Technology changing too fast? No, we're just tweaking

We all like to think that, being in the technology game, we are in a fast moving, era-defining job. Nothing moves fast then technology, right? And that’s a good thing, yes?

Well, no on both counts. According to Rory Sutherland, Vice-Chairman on Ogilvy Group – who took to the stage at MIG’s Digital Media & Interactive Lunch yesterday in London – technology isn’t really moving that fast: all we are doing is finessing what we already have. The real innovation in any sector tends to take place in the first 10 to 20 years. After that, its just tweaking.

Take the motor car, suggested Sutherland: the technological leap between walking and driving a Model T Ford was huge. The leap between driving a Model T Ford and today’s Mondeo is really not that great. The interface as been improved and the design safer and more refined, but really its basically the same technology.

The digital world is the same. The leap between the invention of radio communications and the mobile (and even the internet) is similarly not that great a leap from no radio to radio.

So where does this leave us on the eve of 2010? Well, while things like the iPhone and the web have really shaken up telemedia this year, they are not really the rapid steps forward that many would have us believe. They are a finessed version of what we already have.

Sutherland was talking to the 120-odd heads of mobile from leading broadcasters, agencies, retailers, e-tailers, operators and media companies that MIG had gathered together about what they should be looking for from the future of mobile. And strangely – and quite refreshingly – his take is that rather than always looking at bleeding edge tech and what it can do, the next decade will be more about finessing what we already have: using technology to make life better rather than inventing stuff and trying to put it to work.

This he dubs “un-vention”: the application of more psychology than technology. In Africa people routinely walk 5 miles each morning to be told there is no work for them today. The mobile phone, even in the poorest countries, is replacing this walk: it makes life better and more productive. We should be applying the same here in the developed world.

Why, asks Sutherland, don’t all goods a serial number and a shortcode on them so that the owner can simple text to re-order? And he doesn’t just mean when you’re running low on milk, but also when you want new socks, trousers, a TV, a microwave, a car…. Everything. Simple and, from a retail perspective, a great boon – customer for life or what?

Sutherland also touched on the big theme of the day: payments. While the telemedia community waits with despondency the arrival of Payforit3.0, thos wanting to sell things are busily looking at all billing tools. Echoing what David Sheridan from MX Telecom told me the other day, people want a wealth of payment options. In Sutherland’s view “at least 20”. Give the retailer and consumer the choice of how to pay for things, even if that means bowing to the zeitgeist: “WAP:, no one pays,” says Sutherland. “Call is ‘app billing’ and everyone pays”.