Makes you wonder about the future of those huge brands Rolex, Seiko, Swatch etc.  Could these businesses be in trouble as newer generations stick with their smartphones?

Perhaps not if Fossil’s watch innovation takes off:

“The Meta Watch isn’t just a watch. Ding. Text message. Dong. New email. Ding. An appointment. Dong. The weather sucks. Ding. Tweet. Normally, these things, or blind notifications of these things, would prompt you to pull your phone out of your pocket. If you were wearing a Meta Watch, though, you’d just casually peek at your wrist as your smartphone beams all of the most urgent updates, the stuff you really need to know, directly to it via Bluetooth. Live, glanceable info.”

Most people in the younger generations would fall squarely in the Clockless™ wave.  The essence is “Hyper-life consumers find 24 hr solutions”.  Most of us find it hard to unplug for extended periods.  So anything that streamlines and aggregates our various info sources into something more convenient is sure to get a lot of attention.

He’s a “mature” student who has decided to explore teaching after a career in law.  So having already been a college student in the early 90’s now he’s having to adjust to his tutors wanting to keep in touch via twitter, (which I was happy to coach him through).

Wikipedia says: The term digital native is a young person who was born during or after the general introduction of digital technology, and through interacting with digital technology from an early age, has a greater understanding of its concepts.

“Digital natives are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach” – Marc Prensky

So not only is my friend having to update the way he’s being taught but inevitably he’ll have to become as tech savvy as the kids he will go on to teach!

I think this is a great example of how we should all embrace or at least be aware of new technologies, because as much as you can roll your eyeballs and think “whatever, I just don’t get the iPad”… nobody want to wake up one day and realize they are acting just like their clueless grandparents trying to program a vcr.

Speaking of iPad… I love the bottom of the infograph where you see the results of a study at University of Notre Dame where the students felt the iPad:

• Made class more interesting
• Encouraged exploration of additional topics
• Provide functions/tools not possible with a text book
• Help students effectively manage their time

Learning on-the-go, accessing info wherever we are, what ever are doing – when it suits us, is here to stay.  The Clockless™ wave is full of evidence that supports this trend and it’s not just kids by any means.  However, if you want to be first faster it’s always best to learn from youth.  As good ol’ Whitney Houston says: “..the children are our future.”


Via: Voxy Blog