Insights · April 27th, 2014
Our futurist friend and colleague Gerd Leonhard wrote last year about 7 digital trends for SwissNex San Francisco, a project of the Swiss Consulate in San Francisco (Gerd resides in Basel). It is a nice summary of several features of what I call a data flow society. His seven for the next 5 years…
1. The end of offline. Our entire lives have merged with the data flow. We can escape, but few do for long.
2. Global consumerization of IT. Really interesting trend where consumers and young employees pull IT departments along, rather than the other way round.
3. Revolution in data-input methods. We’ve been waiting for this, but do you find yourself swiping, waving, pointing at or speaking to your devices more and more? I do. Out there in the labs is a lot work on direct brain to machine interfaces.
4. Almost all business is socially-driven (especially those based on digital products). Peer to peer recommendations, ratings, endorsements and all kinds of Likeonomics essentially replace CRM; the same goes for hiring and general HR needs.
5. Big Data everywhere! Data levels, depth, and sheer frequency reach unimaginable pace and proportions, and anyone/anything having to do with data-mining and management is in high demand. Key issue is how to make meaning trump noise.
6. We are shifting from downloads to flows and from stuff to bits, both in terms of technology as well as user behavior and consumption habits. Information accessed and filtered and sifted when and where and how it’s needed.
7. The Internet of Things and pervasive machine-to-machine connectivity become very real.
Great stuff as always from Gerd.
And a special note: his new web video series that he is calling “The Future Show” launches on Monday, 28 April 2014. Check it out. Good luck Gerd, and hey, maybe he will interview us one day!
