The Future is Now!

When I stop to reflect on the various projects I’ve worked on in my career, regardless of industry, there was one commonality - everyone was marching towards a 2020 as their deadline for success. Whether it was sustainability goals, gender parity metrics or technology innovations, 2020 represented the future, a milestone that if we did our best, the world would be better.

We are now 11 months away from that magic moment. While the rate of innovation in technology is scaling exponentially and gender issues are now part of the global conversation, we still haven’t moved the needle in the way our idealist decade old goals predicted we would. In some ways, it even feels like we’ve slipped backwards.

So now what? What do our 2030 conversations look like?

I believe we will see 2030 targets represent the optimism of the past melded with the realism that the past 3 years has brought to the public consciousness. With movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp gender equity is no longer a nice to have its a business and societal imperative. Citizens globally are feeling the impact of the explosion of technology with data security breaches on the rise from everyone from Macy’s to Marriott and the infusion of IOT into all aspects of our lives. Crowd sourcing officially woven into our daily lexicon and products made from recycled ocean waste and biodegradable materials are no longer a novelty, they’re good business and serving a customer demand.

We as a collective of individuals combined with the heavyweight muscle of multinational corporations started conversations this past decade that could no longer be ignored. We took stands, tweeted in unison and had the courage to fail intelligently to get us closer to success. We spent the last ten years creating solid foundations to hyperscale our achievements into the next decade. Our 2020 goals represented the outcry for change. Our 2030 goals will be rooted in our conviction to achieve outcomes.

What are your predictions?