HorizonWatching

Cleantech Group: 10 Cleantech Predictions for 2010

Cleantech Group has been providing a list of predictions for a number of years now.  Of course the predictions have to do with the Cleantech industry.  In this year’s version, Chairman Nicholas Parker ‘pens’ the list of ten trends to watch for in 2010. 

Here is the list.

1. Private capital growth will recover.  The CleanTech Group believes that the amount of money from global venture capital and private equity in clean technology in 2010 will surpass that in 2009 “by a healthy margin” and could be a record year.
2. Clean economies become the new space race.  Some countries / cities will lead the pack, others will wait and implement later. Greater protectionism surrounding the industry will be a drawback.
3. Electric cars take the back seat to smart mobility.  The electric car trend will eventually influence urban design and planning. Governments’ tax incentives and budgets will be impacted.
4. Resource constraints beyond carbon rise to the fore.   Watch for price spikes that impact clean technology sectors as the economy picks up.  This will push companies to use resources more efficiently in order to maintain or boost their profitability.
5. Commodity trade-off debates intensify.  Look for trade-off debates in the areas of water and energy; land and energy; land and water and carbon and water.   The Cleantech Group predicts that more environmentalists will object to wind and solar projects because of how they use up swaths of land and obstruct the landscape views.
6. Energy efficiency eclipses solar.  Innovations in information and communication technology, along with more policy support, will help create a boom in energy efficiency.
7. Marketing suddenly matters. Cleantech Group says that branding will become more important as clean technology goes mainstream.  Marketing campaigns are likely to target more consumers instead of just businesses.
8. Buffett leads the super rich into cleantech.  Cleantech Group points out how U.S. billionaire investor Warren Buffett has made plays in clean tech-related companies, including GE, Goldman Sachs and Chinese electric car battery maker BYD Co Ltd.  
9. Acquisitions and consolidations accelerate.    Cleantech Group looks for the pace of consolidation to accelerate in countries with overcapacity like Germany and China.   
10. The rise of waste-to-energy, geothermal and aquaculture, as part of a shift to more sustainable agriculture and food production.

For more detail, check out the full article Ten Clean Technology Predictions For 2010

Gartner: Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2010

Last month, Gartner published its annual list of Top Strategic Technologies.   Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years.  Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.

The 2010 list they recently published goes like this…

1. Cloud Computing
2. Advanced Analytics
3. Client Computing
4. IT for Green
5. Reshaping the Data Center
6. Social Computing
7. Security – Activity Monitoring
8. Flash Memory
9. Virtualization for Availability
10. Mobile Applications

I found a pdf file of the Gartner presentation of these trends at this fmisociety.org URL (valid as of Nov. 23).  For more information, you can read the Gartner Press Release “Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2010” or check out the video below.

You can see the previous lists for 2009 and 2008

• Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2009

• Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2008

Pew Internet: Adults on Social Network Sites, 2005-2009

According to an October 2009 Pew Internet report titled The Democratization of Online Social Networks, 46% of online American adults 18 and older use a social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn.  This is up from 8% in February 2005.

Highlights of the report include:

• 79% of American adults used the internet in 2009, up from 67% in Feb. 2005
• 46% of online American adults 18 and older use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn, up from 8% in February 2005.
• 65% of teens 12-17 use online social networks as of Feb 2008, up from 58% in 2007 and 55% in 2006.
• As of August 2009, Facebook was the most popular online social network for American adults 18 and older.

Of adult SNS users:

• 73% have a Facebook account
• 48% have a MySpace profile
• 14% have an account on LinkedIn
• 1% each on Yahoo, YouTube, Tagged, Flickr and Classmates.com
• 10-12% are on “other” sites like Bebo, Last.FM, Digg, Blackplanet, Orkut, Hi5 and Match.com

Read more in Amanda Lenhart's presentation, which is available for download on Slideshare.

The Democratization of Online Social Networks

View more presentations from Pew Internet & American Life Project, Pew Research Center.

Verizon: Top Ten Business Technology Trends For 2010

Verizon (www.verizonbusiness.com)  recently published its annual list of 10 business technology trends that it says will help companies grow their business in 2010.  While the list highlights the markets that Verizon plays in, the technologies are certainly ones that we should be watching.

Here’s a summary of Verizon Business’ list of 10 hot trends that will help move business forward in 2010 (my summary of the trend in italics):

1. Enterprise Social Networking.   Social networking integrated into enterprise unified communications and collaboration strategies.  
2. Aiming for the ‘Clouds’.  Cloud computing adoption continues, making IT more efficient and businesses more agile.
3. 360 Security.  A trend towards applying security wherever data happens to be at the moment 
4. Mobilizing the Workforce:  From Telework to Telepresence.  Companies to accelerate deployment of mobile apps to help spur productivity and innovation.
5. Borderless Business.  Extending enterprise services and apps to employees, customers, suppliers and partners.
6. High IQ Networks Fueling a Smart Economy.   Trend towards smarter networks will allow companies to allocate resources where and when needed.
7. The Focus Will Be on Green.   The green trend continues to and will increasingly impact the way consumers and businesses make decisions.
8. Seeing Is Believing.  Video is increasingly being used as a business tool to conduct meetings and deliver real-time content.
9. More Wireless Apps, Especially Machine to Machine.   Wireless apps enable machines to communicate with each other and make “smart” decisions without human intervention. 
10. 20/20 Vision.  Verizon ends with a very generic trend that says businesses will make better decisions in 2010 that will fuel their future growth.

For the full report, including video, audio podcasts and other related online resources, visit: http://www.verizonbusiness.com/go/2010_trends

For Verizon’s 2009 top trends list, check out my blog post Verizon: 2009 Top 10 Tech Trends

Gartner Announces The "IT Market Clock" To Help Companies Prioritize IT Investments

Gartner, Inc (http://www.gartner.com) recently announced it’s IT Market Clock decision framework it says will assist IT and business leaders manage their portfolio of IT assets and activities throughout the entire asset life cycle. 

The IT Market Clock has been developed to be complementary to Gartner’s famous Hype Cycles.  The Hype Cycles help us all understand where individual technologies are in the adoption cycle, by displaying those technologies on a curve (e.g. hype cycle curve) from their first appearance to mainstream maturity.   The newly announced IT Market Clock will help monitor the progress of IT technologies from the time they first become viable to deploy and use, to the time when Gartner says it’s time to retire those assets.

You can view the IT Market Cloud below via the SlideShare embed (For a download of the slide, double click on the embed).

Gartner IT Market Clock

View more presentations from Gartner.

The IT market clock uses a clock-face image to represent relative “market time” and how technology assets are positioned based on their progress through their market life cycles and commoditization levels.  Assets start at 0 and move clockwise around to 12 o’clock. The clock face has four quarters, each representing one phase of IT market life and each suggesting how IT leaders should respond.  The four quarters of the clock are labled:

• Advantage — From 12:00 to 3:00, means this is a new asset.  The product or service has little or no competition.  This would be like a First of a Kind  or customized solutions.  Skill and experience levels are low and could be costly.
• Choice — From 3:00 to 6:00, during which time the market typically moves from adolescence to early mainstream. This is the phase of highest demand growth, during which supply options should grow and prices fall at their fastest rate.
• Cost — From 6:00 to 9:00, here the market for this technology is moving towards mature mainstream. Gartner says that commoditization sets in and costs will be the strongest motivator in most procurement decisions.
• Replacement — From 9:00 to 12:00, Gartner says the market is moving through legacy and to "market end".  The technology is nearing the end of its useful life. Procurement and operating costs will steadily rise and organizations need a replacement strategy.

It will be interesting to see if this framework takes hold and becomes as popular as the Gartner Hype Cycles.  For more on Gartner’s IT Market Clock, dowload this pdf:  Introducing the Gartner IT Market Clock.

A Primer on 3D Printing

Although 3D printing has been around for a number of decades, the quality has increased dramatically in recent years and the prices are just beginning to drop, making it much more affordable for small and medium businesses.  And if you really want to explore 3D printing, they are even getting cheap enough for consumers to own.

The reality is 3D printing is a very cost-effective way to have an in-house rapid prototyping capability.  For a relatively modest investment, design engineers can use a 3D printer to catch design flaws earlier in the process lowering costs and shortening design cycles.

What is 3D Printing?

3D printing involves having the computer sending the coordinates for a 3D object to an output device (a 3D Printer) that employs the same ink-jet printer principle that is used to print on paper.  However, in this case the ‘printer’ deposits successive layers of material to build up a full-scale 3D model.   The material used can be powder, plastics, resins or even metals. 

In the case of powder, the printer is actually delivering ultra-thin layers of powder onto a surface, one on top of another, until it produces a 3D model.  With each successive run of the ‘printer head’, the powder that is deposited is then given a spray of a binding liquid that' helps to harden the powder and help form a solid object. 

The end-result of this process might be a model which designers can use to verify a product’s design qualities before full-scale manufacturing begins, or it might be an end-use specialty product ranging from a component in a complex aircraft engine to a consumer medical  or dental implant.

The big benefits of 3D printing is it’s low cost and speed.  The printers can generally produce models in as little as one-tenth the time it takes other types of machines.  3-D Printer-produced models are throwaway models that allow you to see things you would not be able to see as well on a computer with a CAD system.  The beauty of this approach is people can hold the proposed design, study it, and get a good feel for its shape.

Video Introduction to 3D-Printing

The video below (just under 4 minutes) is a promotional video, but it really is one of the best videos I’ve seen that can help you understand what 3D printing is and how it could be used in an office environment.  The video is from the Z Corporation and it promotes the company’s ZPrinter 450.  While Z Corporation products are out of the price range for most individual users, they represent amazing technology that is commercially available to anyone.

It is doubtful that this new generation of 3D printers can replace traditional manufacturing methods such as injection molding, machined or milled parts and manufacturing line assembly.  However I do believe that small and medium specialty manufactures should consider implementing 3D printing processes for individual steps or subsystems in a traditional line manufacturing process.  It is very possible that these new low cost printers would help reduce overall manufacturing costs.

For More Information

Wikipedia has a nice article on 3D printing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing).  And the site Fab@Home has lots of good information.  For those of you wanting to learn more about products and services out on the market, here are a few vendor sites to visit

• Desktop Factory  Makes a very small and affordable printers that truly fit on top of a desk.
• 3D Systems   Provides mid-range solutions that employ a technology that film transfers photopolymer to build 3-D objects
• Z Corp  Is widely thought of as providing top of the line printers for an office environment

Friday Gadget: The Spruce Whale – An aircraft we’ll see in 2095?

I’ve been doing these Friday gadget posts for almost three years now.  For me, these Friday gadget posts are not only about having fun on a Friday, but have always been about imagining the future.  What types of products will future generations have that will make their life easier?  In addition, how will emerging technologies play?

For this week’s post, I found a concept by designer Reindy Allendra for an aircraft we might see in 85 years.  Randy calls it the WB-1010 but affectionately also calls it the Spruce Whale (named after the famous Spruce Goose).  He’s entered the design into a KLM design contest.

According to the design specs, the WB-1010 (named after the Wright Brothers)  will be constructed from material made of thin layers of metal and glass fibre. Other featured include:

• Ability to harvest wind energy into electricity.
• An extractable robotic stand would also be used during the craft’s vertical landings.
• Seats for more than 1500 people.
• It can reach speeds of over 600mph
• Helium injected in the body makes the plane lighter

For more, see Randy’s post at Yanko Design here http://www.yankodesign.com/2009/10/14/the-spruce-whale/

IBM Weighs in on "The Future of the Consumer Products Industry"

IBM recently released a new Institute for Business Value whitepaper titled, "The Future of the Consumer Products Industry" which identifies the powerful macroeconomic, demographic and social trends that are driving deep changes across the CP industry.

For most of the 20th century, the CP industry grew largely by improving its ability to develop and sell products to a relatively affluent, homogenous market of shoppers, who responded in familiar and predictable ways to the traditional 4 Ps of price, product, place(ment) and promotion.

The CP industry of the future will be led by those companies willing to take bold, innovative steps to define the markets they serve, re-imagine the channels they use, and transform current business models, while executing flawlessly against six capabilities:

• Globalization - Balancing market demands for localization with global/standard operating efficiencies
• Differentiation - Deploying assets and processes to create sustainable differentiation
• Integrated information - Integrating information to drive the business through insight
• Innovation - Create and deliver offerings that go beyond consumer expectations
• Consumer-centricity - Finding new ways to connect with consumers
• Corporate responsibility - Integrating corporate responsibility into the organization's DNA.

In conjunction with the release of “The Future of the Consumer Products Industry”, IBM recently released the results of a research study that found Americans at all income levels are refusing to sacrifice quality, value and nutrition to save money on food, despite difficult financial conditions.

The study also revealed that the current economy has led U.S. shoppers to reassess the brands they purchase, the stores they patronize and their preferred packaging – all with an eye toward finding ways to save money. Respondents said that this in-store spending strategy would last beyond the recession.

The study was based on interviews with 4,000 U.S. residents across all income levels. Among the findings:

• 72 percent of respondents are more concerned with quality than price while food shopping.
• 90 percent of respondents said that value and nutrition will be of equal or greater importance when the recession ends.
• 68 percent say nutrition is the most important consideration when food shopping.
• 49 percent are shopping at multiple stores to get the best deals.
• 35 percent of respondents said that they have changed grocery stores to save money.
• 52 percent of consumers are reducing the volume of food they purchase from the grocery store.

For more informatoin

• The white paper The future of the Consumer Products Industry
• IBM’s Consumer Products website http://www.ibm.com/consumerproducts  has a bunch of links to information about the industry
• On the survey mentioned above, see the press release: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/28481.wss

Friday Gadget: Concept for a Harley in 2020

What will a Harley look like in 2020?   That’s what designer Miguel Cotto wanted to explore.   His resulting design is sleek and robotic. 

The 2020 Harley design is Cotto’s attempt to fast forward 10 years.   According to Cotto, the 2020 Harley will still have a large 883cc engine, with that solid brand sound of high revs and roars, but the traditional road hog will look entirely different.  Missing are today’s handlebars and spoke wheels.  The wheel hubs are said to be giant bearings.  And you can’t miss thinking that the orange color represents total transformation.

More pictures at Harley Davidson Circa 2020, which is on the Yanko Design website.  Yanko Design is a site that encourages designers to explore designs for the future.  If you spend some time on Yanko’s website, you’ll see there are all sorts of concept designs.

To me, this is more like a 2060 (or maybe even a 2100) design than a 2020 design.  From a technology perspective, I seriously doubt that embedded sensors, robotics, AI, and nanotechnology that looks to be a part of this whole design will be ready by 2020.  And from a brand image perspective, I don’t see Harley making such radical changes to their design over the next ten years…but perhaps you could make a case for 50 years from now. 

Want to get a feel for what it would be like to ride one of these things?  Check out the Official Tron Legacy Trailer and go for a 3 minute ride.

Joint IBM and Forrester Research Webinar: The Emergence of the Smarter Home

I heard through the grapevine about an upcoming webinar this week on the topic of Smart Home and thought I’d pass on the news to you.

The idea of embedded intelligence in the home is certainly not new, but the cost of chips and special sensors keep coming down.  And as broadband networks are almost commonplace, The promise of the smart home is now coming to reality.  Smart devices connecting to services in the network enable a large range of new applications that can make our lives easier, safer, more economical, and healthier.  From increased entertainment choices to medical monitoring, remote security monitoring and management and energy management, these new services can enrich our lives.

There’s also an emerging market for service providers who can gain valuable intelligence and efficiencies by aggregating data in the network.  The most promising approach uses cloud technology in the network to provide the intelligence for the smart home.

The webinar features speakers from both IBM and Forrester Research and should provide a series of informative presentations and a lively round table discussion addressing technology trends, consumer demand, and the revenue opportunities for new services that enable the smarter home.

Topics to be covered during the webinar include:

• How connectivity, intelligent appliances, smart TV, medical devices, enhanced security, etc. are coming together to revolutionize the home
• About the growth opportunities not only for electronics manufacturers, but also for the media & entertainment, telecommunications, and energy & utility industries.
• How the barriers to expansion will fall!

Featured Speakers:

• Bruce A. Anderson, General Manager, Global Electronics Industry, IBM Corporation
• Charles Golvin, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research, Inc.
• Scott Burnett, Strategy & Business Development Director of IBM’s Digital Convergence Group

Details

• When:  October 15, 2008   9:00 am - 10:30 am EDT
• Target Audience:    Electronics Industry C-Level and LOB Senior Executives
• How to register:   Everyone must register to participate in the webcast. Click here to register for the webcast!

Enjoy!