to win the digital minds and analogue hearts of tomorrow's customer – of the coming together of the different worlds of the analogue and the digital – evolves in the transformational context of Seamless. Today, and into the foreseeable future, heroes, hero brands, and mentors must nudge, guide and move themselves and their clients between an ordinary world – often the analogue – and an extraordinary, magical world, the digital. Whether we can design transitions that are seamless, effortless and frictionless is a decisive factor for the future of technology and the success of business leaders. And as the British science fiction author Arthur C Clarke pointed out in his third law: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'. That seamless fusion – that Holy Grail of magical indistinguishability – is what this book is about.
Australian brand Telstra seem to have cottoned on to this idea of seamlessness. In their 2016 magical brand ad, they refer to Clarke's aforesaid technology law, in positioning how technology can bring people together in a magical, extraordinary world, across the tyranny of distance and the ordinary world, via virtual reality headsets, drones and videoconferencing bedtime stories. Challenged to wander in the magic of wonder, the viewer is asked to suspend belief for a moment, and enter the magical world of Telstra-enabled connectivity, where the walls between science fiction and fact have broken down. Whether Telstra is that enabler remains to be seen, but suffice to say that we are now standing on the precipice of technological magic, and we are being challenged by history and philosophy as to whether we are prepared to take a leap of faith.
We stand at the gates of another technology revolution, shaped by artificial intelligence, machine-to-machine communications, the Internet of Things, predictive customer service, learning machines, and the fusion of biology with technology, automation and roboticisation. These advanced technologies will either wreak havoc on the world as we used to know it, or enable us to transform and evolve at much greater speeds than ever known to humans. The lines between science fiction and reality are blurring thanks to augmented and virtual realities. These technologies, in their inherent magical advancement, can enable and empower heroes in a futuristic fashion on their journeys into tomorrow. And when the art of empathetic human design converges seamlessly with the science of technology, we may be able to guide, inspire and lead our partners, clients and loved ones between ordinary, analogue worlds, and special, extraordinary, digital worlds. This seamless interplay between the two worlds is the magical elixir for great brands and leaders of tomorrow. And this is the quest that lies behind this book.
Embracing the frictive hero's journey
After setting out on what has become a three-year quest to explore the idea of seamlessness, and in my sense-making efforts and reflections on the trials and tribulations of guiding digital adaptation and human transformation in an age of digital disruption, I began to see certain patterns. Phases began to emerge. Shapes started taking shape. And structures started to surface. My journey started to echo the adventures, space odysseys and myths that I had grown up with. In my odyssey as a futurephile to expand minds and inspire a change of heart, I could see analogues with the mythical greats of my childhood. I saw how the heroes and mentors of my youth – Luke Skywalker, Yoda, Han Solo, Frodo, Gandalf, Willow, Madmartigan, Raziel – had all set out on similar adventures into the future. And the phases of my journey started looking eerily similar.
As early as the 1940s, Joseph Campbell codified the structure – the monomyth – of some of the great tales of human imagination, religion and myth. Later on this structure became known as Joseph Campbell's ‘hero's journey'. The Wizard of Oz, Frozen, Cinderella, Finding Nemo, Harry Potter, Moby Dick, and Catcher in the Rye are all tales that follow this structure of the hero's journey – that is, of adaptation and transformation, moving between the ordinary worlds of status quo and special, or extraordinary, worlds of future possibilities.
The twelve steps identified by Campbell that form the hero's journey consist of inner journeys and outer journeys (which lead to character transformation), and switches between ordinary worlds and extraordinary worlds. As laid out by website Movie Outline (in the article ‘The Hero's Journey – Mythic Structure of Joseph Campbell's Monomyth') the twelve steps of the inner and outer journeys are as follows:
1. Inner: ordinary world, status quo; outer: limited awareness of a problem.
2. Inner: call to adventure; outer: increased awareness.
3. Inner: refusal of the call; outer: reluctance to change.
4. Inner: meeting with the mentor; outer: overcoming reluctance.
5. Inner: crossing the threshold; outer: committing to change.
6. Inner: tests, allies and enemies; outer: experimenting with first change.
7. Inner: approach the inmost cave; outer: preparing for a big change.
8. Inner: ordeal; outer: attempting a big change.
9. Inner: reward (seizing the sword); outer: consequences of the attempt (improvements and setbacks).
10. Inner: road back; outer: rededication to change.
11. Inner: resurrection; outer: final attempt at big change.
12 Inner: return with the elixir; outer: final mastery of the problem.
This cycle is also shown in figure I.1.
Figure I.1 : the Hero's journey is a 12-step continuing cycle
Now, while I haven't literally had to fight off Death Stars, partner up with Wookies and slay garbage snakes in my quest for seamlessness, I have witnessed how change, transformation and adaptation follow similar patterns, challenges and rhythms, exhibiting similar cadences to the hero's journeys I was glued to as a child. Again, I realised the quest I was on, and the quest I was hoping to inspire others to embark on, was the seamless journey between the ordinary – in this case, analogue – world and special, extraordinary – digital – worlds. Just please don't assume that I was the hero in the story that you are about to immerse yourself in. (More on this later.)
As a futurist and strategist, I get to invite people into something that isn't yet; to ask the question, ‘What if?', and to imagine distant adventures and metamorphosis. ‘What is' gets contrasted with ‘what could be'. And I encourage the people I meet to embark on their own hero's journeys and odysseys into the unknown, just like I have been doing over the last few years. Perhaps not surprisingly, given Digilogue was partly inspired by the enduring human love for analogue watches and horology, this book maps the structure of the hero's journey onto an analogue clock face, using the twelve steps to explore the journey to the destination of the planet of ‘Seamlessness', moving from 1 o'clock to midnight (at which stage I hope this book doesn't turn into a Cinderellan pumpkin). We will also see, however,
