I was recently listening to an episode of the The Knowledge Project podcast, featuring Josh Wolfe from Lux Capital.

He spoke about many things, one being a trend towards technology trending closer to our physical selves. About how we used to talk about computers as ENIAC mainframes that needed their own room - but now literally wear them 24/7 in the form of Apple Watches and AirPods.

I agree wholeheartedly- and had a similar observation in a post on Software and Plastic. The physical distance between us and our technology is getting smaller. What will that world look like? What happens when we start wearing our software, living in it, and potentially embedding it into our bodies?

We will have to pay even closer attention to the people using these products - observing, listening and understanding their lives. Making software has always been about the people; as it gets closer to us, it will be even more so.

Second, technology products will go beyond software to physical goods and materials. It will be important to understand many crafts outside of software to build a consumer technology product. When software becomes a part of everything, it won’t be enough for software products practitioners to only understand the “technology” side of their products. This will require multidisciplinarity.

Above all, making technology products will look very little like it does today and I’m pretty excited about those changes.