I have a note in my journal. It says “Keep blogging, it sucks now, but you won’t find your voice if you quit.”
Last week when I was working on my roadmap post my brain was cloudy about exactly what I was going to be sharing. Yeah I wanted to learn about and share stuff on artificial intelligence, human-computer interfaces and off Earth colonization, but to what end?
If you’ve ever read any self-help stuff you’ve probably heard the example of driving cross country (or anywhere) at night. They tell you not to stay home because you can’t see all the turns. All you need to do is let the headlights illuminate the way and you can reach your destination one turn at a time. In general it’s not bad advice. There’s a similar one about climbing stairs and taking the first step.
When I was in high school, the days before GPS and cell phones, our approach to finding places was to drive to the town it was in and then ask. We’d stop anywhere and ask for the High School, Hockey rink, mini-golf course, movie theatre whatever. Sort of the opposite of the self-help books. Don’t stay home just because you don’t have a destination, head out and you’ll find it when you get close.
I find that I’m currently in the high school frame of mind. Right now with my blogging I’m driving cross country with a destination of California, no idea where in the state my final destination is. What’s more, I’m only a few turns away from my home in New Hampshire, not even on a highway. Hopefully they’re right when they say it’s all about the journey anyway.
Then I read 10 Tech Trends That Made the World Better in 2016 and the quote below from Peter Diamandis got me to thinking.
“I’m also certain that 99.99% of humanity doesn’t understand or appreciate the ramifications of what is coming.”
And while I was perusing Twitter came across Jason Ganz @jasnonaz and almost immediately asked him if I could steal “Tech-Optimist” for my profile.
Because while I’m still finding my voice that’s what I want to do, optimistically spread the word about the technology that’s coming.
I truly believe that the emerging technology in #AI and #HCI will lead to good things for our whole species.
