Big Ideas for 2019 and beyond
What are you looking forward to in 2019?
LinkedIn approached me about expressing my views on what will be the Big Ideas of 2019, in a similar vein to their prediction piece. So I came up with my own list, except these are not predictions per se — after all, I’m no shaman and I can’t see the future. Instead, the ideas on this list — they are simply in the air and I’m only channeling them. Some of these ideas will materialize in 2019, whereas other ones are clearly long-term and they will play out over the course of years if not decades.
1. Re-shoring and vertical integration
With de-globalization picking up steam, deeper economies of scale are becoming increasingly unsustainable. This presents companies with a challenge and an opportunity at the same time. The challenge is that they have to bring additional portions of manufacturing chain in-house. On the other hand, it gives companies the opportunity to ensure excellent end-to-end user experience with their products. Of recent examples, Tesla has been masterful in using vertical integration to its advantage. But the big-picture benefit here is growing re-industrialization and diversity of domestic manufacturing capabilities, which will have very positive long-term effect on many aspects of life: from improved standard of living for the population as a whole, to strengthened geopolitical position of the country.
2. Advanced technologies struggling in the market
In another consequence of fragmenting global markets, the pace of innovation is slowing down, especially in the R&D-intensive areas. Just see how much difficulty Intel is having with their 10nm products. Another example is advanced display technologies. Currently the buzz is hot around flexible displays: folding phones and roll-up TV screens. While technical feasibility of such products exists, their high prices will not likely be conducive to wide-spread market success, especially in the climate of decreasing consumer purchasing power, tied to projected economic downturn of 2019. I mean, how many flat-screen TVs does a reasonable person need in every room, including bathrooms? That’s not to say that advanced research should not be done, however it would have to be re-angled from near-term commercial profitability to more strategic goals.
3. Rising prestige of science
As the ancient wisdom says, nobody can enter the same river twice. By the same token, it’s not possible to carry out re-industrialization using last century technologies. In order for the economy to regain its industrial strength in the competitive landscape, we need a lot of breakthroughs in all areas of science. Unfortunately, core scientific fields are not as popular with American college students nowadays, compared to Business degrees for example. In fact, hard majors like Physics don’t even register in top-40 rankings, according to some studies. While the focus on STEM is gaining momentum, we still have ways to go before this society starts producing required amounts of scientific brainpower. How glorious will be the day when a PhD in Materials Science, for example, becomes more desirable than an MBA!
4. Big initiatives that inspire and unite
It is high time for this country to set aside its disagreements and work together towards common goals. Some of these goals may be technological in nature, for example: spreading human civilization beyond planet Earth; while others may be focused on social progress, for example: eradicating poverty and hunger. Naturally, technology will be heavily involved in anything we do in this day and age, but that’s not the main point. Advanced modern technologies would allow this society to set such ambitious and worthy goals that the overwhelming majority of the population can get behind in full consciousness — this is the uniting factor. And these goals will actually be demonstrably achievable through the course of scientific progress, which will reinforce confidence in the initiatives. Could this be the foundation of the New American Dream? Because the old promise — that children live better than parents — does not hold true anymore. Just ask the millennials.
5. Social technologies for the people
There is a lot of opportunity in using technology to further social goals. For example, the society would benefit from increased sense of trust between all participants. Alas, all the cat and dog videos crowding the social network feeds don’t go quite far enough towards building that sense of community. I look forward to new generation of social technologies that are aimed at bringing out the best in people, rather than monetizing the hours they spend in front of the screen.
6. Focus on Basic Needs and overwhelming end-user value
I wrote a separate article on this, so I’ll just link to it rather than be repetitive: Basic Needs as a driver of the Next Industrial Revolution
7. Hype heading for the exit
Ok, over-hyped technologies, you know who you are… yes I’m looking at you Blockchain. Well, if I were to be serious for a moment, commonly circulated decentralized money would have far-reaching consequences for our civilization because it would challenge the millennia-old status quo. And that’s exactly why this would never be allowed to happen — not until a major climate disruption in hell, I would think. In the meantime, the exaggerated amount of attention devoted to over-hyped technologies is distracting and counter-productive. It would be best to focus our collective energies on higher-priority goals.
8. Big guys getting bigger
Big players tend to weather the trying times better than smaller companies. In the end of the day this allows the big guys to get even bigger — that’s the “last-man-standing” reward of sorts. Let’s take a specific example — cloud providers. At this point I think it’s safe to say that we will not have more than 3 cloud providers in the US anymore. We may even see this number starting to get reduced to 2.
In closing
Challenges and opportunities always go hand-in-hand, so let us enter 2019 with optimism and the best New Year wishes all-around!
What are the great things you are looking forward to in 2019? Please add your voice in comments below.
About the author: Andre Podnozov is a Cloud Architect working in the “Internet of Things” space. He helps companies of all sizes and industries in accelerating their IoT projects to market. You can reach him on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/andrepodnozov.
