What Really Matters for a Technologist?

Talking to a number of students at a university of technology recently, I found their enthusiasm for new ideas remarkable. It extended well beyond just learning technical knowledge.

These days many students in technological fields breeze through their lessons at the university or college. Instead, they are more thirsty for new ideas—ideas that may shape the technologies of tomorrow. At a summit on the future applications of new technologies at a technical university, I gave a brief about probable usages of NBIC tech. At the end of the session, the students began to raise some questions regarding other potential applications of future technologies.

Their problem is “how to think like a futurist?” not “how to do like a technologist?” They should learn futurist thinking rather than just applying their technological knowledge.

Technologies in their primitive forms are nothing, but simple thoughts. Have you ever thought about the technology of shoelaces? It is really simple and incomparable with sophisticated technologies such as space or nanotechnology, but without shoelaces, you won’t be able to walk or run with your shoes. In my point of view, a technology should not be necessarily too complex to be considered as a useful one. Besides, a technologist must pass from the reactive to the creative mind; he/she must form a clear mental picture of the technology he/she wants to shape, and hold this picture in his/her thoughts with the fixed purpose to get what he/she wants. How can we do it? Is there a rational way to a logical outcome? Yes, there is.

Experts usually agree: The best place to look for ideas is to start with what you know. Everything you learn is ultimately for the purpose of being able to create your reality better. When you take everything that you know and observe it from a perspective of reality creation, you will find what it really is about and how it all fits into the whole picture. Technologies are going to serve humanity needs and this requires a serious concentration.

A technologist may focus economically all his/her mind on answering following questions before thinking about a new technology or a new technological application:
- What problem does my technology solve?
- Who will buy my technology?
- Why will they buy it?
- Where will they buy it—universities, research labs, manufacturing companies, or online?
- What other technologies may compete with mine?

After finding vivid answers to the above questions, we may start our main technological endeavor. When Henley wrote the prophetic lines, “I am the Master of my Fate, I am the Captain of my Soul,” he should have informed us that we are the Masters of our Fate, the Captains of our Souls, because we have the power to control our thoughts. We should direct our thoughts to the ultimate goal of our desired technology: “What problem is going to be solved by our designed technology?”

Psychologists have correctly said that “when one is truly ready for a thing, it puts in its appearance.” As a technologist, are you really ready for your technology? I think that the art of a futurist is to build such a readiness among the students of technology now or tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the future keeps coming along faster than we expect. We should always keep in mind that many of technologies we usually regard as futuristic may not really belong to the future. It takes some time to introduce technologies to our clients or users. If we don’t update our technological road maps, we’ll need to retitle future technologies as past technologies.

Alireza Hejazi is the founder and developer of “FuturesDiscovery.com” and the author of e-books: “Futures Discovery”, “ATLAS of futures links”, and “Top 10 Cases of Futures Studies Syllabus”. His most recent e-book is “Writing for the Future” available at:
http://www.futuresdiscovery.com.