Comments on: 12 Themes for 2012: what we can expect in the year ahead

By: Outsourced Marketing

Outsourced Marketing — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:44:00 +0000

Soon Congress will pass a bill and all these 12 dreams will go to hell :D

By: Ross Dawson

Ross Dawson — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 23:26:00 +0000

Hi Benjamin, I think you’re right that this idea is important could have been covered more – though it is rather hard to cover everything in 12 themes :-) I don’t tend to use those words, but absolutely agree with the concept.

By: Benjamin Tincq

Benjamin Tincq — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 08:11:00 +0000

Great list Ross, congrats and thank you for sharing! However, I would add the rise of Collaborative Consumption (service-isation, experience marketplaces, etc), and more broadly the Collaborative Economy as a major 2012 trend.
There a LOT of startups appearing and developing in this field, and businesses are starting to catch on (in the automobile sector mostly since they were the first to be impacted) ;This is somewhat covered in your “everything social” trend, but it might have deserved a trend of its own :)
Anyway, hope to see/read more from you in 2012 !

By: Aden Davies

Aden Davies — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:59:00 +0000

An excellent list. I think there is some correlation between 3 and 4 and we will see companies forced to be transparent about what they are doing with all this data and why they are not feeding this usefulness back to consumers. midata in the UK looking to make a start on that. PS the slides are almost unreadable…maybe a bit less opacity on the grey boxes?

By: Ross Dawson

Ross Dawson — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:00:00 +0000

In reply to Malcolm McLeod. A very good question. One of the formative experiences of our current mindset is Y2K, which made people implicitly believe that technology will always work. Taken to its extreme, today's world transported into one without technology is one where we would barely survive. To keep my answer simple, as such what would matter then is survival :-)

By: Malcolm McLeod

Malcolm McLeod — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 09:48:00 +0000

Excellent Ross, mildly daunting. 2012, a lot of views out there on what that may be, from spiritual vibration raising to polar ‘flips’ & tidal waves… Interested if you have any ponderings related to the extreme “What if’ around…”What is the world like without technology?” & What becomes really valuable then?

By: Ross Dawson

Ross Dawson — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:50:00 +0000

In reply to Scott Kiekbusch. Thanks for correction Scott! Yes a number of years ago I already thought 2012 was looking a bit early for the the Singularity. It won't happen as described, but I think it's possible the world will be beyond many people's comprehension within 12 months :-)

By: Ross Dawson

Ross Dawson — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:48:00 +0000

In reply to Michal Postula. Thanks Michal. To be frank I haven't structured my thoughts on this issue enough yet to write them up. Transcendence of geography is a fundamental dynamic, yet there are limits to it. The nation-state will not disappear for many reasons, including human nature of proximity-based affiliation. I will muse on this further...

By: Michal Postula

Michal Postula — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 04:40:00 +0000

Ross, thought-provoking list as always. I wonder if you could write a blog on how you see the future boundaries between nation-states and corporations as evolving. I think you already hint at this with trends (1) multi-speed economy, (4) institutions and (11) polarization but I wonder if you have some more explicit thoughts on this.

It seems to me that future communities (enabled by social networking) will be driven more by shared interests (polarisation) but less through Geographic proximity. In this scenario, trans-national companies or associations can replace many of the values which traditional nation-states have provided – including the responsibility for economic prosperity…

By: Scott Kiekbusch

Scott Kiekbusch — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:11:00 +0000

Interesting list. I think 2012 is a bit optimistic for the dawn of the Singularity, but time will tell. Re. #6, Cyberwar. The Stuxnet virus targeted Iranian nuclear facilities.