University community abuzz after visit to the 21st century

For Glen Hiemstra, life is a lot like popcorn.

At least that’s the analogy the renowned futurist used during his March 13 UW appearance to describe the pace of change society has been faced with since the early 1970s. The kernels started slowly popping, he said, in 1971 with the first commercial sale of the silicon chip.

“Pop,” he said, while simultaneously snapping his fingers into a microphone in Meany Theater. “Nineteen seventy-four, Paul Allen walks into Bill Gates’ dorm room, freshman year, Harvard. He has a science magazine. He holds it up and says, ‘Look at this.’ It has a (computer) on the cover. They decide to skip finals week. They start the project that results in Microsoft basic that results in the Microsoft company. Pop.”

He continued the percussive walk through time: The first Apple computer sold in 1977. Pop. IBM sold its first PC in 1981. Pop. Cellular telephones and fiber optics came of age during the 1980s. Pop. Pop. The World Wide Web burst onto the scene in 1993. Pop. Pop. Pop. And now, “we’re right at the point where all the popcorn begins popping at once,” he said.

Glen Hiemstra answers a question after his presentation.

The popping cacophony rose to a near fury as Hiemstra, snapping with both hands, spoke at a dizzying pace to the Meany crowd and others who tuned in to the live simulcast at Harborview Medical Center, Hogness Auditorium, UW Bothell and UW Tacoma. His timeline continued into the 21^st century, covering everything from super-intelligent computers to a new concept of retirement. In fact, he said that the next 20-25 years could see as much change as what occurred during the entire 20^th century.

Hiemstra’s appearance was sponsored by the President’s Staff Forum as part of the Conversation About the Future. Attendance was low in comparison with other Conversation events, but the enthusiasm ran exceedingly high. In fact, Hiemstra’s visit has prompted more visits to the online Conversation About the Future (http://depts.washington.edu/uwfuture/begin/) than any previous event and there were more questions from the audience following the speech than there was time for answers. Hiemstra’s dialogue with the campus community was just the sort of stimulus UW President Richard L. McCormick had hoped for.

“It can be intimidating to talk about the future, but we need to do it and that’s the reason we brought Glen in. His speech really served to open people’s minds beyond what’s normally possible during the course of our busy workdays,” McCormick said.

The responses have ranged from praise to concerns about construction on campus. Others have answered questions posed on the Web site. Others, still, have sent e-mail directly to Hiemstra at his Web site - http://www.futurist.com.

“Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of the conversation this morning,” wrote Mary Neyhart, a program coordinator in the School of Pharmacy. “My mind is filled with possibilities I hadn’t thought of for a very long time . . . ” Neyhart, writing on the Conversations Web site, went on to call Hiemstra’s speech “mind-expanding.”

Another Web posting came from Connie Ivey-Pasche, an administrative assistant in zoology.

“I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday’s presentation by Glen Hiemstra, the staff panel, and President McCormick,” Ivey-Pasche wrote. She went on to express her concern that the technological future could be full of prospective pitfalls.

“The idea that technology will be used for mostly positive purposes ignores the fact that historically, there are always those who are capable of turning it to uses that are not so positive,” she wrote.

Hiemstra's speech focused on technology and its potential impacts on society. He said we are about halfway through a techno-economic revolution (see related story) that, when finished, will have lasted about 50 years. Or, keeping with the popcorn analogy, the bowl is filling up and, over the course of the next 20­25 years, the kernels will spill over the sides. When that transformation is finished, Hiemstra predicted, “everything will have changed.” Perhaps most strikingly, Hiemstra said, humans will cease to be the most intelligent things on earth. Computers will have that distinction, he said.

Hiemstra, a former doctoral student in speech communications at the UW, said the University community needs to prepare for the future by asking itself three questions: What is probable, what is possible and what is preferred? Essentially, he encouraged those in attendance to ask, “What is your image of the future?”

“It turns out to be a very powerful question because our image of the future tends to exert an influence over the choices that we make today. That's why, in my opinion, this Conversation About the Future could have a very positive influence on the campus community,” he said.

The future, according to Hiemstra, will be influenced by digital technologies, biotechnologies and nanotechnologies, or the study of how things work at the atomic and molecular levels.

We'll see changes in almost every phase of life, Hiemstra said. Society's demographic makeup will change significantly. Perhaps most notably, the number of people age 65 and older will go from 342 million in 1992 to 2.5 billion in 2050. Consider that currently in Washington state, 10 percent of the population is 65 or older. By 2020 almost 25 percent of the state's population will be at least 65 years old.

That change will totally alter the final phase of life. Retirement, a concept created in the 20th century, will likely disappear, Hiemstra said. Instead of retiring, elders will slow down, work less, work at new things, enjoy some leisure and continue to engage in income-producing work. Hiemstra said he also expects significant changes in the workplace, at home, in government and in education.

Indeed, changes abound in Hiemstra's vision of the future. “We all need to be more accepting of change,² he said. ³Change seems to be a key component in our lives, individually, organizationally and throughout society.” ¶

Steve Hill