In the past I have written that as a futurist, it sometimes feels like I live in a state of déjà vu. I spend a lot of time researching and looking into the future to develop the forecasts and trends that I write and speak about. I experience them, see them, and have varying degrees of certainty when I publish or present them.

Since 2011 began, so many of the forecasts and trends I predicted over the last four years are coming true, I feel as if I’m in an almost constant state of déjà vu. Now, as I spend some 22 hours traveling from Chicago to Singapore, scanning stacks of periodicals from around the world, this feeling is amplified.

I will write a lot in the coming weeks and months about all these forecasts and trends. As a futurist, I should be judged in part on how accurate I am, so it is indeed gratifying that many of the events/trends I predicted have become reality in 2011. The purpose of all these upcoming columns is to be able to point to actual events as the manifestations of what I have been speaking and writing about since 2006, when this blog began, and 2007, when I wrote The Shift Age. This will help explain the truly transformative time we are now entering. In a few years, the world will look quite different from what it did in 2010. The early evidence is everywhere in 2011.

Here are some of the trends and forecasts …

The human creation of content and the human interface with computers has, for a century, been based upon the use of keyboards. Typewriters, then electric typewriters were used for all forms of written documents be it letters or books. This was used as the data entry for computers in the early days of mainframes.

When the first PCs came along in the 1970s, the keyboard was the method of interface. This was expanded with the introduction of the mouse. What followed was the obvious need to make the human-machine interface more appealing and accessible, so the graphic user interface (GUI) became the next development. Screens with letters and numbers and blinking dots gave way to icons, pictures and animation. This, along with rapidly dropping prices, made the PC and its subsequent family members the laptop and the notebook computers a consumer product with annual sales in the hundreds of millions.

We are now moving to touch and voice interface. This was what was so revolutionary about the iPhone as was discussed here. It points to the touch interface of computers now coming to market. Voice recognition software has now enabled us to speak names for automatic dialing on our phones or in our luxury cars. “Phone home”, famously spoken by ET is now spoken by hundreds of thousands of people every day in this country.

Humanity is now entering the voice and touch phase of interaction with all technology. In speeches I give …

People started using computers outside the corporate research lab in the 1950s.  The early computers created in garages were brought to market in the mid 1970s.  The PC came out in 1981.  The 1990s saw the early explosive growth of the laptop and the current decade is when the PDA and other wireless devices took off.  This 50 year history is punctuated by various breakthroughs in the computer human interface.  Each one of these breakthroughs changed usage, behavior and ultimately society.

Mainframe computing of the 1950s looked like a technological religion.  Well lit, air conditioned rooms housed large computers that were run by systems analysts and operated by trained computer operators.  Access was highly restricted.  It felt like one was entering the church of computer.  The output was printed on reams of computer paper (remember?) that was largely illegible to the average person.  Interpretation was provided by professionals. 

When the Apple, and later the PC came out humans could interact directly with small computers that sat on desktops with keyboards and screens.  The screens were largely monochromatic and filled with alphanumeric language that needed some training to understand.  Later the mouse was added which allowed windows, screens and scrolling.  Color and high resolution screens soon followed.  It was no longer necessary to have training to run a computer.  This increasing ease of use, as much as small size, portability and lowered cost is what drove the incredible explosion in computer sales.  When using a computer became easy and fun, sales took off.  …