Did you ever think what your life will be in 2019? How will your company change in the coming 10 years? Will you still be working at the same company?

While it is impossible to predict the future, it is possible to envision the future and understand the factors that might influence work and life in the coming years. Personally and Professionally.

Microsoft just published a series of videos where they envision the future of work and life in the year 2019. From their websites, the Microsoft Office Labs:

Take a step into the future and get a glimpse into how technology may transform the way we live and work in the years ahead. Explore some of our concepts for how leading edge technologies might be used in real world settings – such as health care, manufacturing, banking and retail – over the next 5-10 years.

Here is the video that summarizes the different future visions.

<br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage ">Video: Future Vision Montage </a>

Other concepts

Other concepts that are shown on their site (some of them are already a little bit older) are about using Touch Walls, Health Future Vision, Manufacturing Future Vision, Banking Future Vision and Retail Future Vision.

What is the value of such "predictions”?

First of all, these are not predictions. The future is not predicted but created – these videos should merely act as inspiration and vision to help understand what the influencing factors are.

The point is not to say that “this won’t come true” but instead “how could this come true”. Understanding the emerging technologies and evolving trends through experience prototypes provides the basis to not just image additional scenarios where these technologies might come into our lives but to actually realize them.

What are the trends that might impact your personal life, your professional life and your organization in the future? If you have never thought about it, then maybe times of economic and financial uncertainty are exactly the point where you should do this.

Image courtesy of MichaelMarlatt