Apologies that I had no posts in 2012 beyond the predictions. Unfortunately a death in the family resulted in my focus having to be elsewhere.
So here is a restart and my 2013 Predictions
Networked Organizations
CMSWire uses this term and its the best description for something I have talked about for quite some time, its also been called Org2.0, etc. In essence it is where organizations mature and realize that not all the expertise they need is inside the company. They don’t have to employ every skill set. Small companies do this as they have no choice ie. they won’t necessary have an accountant or legal department but instead reach out when they need it. Large companies do this already with IT, outsourcing large elements so they don’t have to have a workforce of thousands !
This year it will become more and more prevalent as companies try to reduce their internal costs. Of course they often pay a premium for these services outside but they don’t pay 24x7x365 so companies that plan properly and understand their business can lower their costs.
In essence this is an evolution of the outsourcing model. The question of course is where it ends, what is core.
Why am I commenting on this ? Well as you move more elements outside and connect with different external entities to provide services you need to be able to collaborate with them. External collaboration will become more important than internal collaboration in the next few years. If you look at the Pharma industry or the aerospace industry this is the case today. Boeing works with many, many different companies and external institutes to develop its aircraft and its essential they can act and collaborate as one.
Personalization & Recommendation engines
Call it the Facebook/Amazon/Google Search effect or the nature of the RSS generation but people want content that is relevant to them and not all the other ‘fluff’. I like the fact that Amazon knows me from my past purchases and recommends stuff to me. I like that Google Search knows my previous searches and what I click on to `tweak’ the relevancy of results.
Millenials expect that in the work place as do more and more general colleagues. When I do a expertise search I want the system to know more about me, my location, content I like, previous searches to recommend people to me. I want solutions that know what I am working on and recommend content to me. When I go into any solution I should be able to tailor it to my needs and it learn about me.
3D Printing will bring a whole new level of collaboration
3D printing might be an odd one here, what does it have to do with collaboration ? Well as teams get more and more widely dispersed its more and more difficult to physically look and understand products in the design stage. When folk used to be in the same physicality they could all look around a product, pick it up, discuss it, look at it from different angles, etc.
I believe 3D printing will bring that back. Imagine a design meeting where each site can print out the product and review it. Then update it in the meeting, reprint it out, etc. Refinement. Everyone wherever they are gets to hold, touch and contribute.
Collaboration again is key here, how do we share those 3D designs, tie in to our normal collaboration tools, etc. 3D printing makes it physical.
Video Conferencing anywhere
Large organisations will struggle to take hold of this because of expensive investment in hardware.
But in essence the hardware becomes irrelevant and video conferencing using the cloud as the converter/interpreter means you can BYO video conf device and VC with anyone. Today its horrible, everyone has to be just about on the same tech. This kills Video conferencing across org boundaries (see networked organizations) and very often inside (e.g. one country office goes with one tech over another). Plug and Play / Bring Your Own video conferencing is the nirvana. It will start to happen in 2013 and it will be pushed by the consumer space.
Big Data (yawn)
Ok, first my little gripe, We have always had big data, it is nothing new ! – ok rant over.
This will be big for the next few years as its a big money earner for software companies, consultancies, enables companies to sell storage and sell cloud compute units !
But as said we have always had big data and we have always had people looking for patterns and analyzing it.
Take a look at Formula 1. I had the chance to visit McLaren in 2001, at that point in testing they had over 100 sensors on the car returning data every millisecond. On top of that they had external data they captured from weather to track temperature and condition. They used all this data from each test and data from races themselves to predict by looking for patterns. That is big data. Its nothing new.
The key here will be how people collaborate and share big data. You can’t email it around ! Uploading and downloading from storage locations isn’t practical either. It will be about ubiquitous access to big data always residing in the cloud but visualized through rich collaborative tools.
Cloud
Cloud will continue to be pushed and many still won’t understand what it is ! But security concerns and resilience will continue to be barriers for large organizations with existing on premise investment.
Just look at the great XBox Live outage over Christmas 2012 or the NetFlix outage or the Google outage, shall I go on !
I have heard many large organizations state that Security is also a concern. Shared data centers, content residing on the same box as a competitors, etc. Legal and InfoProtection departments will worry obviously. Their worry is not really warranted as many of these large companies have moved into data centers run by external companies like HP and guess what those data centers also have competitors data in them ! I believe we will finish 2013 with more companies considering IaaS rather than full cloud offerings like O365.
Windows 8
Windows 8 will get little traction in the enterprise. Many waiting for a point release and waiting to see if the BYOD element can really take off yet and whether Google Chromebooks can be a reality in the enterprise. Why is this important well many organisations tie their version of Office and other collaborative tools to their OS release, ie. when they upgrade Windows they upgrade the rest of the stuff. Additionally Microsoft and other vendors are only releasing their products for newer OS’s ie. many products will not run on WinXP and older non-HTML5 compliant browsers. Until all collaboration vendors make their software fully device/browser agnostic what is on the desktop will impact your ability to collaborate.
Mobile
Companies will attempt to make everything mobile ready but not actually fully realize it is not just about making enterprise solutions accessible on mobile devices. It is about different mobile experiences. Lots of consulting dollars will be wasted exploring and on POC’s ! CIO’s will look good for attempting and saying ‘It works on the iPhone/iPad’ in board meetings !
It will take a few more years before Mobile experience coming first or is designed in parallel rather than a bolt on to existing solutions. Take online training courses that many enterprises have. The experience on an iPad or iPhone will be completely different than on a PC/Mac due to the real-estate, the integration of touch, etc.