BT futurologist Ian Neild is acknowledged as a leading authority on technology trends and the impacts of technology on society and business. He’ll be starting a new regular column here on the BT innovation pages later in May. Here, Ian tells how his insights and knowledge help BT’s customers to survive and thrive.
Hi Ian, you’re known as the disruptive evangelist.’ What does that mean?
A key part of my job is going into BT’s customers – often at board level – and helping those customers to better understand the impact of technology on their business. BT’s vision is to help customers to thrive in an ever changing world and my job is to help them to adapt and to innovate through that better understanding. I engage them in debate about both the opportunities and the threats that disruptive technology can deliver.
One of the things you talk about to audiences is 'the history of the future'. Sounds interesting?
Yes, we always hear people talking about the future and how the world is changing - which of course it is. But whatever the pace of change, we are still humans with the same fundamental needs we've always had. So, history of the future is a theme I adopt to examine what has happened in the past and where technology innovation might lead us in the future. I like to look at how we got where we are as well as where we're going.
Is that connected to the ‘Victorian internet’ concept you often refer to?
Absolutely. The Victorian internet is a great example of this. We consider the internet and SMS a new thing. But the telegraph did pretty much back in its day as what SMS does today. I also like to use other historical references to illustrate my points about disruption. Think about the Wright brothers just after making that first ever flight in the Kitty Hawk – a few hundred yards. I wonder if they thought then about the need for a new version of the aircraft that could fly halfway around the world, have beds on it and serve alcohol to its passengers.
You are also responsible for writing the BT Timeline aren’t you Ian?
Yes and it remains incredibly popular. I started doing the talks more than ten years ago but moved into the Foresight team two years ago to work more closely with Ian Pearson and Foresight. The timeline started off as a one page prediction paper in 1991 I think. It had a few updates before I started writing it (co-authoring it with Ian) in 2001. I then took it over completely in 2005 and it’s now a fairly comprehensive 15 page paper – and it’s up for renewal. I’m still surprised just how many of BT’s top customers have a copy of the 2005 issue. Posters made for the launch of that issue are still hanging up all over the world and i’ve been told it’s the most downloaded white paper on the BT web site...all giving an indication of its popularity.
And you’re also going to pen a new column for the innovation pages?
That’s correct. ‘The Disruptive Evangelist’ will take regular looks at certain technologies or services or business sectors. I’ll aim to illuminate some of the changes that will happen in these areas. The first one will be all about the health sector.