Infinite Possibility at the Digital Frontier

Thanks to Joe Pine and Kim Korn for their brilliant insights in Infinite Possibility: Creating Customer Value on the Digital Frontier. Their first exercise is to introduce readers to the new digital multiverse of eight polarities (anchored by Reality and Virtuality) where digital technology experiences transcend time, space and matter. The expanded multiverse (which also includes the polar opposites of Augmented Reality and Augmented Virtuality, Alternate Reality and Physical Virtuality, and Warped Reality and Mirrored Virtuality), has the power to create massive customer value by leveraging human creativity. The authors richly source their book with real-life stories (mass customization pioneer LEGO Systems A/S, for example, lets kids design anything they want with the LEGO Digital Designer and LEGO will ship the exact bricks needed for the project in a customer-designed box).

Technology has always held the key to advancement by amplifying human capabilities (every economic graph in the British economy took a sharp upward curve after Murdoch’s 1781 invention of the sun-and-plant gear system). The digital frontier, it seems, is extending those capabilities toward infinity in new and exciting ways across all sectors: medicine, entertainment, personal security, communication, transportation and more. Access to these technological superpowers will offer amazing opportunities for human creativity and innovation. As we push deeper into an edgy new world that includes transformative technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain, robotics, and bioengineering, it will be fascinating to watch new, value-creating examples of infinite possibility emerge. A second edition might be needed soon.