Technology Revolution: The Future of Now

The Buzz 1: Dozens of song titles have "Edge" in the title, including: Darkness on the Edge of Town by Bruce Springsteen, Edge of Seventeen by Stevie Nicks, and Living on the Edge by Aerosmith. But what does EDGE mean in our tech-driven world? The Buzz 2: Edge computing reduces the volumes of data to be moved and the distance that data needs to travel for quicker movement of data and a reduction in transmission costs. [theceomagazine.com] Now imagine your own connected home, car, and energy provider work together to run more efficiently, lower your energy bill, and help reduce the impact on climate change. Sounds good? That day is coming faster than you think. This is where the edge in technology comes into play. As part of a digital-first evolution, organizations in every industry are beginning to seize opportunities presented by edge computing and IoT – from doorbell cameras and smartwatches to sensors on windmills and in fleets of cars. An IDC January 2022 report predicted worldwide edge spending to hit $176Bn this year—up 14.8% over 2021—and nearly $274Bn by 2025. Soon, edge and IoT infrastructure, pervasive connectivity, and lower technology costs will ensure that people like you, devices, and data can communicate, collaborate, and innovate efficiently and affordably. We'll ask Dr. Angela Nicoara, Ali Benfattoum, Aditya Varma and Sam Lakkundi for their insights on The Future of IoT and Edge Computing: What's In It For YOU?

Buzz 1: For some, a 'smart house' is chock-full of gadgets that automate or monitor almost every conceivable part of a house. For others, a smart house is extreme simplicity with only the slightest of technological intrusions as necessity demands…Apple's Home app, Google's Nest, Google's Home app, Airthinx air quality monitors, myQ smart garage doors, Dyson app, Wemo app, Nanoleaf, a Govee Home app. [forbes.com] Buzz 2: Managing smart home is hard. "You do need an ecosystem, fundamentally, because you can't say, 'Oh, here's your brand-new house, but oh, now you've got 300 apps with 300 passwords and you now need to connect them all up yourself, and you've got to figure out how all these things attach to your wireless network." [KB Home VP Dan Bridleman Bridleman] Buzz 3: Increasingly, what makes a home smart…is the fundamentals of what a home is supposed to provide: heat, light, shelter, power…a smart house does its job. Even when your power provider doesn't, or can't. Buzz 4: At CES 2020, CTA's Steve Koenig suggested the IoT needed a rebrand to the "Intelligence of Things" for the decade ahead…to smartly integrate all these devices in a secure way that makes consumers comfortable sharing the data required to make smart homes truly smart. Builders are front and center in smart home technology conversations. [forbes.com] We'll ask Lee Miller at RealPage Smart Building, Pierre Calzadilla at Local Logic, Leonard Lee at neXt Curve and Mary Nietschke at RealPage for their take on The Future of Smart Homes & Sustainability: Your Intelligent App Ecosystem?

The Buzz 1: "Reading and 'riting and 'rithmetic – taught to the tune of the hick'ry stick." School Days, song written in 1907 by Will D. Cobb and Gus Edwards, is about a couple looking back sentimentally on primary school. The Buzz 2: "In the past, financial literacy has been pushed aside within K-12 schools. There has been a lack of agreement about how and what to teach.…Because financial education prepares students for the realities they'll face in the real world and contributes directly to their future success, it deserves to hold the same priority as any other K-12 subject." [Alice Lee fastcompany.com] The Buzz 3: "Students in states with financial education curricula are more likely to save and less likely to pay credit cards late…also more likely to be banked…Digital financial literacy is more front and center…." [ibid] The Buzz 4: "Preschool-aged children are capable of learning simple spending plans. Early training in categorizing money establishes patterns for future money-management behavior… the concept of dividing their money into categories – save, spend, share… understand money is limited in quantity…" [incharge.org] We'll ask Karen Tenenbaum, Rumbi Petrozzello, Kelly Kirk-Xu, Mac Gardner and Annamaria Lusardi for their take on The Future of Financial Literacy: Can We Raise Our Kids' 'Money IQ'?

The Buzz 1: Women in technical roles are less likely than men to win promotions early in their careers, and many are exiting the field. Only 86 women are promoted to manager for every 100 men at the same level…in technical roles, only 52 women per 100 men. Diversity is crucial to help de-bias the technologies in our modern life. [McKinsey's Women in the Workplace 2021 report, coauthored with LeanIn.org] The Buzz 2: The label 'woman in tech' seems redundant…how many women would refer to themselves as 'a female engineer' or 'the company's female CTO'? However, there still exists a disparity in the pay scales and ability to climb the career ladder between men and women in the technology sector. [codemotion.com] The Buzz 3: At current rates, it will take 100 years for women in technical and non-technical roles to reach parity with men at the C-level [Anita Borg Institute, 'Advancing Women Technologists into Positions of Leadership'. [content.techgig.com] We'll ask Lisa Dalesandro DiChristofer, Kylie Woods, Debbie Scott and Lori Rosano for their take on The Future of Women in Tech Careers: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

The Buzz 1: "What will be the most coveted skill of the future?…Creativity…A computer lacks imagination or creativity to dream up a vision for the future.…the emotional competence a human being has… We must embrace and develop our creativity, and then use technology creatively to solve problems of the world." [forbes.com/sites/annapowers] The Buzz 2: "When you think about old masters of art such as Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, you can clearly understand why their paintings are valued at a high premium: because of their inherent innovation and creativity…Leonardo Da Vinci's painting Salvador Mundi sold for $450M – buying a trace of Da Vinci's genius, his vision, his creativity through the painting." [ibid] The Buzz 3: "During the global pandemic, creativity has arguably never been so rich, whether it is advertisers producing innovative ways to reach their consumers, to businesses finding ways to operate under unprecedented circumstances, to people looking for ways to communicate, entertain and feel close to their loved ones. Sir John Hegarty: "Creativity can change the way we feel about something and will stay with us for eternity." [thefutureofcreativity.co.uk] The Buzz 4: "Employers from all domains make their way to creative colleges to hire people who can bring innovation and design thinking into their organisations.…sit up, take note and make the required shifts to ensure they are ready to be leaders in the Future Economy." [medium.com] We'll ask Meg, Hafdahl, D. C. Gomez, Charles Breakfield and Mark L. Lefebvre for their take on The Future of Creativity: Is Technology Helping or Hindering?

The Buzz 1: "NFTs are not just for digital art—and their popularity is growing. Now The Economist is experimenting with an NFT, to raise money for a good cause. – One candidate for the Oxford English Dictionary's "Word of the Year" for 2021 will surely be "NFT". Non-fungible tokens—cryptocurrency chits which represent digital images or videos—have been around since 2014, but took off in popularity in March [2021] when Christie's, a British auction house, sold an NFT of "Everydays—The First 5,000 Days", art by Mike Winkelmann, for a cool $69m.…On October 25, The Economist will auction off the cover of our issue from September 18: Alice in Wonderland embarking on a journey into the world of decentralised finance (DeFi)—in which NFTs form part of the foundation of the digital economy." [economist.com] The Buzz 2: "Like it or not, the music industry has embraced NFTs …In March 2021, the album heralded as the first to be released as a non-fungible token was Kings of Leon's barrel-scraping When You See Yourself—and people who bought the shiny new digital widget got their actual copies of the record as old-fashioned MP3s and vinyl records. Snoop Dogg announced his newly acquired Death Row Records, a hip-hop brand venerable enough for the Super Bowl halftime show, would become the first NFT label. [pitchfork.com] The Buzz 3: "Sotheby's offers a curated array of NFT's from Digital Art, Luxury, Collectibles, Sports and Pop Culture…In 2021, records were broken: the most expensive Bored Ape Yacht Club ever sold in October 2021 for $3.4M…the second most expensive Cryptopunk ever sold achieved $11.7M." [sothebys.com] Within the next couple of years, some of our favorite establishments or even community groups might start to implement this technology to better interact with us. What kinds of new possibilities will be created with NFTs for both the creator and us, the consumer? We'll ask Connor Borrego, Amina Touati and James Shannon for their take on The Future of Your Digital Identity: All About The NFTs?

The Buzz 1: "The science of social selling actually originated from academia. In a 2009 paper…'The Persuasive Role of Incidental Similarity on Attitudes and Purchase Intentions in a Sales Context,' researchers concluded that a purchase is more likely to take place when the buyer and seller happen to share things in common…sales practitioners began putting the science into practice and thus became the 'social selling' approach." [Tony Restell, social-hire.com] The Buzz 2: "To stand out today, you must be original…add your own story to your content. There is only one you." [Mark Schaefer, Schaefer Marketing Solutions] The Buzz 3: "Success on social media platforms, including LinkedIn, relies on your ability to make true connections… build relationships." [Kim Garst, KG Enterprises] The Buzz 4: "It's a dialogue, not a monologue, and some people don't understand that. Social media is more like a telephone than a television." [Amy Jo Martin, Author: Renegades Write the Rules] We'll ask Steve Watt, DeJuan Brown, Ashley Coghill and Darren McKee for their take on The Future of Business Social Selling: Crickets or Ca-Ching?

The Buzz 1: In 1440 – 600 years after The Diamond Sutra, the world's oldest printed book – Gutenberg invented the wooden mass-printing press. In 1845 Richard Hoe invented the rotary press and first paperback. In 1993, Peter James published the thriller Host on 2 floppy disks – the first electronic novel – and BiblioBooks launched a website to sell eBooks. Along came the 2gb Kindle, able to hold 1,100 books. Today, print books still make up 65+% of sales in the $113Bn annual book market. To be competitive, some print books have covers with gold gilded edges, metal and transparent overlays, and some eBooks let you choose adventure story lines and have animated and interactive covers. [adazing.com] The Buzz 2: "When people ask me about the future of publishing, my answer always starts with: There's no such thing as a single future of publishing … traditional publishers release fewer nonfiction books…total number of nonfiction books is going way up because more Authors are self-publishing." [scribemedia.com Tucker Max is co-founder of Scribe] We'll ask publisher/writer Patricia Wooster, novelists Matt Cost and BJ Magnani, and publisher Eddie Vincent for their take on The Future of Publishing and Technology: Read All About It!

The in-person experience of car buying has always been alluring, letting you inhale the new car scent, examine the shiny power under the hood, literally kick the tires, ask questions of a human salesperson, and feel the road in a test drive. Now online car sales are offering a new experience: click it, order it, pick it up, keep-or-return it – and the automotive industry mostly isn't ready. The Buzz 1: Nearly 30% of U.S. new car sales in 2020 were completed online, compared to 2% of vehicles pre-pandemic. The overall car shopping experience took less time and was more efficient…the number of dealerships visited dropped. [abcnews ] The Buzz 2: 53% of car buyers would consider buying a car online. [Accenture report in Readers Digest Mar. 16, 2022] The Buzz 3: Prospective buyers, especially age 55–70, are less inclined to want to interact with sellers at car dealerships. [mckinsey] The Buzz 4: Swedish electric performance car brand Polestar, 50% owned by Volvo, is focusing on a digital-first retail model, with company-owned stores in city centers selling directly to consumers. Volvo's electric C40 Recharge compact SUV will only be available online. Online car retailer Carvana sold 244,111 cars in 2020, a 37% jump from 2019. We'll ask Daniel Grimm at SAP, Guenter Lasser at proaxia, Christos Maglousidis at OneDealer and Moncombu Raju at SAP for their take on The Future of Automotive Retail and Tech: How Will YOU Buy A Car Tomorrow?

The Buzz 1: "Privacy and security are those things you give up when you show the world what makes you extraordinary." [Margaret Cho, comedian] The Buzz 2: "Millions of people are unaware of and uninformed about how their personal information is being used, collected or shared in our digital society." [staysafeonline.org/data-privacy-week] The Buzz 3: "Digital freedom stops where that of users begins... Privacy is not for sale, it's a valuable asset to protect." (Stephane Nappo, Société Générale International Banking) The Buzz 4: "The fact the number of data breach events in Q1 represents a double-digit increase (14%) over the same time last year is another indicator that data compromises will continue to rise in 2022 after setting a new all-time high in 2021." [Eva Velasquez, President and CEO, Identity Theft Resource Center, consumeraffairs.com] We'll ask Shane Faria, Mike Audi, Eric Simone and Eli Herrick for their take on Data Data Everywhere: Is Data Privacy In Your Future? – Part 2.