via Bryan Escobedo, Red Sky

I had the fortune of joining more than 100 attendees for the latest ED Sessions speaker series featuring best-selling author and noted keynote speaker Brian Solis. Solis calls himself a digital anthropologist, which basically means he studies technology’s impact on business, society and culture.

Not to get Orwellian, Bradburyian (or insert your favorite dystopian novel’s author here), but with all of us becoming increasingly glued to our mobile devices, do you wonder where all this technology is leading us, for better or for worse? And how does this impact your business’ goals, decisions and the way you communicate with your audience? Inquiring minds, like mine, were eager to find out what Solis had to say.

As the lively online discourse during the event can attest, we were in for some lightbulb moments and head-scratching insights. And what better way to share these than to showcase the Twitter conversation as it unfolded.

My biggest takeaway was the iteration trap so many companies fall victim to: focusing on iteration (doing the same things better) rather than innovation (doing new things) or disruption (doing new things that make the old things obsolete). 

Did you know the average number of buttons on a modern TV remote control is 70!?

In this time of Ultra HD 4K TV screens with curved glass, remote controls are getting larger, not smaller. Solis says this is what happens when companies don’t start from scratch, or from a clean slate, when approaching technology.

Here’s a question for those under the age of 30: What is the following image?

If you said it’s a 3-D rendering of a “save” icon, you’re not entirely wrong. Well, kinda. It’s a 3.5-inch floppy disk, which was used in the ‘80s and ‘90s to save computer files. So why is obsolete technology from three decades ago the symbol for saving a document in the cloud-based era of 2015?

“You have to start taking bold moves,” says Solis. “Everything can be questioned. Everything is the floppy disk in your organization. Everything is the remote control in your organization. We just kept building upon it over the years, and now it’s time for innovation.”

Want a little more? I don’t blame you. Watch highlights from the talk below or dig into a recent interview with Solis from Contently.