Jan 3, 2016

Sustain Weekly — More Predictions and Turners (2016)

A weekly on sustenance from a standing desk (4-Jan-2016)

‘It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future’. — Yogi Berra

It is a new year and almost everyone is back at work. Resolutions are a key activity for a lot of people. But they are broken often. I think that’s because some of them are too mountainous to achieve. It’s like hiking Mt. Everest without any base camps. Make camps for every 100 days or even every 3 months and re-evaluate the goals and progress. Anticipate hurdles and prep for them.

Last week, I wrote on some predictions for mostly people trends in 2016. For this week, I'm finishing that list with some tech and business predictions for this year.

Some Predictions for businesses, platforms, technologies for 2016

Sustainable product design and development is becoming pervasive. Materials and sustainability is going into the design. This is great. People are making better products that are not necessarily tech or intelligent but are socially and environmentally conscious.
Some technologies are exciting: Magic Leap for 3D Imagery, IoT — Internet of Things (everything talks to everything), 3D Printing and Analytics — of all kinds. Big Data is in an existential crisis. CIOs are wondering if they have enough data to make an inference and/or if it will create value.
Some technologies are called exciting because of some great PR: Apple Pay and Google Loon are in this category.
Some startups that over-hired will do layoffs in plenty. The focus will shift from growth to profitability. That’s because the VC is not seeing the light at the end of the customer retention tunnel. 100s of startups in this category.
Some big corporations are considering small tact teams for pivots. Some of them are outright struggling to generate value — for themselves, for their customer or shareholders. Merge, split, sell or decline. Yahoo, Blackberry, Sony, Sprint are is in this category.
Some overvalued social and consumer IT companies will shed value and will be forced by the market to sell, evaluate options. Investors are looking to exit. Good companies but struggling due to being public. Twitter, Box are in this category.
Some so called change agents want more users/viewers/readers. They want more user time. And are driven by ads and revenues. The world is spending a ridiculous amount of time on them. Facebook and Arnab Goswami are in this category.

A few sus-tech news I found interesting last week.

Preclinical studies claim saffron-based crocin prevents liver cancer. More power to early cancer prevention, detection and eradication.
Liquid salts are better at delivering drugs through the skin. They have better efficacy and reduced toxicity.
HRL Laboratories 3D prints polymer-based ceramics that can withstand 1700 degree C. This innovation partially solves complex manufacturing challenges for highly durable ceramics.

Turners

75 professors from the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs), the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) explained why Facebook’s Free Basics service is absurd. Freedom isn't Free…Basics isn't it?
Sidecar, competitor to Uber and Lyft, shuts down. Lack of profitable economics for running an on-demand business.
The story of Ritesh Agarwal of Oyo rooms and whether he is what he claims he is.

Did you see

Best technology GIFs of 2015.
A consolidated India startup update of 2015.
Boston Globe’s Big Picture — 2015 year in pictures — Part I and Part II.

News @Arcluster

Arcluster offers six different market trackers that provide a more seamless and continuous coverage of trends, market size, pricing, shipments, bids, vendor shares for the markets we cover. These trackers, available as excel spreadsheet deliverables, are updated on a biweekly/ monthly/ quarterly basis. Follow us on twitter — @arcluster for the latest news from the company.

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About the Author

Arun manages market research and consulting at Arcluster. an innovation design and market consulting company that does research and consulting on micro emerging markets and sustainable solutions. You can reach him on twitter at @anirmal or via email arun@anirmal.com