Birnbach Communications' Top Predictions for 2014, Part IV: 9 Ongoing Tech Trends

 Last week, we posted top tech trends. Today, we're posting our list of top ongoing tech trends, representing trends that started before 2014.

1. The battle of tablets: After several years of breathless media coverage, the battle for tablet supremacy began when Apple, recognizing a vulnerability in its product line, launched the iPad Mini. Last year, we said it was a two-horse race between iPads and the Kindle Fire but expect a third player to gain traction – enter the Samsung Galaxy. This story has just begu 
2. Mobile everything will be important, including mobile search and mobile recommendations.  We’ll see the later perhaps playing out with shopper-specific recommendations while walking in retail stores – positioned as your own personal shopper. 
3. 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. 
4. Virtual startups in otherwise unlikely fields. We’ve already seen the growth of virtual biotechs, and we see that continuing. We expect to see virtual enterprise application developers, who rely on outsourcer providers to do the heavy lifting. We don’t necessarily expect to see a lot of coverage of this trend, just that this is how startups will structure themselves. There’s a financial benefit to being virtual, including the hope for greater efficiencies but with that come other challenges, like credibility with customers and keeping every consultant, vendor and partner on the same page. 
5. 3D printers are still not yet ready for prime time. They will continue to make inroads, and to generate some coverage, but this is not (yet) a device for every household.  It’s too expensive and too complicated. 
6. Big data: The media will continue to cover big data as it continues to go mainstream…until big data is supplanted by the next data trend. 
7. Consumerization of enterprise apps: Mobile and BYOD forces require enterprise apps to be intuitive and easy to use. Ugly interfaces will no longer close sales. 
8. Second screens: Increasingly people watch television programs with their tablets, too, so they can comment real-time on what they’re watching. Helping customers express themselves and buy while they’re watching TV is going to be an important from a marketing perspective in the coming years.
9. Cognitive and context computing:  IBM Watson represents cognitive computing, which "combines natural language processing, machine learning, and hypothesis generation and evaluation," (according to IBM) and it didn't just beat Jeopardy champions in 2011. IBM Watson (and cognitive computing) is kicking off a new wave in computing. (Yes, we know, we've heard that before.)  Fortune did a cover story in Sept. 2013 reporting on IBM's Massive Bet on Watson. Contextual computing is not vastly different. Fast Company breathlessly reported that contextual computing -- including Google's latest search algorithm, will bring "Machines that understand you and everything you care about, anticipate your behavior and emotions, absorb your social graph, interpret your intentions, and make life, um, 'easier.'" We expect both cognitive and context computing will get more attention in 2014, even though we're in the early stages. Implications: IBM Watson's ability to provide students (and the rest of us) with almost instant access to historical data means that educators must rethink curriculum. Less important, now, are specific dates of historical events; what's now important is understanding the substantive issues surround the Treaty of Ghent, for example -- issues that sometimes get scant attention in the need to emphasize dates. We see that happening in business, too.

Let us know if you agree or disagree. Check back tomorrow for additional predictions or click here for Part I, Part II or Part III.

Track Record for Predictions for 2013, Part III

Here's Part III of our report card:

• The three most important aspects of the future of tech in 2013: mobile, mobile, mobile.  We may have overstated things when we said to look for the rise of a new CMO – not chief marketing officer but chief mobility officers – but mobile continues to be important. Grade: A-.
• Forecast: cloud is everywhere. From predicting that more companies will rely on the cloud for access to proprietary information in 2013 (a notion that would have been inconceivable just a few years earlier) to expecting a few outages this year but that they won't have much impact on the cloud's momentum, we nailed this one. Grade: A.
• Bring Your Own Device to the office (BYOD) will be go mainstream. Our main prediction was that BOYD would be so mainstream that that “the media will be able to refer to it without having to spell it out.” And that turned true. Grade: A.
• Mobile search: Still important but we probably overstated it in terms of media coverage, particularly about mobile search firms competing with Google. Grade: B.
• Jobs, unemployment, and recruiting and the need for specially-trained employees for specific industries will be a big story. The Boston Globe validated this with a story in April "Demand rockets for visas to bring in foreign workers." There were other articles, too. Grade: B+.
• STEM will continue to be a push by businesses. Coverage about STEM continued in 2013, including recent editorials in the New York Times about the need to attract more girls into STEM. Grade: A.
• App burnout: This continues to generate some coverage but mostly in the form of concerns about being over-connected. Grade: C+.
• Robotics will generate buzz. We said to expect that advances in robotics will generate coverage in even the more staid business publications (beyond Wired and Fast Company).  We saw some coverage in the New York Times. Grade: B+.
• Biotech consolidation. Mostly there was concern about a possible bubble among publicly held biotechs but that’s not the same thing as consolidation (even though that could be the side effects of a bursting bubble). Grade: C-. 
• Regulatory changes will continue to impact financial services firms. We said this would be an important story that might not get a lot of attention because “the work involved is so technical.”  We were right about that.  Grade: B.

We'll post Part IV tomorrow. Also check out Part I and Part II.

Birnbach Communications' Top Predictions for 2013, Part IV

For today's predictions, we're looking at mobility:

·     The three most important aspects of the future of tech in 2013: mobile, mobile, mobile.  We said this last year, too, but we're not being lazy. More than anything else, what’s driving innovation is the need for mobile access. The great enablers of mobile include: Increased wireless network speeds and the increased push of cloud computing. It's in developing the latest apps to serve the latest tablets, smartphones and hybrids. It's why PC manufacturers that have killed development of their handheld or mobile units (like Dell) will face trouble over the next few years because interest is so strong in mobility and interconnectedness. We don't necessarily want to use our phones to actually speak to other people but we want phones that have apps that allow us to communicate with our appliances (even if we're not home), to allow us to work (even if we're not in the office), to shop for and pay for items (whether we're in the store or at the beach), and to access information we need with no connectivity or bandwidth issues. This focus on mobility, along with the interconnected issues, will continue to define the rest of the decade. Look for the rise of a new CMO – not chief marketing officer but chief mobility officers: people whose job it is to ensure a company’s products are all optimized for mobile. But also expect that job to have a short lifespan because, for most companies, if your products are not optimized for mobile by 2018, you may not be in business. Also important is mobile ads and mobile search.

·     Forecast: cloud is everywhere. Cloud computing, which stores applications and content offsite so you can access it on any device, is a big driver of mobile computing. In 2013, more companies will rely on the cloud for access to proprietary information that would have been inconceivable just a few years ago. And while the benefits of cloud computing includes lower cost, there could be a backlash about hidden costs as consumers realize that over time they may be paying out more than if they relied on portable storage devices, which are less convenient but offer a one-time cost. (Of course, another benefit to the cloud is that your content is automatically backed up elsewhere by your cloud provider.) We also expect a few outages this year that but that they won't have much impact on the cloud's momentum. We also think that resistance to the cloud is futile.

·     Bring Your Own Device to the office (BYOD) will be go mainstream. After increasing in corporate and media consciousness for the past two years, we expect that BYOD, a term that refers to employees using their own smartphones and tablets at work, instead of sometimes less-powerful, less user-friendly devices and applications, will become pervasive enough that the media will be able to refer to it without having to spell it out. (By the way, BYOD is another benefit of the cloud.)

·     Mobile search: Search continues to be important, but mobile search, which includes hyperlocal functions (i.e., points of interest immediately around your smartphone), will become increasingly important in 2013. While Google has a tremendous lead, expect media coverage for smaller, as yet unknown but more focused players to emerge. After all, Google is a lot more than just a search engine; it’s about driverless cars, computerized glasses, etc.

Let us know if you agree or disagree. Check back tomorrow for additional predictions or click here for Part I, Part II or Part III.