Predictions 2016 — nearing the half year mark

Chris Brogan started the practice of launching each new year with just three words to live and work by. He found it more effective than making and soon thereafter breaking a slew of New Year Resolutions. I’ve participated in this annual ritual for a number of years now. Three words to guide my business sensibilities for the upcoming 12 months.

My three words for 2016: Community | Collaboration | Commerce

continue to be the core around which results should be measured

and the two businesses that I highlighted back in January continue to epitomize the symbiotic relationship and power of community. Carii and Chimani have both had stellar starts to 2016. Carii received the most innovative software of the year award at the CES show in Vegas and Chimani has exploded onto the national scene in part because of good launch planning around the National Park Service 100th anniversary.

and

How have Community — Collaboration — and Commerce played out for you so far this year?

Look to the upcoming elections and see that in 2016 sound bites dominate. They play to our short attention spans in a high-speed communication world Lots of changes are ongoing because of the continuing and expanding impact of social media and highly portable tools like smartphones.

I talk about Social Media as a cultural change. Social media tools and “social business” are more than just today’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. All of the social pathways (including email, texting, instant messaging) that people use to stay in touch have shifted into the predominant place for how we learn new things and how we communicate with others.

To make the most of these changes, think about how information is transmitted and received and put yourself into the mindset of the recipient.

There were 2.6 billion smartphones in use in 2014 and that number is predicted to surge to 6.1 billion by 2020. This means 70% of all people in the world will have smartphones and most all will be wireless. Two billion of the new users will come from the Asia Pacific. (Ericsson)

PREDICTIONS:

1. Community matters more than ever. Teams working together can produce more and better results than any one individual. Collaboration will rule in the for-profit and the non-profit sectors.
2. Communications — NextGen collaboration tools and social media will find their way into common use. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are aging tools compared to what is becoming available for immediacy and collaborative function today. Visual output towers over most everything else in this environment. A picture is worth a thousand words and a less than one minute video will be worth thousands.
3. Commerce — Getting business done should sound more and more like “we are all in this together” and “no one can do it themselves,” as we all expect instant communication and immediate results. This means doing your homework before launching a plan and understanding that the availability of multimedia and real-time messaging requires being nimble enough to pivot (change) mid plan execution.

What should you look for?

Consider that in 2016 Twitter turned 10 years old and Facebook is in its 12th year. They are ancient technology. Look for a slew of new products and platforms trying to break into widespread acceptance and competing with the old guard of social platforms. Privacy concerns and poor deployment by brands using interruption advertising has made the Wild-Wild-Web less useful to users. As advertisers and their agents desperately try to gain our attention, users will continue to screen out and block as much noise as possible.

My advice to business is to take the time to listen to your customer base, engage in conversations as participants and not as broadcast advertising machines. “Suggested” tweets and “promoted” posts are becoming less effective.

Look to collaboration and community-centric solutions. Watch for an explosion of video and chat opportunities that take place in real time. Blab and Periscope aren’t the most graceful of the new tools but they are addressing the need for visual immediacy. Zoom.us is a strong new player at the halfway point.

My favorite tools this year are Chimani, Carii and Zoom. All put a lot of effort into building value via community. Carii allows communities to create affiliations and screen out non-relevant advertising and noise. With Chimani you act as an individual with the value of all that information has been accumulated at your fingertips- whether or not you can get online (smart thinking for hiking remote spaces). Everything you need for a trip to the National Parks. A Google Launch Partner for the new app first indexing technology and really smart marketing timing their most powerful launches to coincide with the 100th Anniversary of The National Park System.

Sign up for Chimani here and if you are curious about next gen community platforms join me here on Carii

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