HorizonWatching

Marian Salzman: Top Ten 2010 Trends

Marian Salzman, president of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, North America, is a respected trendspotter.   She has been providing trends lists every year for many years and she regularly revisits her lists 5 and 10 years after she publishes them to comment what went right and what went wrong.

Salzman recently posted her 2010 trends at sociableblog.  Her list of top trends for 2010 is a combination of pop culture, political and fiscal trends.  Her list is heavily impacted by her view of the world, which is PR, Marketing, and Social Media.  Salzman says that in 2010, companies need to pay increased attention to and and active engage in the social media.  Here’s her list of 2010 trends.

1. Lines That Zig but Don't Zag. Hyperpolarization and the independents who will bridge the divide between political adversaries.
2. Beware the Mobmedia. The emergence of mob mentality and virtual bullying over pressing political and pop culture issues in the social media sphere.
3. A Children's Place and Other Prime-Time Props: Reality TV Gone Wild. Children being exploited as television accessories and brand trailblazers.
4. Obamaclock. President Obama's tenure in office is ticking away as he continues to harvest mass scrutiny at the hands of the recession's grip.
5. Heading Off Angst. The mobilization of a universal brain-health movement that includes helmet safety, the dangers of cell-phone use, soldiers' traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder, and beyond.
6. No Piggy in the Bank. The employment of creative fundraising tactics for nonprofits and startups as a result of the current economic climate.
7. In-Your-Face Honesty. Smart bigwigs will self-expose unlawful misconduct, which the media will place on the back burner out of boredom if it all comes out in the first wash.
8. Go Community! An influx of community niches and hyperlocalization efforts will stampede 2010 with the ever-growing presence of social media tools.
9. The Shadow of the Bomb, Again. Iran, North Korea and Pakistan will partake in a risky game of poker--with the world anxiously holding their cards.
10. Hands-On Aspirations for Insourcing. With a multiplicity of information online and so much employment shifting to the service sector, industries and individuals advance making-and-mending skills.

You can see her full blog post at Top 10 Trends Forecast for Year 2010

MS and Google: Searching Social Media

Searching for information is so much a part of my job.  Frequently when on an intense research project, I find myself day dreaming of search keyword string being entered into the Google search bar.  But over the past year, I’m increasingly finding myself using other search engines that crawl the social media sites.  I now have a list of about 15 social search engines that I use depending on what type of information I am looking for.

As social computing technology continues to result in growth of social networking and social media sites, searching for content on all these sites is becoming more and more important.  Social search is the next big thing in search engines and over the last week or so, there have been some big changes in the social search marketplace.

Both Google and Microsoft announced deals to improve their search engines.  Both Microsoft and Google both made deals with Twitter to include tweets in their real-time social search results.  But Microsoft did Google one better and announced it will also include content from Facebook. 

Microsoft’s Bing users will will be able to search Twitter status updates or navigate the most popular topics currently being discussed on Twitter via a tag cloud.  Bing will search the last seven days, of content and will be organized into 1) Tweets and 2) Frequently shared links

Google’s Social Search, still in beta, works off your Google profile (you have to opt-in) and prioritizes results from your friends' Twitter feeds, FriendFeed updates, Facebook pages, LinkedIn profiles, and Picasa libraries.  For more on Google search, check out this 3 minute video

These announcements signal that the big search engines have recognized the importance of social search to their future. As the social movement continues to grow and people's hunger for real-time content increases, search companies are actively looking to provide the most value and relevant search results.

For more information, here’s some recent articles about social search

• Social Search – Wikipedia
• Google's New Social Search Is A Big Chess Move Against Facebook – ReadWriteWeb
• Real-time search brimming with deals - TheDeal.com
• How High Will Real-Time Search Fly? – NYT
• Google & Bing Announce Real Time Search Deals With Twitter – SEOBook

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/

Los Angeles Is ‘Most Painful” For Commuters

Despite some small improvements in traffic congestion, mostly due to the nationwide recession, commuting is still a stressful and frustrating experience for drivers.  A few weeks ago, IBM released its second annual IBM Commuter Pain survey results.  The survey found that Los Angeles commuters experience the most frustration/stress (‘pain’) during their commute time.  Los Angeles ranked at the top of the commuter pain index, ahead of Washington DC, Miami, Chicago and Boston.

The Commuter Pain Survey was conducted by IBM to better understand consumer thinking toward traffic congestion as the issue reaches crisis proportions nationwide and higher levels of auto emissions stir environmental concerns.  These events are impacting communities in the U.S. and abroad, where governments, citizens and private sector organizations are looking beyond traditional remedies like additional roads and greater access to public transportation to reverse the negative impacts of increased road congestion.

The survey was fielded by Survey Sampling International (SSI) and 4,446 consumers responded -- at least 400 in each city. 

Embedded in the results of the study was IBM’s Commuter Pain Index which attempts to find out which major American cities suffer the most from traffic congestion and lack of urban mobility.  The index is derived from the survey scores for each city on ten key issues:

1. Commuting time,
2. Time stuck in traffic,
3. Value of time,
4. Agreement that traffic has gotten worse,
5. Agreement that start-stop traffic is a problem,
6. Agreement that driving causes stress,
7. Agreement that driving causes anger,
8. Agreement that traffic affects work,
9. Agreement that traffic so bad driving stopped, and
10. Agreement that decided not to make trip due to traffic.

As a result of the information collected on the ten issues indicated above, the top ten 'worst cities’ for Commuter Pain are, in order:

1. Los Angeles
2. Washington, D.C.
3. Miami
4. Chicago
5. Boston
6. New York
7. Atlanta
8. San Francisco
9. Dallas/FW
10. Minneapolis/St. Paul

For the complete report, please click here: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/attachments/28320.pdf

Gartner: Disruptive Tech Trends To Watch

I attended a Gartner webinar a couple weeks ago that was titled :  Technology Trends you Can't Afford to Ignore.   During the call, Raymond Paquet, Gartner Managing Vice President, provided a list of disruptive trends that Gartner says are reshaping the information technology and business landscape.  

Here is the list of 10 that were reviewed during the webinar. 

1. Virtualization
2. Data Deluge
3. Energy & Green IT
4. Consumerization & Social Networks
5. Unified Communications
6. Complex Resource Tracking
7. Mobile & Wireless
8. System Density
9. Mashups & Portals
10. Cloud Computing

As Gartner pointed out during the call, companies must identify the disruptive technologies that will impact their users and their business and develop plans to address these disruptions.  If your business does not have a process in place to identify the potential disruptive trends in your industry, then there is a good chance you will be caught off-guard when a trend suddenly turns your business model upside down.

Two months ago I blogged about another call Gartner had on disruptive trends.  Check that out at Gartner’s Latest List of Disruptive Technologies.  You’ll see that the list is the same as the one above.

An archive of the webinar is located here: Technology Trends you Can't Afford to Ignore.  

House Passes Wind Energy Research and Development Act of 2009

Wind energy currently makes up 2% of the total energy generation in the United States, but there is the potential for it to provide up to 20% with the right improvements in turbine technology, forecasting, energy storage, and expansion of transmission systems.

So it is great to see that the U.S. lawmakers are starting to focus on this area.  Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Wind Energy Research and Development Act of 2009.  The bill, if eventually signed into law, would authorize a comprehensive program to improve the efficiency, reliability and cost effectiveness of domestic wind energy systems.

The bill would authorize the Secretary of Energy to carry out a program of research and development to improve the energy efficiency, reliability, and capacity of wind turbines; optimize the design and adaptability of wind energy systems; and reduce the cost of construction, generation, and maintenance of wind energy systems.

Specifically, this program would include:

• Examination of new materials and designs to make larger, lighter, less expensive, and more reliable motor blades
• Technologies to improve gearbox performance and reliability
• Technologies to improve transmission from remotely located renewable resource rich areas
• Low-cost transportable towers greater than 100 meters in height
• Advanced computational modeling tools, control systems, blade sensors and advanced generators
• Wind technology for offshore applications
• Automation, materials, and assembly of large-scale components
• Methods to assess and mitigate the effects of wind energy systems on radar and electromagnetic fields
• Wind turbines with a maximum electric power production capacity of 100 kilowatts or less

The bill authorizes $200 million dollars per year from 2010 through 2014 for these programs.

Let’s hope this bill, or something like it, makes it way into law.

For more information

• Wind Energy Research and Development Act of 2009
• New Roadmaps for Wind and Solar Research and Development

Looking to 2050: Ten Challenges For The Human Race

Peter Schwartz is recognized internationally as a futurist and strategist.  He honed his skills at Royal Dutch/Shell Group in London, where he led a widely respected scenario planning effort.   He has written a number of interesting books about the future, including The Art of the Long View. 

This past May he gave the commencement address at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  During the address, he outlined ten longer term challenges for the human race as we look forward to the next 40-50 years.  He encouraged the graduates to come up with innovative solutions to these challenges. 

The top challenges Schwartz outlined are:

1. Creating long-term solutions to meet our energy demands sustainably.
2. Launching a bio-industrial revolution with sustainable manufacturing.
3. Understanding and enhancing the human brain to avert age-related impairments.
4. Improving agriculture to reduce costs and increase its energy and water efficiency.
5. Building sustainable cities through better urban planning and "smart architecture”.
6. Stimulating job growth and economic development.
7. Fusing the technological with the spiritual and aesthetic dimensions of human culture.
8. Advancing technological instruments to drive scientific discovery forward.
9. Harnessing biological tools to advance human evolution.
10. Discovering new ways to lower the costs and environmental impact of space flight and development.  

The list above is an interesting list.  I am not sure that these are the top ten most important challenges, but each of the above ten are certainly important. 

Some comments…

• Energy tops his list and it is hard to argue that it should not be there.  I can’t see the demand for energy going down anytime soon and we need to figure out how to transition to clean energy. 
• Improving agriculture processes in developing nations will have have a significant impact on the economy and quality of life.
• Building smarter and sustainable cities is a very large challenge as the number of megacities grow and grow.
• Number 9 on his list, “Harnessing biological tools to advance human evolution” sounds both scary and beneficial at the same time.
• Regarding number 10, with announced plans to go back to the moon and to Mars, we will need innovative ways to travel through space and live at the destinations we travel to.

It is worth pointing out that many on the list kind of fall under the push for a smarter planet.

If you want to read a transcript of Peter Schwartz’s commencement address, check out http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=2585

Can you think of any other challenges Schwartz’s list?  The only one that comes to my mind right now is the never ending desire to live in a world free from war and conflict, but I don’t suppose for one minute that that will be solved in the next 40-50 years.

Study: Top CEOs still shunning Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

As social networking and social media marketing continue to increase as a disruptive trend, our top executives are being left behind.  So far, they are ignoring the trend.  Not sure what their excuse is, but I imagine it is that they just don’t get it.  It reminds me of the time email first came on the radar.

Sure, CEOs aged 30 and under understand the power of Web 2.0 and social computing…some of the younger ones are in fact digital natives.  But for some reason, middle aged and older CEOs have not yet figured out that the social computing train has left the station. 

I have a unique perspective in that I have been around for a long time. Truth be told, I was around for the email revolution in the late 1980s and early 1990s'.   I was a young IT professional at the time email first came on the radar (anyone remember PROFS?) and I do remember that for the longest time there were people (typically older and higher up the executive chain) that just never checked their email.  I guess they either forgot their passwords or really did not even know how to check and respond to email.  It was hard for them to weave email into their daily activities.  They were tied to the phone and face to face method of communication (not to say those are bad communication methods) and ignored the new way of communicating via email.  They resisted change.

So when I saw an article discussing recent research results that confirm my observations that CEOs are absent from the social media, it does not surprise me.  The report in question (It’s Official:  Fortune 100 CEOs are Social Media Slackers) finds that CEOs at top companies in the U.S. are dramatically disconnected from the social networking phenomenon.  The report was recently published by UberCEO.com, an online news and discussion site that focuses on CEOs at major companies.  

The study found that only two CEOs from Fortune magazine's list of the Top 100 companies have Twitter accounts and only 19 have a Facebook page.   And none of the 100 CEOs were found to have a personal external blog.  

In fact, only 13 of the top top 100 CEOs are members of the LinkedIn social network for business professionals.  And of those 13, five were connected to just one other person on the site.  The study found that only three technology CEOs really stood out on LinkedIn

• Michael Dell (Dell) - http://www.linkedin.com/in/mdell
• Gregory Spierkel (Ingram Micro)  -  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/greg-spierkel/0/222/233
• John Chambers (Cisco) - http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-chambers/9/758/44a

From my point of view, top CEOs in technology companies should be embracing web 2.0 and experimenting with social media and networking sites.  I believe they are missing an opportunity to positively influence how people view their companies as well as missing an opportunity to demonstrate leadership to their employees, customers, partners, and shareholders.  It’s called leading by example and in my mind technology CEOs can't afford to pretend that social media is not for them.  They need to find some way to weave social media activities into their daily routine….just like the rest of us.

Midsize Companies Must Work Smarter, Leaner

A new IBM-sponsored study, “Inside the Midmarket: A 2009 Perspective”, found that although the economy is driving midsize companies to work smarter and leaner, many of these midsized companies are not actually decreasing their investments in IT, but maintaining current levels or increasing their IT spend to focus on strategic areas.

There is no doubt in my mind that these midmarket companies will play an important role in re-energizing the economy.  It is refreshing to see that these companies are not only resilient, but they are willing to invest in emerging technology areas that will position their companies for growth when the economy does improve.  

The study identified five important trends for midsized businesses:

1. The highest-priority technology solution, chosen by 75 percent of respondents, is Information Management, which turns mountains of data into meaningful insights.
2. The most pressing business challenges include increasing efficiency and productivity (80 percent), improving customer care (74 percent) and better use of information (72 percent).
3. The impact of the economy on IT budgets has caused 53 percent to actually increase or re-prioritize their spending, with 37 percent reporting a decrease.
4. Despite the economy, more than two-thirds of those surveyed are planning or currently implementing their top IT priorities.
5. A majority of firms view their primary IT provider as a technology advisor or IT and business consultant, with 25 percent seeing the relationship as purely transactional.

And despite pressure to cut costs, the survey found that midsize companies are proceeding with IT investments in emerging technologies in areas such as information management, social media, and cloud computing.    Although these areas showed up lower on the scale of critical priorities, midmarket companies are actively pursuing these emerging technology areas to improve performance.  The survey shows that 79 percent intend to implement or have established goals to implement Green IT solutions, while 71 percent said they have plans to implement Web2.0/social media solutions and 69 percent said the same for cloud computing solutions.

The “Inside the Midmarket study” was based on an online survey of 1,879 respondents in 17 countries, is designed to gain insight into the business plans and challenges, growth/innovation strategies, IT purchasing trends, and industry-specific pain points of midmarket companies (100 - 999 employees).  To download the study, visit http://www.ibm.com/press/attachments/ibm_midmarket_trend_study.pdf