This week, I share a new infographic tracking two decades of transformational companies and products. Plus, “13 Ways of Looking at Las Vegas.” (Issue #101)
I had a ball leading StoryTech tours of the show floor at CES in Las Vegas last week. This year’s distinct theme was AI.
My favorite exhibit was Timekettle from China: it’s one of those “wait, wasn’t this science fiction just a few years ago?” companies. In this case, think of the Babelfishfrom The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or the Universal Translator from Star Trek… only in real life! Timekettle makes gadgets (including ordinary looking ear buds) that feature real-time translation from one language to another.
The first time I saw it, I stopped moving. “This changes everything!” I thought. Imagine collaboration with colleagues who don’t share a common tongue, or travel in a country where you don’t speak the language. The implications are staggering. Timekettle represents true transformation.
As it happens, over the winter holidays my son, William Berens, joined me in updating the signature infographic on the front door of the Big Digital Idea Consulting website. I created the first version, “15 Years of Innovation,” for a D.A. Davidson conference where I presented at back in 2019, then put it on the Big Digital Idea site. That list ended with 2017, and several transformative companies have come into being since then.
It was time to revisit the list.
William and I updated and extended the infographic to span 20 years of transformative companies and products. Note that we’re talking about B2C products for ordinary people (citizens, users, customers) rather than enterprise or backend products.
It’s a subjective list, so if you think we missed something please nominate a transformative company by using this Google Form (you’ll need a Google-connected account to do so).
Take a look:
13 Ways of Looking at Las Vegas
I’ve been around. I’ve visited the Taj Mahal, traded Mark Twain anecdotes with a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi out of New Orleans, toured the Alexander Palace outside Saint Petersburg, visited Shakespeare’s grave in Stratford, fed the world’s most aggressive deer in Nara (Japan), hiked the fjords in Norway, gulped as I looked down from the Grand Canyon’s edge, and gone white water rafting in New Zealand.
But there’s nowhere like Las Vegas.
Vegas is Narnia with showgirls, or Wonderland featuring main stage shows by celebrities you didn’t realize were still alive. It’s not a location: it’s a dislocation. In Vegas, the most authentic thing is inauthenticity: everything feels like a ripoff of a fake of a replica of a simulacrum, but that’s genuine Vegas.
I find Vegas overwhelming but compelling.
Here then, inspired by the Wallace Stevens poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” is a much different list. Let me know what you think.
13 Ways of Looking at Las Vegas.
- World’s biggest trailer park.
- Walmart aesthetic at Rodeo Drive prices.
- World capital for the objectification of women, or, a monument to millions of shitty fathers of disappointed daughters.
- Where people move when they find Los Angeles too earnest and sincere.
- Optimism’s last stand… before it loses hope.
- Disneyland as designed by Jean Paul Sartre.
- Where objects are always further than they appear.
- It’s like Miami… only without all the class.
- Where the breasts are more real than the culture.
- In Vegas, the biggest bets aren’t made in casinos—it’s ordering room service and thinking you’ll spend less than $90. The kitchen always wins.
- Vegas is so dry a desert that taking a shower feels like you’re committing a hate crime against Mother Earth.
- The place where the rest of the mind goes when the superego takes a vacation.
- Where you’ll spend $21 on a taxi to get a $10 casino sirloin steak.
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