The title of this post actually comes from a video I viewed on Big Think way back in 2016. It was a short video by renowned American physicist, Michio Kaku. I’ve just searched the site extensively to try and find it again but couldn’t. Good thing I downloaded a copy at the time and uploaded it to YouTube. I wanted to capture it as I recall it was not shareable. I have based a lot of my thinking on its prognostications since then. I first referenced it here: After robots and AI – intellectual capitalism where creativity and imagination thrive.
My background in advertising makes this an interesting topic and you will hopefully soon see where the company customer interactions come in. I started out in the ad industry in the 90’s but left it before the turn of the century. My reasoning: the writing on the wall which indicated a gradual decline and irrelevance for the practice, especially at the onset of the technological revolution that was the world wide web. Twenty years later it’s worth pondering where things stand and if I was right in any way.
All the charts (click on any to view enlarged) come from an article in the The Information from various different sources: 12 Charts That Show How Tech Took Off During a Year of Shutdowns. The full article requires a subscription but I can share access to The Information with 5 friends or colleagues completely free for 30 days – contact me if interested. It’s well worth it as they do a thorough breakdown of each chart and they are an excellent news source besides.
Here is my super slimmed down, sense-making take on all this, in a nutshell (enough of the superlatives already):
Saying that tech has benefitted from the pandemic sounds like a statement from the department of the bleedin’ obvious. Of course it has and for many obvious reasons. One of them is that technology aids remote work especially technology that is purpose built for it, like collaboration software that supports asynchronous work. Other times, its just that companies that have digitised processes really well stand to benefit – like ride hailing (which didn’t necessarily benefit from the pandemic but have prospered nevertheless) and food delivery (which did).
I’m surprised gaming was not included because that is another huge beneficiary. Other than home working, its probably the biggest reason for the spike in bandwidth.
The jobs dive and start-up formation are more than likely directly correlated. Indirectly too, the move to life online and emptier offices. The general investment, valuations and listings frenzy is probably all down to opportunists or investors wanting to cash in – who knows what happens when the real effects of the pandemic are felt 😬
“Small pilots and incremental scaling are an obsolete luxury, and the friction between research, development, and large-scale deployment must diminish or disappear.”
In a recent FT article (registration required) based on an interview with Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, he makes the point that “Teams is on its way to becoming a digital platform as significant as the internet browser, or a computer operating system”. I work with customers on their use of Microsoft Teams (disclosure) day in and day out and can vouch for a lot of what is in that statement. I cannot share too much other than offer my opinion which is what this post is about.
The title of this post is based on an article from Fast Company: Here are the top tech trends of 2021, according to 30 experts. I am adding to the 30. Note I excluded any reference to myself as an expert – I abhor the term. I wouldn’t call myself an expert but I have been known to dabble in trends, past reports here and new one being worked on here. Anyway, it seems a good time of the year to chime in on this topic so read on to see my prediction.
Microsoft Teams, with its 115M users, is way more than just chat or meetings. From this Geekwire article:
“Meetings are important, but they are transactional. Work happens before meetings, during meetings, and after meetings. That ability to have the workflow completely stitched together is where Microsoft 365 really stands out. That reinforcing effect of Teams by itself, and then Microsoft 365 in conjunction with Teams, is where you’ll see a significant amount of usage growth, more so than individual tools of the past, even.”
You may know of the new low code / no code approach to developing technology solutions (good primer if not). Simply put, it offers a development platform to users that requires little to no coding capabilities to build applications. There are benefits to this but also challenges which is why its important to consider the adage, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. In this post, I consider the importance of business outcomes, choosing the right platform, governance and pitching your solution.
I’m a fan of startup innovation having followed the practice and written about it extensively. This culminated in an eBook/trend report a few years back: Startup Innovation. The Information has just written a post about how the UK government is embracing the practice: How Silicon Valley Is Rewiring Downing Street’s Brain (registration required).
With Microsoft where I work (disclosure) currently running several employee and partner related events (Ready and Inspire) with many new announcements, I felt the need for some sense making. This DanelDoodle (and Data Doodle) is the culmination of that. More in the breakdowns below.
These are some thoughts captured and co-written by Stephen Danelutti and Jason Noble, two long time contributors to the world of Everything As a Service (XaaS) who met recently. We realised our common background and insights and decided to produce this combined thought piece – hope you enjoy.
I had interesting chats with customers and colleagues recently that I wanted to capture and share. The context was enterprise collaboration technology but I also wanted to expand a little on the increasing business of technology’s influence on culture more broadly and vice versa. It probably raised more questions than answers.
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