“The screen will shape our environment in the 21st century”
I missed Wilson Miner’s talk at Webstock so I was pleased to come across this version of his talk online. There are some lovely insights here about change – and how profoundly the world our readers and customers inhabit is changing right now.
Wilson Miner – When We Build from Build on Vimeo.
The screen
What’s your time to screen in the morning? How long does it take you to go from being dead asleep to in front of a screen. 5 seconds? 30 seconds? 5 minutes?
… All these little gaps in our lives are slowly, or quickly, filling up with screens.
The car shaped our environment in the 20th century, in this huge, tectonic way.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the screen will be as important to shaping our environment in the 21st century.
What goes on those screens is pretty important.
The things that we choose to surround ourselves will shape what we become.
We’re not just making pretty interfaces. We’re actually in the process of building an environment where we’ll spend most of our time for the rest of our lives.
We’re the designers. We’re the builders.
What do we want that environment to feel like?
What do we want to feel like?
Change is profound
“All media are extensions of some human faculty. Mental or physical. Electric circuitry displaces the other senses and alters the way we think. The way we see the world and ourselves. When these changes are made, men change.” – Marshall McLuhan.
Change is fast
It’s not enough to rely on what we know, or what we think we know, what we expect people to know.
If the environment is always changing, we need to be always learning.
To do that we have to let go of what we know.
“At times of change, the learners are the ones who will inherit the world, while the knowers will be beautifully prepared for a world which no longer exists.” – Eric Hoffer.