Boston Globe Validates Predictions about Cashless Payments and Gender Roles

In our annual predictions, we said that as part of "ongoing stories" that we expect to get a lot of coverage in 2013, we identified these two:

• Salaries paid women vs. men

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•  Cashless payments

Yesterday, the Boston Globe validated both of those predictions.  The "salaries paid women vs. men" stories has actually shifted already to address on women's roles in the office. Part of the reason for that shift is the result of interest in Yahoo's CEO, Marissa Mayer, who recently gave birth and returned from a brief maternity leave. More significantly, Facebook's COO, Sheryl Sandberg, has generated tons of coverage as the result of her book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. (Incidentally, "Lean In" was one of the phrases we identified last year as a candidate for most overused phrase.) The whole focus on women and the office will continue to generate buzz this year, even after buzz for Sandberg's book dissipates.

Meanwhile, check out these two front-page Globe articles, which validate our prediction about women and salaries, and were published under the banner: "Crunch hits single mothers hard": 

• Gloria Steinem’s message about gender, then and now  
• Single-mother families struggling in Mass.

(Meanwhile, taking an opposite angle, the New York Times yesterday reported, "Study of Men’s Falling Income Cites Single Parents." The point: it seems that some gender issues are taking on more significance in the media.)

As for the cashless payments predictions, the Globe also reported: "Not paying by smartphone? You soon will, many bet." While this all seems relatively new to U.S. companies, two of our international clients prefer to pay electronically; in fact, the CFO of one international client told me earlier this week that he can't remember the last time he saw a check! We said we expect cashless payments to become mainstream by 2016 but it may happen sooner (based on comments like that CFOs, since it seems Europe has already embraced cashless payments). Perhaps that time will come by 2015.

What do you think?

USA Today Validates Our "Made in the USA" Prediction

As part of our "ongoing stories" we expect to see in 2013, we said we expect that "Made in the USA," involving reporting that companies "are bringing back manufacturing jobs to the U.S."

We said, "As costs in India, China, Russia and Brazil increase, expect that the benefits out offshore outsourcing may decline enough to make it more attractive to bring some manufacturing back home. Look for stories about small manufacturers whose business is growing as a result."

Subsequently, USA Today wrote an article, "Some manufacturers say 'adios' to China." Check out the USA Today article.

We also expect that some of the coverage to manufacturing in the U.S. will discuss security concerns of doing business in China.

NYT & WSJ Validate Our Cyberattack Prediction

For the last two years, we've predicted that cybercrime, cyberattacks and cyberwarfare would be top ongoing stories.

We'd rather not be right about this. And we don't want clients to be involved -- just prepared that this is a topic that the media will cover.

Nonetheless, here are two recent New York Times and Wall St. Journal headlines that validate our predictions:

• Wall St. Journal: U.S. Official Cites Cyberattack Risks
• New York Times:  Security Leader Says U.S. Would Retaliate Against Cyberattacks

As background, in our predictions for 2013's"Ongoing stories we’ll see covered in the media," we wrote:

Cybercrime and cyberwarfare: We said this was a growing issue in 2012, and we maintain that's the case for the rest of the decade. There will be a lot of articles about China as a source for cyberespionage and policy articles about how the U.S. should protect itself from its largest creditor. Expect regular front-page coverage about the latest exploits against the U.S. and U.S. companies. A big concern: our security and intelligence agencies don't have enough trained personnel to protect against and prevent cyber attacks against the U.S. and American businesses; and they lack the resources to fully identify and prosecute cybercriminals. We also expect to see a rise in the number of stories about cyberstalking and “revenge porn,” where jilted exes post incriminating (and often false) information as a way to get back at former spouses, lovers, and friends.

Wall St. Journal Looks at iPhone vs. Galaxy

One of the tech battlegrounds we've predicted that will get a lot of media attention this year is the battle between Apple and Samsung.

More recently, I wrote an analysis that looked at the implications for this battle at least for Apple: "What Are the Implications for Apple if Samsung's Latest Smartphone Eclipses the iPhone?"

Interestingly, the next day, the Wall St. Journal reported, "Apple, on Defense, Slams Samsung."

Apple is not used to playing defense so it will be interesting to see how it responds to a serious threat to the iPhone and ultimately to its iPad supremacy.

Stay tuned (as they used to say).

Birnbach Communications' Top Predictions for 2013, Part XII

Ongoing Tech Trends we expect to continue 

• Cloud computing: This trend started in 2010 and quickly became mainstream. 
• 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 begun. 
• Gaming for business:  Gaming will continue to be integrated into business and training apps to keep people engaged and entertained. 
• 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. 
• Consumerization of enterprise apps: Enterprise apps had been hard-to-use but the mobile and BYOD trends has meant that formerly ugly enterprise apps now must be intuitive and easy to use. This push for ease of use also comes from the millennials, who expect enterprise apps to work like consumer apps. 
• Hybrid IT: Part on premise, part in the cloud: Companies need the best of both cloud computing and on-premise technology. We see this as a hot tech trends. 
• 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. 
• Infographics: We expect companies to use infographics – visual representations of information like survey data – to make information shareable via social media but we don’t expect print media to reprint corporate inforgraphics because they typically take up too much of a user’s screen, particularly on smartphones. That doesn’t mean infographics are not worth producing, it just means B2B companies need to be realistic in terms of goals for their use.

Let us know if you agree or disagree with these or any other in our series. While this is a long list -- we could have probably broken them out into smaller individual sections , we felt that a dozen was enough -- this is not meant to be comprehensive, especially since trends pop up. For example, there's the "Harlem Shake" YouTube meme, which we haven't addressed (in part because when we created this list in January, the "Harlem Shake" hadn't gone mainstream). Or Pope Benedict's resignation and the appointment of Pope Francis -- clearly a top religion story for the year.
 
For our previous installments of our predictions, click here for Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII ("Premature Deathwatch, Part I"),  Part VIII ("Premature Deathwatch, Part II"), Part IX ("Premature Deathwatch, Part III"), Part X ("Ongoing stories, Part I") or Part XI ("Ongoing stories, Part II").

Birnbach Communications' Top Predictions for 2013, Part XI

Ongoing stories we’ll see covered in the media, Part II. 

• Salaries paid women vs. men. There were a few articles percolating in 2012 that men continue to get paid more than women for the same jobs. We think there’s a good chance that this issue will rightfully garner more attention in 2013. 
• Cashless payments. Last year, we said that digital wallets or e-wallets will would be mainstream by 2017. At the end of 2012, we moved that up to 2016. We continue to think there are security and behavioral, as well as technical, issues to be addressed but we do think that e-wallets that are stored in your phone make sense. We now rarely go anywhere (including, ugh, the bathroom) without our phones, and we already use our smartphones to make purchases online so it makes sense that we will forgo carrying a wallet. Key issues that remain include: There are several competing e-wallets standards being developed by often fierce competitors who in some cases are working together – but they need to find a way they can work together; you don’t want to be in a situation where your Google Wallet doesn’t work because the retailer is using Isis from AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. Another key issue is the systems retailers will need to deploy to accept cashless payments; we’re not sure that Near Field Communications (NFC) readers will take off because of the additional cost to retailers. We expect the industry to solve this in order to facilitate the mainstreaming of e-wallets. 
• Crowdsourcing/daily deals: We think the media isn’t tired yet of reporting on interesting stories about companies that crowdsourced their way to success. But the bar has been raised because the fact that you’re crowdsourcing isn’t enough to generate coverage – your company has to be doing something else that’s relevant. Meanwhile, the daily deal business has lost buzz – we’re not saying it’s going away, just that there will be fewer stories about daily deal sites, with one exception. We expect coverage of Groupon from a business, management and share-price perspective. 
• Star Wars: Not the Reagan-era defense system, but the actual Star Wars. With the next installment of Star Wars expected to reach movie theatres in 2013 (assuming there will still be movies theatres, and that we're not all downloading the latest releases on our many devices), we can expect a growing number of articles and references in pop culture to JJ Abrams' next movie, including much speculation about the actors (will Harrison Ford reprise Han Solo?), the story, etc. 
• Fees: We don’t actually expect there to be a lot of coverage of how companies use fees to cover costs and raise revenues. However, we expect companies to continue to rely on fees on services they used to provide for free to boost their bottom lines.

Let us know if you agree or disagree. Check back tomorrow for additional predictions or click here for Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII ("Premature Deathwatch, Part I"),  Part VIII ("Premature Deathwatch, Part II"), Part IX ("Premature Deathwatch, Part III") or Part X ("Ongoing stories, Part I").

What Are the Implications for Apple if Samsung's Latest Smartphone Eclipses the iPhone?

Earlier this week, the Wall St. Journal published "Samsung Trains Its Eye on the iPhone," an interesting article about Samsung, ahead of its launch of a new smartphone, the Galaxy S IV. 

This blog is not a reviews site so I'm not going to touch on the features of Samsung's new phone.

Instead, what interests me is how the media covers technology.

Two weeks ago, we posted our prediction that "We expect the media to report on several tech battles in 2013," including:

The battle among huge companies. Apple v. Google v. Samsung and Microsoft. Oracle v. Everyone Else. The media have a boxing ring mentality: They love to report on the battle between two competing companies. So we expect continued high level of coverage of Apple, Google, Samsung and Microsoft in their battle for supremacy. Of course, those four hypercompetitive companies are often battling other companies as well. (Yes, we've included this prediction in prior years – we feel that the media continues to be fascinated by this story and see no end in sight.) Interestingly, over the past year, Samsung has leveraged Android to become a major global player in the smartphone and tablet sectors, which is having an impact on both Apple (as an iPhone and iPad competitor) and on Google (since Samsung, as the de facto Android leader, could ask to renegotiate its agreements with Google, cutting Google’s margins).

What's interests me is that the print version of the article included this outtake: "Samsung is taking the battle for mobile to Apple's home turf," which was picked up in the body of the article.

For us, this validates not just the fact that the media would see the smartphone market as a story of two companies but that the media is framing that story as a battle between two companies.

Samsung has to know that much of the Galaxy S IV coverage will include mentions about Apple and the iPhone. 

For Apple, being included in most reviews of the Galaxy S IV is good -- because when reporters are writing about Apple it means less space for Samsung. But that's necessarily good if, as Fox's reported:"Galaxy S IV called Samsung's 'last act in Apple's shadow.'"

If there's a lot of coverage like Fox's, expect Apple to respond either by pushing up its announcement for the next generation of iPhones (the iPhone 5S?) to later in March or June (as had been rumored) or that Apple may keep its October launch date (also rumored) but pack the iPhone 6 with a bunch of new cool features. 

The point of skipping the iPhone 5S name is that it's hard to get fans excited about a phone that's only a half-step up from the prior version when your competitor has made significant advances.

What do you think?