facilitated in part by inexpensive, fast broadband access
- Real time user-generated information on the web will increase—also facilitated by inexpensive fast broadband access—and the will be including it in search results, and more critical, in ranking
- Web users will expect to jump from one application to another seamlessly (much like today's teenagers)—and will demand applications that permit this
- Five years from now the Internet will be dominated by Chinese-language content.
What does it all mean for our field? I don't know yet, but our team at OPEN MINDS is working on the answer to that very question. Stay tuned.
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