Unevenly Distributed Futures.

Two sentences from a keynote lecture last week.

 "Almost everyone, almost everywhere, carries with them one of the most profound symbols of digital transformation the world has ever seen."

To me, that was alarming enough coming  as it did from a UK government minister who should be more aware of the issues of the digital divide that such an assertion overlooks.

But, within a couple of minutes, he followed with this bizarre clarification of "almost everyone, almost everywhere":

"Today over a quarter of the world’s population own one. It’s both a symbol and a cause of the change we’re living through."

 To be fair, the rest of the speech was good stuff, but while I'm all for progress and futurism, it's also impoetant to stay grounded in reality.

 Otherwise, you get things like this from Cannes where global chief cretaive officer Tham Kei Meng apparently declared that "many of the ads submitted for awards were conservative and should be making more use of innovations such as Oculus Rift".

Because, of course, so many of his clients' customers are walking around with VR headsets and will benefit from such inventive thinking!