We are creating a new kind of reality--a reality in which physical and digital environments, media, and interactions are woven together as we go about our daily lives. In this world, the virtual and the physical are seamlessly integrated, and cyberspace is not a place you go to but rather a layer tightly integrated into the world around us.
THE TRANSFORMATION:
TWO NEW WORLDS MEET
This transformation is coming about in two ways. First, geo-tagging tools are making it possible to attach location information to things and places around us. As layers of information grow around physical objects, everything we touch becomes enveloped in a cloud of data. Imagine moving through a place and being able to view on your mobile devices layers and layers of previously invisible information about your surroundings--who was here before, what they wrote about the place, who lives around here, crime rates, health information, and more. Our interactions with information will not be through the screen but will become a casual part of every day experience, everywhere and all the time.
At the same, we are creating new digital worlds and identities in virtual spaces. Sometimes these digital realities mirror our lives , created from the vast caches of video and photo archives we are accumulating) At other times, we are creating completely new and different digital realities as online games or spaces to experiment with or retreat from the constraints of the physical world.
THE EXPERIENCE:
A SUPERSTRUCTED WORLD
Think of this as superstructing reality. And as we are doing crafting this reality, we are likely to see new types of interactions, new challenges and demands on our senses, and new opportunities to redefine relationships and social structures. We are early in this transformation, but here are just some glimpses of what the impacts might be:
• We will increasingly be able to create highly personalized worlds that suit our particular needs and contexts. You don’t like how things are in the “real world?” Don’t worry. Just create a world that works for you online or in the physical world using some of the digital tools. You don’t want to wake up in the morning to go to class? Bring the classroom into your bedroom as you stream lectures from top experts around the world.
• Every one of us will have a potential to become her own media channel and a one-person show. We are already turning from reading mainstream media to increasingly reading each other’s streams of thoughts, ideas, and references on platforms like Twitter. Imagine being able to produce such media streams in highly enriched sensory formats--lifeblogging streams of our experiences--and sharing these with others as we choose. We will all turn into performers in the process.
• We will increasingly be creating dependencies on software and tools that help us navigate the blended world or serve as our outward brains and senses. In the process, we will rediscover ourselves--by seeing ourselves as streams of data and being able to see new patterns in the data, we will rediscover what we do and why, both individually and as a society.
• Not only humans will have online identities. By giving plants, trees and other inanimate objects online identity, people will bring awareness and sentience to the objects around us. What happens when trees, plants, and things we carry acquire online presence and can communicate with us and with each other? What will you do when your wallet pings you?
• We will use the virtual environments we are creating as training grounds for physical interactions. Afraid to perform in front of crowds? Try this out on people in Second Life where stakes are lower first, then take the performance out into the physical world. Maybe Milan Kundera is wrong after all. Maybe you do get to have a practice run at life.
* What will we do with all this digital immortality we are creating as we are going about documenting our lives and creating our digital mirrors? Well, if we are smart, we will tap into the knowledge, ideas, and wisdom of those no longer with us. They may have died physically but we will still have access to their “digital” brains, and if we learn how to access them, they could continue to help us solve problems and navigate dilemmas.
THE CHALLENGE:
AN ECONOMYOF ENGAGEMENT
Most importantly, in the superstructed world, we are blending ourselves into one global intelligence, one global body, one global brain. For the first time, divisions imposed on us by geography, class, political, economic, transportation, and many other systems created over many centuries, are being dismantled as we enter each other’s life streams across these boundaries. Therein lies the greatest hope for the future as for the first time we have an opportunity to connect to each other in new and infinitely more intricate ways. In the process, we will be superstructing our economy, creating what we call an “Economy of Engagement.” In this economy it is less important to compete for attention and more important to compete for brain cycles and interactive bandwidth. Success of will depend on capturing the mental energy and the active efforts of individual contributors. In this economy, the quest and the prize will be in turning attention into engagement.