Access to information was the first gift of the Internet. And the struggle between information creators and information users on value and compensation began. Content classification will determine the existence or extinction of business models in the future. Professionals will be the most affected.
Trends: The impact of technology on information access continues. Every new device, program, or application shifts the value and thus the reward to info-creators from info-users. We already see the destructive nature of now free information on the once powerful industries of publishing, journalism, travel, movies, and music. (Note the extension of digital information to sounds and images.)
You have heard the cliché, “Information seeks to be free.” That is only part of the original quote by Stewart Brand at the first Hackers’ Conference in 1984 that actually defined a dual nature.
“Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy and recombine – too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away. It leads to endless, wrenching debate about price, copyright, intellectual property, the moral rightness of casual distribution, because each round of new devices makes the tension worse, not better.”
Future Impact: Professionals have historically used information control as business leverage. Customers will assume control empowered by the most advanced technology tools for information access, distribution and manipulation in history. The view of any category of information by the consumer as a commodity (“cheap”) or value (“expensive”) will determine the survival of a profession or business. Professionals that flourish will transform information control to knowledge experience. Then clients become partners in the pursuit of solutions, not customers seeking information.
Jerry Matthews assists organizations and individuals in creating successful futures. He does that through future presentations, strategic facilitation, and executive advice. FutureJerry is his periodic observation on today’s trends that could shape our future.
© 2010 Gerald W. Matthews. All rights reserved in all media. The content of this newsletter may be forwarded in full without special permission provided it is used for nonprofit purposes and full attribution and copyright notice are given. For other purposes contact Jerry Matthews.
The stock market as a long-term investment has declined – perhaps permanently. While recent poor performance has lowered returns for virtually every investor, there are other forces underway. Decades of market rules, facts and patterns are not reliable anymore. Future impact will be on investors seeking stability and return.
Trends: The stock market operates on information, facts, and sentiment. There are dozens of numbers, trends, statistics, charts, fundamentals, and imbedded “culture”. If traders expect a 20% bounce it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They act because a certain “rule” was correct in the past. Rules become rules through consistency.
The rules have changed.
Because of excessive acts of a few, market transparency and integrity is damaged. In normal times self-correcting systems engaged after such an event and the market was restored, with some collateral damage. These are not normal times since politicians have become the new correcting force.
The market demands facts, clarity, and information. This is not the mode of most politicians. It is irrational to expect them to make credible market or business decisions. They do not have the experience, the skills, or the motivation.
The new normal will be indecision, capricious acts, and unpredictability. Since the market hates the unknown, traders and investors will suffer.
Future Impact: Investors expecting stock-based investments to yield stable returns in a free market will lose confidence and look elsewhere. And they will be more engaged in investment decisions.
The future role of stock market products of all types as investment vehicles could diminish. And real estate, also damaged in this shift, could lose a favored position. Alternative investment models, such as hard assets, and creative ways to invest for predictable long-term return, will arise and attract funds. There will be great opportunity for new investment models, with investor participation, to capture a significant share.
[Note: Consumers is one of 10 areas with greatest future impact that I track in the “Way of Tomorrow” series.]
Jerry Matthews assists organizations and individuals in creating successful futures. He does that through future presentations, strategic facilitation, and executive advice. FutureJerry is his periodic observation on today’s trends that could shape our future.
© 2009 Gerald W. Matthews. All rights reserved in all media. The content of this newsletter may be forwarded in full without special permission provided it is used for nonprofit purposes and full attribution and copyright notice are given. For other purposes contact Jerry Matthews.
Search engines have opened access to the massive amounts of information available on the Internet. But the power of search has only begun. Future search capabilities will be far beyond today’s standards. The impact will be most directly upon professionals.
Trend: In less than a decade search tools – from Alta Vista to Yahoo to Google – have delivered easier access to information on a topic. Search now yields connections with documents or sites but you have to complete the search by filtering for the correct answer.
Recently Bing, a search engine from Microsoft, has added a level of sophistication by inferring an answer in some targeted areas. Bill Gates explained that Bing is about verbs, not nouns. If so, Bing is another step in the evolution of search.
Access to virtually all information is now expected. But finding the exact answer to a question can be difficult. The ultimate goal of search is to receive the correct answer, not the location of a possible answer.
Future Impact: Search capabilities will evolve. The next leap will be intelligent answers to specific questions. And further still, answers that recognize the nuances and history of the individual. Answers are personalized.
When search yields an accurate answer that is personalized, the traditional role of a professional – salesperson, agent, attorney, physician, accountant, representative, or broker – is altered. The professional role in the future will be very narrow and deep. Experience, wisdom and human skills will define the successful professional of tomorrow.
[Note: Search is one of 10 areas with greatest future impact that I track in the “Way of Tomorrow” series.]
Jerry Matthews assists organizations and individuals in creating successful futures. He does that through future presentations, strategic facilitation, and executive advice. FutureJerry is his periodic observation on today’s trends that could shape our future.
© 2009 Gerald W. Matthews. All rights reserved in all media. The content of this newsletter may be forwarded in full without special permission provided it is used for nonprofit purposes and full attribution and copyright notice are given. For other purposes contact Jerry Matthews.
Heroes define our aspirations – our dreams – our hopes for what we can be. They inspire us to be our best. This is true of a person and a nation. A shift in those being honored has occurred and the impact will be on our future innovation capability as an economy.
Trends: Recently I spoke at a convention in a major city. The site was a historical building and in the lobby were seven bronze statues of historical leaders of the state. The first five were understandable: a pioneer settler, a city founder, an educator, an author, and a scientist. They lead the first 150 years. Each presented a view of vision, courage, ingenuity, intelligence, and self-reliance.
The last two: a politician and a professional athlete. Huh? What a significant shift. The only common ground found with them is ego and arrogance. Rather than being creatively focused as the others, many times these two are self-absorbed.
Quickly I admit there are some politicians and professional athletes that are sincere, generous and intelligent. I also agree that some educators, authors and scientists are worthless. But my experience is they are not the norm.
Perhaps a rock star will be the next statue. But there is hope.
The Millennial generation often names Sergey Brin and Larry Page (founders of Google) as their “heroes”. Not exactly Einstein or Thoreau or Salk but a step up for this future generation.
Future Impact: Innovations are usually creative breakthroughs by an individual. Those ideas spawn the new business models, services, products, and wealth of a society. The fate of this nation lies in the qualities of innovation, ingenuity and courage embodied in those first five bronze figures. Our future economy will be creativity-based so it will depend on the next generation admiring these virtues.
[Note: Consumers is one of 10 areas with great future impact that I track in the “Way of Tomorrow” series.]
Jerry Matthews assists organizations and individuals in creating successful futures. He does that through future presentations, strategic facilitation, and executive advice. FutureJerry is his periodic observation on today’s trends that could shape our future.
© 2009 Gerald W. Matthews. All rights reserved in all media. The content of this post may be forwarded in full without permission provided it is used for nonprofit purposes and full attribution and copyright notice are given. For other purposes contact Jerry Matthews.
Consumers have stopped discretionary spending. If this is a permanent shift it originates from several sources and will impact critical areas in the future.
Trend: Consumers have dramatically reduced spending. In fact, they have made the amazing flip from consuming to – gulp – saving. The spending behaviors seem quite different from past recessions.
This could be a permanent change in the consumer. If so, it is leveraged by the convergence of three trends.
First, the recession is severe and economy-wide. Happening after excessive spending fueled by easy credit and inflated assets, the change was abrupt. Deep recessions with high unemployment will retard spending. Everyone is fear-frozen.
Second, is the transfer of power from Baby Boomers to Generation X. The influence of Boomers is fading through dropping numbers (retirement or death) and Gen X is asserting control. These generations have different attitudes about life style. Gen X is more quality-of-life driven and careful financially. So the emerging power group of the future is naturally a non-consumer.
Third, the Internet is making shopping, comparing, and purchasing easier than ever. The lowest possible price anywhere is available to everyone. Impulse buying from advertising or physical stores is not likely with such empowering technology. Frugality has technology as a partner.
Future Impact: After the recession the level of consumption will be lower. Oh, there will be the occasional small extravagance, but the deeper trend seems set. Obvious losers are economic growth, retail services and high-end consumables. Retail and commercial business properties are very vulnerable.
Increased savings will fuel capital investment in new age businesses. Robust web-based shopping will continue growing. Trust of web transactions will increase with third-party guarantees and transfer services.
[Note: Consumers is one of 10 areas with greatest future impact that I track in the “Way of Tomorrow” series.]
Jerry Matthews assists organizations and individuals in creating successful futures. He does that through future presentations, strategic facilitation, and executive advice. FutureJerry is his periodic observation on today’s trends that could shape our future.
© 2009 Gerald W. Matthews. All rights reserved in all media. The content of this post may be forwarded in full without permission provided it is used for nonprofit purposes and full attribution and copyright notice are given. For other purposes contact Jerry Matthews.
The hosting of all information, sound and images, as well as computing power, is rapidly moving to the Internet creating “The Cloud”. That shift is happening now and the future impact on all business models will be dramatic.
Trends: Very soon all digitized information – numbers, text, pictures, sound and video – will not just be transported over the Internet but stored there also. Next computing ability will reside on the Internet. Thus, in one place we will have all information and the processing of data. This combining of all function, utilities, information and images is called the Cloud.
Major technology players in software, hardware, storage, and computing services are implementing the concept now.
Access will be through small but powerful hand-held devices such as Netbooks and iPhones. (Upon reflection, we have returned to the early technology days of mainframe computers with terminals as the only access.)
The Cloud will eventually hold all information including business and government records, forms, documents, and files. It will also hold all personal information such as financial, banking, medical, education and assets. Everything. Managing, analyzing, manipulating – any computational activity – will occur in the Cloud. It will simply be more efficient and convenient. Yes, there will be privacy debates, but effectiveness will prevail.
Future Impact: The business impact will be enormous. The shift of service and processing will create new business models. More virtual businesses will exist and traditional physical ones will become much smaller or disappear. Technology infrastructure investment cost will plummet. Outsourcing and individual power will increase.
[Note: The Next Internet is one of 10 areas with greatest future impact that I track in the “Way of Tomorrow” series.]
Jerry Matthews assists organizations and individuals in creating successful futures. He does that through future presentations, strategic facilitation, and executive advice. FutureJerry is his periodic observation on today’s trends that could shape our future.
© 2009 Gerald W. Matthews. All rights reserved in all media. The content of this post may be forwarded in full without permission provided it is used for nonprofit purposes and full attribution and copyright notice are given. For other purposes contact Jerry Matthews.
I have always been fascinated with the future. What’s next? What is around the corner – over the horizon? That life long quest has taught me that the future actually tells us in advance what it has in store.
Author William Gibson said it best, “The future has already arrived – it is just unevenly distributed.”
Those hints of tomorrow are cleverly hidden in today’s trends. They are the early warning – the first wave. Our challenge is to see these future possibilities in everyday events. All to often we are consumed in today living and miss the revelations of tomorrow. (Today and tomorrow coincide – but that is another discussion.)
Seeking the future led me in the past to be the CEO of two creative and innovative organizations. And, more recently, it evolved into being a speaker on future trends, and a facilitator of strategic thinking, and a personal advisor.
FutureJerry is my observations on current activities and events that appear to contain future threads. The format is comments on a subject and then projections of future impact. And, of course, you have the option to make comments.
These future threads may weave a tapestry that is clear or one that is obscure. They may build in logical order or confound in seeming disarray. That is the nature of interpreting trends. But, regardless, we will sharpen our awareness of today, see the possibilities of tomorrow, and make ready.
FutureJerry: Finding Tomorrow TodaySM.
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