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Daily Inspiration: "Assumptions are often just a dangerous, delusional certainty! (Because they will blind you to the reality of your reality!)" - Futurist Jim Carroll

Often, the thing that holds people back from their ability to get to tomorrow is their insane ability to hold to their beliefs, even in the face of absolutely fascinating compelling evidence to the contrary. One might often find that these are due to the assumptions that people cling to.

It's most often been the case with technology and the inevitable disruption that comes along with it. IBM chairman Thomas Watson famously predicted in 1943 that "there is a world market for maybe five computers." n 1995, Robert Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet, predicted the collapse of the Internet by 1996, which obviously did not happen. In 1977, Ken Olsen, the founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), stated with certainty, "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."

Forecasting the future — particularly with technology — is a difficult thing to do. Many people have said that while it’s easy to predict the future, it’s another thing altogether to be right! Consider, for example, one fellow who in 1868 tried to alert residents of London, England, that they would soon face a very serious problem. Why? In his studies, he had looked at the city's population growth rate and then factored in the bathroom habits of the horses used for travel. His conclusion? In the not-too-distant future, most streets in the city would be six feet deep in manure!

Oops. He failed to see the arrival of a technology - automobiles - that would render irrelevant the potential problem. His assumption was at the core of his failed prediction.

The result of all this is that people often assume that tomorrow will be very much like today.

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