PR for People Monthly September 2017 | Page 24

Digital Destiny is a vast topic. On a personal level it can be the devices one uses, the connectivity to one’s home, office, phone, tablet, TV or Roku, Alexa, and the various Internet of Things contraptions that permeate one’s life. Digital as part of destiny, or as the emerging reality, also plays a role in health, entertainment, education, sports, finance, art, and commerce. Arguably, this means everything.

So how does one write a column that covers “everything” and do so sufficiently? Easy: write about cryptocurrency and blockchain as the emerging wave of commerce and new order of much computing (which they are). Cite a few examples, cast a few predictions, manage to make it seem that all those categories fall under the wide umbrella of the two.

But that’s the easy way out.

Writing about this topic last year I polled people; the response was dystopian. An election year, smear campaigns were the lot, confidence was low. This year rather than poll people, I went to experts to hold discussions on digital destiny, innovation and change.

Tom Guarriello holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in psychology, and a doctorate in clinical psychology. Tom specializes in helping individuals and organizations develop creative ideas and customer-focused products. He teaches in the Masters In Branding program at New Yorkʼs School of Visual Arts. For the last five years Tom has been creating “RoboPsych,” a model for understanding the human and robot characteristics that will make for superior collaboration between humans and robots.

DIGITAL DESTINY

by Dean Landsman

Tom Guarriello Dean Meyers