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Postcards From The Future
Had the pleasure of cycling down to Shinagawa this morning and getting Japan entry-permits transferred to my new passport. The new permit design includes an unsettlingly unfriendly 2D-bar code a poor substitute to the rich and more human-readable tapestry that was previously used by the immigration services. Will this enable Japanese customs to process me more efficiently? Perhaps. But the travels of the last few months have made me appreciate the finer subtleties of the various visas. Mongolia is a personal favourite, partly because it has a hologram of what I think is a flying pegasus, but could equally be an emasculated yak, and partly because its, well, Mongolia. Applying for entry visas is a bit like sending one-line postcards to oneself.
Our team spends a lot of time working on concepts 3 to 5 years ahead of what appears on the market. I spent one year working on ideas up to 15 years ahead of where we are now - it's quite a tricky mental space to visit though fun when you get there. You know those wonderful visions of the future where everything is white an uncluttered? Trust me, the future will be messy, and wonderfully so. I'm reminded of these things because in everyday life it's rare to come across bridges between where we are now and 10 years in the future - and my new passport says it is valid until 2015 (I expect to fill it by 2009). But where will I be in 2015? Where will you be for that matter? What will the world be like? Will there be re-entry permits in 3D? 4D even? Maybe the whole idea of an entry permit will have changed, based on a lack of privacy (by today's standards) bought on by continuous and seemingly ambient data exchanges. It will be taken as a given that you know that you don't have the right to travel somewhere without having to apply because you have the information at your fingertips. And they know you're heading there before you arrive, before you even left home. In fact they calculated the probability of you traveling there soon after your friend bought you a travel guide for your birthday, cross referenced this data with your credit report (enough saved for a trip) the analysis of phone call logs (excited tone of voice when discussing destination keywords), and half a dozen related purchases (though the system missed an opportuntiy to remind you to take stronger sun block because its been a particularly hot summer). All these information exchanges and status updates happening in real time, naturally. Lets be thankful for those in-store loyalty cards shall we?
Tonight I'm finalising some thoughts for a short presentation on Exploratory User Research for a design orientated audience of Japanese and English speakers. The format is pretty simple - show 20 slides with 20 seconds for each slide, and up to 20 presenters in one night. No chance to waffle, or to hear other people waffle. I'll post a link to the slides when I'm done.
Outside the sun dips behind Mt Fuji. In 3 months or so it will be climbable again.
[And the sun is rising over Algiers - safe travels SC]
Writing from Tokyo | January 24, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
"And they know you're heading there before you arrive, before you even left home..."
And the year was 1984... or is it 2006? Or it is the future...
Sometimes is it better off w/o automation... The question is, we will have the option, the opportunity, the ability to choose, to opt out from such "big brother" way of life, or will it be they way it is going to be... Where initially there will be resistence to the idea, but after a couple of generations, it will be a socially accepted way of life, where people will give up privacy for convenience.... Scary in some respects.
ceo
Posted by: C. Enrique Ortiz at January 25, 2006 3:00 AM
I can only imagine the size and complexity of the "control panels" or "preferences" where we would (not) be able to adjust our privacy settings.
Posted by: Daniel Alenquer at January 25, 2006 8:11 PM