4.3 Presence in the entrepreneurial future

The technological innovations in last decades went forward enormously and it is a necessity for a business to keep up with such changes. The role of the internet as a presence medium will become increasingly important, as it opens up many new possibilities to improve business, supply chains, etc. Also, the utilization of “apps” on mobile phones or tablets will become increasingly interesting way for companies (big or small) to interact with their clients on a daily basis; as well through serious gaming via such apps. Often, apps are tailored to the demand for information by individual customers, for example by showing personal energy use by linking an app to the owner’s smart meter. Remembering the notion from chapter 2 that “sustainability goals” need to be divided into small and reachable goals, we see an important task for apps on smartphones (or watches perhaps by that time) which can create government or business-driven daily, weekly or monthly goals towards people, requiring them to perform an act of pro-environmentalism to reach that goal. With smart data gathering the results of this behavior can directly be translated to a certain achievement, so triggering to the hedonic well-being of people. By adding a weekly or monthly prize for the most progressive “player” of such a game-like approach, this might create sustainable behavior through motivation.

Augmented reality will very likely also become part of our daily life and will change the ways we shop today. While pointing at certain products at the store, a smart screen will tell us detailed information about the product, such as the carbon footprint, amount of calories, etc. The consumers may thus become much more aware of their sustainable impact of purchasing different goods while shopping.

However, in a small environment such as Texel one should not lose sight on the fact that it is still very community-oriented. Because of that, probably the human contact and face to face collaboration can never be entirely replaced by this new media. The Internet and the platforms on it can be however used by the businesses for other things such as gaining knowledge or sharing data, subsequently improving the key businesses themselves.