The top 10 trends for the 2010s: the most exciting decade in human history

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In his excellent book The Meaning of the 21st Century, James Martin asks when in human history you would most like to be alive.

For me there is no question that it is now. The coming decade will be the most exciting in human history. The very challenging year of 2009 that we are preparing to bid farewell to helped to tear up the fairly linear progress of the first decade of the century. Now, technological and social change are poised to accelerate far beyond what we have become accustomed to.

A critical uncertainty is how well we will respond to this extraordinary pace of change, both as individuals and as societies. Will we be able to adapt and change, or will severe dysfunctions emerge? Just one dimension is the manifold ethical dilemmas that are raised by gaining extraordinary technological capabilities.

Here are the ten trends that I believe will be most fundamental to the decade ahead. I hope to present these and associated trends in an interactive visual format before long. For now, here are the 10 trends for 2010.

1. Information Intensity

We will soon consume more media than there are waking hours, by virtue of multi-channeling at most times. Billions of people and places will be media producers, including video streaming from most points of view on the world. We are just at the dawn of an incomprehensible daily onslaught of news and information – some valuable, much useless.

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The 10 TENsions That Will Define 2010

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To anticipate what will shape 2010, we need to understand the TENsions that will define the opening year of the TENsions decade. The TENsions that are most prominent will evolve during the course of the decade. However the accelerating pace of change means that TENsions will inevitably define the decade, in myriad forms.

These are the 10 TENsions for 2010, the opening year of the TENsions.

1. Optimism – Fear

Many companies and workers are now daring to be optimistic as they put 2009 behind them, look forward to opportunities, and worry about getting left behind if things improve rapidly. Yet with the shock of the onset of the financial crisis still fresh, any optimism is subject to being shattered, resulting in wild swings in confidence.

2. Institutional work – Independent work

While many lost their jobs in 2009, sparking a rise in home-based work such as direct selling, many others gave up self-employment to return to the workforce. Over the long term more people are making the shift to work independently, by desire or necessity. However the temptations of self-employment can be replaced by desire for a steady pay packet, pulling people both ways.

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Amazing 3D video projections bring buildings to life and shape our environment

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When I was a child I dreamed of creating an immersive experience of light and images. I put a chair in a cupboard in which I intended to put up lights around me that would create an experience of being in a magical world. Unfortunately the technology I had available wasn’t up to the job.

Today we are able to control and shape our environment as never before. What is proving to be one of the most useful technologies is 3D animations projected onto external spaces. Buildings are the largest canvases on which artists can paint.

While I’ve seen a number of fantastic building projections over the years, 3D animation combined with mapping onto architectural forms is taking the art of bringing buildings to life to new levels. Prime practitioners of this art are the Dutch digital design firm NuFormer. The videos below show some of what they are capable of.

The first video shows how the contours of buildings are used to great effect in generating 3D animations. The second video shows how a large white wall can be used effectively to create 3D effects, in this case for a public show sponsored by Volvo. Well worth a look!

Projection on Buildings from NuFormer Digital Media on Vimeo.

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The next generation of computer interfaces will bring together the physical and digital worlds

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For many years I have believed that our everyday interfaces with computers are deeply limited, and that creating more effective interfaces is central to our future. In my 2002 book Living Networks I selected Interfaces as one of the three key enablers that would bring the networks to life.

Pranav Mistry of MIT Media Lab’s SixthSense has made his mission integrating our gestures in the physical world with the digital world. In this video taken at TED India last month, he tells his personal journey of exploration, beginning by taking apart his computer mouse, moving on to monitoring his gestures, headmounting cameras and projectors.

Some of the technologies he shows include framing photographs by holding up his fingers, projecting live updates onto newspapers, making hands into phone dials, and far, far more. This is ultimately about bringing together the physical and digital worlds, helping making us more human.

In the video, Pranav tells of his plans to open source the technologies he has developed to provide broader applications for them. The video is well worth seeing.

The future of video and man-machine interfaces

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The Institute for the Future has shared its Future of Video project using the presentation platform Prezi. This is a great way of giving access to the rich visual frameworks that are the trademark of IFTF – it’s well worth a browse just to see part of what Prezi can do.

The presentation wraps up with some nice videos from Microsoft and Sixth Sense showing visions and demonstrations of the role of video in how we interface with the external world and information. Which illustrates how man-machine interfaces – one of the primary mechanisms for the birth of the living networks – are in fact largely driven by video.

The trends that are highlighted in the presentation are:

– From scarcity to abundance of digital video

– From passive to hyperlinked, interactive video

– From keypad to gestural and tangible interaction

– From limited to ubiquitous video interactions

– From camera-captured to synthetic CG video

– From 2D to immersive HD, 4KHD, and 3D video

iPhone live video streaming finally available! Ustream Live Broadcaster now out

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Yet another of the frustrating limitations of the iPhone has been fixed – with the launch of Ustream Live Broadcaster you can now stream live from both iPhone 3G and 3GS phones over 3G or WiFi.

Here is my first trial, using my iPhone as a camera to film the live stream on my screen – hardly great quality but from here the only way is up….

More info on the launch from Ustream, Techcrunch, NewTeeVee, while also news that Ustream competitor Qik has submitted their app to the App store.

Which still leaves my single biggest frustration: It is totally INSANE that you (STILL!!) cannot use an external keyboard on an iPhone.

The next big market after ringtones: Download a new car engine sound

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The inimitable Richard Watson has come up with what just might be a big (and unanticipated) market: car engine sound downloads.

Richard’s fantastic Nowandnext.com bulletins are now openly available after long being a subscription-only service, used by many of the leading creative agencies around the world. To read the latest issue, go to Nowandnext.com and click on the Orange “Current Issue” button at the top left to read the latest bulletin.

What just caught my attention was his article ‘Why we don’t want a quiet drive’ in the Automotive and Transport section, reproduced below.

Certainly electric car engineers have long been aware that cars being too quiet is a significant safety issue. And yes, absolutely, car sounds are personal statements. The sound of a Alfa Sprint (which I greatly enjoyed driving when I owned one) or a Bugatti motorcycle, for example, are unmistakeable.

When you start to need to make a car noisier than it is mechanically, the range of driving sounds will become infinite. You will be able to choose from the sound of any vintage car you wish, or use an entirely new sound, including those of various types of UFOs, choo-choo trains, or chanting monks.

Of course this market is a little way from taking off big time. And it’s possible that there will be regulation on what are acceptable car sounds. However in that case there should also be regulation on acceptable mobile phone ringtones, something almost everyone would agree on :-).

Why we don’t want a quiet drive

For anyone who was looking forward to the pleasant, gentle hum of electric/hybrid cars in place of the throaty roar of internal combustion engines, here is some bad news. The future is something called “synthesised engine noises”. Believe it or not, people want cars to sound like cars and – worse still – quiet cars have been found to be unsafe. Nobody hears them coming.

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Mark Pesce will keynote on Using the Network for Business Success

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Among our awesome cast of speakers at SME Technology Summit, our opening keynote speakers Mark Pesce and Tim Pethick are two of the those whose insights I most look forward to hearing. Both have fantastic experience and insights into where technology is today and where it’s going.

Mark’s topic is below. Be sure to get along to see it!

Using the Network for Business Success

The past five years have seen an explosion in the ways we can connect with one another. Just five years ago email was a bit risqué – now people use Facebook and Twitter and Google Wave and don’t even give it a second thought. All of this ‘hyperconnectivity’ means we can be reached anywhere, everywhere, all the time. This has enormous implications for SMEs. More than just supercharging your rolodex, these network connections can become the channels to increased sales and productivity.

The network represents a new force, pressing down from the outside, as your hyperconnected customers (both satisfied and not-so-satisfied) use new channels to spread the word about your products. You need to be there, wherever those conversations are happening, whenever they happen. You really do need to have eyes and ears everywhere across the net. How can a small business afford to do this? New tools make it easier, but to make best use of these tools, you have to empower your employees to use them. Social media in the office is powerful – and a little bit dangerous. But with some simple ground rules, it can change your business.

Six ways technology is transforming small business

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This article was written to frame The Insight Exchange’s SME Technology Summit in Sydney on December 1 – while many of the references are to Australia the issues apply globally.

Small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) are taking a larger share of the business pie, and increasingly driving economic growth. This is one of the most important trends in business today, and one that will shape the next decade of business, work and society.

This powerful trend is driven largely by technology and connectivity, creating a world in which smaller, more nimble, better connected companies can outsmart their monolithic larger brethren, competing globally and tapping opportunities as they arise.

At the same time, using technology well in business is proving to be one of the most prominent drivers of success. Almost every aspect of business is becoming driven by technology. This is obviously the case with services businesses ranging from graphic design to even house moving. However this is relevant to every kind of organisation.

Gardening and worm farm retailers Wiggly Wigglers in UK, Caminito Argentinean Restaurant in the US, Brasserie Bread in Australia , Martell Home Builders in Canada and many thousands of others around the world are examples of companies selling highly tangible, everyday products that have built outstanding success through the use of online social media.

There are six key ways in which technology is changing the very nature of how smaller companies operate today.

1. Findability

Customers look for and find businesses in very different ways than just a few years ago. Search engines, recommendations from friends on social networks, and online services exchanges are now how most companies are found. Marketing has completely changed.

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Sky Business Tech Report: Interview on social media, online outsourcing, and how small companies are using technology to leapfrog big business

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I was interviewed this morning on Sky Business Tech Report. Some of the things we discussed in the interview are:

* How social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and many others change how companies engage with customers, become more efficient, and being competitive.

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