How can this change and, as a result, unlock one or two Big Things? To retread a famous two-part Buddhist joke, change is a mysterious thing. Telling people what they ought to do doesn’t always work. Still, two thoughts come to mind.

First, the tablet. We, Tech People have always known the tablet was the right thing to do, and we tried for thirty years without much success. Three years ago, Chef Jobs grabbed the ingredients that had been available to all and, this time, the tablet genre “took.”  Now, perhaps, the tablet will take its place as an ingredient in a yet grander scheme.

Second, go to an aquarium and watch a school of fish. They move in concert and suddenly turn for no apparent reason. Somewhere inside the school there must have been a “lead fish” that caused the change of direction. Perhaps the fish didn’t even realize he was The One destined to trigger the turn.

Who’s going to be our industry’s fish, big or small, that precipitates a cultural change unlocking the potential of existing technologies and gives rise to the next $100B opportunity?

We of course don’t know, but we do know that if the conditions are widely available enough, the chances of a fish being in a position to turn the school, are higher.