2econd Friday was proud to be a first-tier sponsor at the recent Future of the Future conference.  It was surely an exciting day.

 The opening session was “Walk Now – A Route for Tomorrow, Today.”  “Walk Now” is a song by Orbital, from their fantastic Brown Album.

Orbital were not at the session, but they would’ve been more than welcome.  Zoe (the session host) had looked to choose a walking route which the session attendees had not walked before.  She explains, “I initially thought this would be a tricky task, but soon came to realise, there are lots of walking routes, within walking distance, which we’ve never walked before.  Today’s route was particularly scenic, following the Whitney Mesa Nature Preserve Trail.”

 The “Your Biggest” session was perhaps one of “the biggest” successes of the day.  Sessioneers began by writing down several possible “biggests”.  Some examples from this particular session were, “Failing”, “Opportunity”, and “Success”.  One by one, the “biggests” are randomly selected, and one sessioneer describes their particular thoughts on it.  Wife Camper had written down “Failing” as one her biggests.  Husband Downie had randomly selected “Failing” as one of his biggests to describe.  He decided to describe what he felt was his biggest failing as husband to Wife Camper.  He was relieved when Wife Camper agreed with that biggest failing, and that there wasn’t some even-bigger failing.  It was good to be able to openly discuss various biggests.

 A Networking Luncheon followed, accompanied by a documentary screening.  The documentary was the opening episode of a series entitled “The Century of the Self”.

 Fascinating viewing, it was indeed.

 The main session of the day was “The Future of the Future”.  It was inspired by a session at the recent IBM Think conference, in a session presented by The Institute for the Future.  A quote from Jim Dator is the key to the session: “Any useful statement about the future should at first seem ridiculous”.  If you take the taxi industry as an example, just a few years ago, a “fact” about the taxi industry could’ve been, “Taxi drivers like to long-haul customers, and are able to do so, because the customer has no idea where they’re going.”  When someone at Uber initially said, “okay, we’ll show the customer where their driver is, in real-time, keeping them completely informed of everything about the journey”, the statement would surely have seemed ridiculous. 

 Obviously not all taxi drivers are long-hauling mofos, but the minority of the industry who are, leave a somewhat undesirable taste in the metaphorical mouth.  Ach, jeez, it tastes like metaphorical dog poo.

 To finish the day, there was a 2econd Friday review, to decide our Top 3's, so far.

 Tune: “The Future of the Future” by Deep Dish featuring Everything But The Girl

Dress Code: Fashion Forward