News Volume I Issue 17
 
Living in Digital Times
 
2019: The Year of the TIONs
 
 
 
 
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The Year of the TIONs
 
With CES 2019 just a few months away we think hard about mega-trends. Over the decades of attending CES, we find that the list grows more "issues-oriented" and less new "tech-oriented". New advances in AI, AR/VR, autonomous vehicles, and robots aren't going away, but they'll be surrounded by mission critical discussions. We predict this will be a year of taking stock of the tech industry in reaction to what I'm calling a list of "tions."
 
 
 
 
Virtualization
 
Big pat on our virtual backs. We’ve done a good job of blurring the line between the real and the virtual. Robots offer financial advice, book our travel and even operate on us. A generation that’s grown up with one foot in the real world and one foot in the digital world understands the notion of virtualizing things, even a new financial currency.
 
The move to virtual currencies will have its fits and starts but it’ll happen and faster than you think. Money and finance will not escape digitization, and like other arenas, there will be lots of losers and fewer winners in the process. At this year's  The Digital Money Forum we'll explore the Icarus- like rise of ICOs and new currencies as told by some of the smartest people at the table.
 
 
 
Gig-ification
 
Not only will the next generation have different jobs than their predecessors, but also those jobs may be less formalized. Loose formations of mixed talents come together to tackle a task, disband and move on to the next.
 
The shared economy, most associated with Uber and Lyft, AirBnb and now WeWork, continues to infiltrate the thinking of even the biggest corporations who are also keeping limber by depending on new work forms like accelerators, incubators and innovation labs.
 
 
 
Re-education
 
We're entering a Post-Post industrial society where jobs involving the production of goods go down while those in services (hotels, restaurants, travel, finance) go up. Manual jobs will be replaced with technical and professional ones and also with creative ones. I like to think of it as a new Renaissance. One where machines take the place of the Medicis, funding our leisure time.
 
But, our school systems have remained basically unchanged since the post- agricultural age that created them. What should we be learning in school, and are schools even the best place to learn as we face accelerated rates of persistent change?
 
 
 
Robo-tification
 
So far this year I have bought coffee, salad and sushi from robotic machines. Increasingly they'll be greeting us at the that airport and the shopping mall, cleaning our homes, and yes, even offering deep companionship. They'll also communicate with each other. For now that experience is my Jibo and my Alexa falling in love but better animatronics, new materials, more sensors and cheaper price points are going to create a breed of more robots that don’t all look like they fell out of a Jetsons' rerun. Just look back to last year at CES when Sophia made her debut.
 
 
 
 
Collaboration
 
I'm guessing that it’s still possible to invent a creative product as a mad genius in a garage, but less likely. Collaboration is the name of the new game. In part the cloud, tools for collaborating, and mixed-use workspaces figure into the shift.
 
 
 
Delayed Gratification
 
Facebook and Google were Move Fast and Break Things and Do No Evil, but the mantra of the future will move slower and think long term and, remember, you can cause evil even if your intentions are great. Slow thinking is about to become more than a watchword.
 
 
 
Inclus-ification
 
We're seeing multiple generations working side-by-side in the workplace with different skills and sensibilities. (How quaint: my mother uses email, too). They have different skills, different attitudes, and different ways of approaching a problem. And white men will continue to be challenged by the staggering flow of talented women and minorities knocking on their doors and sitting at their desks. Age, ethnicity, race: Adding them to the mix makes business sense and better products.
 
 
 
AI-ification/ Data-ification
 
Another mixed bag. Visionaries like Jaron Lanier and Bill Gates have noted the caution signs for the havoc we can wreak as we develop the next generation of smart machines. Today's AI scientists have never had access to as much data that can be fed to machines to make them smarter. So now we begin asking: Is the data the right data and are the powerful algorithms rife with bias? On the horizon of course, are the next generation of neural networks to allow machines to learn new behaviors and responses on their own.
 
 
 
 
Local-ization & Global-ization
     
The ying/yang here? We’re seeing secondary-sized sized cities, Austin, Philly, Pittsburgh, and Salt Lake are all witnessing startup economies of their own. At the same time, despite the immediate focus on the “America First” which I believe is short-lived, we are going to find ourselves doing more business as global citizens of the world. Get ready to be in two places at once: global and local.
 
 
 
 
So will we have tech at CES this year? You betcha. But it's going to come with a lot of discussion about how to write the instruction manual for the next 25 years.
 
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January 8-11, 2019
CES 2019, Las Vegas
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