Lee M. Williams, SVP Product

When I think about our future and the choices we make, and I think about what we can do, what we can build, and where we should invest, I don’t see a future full of more people staring at more displays. I see less, which is a strange perspective for someone who has spent more than 20 years of their life and career helping design and develop mobile technology products.

Instead I see an era of Lifestyle Computing. It’s about using technology and our will to change the world with it, to do something more than create that next great content consumption experience. We will use it to be seamless, to connect more deeply with each other and with the world around us. We will use it to be healthy. We will use it to be smart about our resources and to enhance our lifestyles in some previously unimaginable ways.

What the pervasive and powerful technologies we have today really give us has yet to be fully realized. What they really give us is an opportunity to participate in our world in new ways. They give us tools to do the right thing, which isn’t about making sure you can communicate with any one in the world instantaneously, or ensuring you can catch a Final Four game while on the go. It’s about getting the tools, and the flexibility to invest in our present and in our future.

I think about this as I think about our new offering. For the price of a new smartphone and data plan, you can cut your use of water by 50%, sometimes more, at your home, your place of business, your school, the park. I wonder how many people will stop and think about this, that choice. We are running out of water, and many of the other things that can sustain us and help us to thrive. Our technology investments, our creativity, and our intelligence can help us.

If we are smart, the future isn’t going to be about a Jetsons-style commute and work day full of airborne cars and robots every where you turn. It’s going to be about life, about sustaining it, not just exploiting it. We can start making choices today to invest in life and the resources that provide it. Now that is a future I can get excited about.

– Lee M. Williams, SVP Product and Operations