guest article by Roland Rust
I guess I’ve always prided myself on being a little bit of a futurist. For example, I co-wrote a paper (with Rick Oliver from Nortel) in 1992, eventually published in 1994, on “Video Dial Tone” that essentially described the nature of what the Internet became with the advent of web browsers in about 1995. The “knowbot” that we described was essentially a search engine, for example. We missed on some aspects–for example, we thought fiber optic cable would be the dominant medium–but mostly we were on target.
So now I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself! What about the next 20 years? I think that as service marketers we still are going to be more affected by changes in technology than anything else. The information revolution and the service revolution have gone hand-in-hand, at least since 1900, and maybe longer. That cool new information appliance, the telephone, really kicked things into gear, and the pace of technological change have only accelerated since. I’m convinced that the next 20 years will bring even faster technological change than what we have experienced in the last 20 years, and remember that the Internet as we know it today didn’t even exist 20 years ago!
I think that it is useful for service marketers to perform a thought experiment. Imagine how business would change if there were no barriers to communication, data storage, and data processing. In other words, you could communicate totally with anyone, anywhere, any time. (Mind reading, anyone? And we already have TV’s that eavesdrop on us and store the information for future use!) You could store an infinite amount of information about all of that communication (or anything else), and all data processing and computing would be instantaneous. Imagine that reality, and that’s the direction service marketing will go in the next 20 years.
If we want to get a little bit more speculative, imagine what will happen when computers get smarter than people. That will happen, I have no doubt whatsoever, and it will be in most of our lifetimes. Of course that can be scary, and there are a lot of smart people (e.g., Bill Gates, Elon Musk) who think we should be quite concerned. Service might take on a whole new meaning for us then, if we have to serve our computer masters!
By the way, I’ll be the new Editor of IJRM, processing new submissions as of July. I’m very interested in receiving novel and future-oriented service research papers, and you will at least know that the Editor is someone who appreciates the service field. I hope to see submissions from many of you.
Roland Rust
Distinguished University Professor and David Bruce Smith Chair in Marketing
Executive Director, Center for Excellence in Service, University of Maryland
Incoming Editor of the International Jounral of Research in Marketing (IJRM)
