WisBusiness: Futurist predicts ‘perfect storm’ of tech-driven change

By Brian E. Clark

WisBusiness.com

Daniel Burrus is a technological futurist with, he boasts, a 25-year record of helping companies large and small make the right calls.

“You have to use technology to change the rules,” said Burrus, who will speak Wednesday at the Manufacturing Matters! Conference in Milwaukee.

“And there is a ‘perfect storm’ of technology-driven change that is about to hit us and affect every industry,” he said.

“It will mean both disruption and opportunity,” noting how technology upended both the photography and music industries.

“I’m here to tell you that you ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” he said. “But if you know about something before it happens, it can mean huge opportunities.”

Burrus, who lives in Pewaukee and is the author of six books, said competing on price and service isn’t enough for many companies in the increasingly competitive global economy.

The forecaster, who heads Hartland-based Burrus Research Associates, said he will teach business leaders at the conference how to “anticipate” the future.

“I will show them how to identify the hard trends that will happen versus the ones that might happen,” explained Burrus, who said he predicted the advent of virtual bookstores several years before the creation of Amazon.com.

“I knew the technology would be there to do it. So you see, strategy based on certainty has low risk,” said Burrus, who predicted cell phones will soon have high-definition streaming capacity and will have the processing power of computers that now cost thousands of dollars.

He said changes coming improvements in storage, bandwidth and processing power will mean major changes in medical research, manufacturing and nearly every industry.

“I want our Wisconsin manufacturers to see the opportunities and problems out there and how they can anticipate them,” he said.

Burrus predicted Badger State industries will soon be going through a period of “transformation” of how companies not only make things but sell, market, communicate and collaborate.

The conference Burrus is addressing, which is run by the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership, is expected to draw more than 800 companies and executives. It will be held at the Midwest Airlines Center in downtown Milwaukee.

For more details on the gathering, see www.manufacturingmatters.org.