Greetings from 2032! I'm sending this from the future. Yes, blogging is still a thing. 

Wow, the last decade has been one for the record books (aren't they all technically for the record books?). Let's talk about some of the highlights. 

There are 9 billion people on the planet now, and most of them have internet access from space. 

Drones have taken off in a big way and have given birth to a whole new way to steal your stuff. Bad guys just shot drones out of the sky using other drones. It would be impressive if it didn't mean I didn't get my Amazon Prime order in an hour. 

There are humans on Mars along with a train of supplies and more people en route. A raffle drawing was held to pick the ruler of the Mars Colony, and Meghan Markle won. I suspect foul play. She tweeted "Sorry, not sorry." as her acceptance of the award, which is a double entendre snub to her overly apologetic Canadian hosts. 

The iPhone 43 just came out, and the internet still loves cats. 

As I said, it's been a revolutionary decade, but not everything has changed. 

Movie popcorn is still overpriced.

Online dating still sucks, and robot girlfriends have not made the advances introverted males would have hoped. 

People still have no idea how to navigate the changing digital world. In a remarkable turn of events, millennials are now continually made fun of in OK Boomer style for not "getting it." 

The business world has evolved in many ways too. 

In-person business meetings never came back in vogue after Covid. Most people would rather work from any place that isn't the office. Covid changed everything.

Project management, the art of juggling all the responsibilities without having to do any of the tangible work to which I've dedicated my life, is still around, but even it's different. 

There are tons of new tools. Voice recognition has come a long way, so I rarely type on a keyboard. 2021 me would have loved to say, "Siri, send an email. The first line, "Per my last email…." Man, that would have been great. 

I also have an AI assistant to help with daily tasks. She bugs people to see if they are on track and tattletales back to me with the zeal of a 4-year-old who wants to be my best friend. She's great. 

With all this change, there are still some things that haven't changed for people like me. So, listen up, you relics from the '20s. We still need project managers, and we still need account people. No matter what advances in technology we've made, nothing has yet been able to replace the human connection clients need and want, especially during the hard times. 

Imagine the smartest version of Alexa you can. Let's say she even 100% understands every possible intricacy of human speech. She's not going to be able to have an in-depth discussion when something isn't going right with a project or when we're in that gray zone of "in scope or not." Can you imagine some AI saying, "I'm sorry, that change is not in scope," and then hanging up on a client? It wouldn't go well. 

AI can talk, but humans are still the masters of communication. 

Technology still hasn't found a way to be flexible and operate inside those murky soupy areas. Sure, they can determine if something has been done or not, but anything with shades of gray still needs a human touch.

Empathy is something else needed that technology just can't reproduce. To be empathetic requires the person delivering it to understand what's going on and to relate with the receiver. Wow, that sounds like some BS Alexa would say, doesn't it? 

Let's put it another way — empathy requires feelings and heart. Anything else sounds insincere and robotic. As an account or project manager, we need to empathize with our clients. When a project goes wrong, the ripple effects from that mistake can hugely impact our client's business. If we're not thinking about that when we deliver difficult news, we're failing our clients. Anything less is like breaking up with the person you're dating over text — you're just a dick, and when the robots take over, I hope they take you out first. 

The periphery can change — we have AI that does a lot for us, but the core of good project and account management never changes. People are what make projects great. Sure, a well-organized list of tasks and properly formatted notes help, but it's people that make the projects. Communication, empathy, and human-centric thinking will always be needed — in 2032 and beyond.