Quite a title, huh? Well, I believe that this is where we are headed. So, what in the world is a Software Bionicist? Well, sure, I made it up, but I think it's accurate. Bear with me while I explain.
It is important to see the forest as well as the trees. Time honored wisdom. But, there's one problem. There are many forests in the earth's ecosystem. Understanding the impact of a group of forests is a much more complex undertaking. The same idea is true when examining man-machines for the next 20 years. So, in the spirit of our blog, let's engage in a little meta think here about our Software Bionicist.
The Cultural Shift Towards Man-Machines
Let's examine the new generation of digital assistants. The iPhone is ground breaking in terms of productivity increases and mobility. However, it is life changing for another not so obvious reason. Apple has largely succeeded in convincing most of the population that it would be acceptable to have a mechancial companion as part of their birth to death experience!
The next industry trend will be birth to death digital companions that have computerized medical record interactions, advice capabilities, personal safety interfaces and the like - largely as portrayed in the movie Gattaca. Bedside manner will become important as computer technologists are deployed to program, troubleshoot, replace, and install digital companions that are either affixed to or are part of the human body. Therefore, the next generation of technologists will need an entirely different type of training. Servers don't talk back, but people do! You can yank a hard drive out, but a man-machine upgrade assignment? Whoa. 
Tomorrow's Computer Technicians
Today, we may have Geek Squad, but tomorrow, that will be wholly insufficient. People will place life like projections on their digital companions, similar to what we do with our pets. Therefore, we should expect an entire generation of technologists that will have to have bedside manner training as they retire, repair, or upgrade digital companions upon which people have affixed human affections!
Within the next 25 years. bionics will have a huge impact on mankind and the technology sector. Therefore, technologists will need to be trained very diferently, since the lines between doctors and computer scientists become more and more blurred. That is a huge impact on you if you head software development at a medical company today. How? Yeah, I though you might ask...
Business Opportunities
Well, the healthy companies of tomorrow will seize upon this type of thinking and vision today. It often takes a decade or more to put in place the business plans to effectively meet the needs of new paradigms. This would be absolutely true in the high altitudes of futuristics like man-machine products. So, now is the time to start acquiring a base group of human factors experts to affect your future projects. The plain Jane human interface constructs of today (e.g. mouse, keyboard, scanners, wifi clunkees) will be blazing into obsolescence within a couple of years. Case in point? Microsoft's Project Natal : http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/projectnatal/
So, in conclusion, push the edges of thought here. There is a new multi-million dollar industry vertical developing - think outside the box, see the needs and fill them - be part of a cutting edge industry within the next 20 years with almost unlimited revenue potentials!