The Future According to Microsoft

First a short tidbit about the new EMG training opportunity that rolled out with great enthusiasm – the Online KnowledgeBuilders. Several people emailed in saying the Online KnowledgeBuilders are “a great solution for staff professional development: due to budget cuts, we have a freeze on out-of state travel and I have two new publications editor/writers coming on staff.” And “this sounds interesting…how do we go about signing up?” The Online KnowledgeBuilders are an excellent professional development tools for economy-hurt organizations.

So if you miss out on the training mentioned above, you may be down a long hard road. About a month ago, software and tech giant Microsoft launched a vision into the future during one of its recent conference presentations. Much sleeker and more produced than Conan O’Brian’s “In the Year 2000″ skits, we now go to the year 2019 (imagine one of Conan’s band guys signing in his high pitched voice as you start each of Microsoft’s 5 videos).

Future Vision Montage

Future of Home Concepts

Future of Retail

Future of Health Care

Future of Banking

While Microsoft didn’t do an individual video regarding the future of education or marketing, I am sure you can pick up a few hints and glimpses from the videos above. But what does it mean to marketers out there now?

Marketers nowadays have to be involved in technology, not just standing on the sidelines going “wow, that looks cool.” No more, hearing about the what someone put on YouTube, or hearing about how you can connect to long lost friends in Facebook, or not understanding the tech language like “tweets,” “bliki,” “flog,” “splog” and many others. Get involved and find someway to keep in touch with the new hardware, software, or trends.  Get involved in social networking. Keep and use a page on one of the popular sites. Play around with some of the newest hardware.

New tools, apps, widgets, and other useful online technology and hardware are being released almost on a daily basis. Microsoft’s vision may a bit grandiose, but remember that a little more than 10 years ago emailing, eBay, Craigslist, Twitter, Facebook, and Blackberries wasn’t/weren’t commonplace or didn’t exist. Think of how your work and personal life would be different if you didn’t know how to use th0se tools in today’s world.

Maybe Micosoft’s vision isn’t too grandiose afterall.