Why do technology conferences still look like 1999?

I attended a technology conference yesterday. There were excellent session on topics ranging from virtual and augmented reality to IoT to prescriptive analytics to cybersecurity.

A consistent theme across all sessions was tools and technology are not enough. If an organization is to adopt these technologies they must change, they must develop a culture. The organization must have a culture of security. A culture of efficient and effective data use. A culture of interacting with their environment through connected devices.

Unfortunately, there were no sessions on the topic of understanding the people who needed to adopt the new culture. No anthropologists spoke. No ethnographers. No behavioral psychologists, social scientists or even change management experts.

We are finally acknowledging that technology itself is insufficient to solve problems. But until human behavior becomes a core part of the technology conversation -instead of being relegated to user experience or marketing conferences- we are stuck with technology that looks like 2050 and usage and adoption that looks like 1999.