By M.Christian

YNOT – The bar comes down with a firm click, the cool metal a gentle, almost comforting, restraint. Then, with a mechanical shudder, the little pod you’re sitting in begins to move….

“Welcome to the world of tomorrow … a world of infinite possibilities … a world that’s as close your next birthday or as far as away as your wildest dreams. This is the world where just about anything is possible; where scientists and engineers, and people with imaginations like your own, have worked to make the planet a better place.

“In the kitchen, mom and sis prepare a meal with pushbutton efficiency while dad and little Billy follow their favorite sports team on an ultra-wide televisio-scope … broadcasted from the moon! And then, the next day, dad drives his special hover-car to the office where his personal transportation-pod becomes part of the room … as mom and sis take their own pod to the shopping center where they can select foods from around the world with the push of a button. Just make a selection and their orders are shipped straight to the family home via rocket!”

Okay, I’ll stop. That future is still a dream — maybe even a ridiculous one from an age of atomic-this and nuclear-that. But although I’ve stopped the inane 1950s-style voice-over, our trip into the amazing, the incredible, the almost-surreal world of tomorrow has just begun.

I’m sitting in a wonderful little room, in a lovely little house, in front of an almost-new iMac, while an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (“The Naked Now” episode, if you must know) plays on the HDMI TV sharing the desk, streamed to my Xbox via Netflix. Directly in front of me, below the computer, my iPhone bleeps with a text message from my girlfriend, as — almost simultaneously — a different noise alerts me that an instant message has come in. In an hour or so I have a Skype chat with an Italian publisher — must remember to brush my hair before using the webcam — and then, after an hour or so spent answering emails and having a bite to eat, I’ll enjoy a hearty workout with my Wii before taking my iPad to bed to read more Japanese manga.

No, I don’t own stock in Apple and this is not a commercial for their products. The foregoing was simply a way to illustrate something we all know but hardly bother to realize. Take a quick second to size up all your gadgets and see if you, too, feel like we live in the world of tomorrow. We may not fly hovercars, vacation on the moon, or swallow our Thanksgiving dinners in pill form, but even our grandparents probably couldn’t have imagined what our world as it looks today.

A social scientist recently said there has been more social change in the past five or so years than there was in the previous 100. If that sounds like a shock-factor statement, just think about books: Last month, for the first time ever, ebook sales eclipsed those of the dead-tree variety. Following right behind is the fact that devotees of newspapers, magazines and local TV news are falling fast — leading some to speculate those media will be extinct in just a few years.

What does this have to do with the adult entertainment industry? Quite a lot, actually. As the old joke goes, the first bit of new technology to appear is usually used for the betterment of mankind … and the second to see how someone, somewhere, can use it for sex. The internet may have started as a government almost-afterthought, but one of its great innovation-drivers has been the adult industry — just as it was with cheap paperbacks, VHS tapes and DVDs. In short, the adult entertainment industry is shaping the future. We always have.

That means thinking about where everything is going is extremely important. More than ever, it is crucial to pay attention to each and every new technological — and social — development. Adult entertainment companies, like every other kind of business right now, live or die by making the right technological decisions. Bet on print books, for instance, and … well, you’ll probably be dead right along with the rainforest.

Not to sound overly dramatic, but if technology scares you then you might want to find a new line of work. Turning a blind eye to what’s happening in the world, technology-wise, is no longer an option. Keeping yourself — and your product, your inventory, your talent — fluid and flexible can mean the difference between walking too far down the wrong alley and being able to keep up with the newest and hottest.

But there’s a flipside to following technology. Just as it’s crucial to put your ear to the digital tracks to see what’s coming, it’s equally necessary to take your ear away from that very same track when you hear a train. Going after every shiny thing that crosses your path is not just impossible — it’s also exhausting. A tired business owner is not an effective business owner.
An excellent rule of thumb is to run a simple formula for yourself: How much are you putting in and how much are you getting out? Twitter, for example, is a much-ballyhooed social networking tool, but many people have discovered the Emperor’s g-string is showing: To get anything out of Twitter requires a huge investment of time. Could that time be spent on more directly profitable projects?

It’s extremely important to pay attention in this new, sparkling world of tomorrow we inhabit, but it is equally vital not to get on the ride with eyes too wide open, too willing to blindly follow anything and everything.

After all, if you want to see what happens next, you have to be around, and financially healthy, in order to enjoy it … and won’t that really be amazing?

M.Christian is a YNOT.com contributing editor and an author of literary erotica that blends the spectrum of sexual preferences and desires with horror and science fiction. Want to get in touch? Email him.