Full disclosure: I’ve been watching a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation lately. And no, it’s not all about spaceship battles, alien encounters, and boldly-colored jumpsuits. It’s about the future (the year 2364 to be exact), and it gives anyone in the Customer Experience (CX) racket a lot to think about.
One of the more fascinating components of each episode is the “futuristic” technology weaved into the story lines. While many of the gadgets began as hair-brained offerings on the part of the writers, my generation has lived to see some of them realized, even mass produced: Medical scanners, FaceTime, 3D Printing, online communication networks, and iPads/digital tablets are a normalized part of our here-and-now. But while on Star Trek the technologies often aid in bringing humans and other diverse species closer together in a post-currency world, in reality it has arguably distanced humans from one another, wrenching their attention away from people and towards the flickering screens of their phones.
