If someone had told me when I was younger that I would one day be able to carry a phone around in my pocket, I would have laughed. Had they said it would also be capable of storing my entire music collection and allow me to set my video recorder (or the modern equivalent, with which I could pause live TV), I'd have suggested they turn to a career in science fiction or seek medical help. As headline-grabbing transformational technology goes, none of this may be rocket science. It is not supersonic flight or walking on the moon, but the mobile computing and telecoms revolution has altered my life as much as any other radical change.
This month we've rounded up an A to Z of new technologies. Some, such as cloud computing and electric cars, are already having an impact, while others such as a Mars probe or generating electricity from changes in pressure in the water mains are likely to play a part in shaping future decades.
But while the past 40 years may not have seen jetpacks, hover cars or teleportation devices that TV fiction led me to expect, it has seen a revolution in retail. A small part of that huge change was started 40 years ago by our cover star, the founder and chief executive of Iceland, Malcolm Walker.
Walker gives us a typically blunt and no-nonsense interview in which he decries the short-term thinking he says is endemic in the City and presents himself as a self-styled "benevolent dictator". He also offers an excellent example of the truth behind this year's best business book, John Kay's Obliquity. By focusing on growth and having fun, and not worrying so much about profitability, Walker has seen Iceland's profits rise along with its market share.
Of course Walker has experienced difficulties along the way, finding himself ousted from the business and investigated for insider trading. Although cleared, he admits his reputation was damaged. How much harder might it have been to rebuild his image in an age where the internet has transformed the speed with which information is shared and Facebook groups protest at the slightest hint of wrongdoing. Elsewhere we look at how companies cope with managing their reputations online and offer a few simple rules to follow.
Richard Cree
Please note, the next issue of Director will be a combined July/August edition, published on 19 July.