Track Record of Our 2014 Predictions, Part VI: Ongoing Consumer Trends

Today's look at our track record will set the stage for us to announce our trends for 2015. In the meantime here's the final set:

General news stories

• More interest in workplace diversity. Unfortunately, this topic did not generate as much ink as we expected. Grade: C

• Growing Hispanic influence. Except in terms of reforming our immigration policies, this did not generate as much as attention as we had expected. Grade: C

• Real estate market. This generate some attention but not as much as we expected. Grade: B

• The new Thanksgiving tradition is shopping on Thanksgiving.  As much as we don't like it, this was definitely a thing in 2014. Grade: A

• Stock market and the biotech bubble. While we didn't see much about a stock market bubble, we did see more about a biotech bubble that didn't arrive. Yet. Grade: B-

Ongoing stories we’ll see covered in the media. Each year we provide a list of stories the media will continue to cover, which include:

• Obamacare and midterm elections will be the never-ending stories in 2014.  'Nuff said, really. Grade: A

• Deficits, spending cuts, taxes, etc.: This wasn't a dominant story line but it popped up fairly often. Grade: B

• Cybercrime and cyberwarfare: Still important.  Grade: A

• Privacy and security will continue to be issues that only experts care about. Consumers are generally ok with posting information about themselves to generate more followers, likes or subscribers or to get coupons or discounts. Grade: B+

• Bitcoin and cashless payments will continue to generate interest. BitCoin is not yet broadly used by consumers. But the advent of Apple Pay, its e-wallet app, now available on any Apple devise using iOS8.1, it could be bigger in 2015. It did generate a lot of coverage at the start of the year. Grade: A

• Star Wars: Not something our clients could leverage -- B2B enterprise software is not often discussed in that galaxy far, far away -- but there's huge interest, even a 80-second trailer is endlessly analyzed for clues. Grade: A

Ongoing Tech Trends we expect to continue:

• The battle of tablets: Grade: A-

• Mobile everything will be important, including mobile search and mobile recommendations. Grade: A

• Crowdsourcing will continue to be a source of investors and a marketing boost. But that will primarily be for consumer-oriented products, not B2B technology. Grade: A

• Virtual startups in otherwise unlikely fields. Grade: B+

• 3D printers are still not yet ready for prime time. Grade: B+

• Big data: Grade: A

• Consumerization of enterprise apps: Grade: A

• Second screens: Grade: B+

• Cognitive and context computing:  A bit early on this. Grade: B

Overall, we did pretty well this year. If you have questions about these grades and how we settled on them, please let us know. We tried to be fair and accurate. 

In the meantime, get ready for our 2015 trends!