UPDATED 21:17 EDT / SEPTEMBER 14 2016

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The mobile and the millennial: Futurecasting automotive in the Age of Uber | #WomenInTech

The velocity of technological change is at an all-time high as developers break through barriers and bottlenecks every day. It can be challenging for a digital-native company to keep up with all the innovation — traditional companies may find they need extra hands on deck just to keep them updated. They know that VCs and the startups they fund are out to get rich by disrupting industries from transportation to hotels. Some have hired people to “futuring” roles to help them ride the tech wave and avoid a wipe out.

Sheryl Connelly works in Global Trends and Futuring at Ford Motor Co., but she rarely thinks about automobiles. In fact, she makes a point of looking elsewhere for trends to study and talk about with the C-suite.

Connelly is this week’s theCUBE Women In Tech spotlight. She told Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), host of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, “They don’t need another car expert. What happens is when you’re so keenly focused on whatever task Ford has given to you, sometimes you miss things that may affect the business, that may affect your function or that little part of the company that you touch in ways that surprise you. And my job is to draw your attention to it.”

The automobile, the mobile and the millennial

As a trend forecaster, Connelly pays a lot of attention to generational differences in how transportation modes are viewed.

“We like to say that for Baby Boomers, the car is the most expensive suit they’ve ever owned. But now ask a Millennial — someone 22 to 36 years of age — if their car is their most expensive suit, and they’ll go, ‘What are you talking about?’ They probably think their most important status symbol is the cell phone, and that for them is the equivalent of freedom and independence. And they’re getting it way before they’re 16 — 10, 11, 12, 13 years of age,” she said.

Connelly continued: “So for us, when we want to make that emotional connection, then we have to make sure that those people who care about making that their top priority — that those things are available to them in the vehicle. So we have our sync platform, which pairs their devices through the entertainment system. We have MyFord Touch [an in-car communications and entertainment system], which works with tablet technology. And that’s a different way of reaching them, because for them, it’s not a car as a status symbol, but it’s, ‘My car is a toolbox on wheels. It lets me continue to stay true to the priorities that I most cherish.'”

Will Uber get a taste of its own medicine?

No discussion on future trends in automotive would be complete without a look at self-driving cars. Connelly sees autonomous vehicles as a huge safety improvement in a number of ways.

“There’s no way to overstate the impact that it’s going to have on society as a whole,” she said. “We might never see anymore road fatalities. Things like drunk driving — they won’t happen anymore. Distracted driving … all that free time comes back to us.”

She spoke about safety concerns she has expressed to her children about popular ride-sharing apps.

“I go, ‘Since you were little, I taught you that you never get in a car with a stranger,’ but suddenly if they have an Uber or a Lyft, they think it’s OK,” Connelly said. “For me, the future of autonomous vehicles is actually much more appealing. I’d rather them get in a car with no one than get in a car with someone I don’t know.”

Watch the complete video interview with Connelly below:

Photo by SiliconANGLE

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