Would you have considered Facebook to be THE driver of a massive communication change at the end of 2007? Not if you’d looked at the company’s audience of an estimated 50 million users. As 2009 closed out, that number had skyrocketed to 350 million. Now it is ubiquitous with the term “social media.” Whole economies are emerging around it, just like feeder businesses that follow a Walmart store opening (Chili’s, The Olive Garden, etc.). It was perfectly placed to capture a culture shift that was a natural outgrowth of an always connected world.

So what are the emerging trends that will result in new or redefined business verticals? Read on for a few of my predictions…

DIY PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

The idea of Design With Others or Open Source Design is an emerging trend and growing market with huge opportunities for success. The idea-economy is the natural outgrowth of the information economy. We are in an age of democratized industry where an idea can go through the idea to physical product cycle with little cost from the traditional POV.

Example process for a new widget:

1. Design on Google Sketch Up >

2. Generate physical prototype with $1000 3-D printer >

3. Outsource manufacturing using alibaba.com to a factory capable of profiting from low volume runs. >

4. Streamline payments using PayPal to avoid traditional byzantine terms of manufacturing and shipping using letters of credit and bank transfers. >

5. Sales and distribution using product aggregators like foodzie.com, ftmarkets.com and etsy.com. >

The collective intelligence and “can do” spirit of garage tinkers is unleashed on global markets allowing consumers to purchase products that help them feel “special” in a world of ubiquitous homogeneity.

“RECOMMENDATION GENOME PROJECT”

Pandora-like algorithms have begun and will continue to be the method for navigating the myriad of choices that we are confronted with in a hyper information and communication world.

Recommendation networks will leave no decision  to chance. Just some of the topics these networks will and already address:

- Food

- Finances

- Insurance

- Interpersonal Relationships (Friendship, professional, sex, intellectual, activities, etc.)

- Shopping

- Hobbies

- Music

- Entertainment

This is the rise of mathematics as a way of predicting compatibility with every possible interaction humans make in their personal, professional and community lives. No decision will be left to our own intuition or “sixth sense.” In fact, the ability to have intuition may be a “sense” that is breed out of future generations.”If you like A, then you will like B” will become the method for geo-navigating through life.

The benefits are huge for any mobile company able to truly harness this power. We are in the nascent stages of a quiet revolution that will ultimately speed the consolidation of power in the hands of the elite minority.

Examples:

http://recommender.strands.com/home.php

http://labs.strands.com/

http://scouta.com/

http://www.thefilter.com/

ONLINE LEARNING

We are a culture of options. The perception of inexhaustible possibilities leads to a lack of the general population’s depth of knowledge in any one subject. Generalists will proliferate until a crisis of collapsing social structures (political, education, health care, social security, agriculture, etc.) results in government mandated vocational training.

As a recent example of this darker trending prediction, recall the end of Soviet Communism in ‘89-’91 as a precursor to what will occur in other first world societies. During Soviet Russia, a student received vocational training in high school and was expected to achieve a Graduate-level education. This generated intense specialization and, arguably, a more educated society. After the fall of communism and the capitalization of the economy, the education system adopted a liberal arts approach similar to the U.S.. It has had a disastrous effect on the society, which now expects material wealth with decreasing personal investment. In other words, more options with less effort.

The spoils will go to companies that focus on online, time-shifted learning. Over the next five years, expect an explosion in home-based learning programs as our public education system fails. Until the government mandates vocational training, the “Cultural Creatives” and “Learner Tribes” will seek out greater education opportunities through collaborative digital networks.

By the way, what is currently the largest university in the world? Is it Ohio State or the University of Texas- each with 50,000 students? Nope. It’s the University of Phoenix. According to NPR, they have over 400,000 students, the majority of those being online.

SELF-REFERENTIAL MEDIA

The link economy in the short term is a bonanza of opportunity for companies and individuals who can harness “reputation manipulation” in real-time. Over the next 2-3 years personal publishing through blogs and micro blogs will solidify itself as the legitimate information source.

Over the long term, it may be increasingly difficult to find unique and articulated voices in a world that shares the same media messaging mind space. Diversity of opinion may be harder to come by.  “Re-tweet publishing” will lead to continuous self-references within common interest groups generating spiraling circles of news. Cross pollination will eventually decrease as distinction declines resulting in a loss of diversity. The “radical” will, in reality, be much less radical.

The ability to be “special” is fleeting. Warhol’s 15-minutes of fame has been slashed to 15-seconds in a world of hyper-speed PR blitzes and dumbed-down media sound bites. The shelf life of any given media source that labels itself as outside the establishment is painfully short due to dilution of being “it”.

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So there are just a few thoughts on “trends”. More were included in the study that looked at cloud computing, open APIs, micro-transactions, slow foods, personal space, etc… All interesting stuff that I will write about in future posts!

If our tools allow us to produce project artifacts faster, can our solutions remain a product of deep consideration?

Over the last year, I’ve been following Adobe’s release of a very particular piece of software that has got me excited. It’s called Catalyst and it will create a new set of challenges for the field of user experience. Let me first explain what it does…

Adobe Catalyst, currently in beta form, allows for a visual designer or a UX architect to import either a Photoshop (.psd) or Illustrator (.ai) document and create interactive elements. Catalyst use the assets and layers brought in with the original document. This is a tremendous leap forward in two important areas- the selling of ideas and the production of approved designs. Let me focus on the former.

In the UX discipline, a core deliverable is the wire-frame or page schematic that documents a number of important components. It communicates everything from the site / page navigation and content hierarchy, to the proposed interactivity (ie, what happens when I click here). These documents have always been delivered in a static form. You print them out and present them to the client. They are not intended to represent visual design. They are intended to document how each page will function and its content development needs.

The benefit, and possible danger, of Catalyst is that we can now present clients with wire-frames that are interactive. Formerly, if you want to communicate “states” of a drop-down menu, for instance, you had to show each static step as a different drawing. With Catalyst, you can now interact with the element and see the changing states. Wow! That’s a huge leap forward in comprehension and can help everyone on the team better understand what you proposing to build.

If pictures are worth a thousand words and video is worth, umm, a thousand pictures, then scrolling / clickable wireframes are worth…? The more interaction is demonstrated, the fewer leaps the imagination must make.

The danger? Well, honestly, I believe there is something good about NOT demonstrating more detail in the early stages. The closer we approximate the final product, the greater likelihood clients will find that execution sufficient. Taking a project through a full process of discovery, strategy, architect, design and engineering (the common approach) allows for ideas to mature. It allows for a team to live with a client’s business and the proposed solution, rather than quickly producing and launching.

Please note that there is sometimes value in doing fast iterations and testing them in the market. That is a great strategy for a start-up who is exploring which ideas gain traction. I don’t debate that strategic wisdom. I only pose the question- if our tools allow us to produce project artifacts faster, we best be thinking how our solutions remain deeply effective.

Until I write about that subject, however, let me guide you back towards Adobe Catalyst. Learn more about the product and download a demo of Catalyst at Adobe.

Problem: moving groups towards successful completion of project milestones is often hindered because the solutions are developed independent of the team.

Solution: stand up, grab a dry board marker and draw. Documentation started. Team approval secured.

Digital agencies and design shops produce a lot of smart documents for their clients. They spend time in meetings discussing the strategy and high-level execution requirements. Once the tasks are assigned, we retreat to our separate corners; develop some documentation from the POV of our specialty; and  return to the conference room looking to get confirmation that our interpretation was correct.

If not correct?… sorry… keep evolving or even start back at square one. The idea is to keep refining as we get group buy-in, often wasting everyone’s time with small incremental movement towards a solution.

A faster path is to use the first or second meeting to begin concrete ideation using white board markers to diagram the strategy and architecture. When you’ve got people in a room, use them! Harness the collective knowledge to develop the screens right there! Take a stab, defend a position… but stay flexible and fluid in order to generate ideas and layouts from the whole team.

White board sketches provide clarity and concensus.

In some recent projects, we relied on our collective wisdom to short circuit the normal process. It’s as if we jumped from square two to square eight without a penalty. At first, the idea of throwing about your ideas without time to consider the implications or confirm your instincts is scary. We all want to be right- or at least smart -when we put ourselves in front of the team.

Ideation isn't meant to be pretty, but expressive as we move towards specificity.

If the goal is to find the best ideas, then starting with a sketch gets all them on the board and, if orchestrated properly, allows for the entire team to voice their opinion up front, not later in the process.

Sketch for a flash video editor.

These shots show diagrams of ideation sessions that went directly to wireframes. The process looked something like- (a) generalize; (b) specify with drawings; (c) photograph; (d) make it look pretty. When the first round of wireframes were presented, it confirmed what everyone had already agreed to. The process was sped up ten-fold without loss of knowledge or insufficient time to marinate.

Home Page Sketch

Landing Page Sketch

Resulting Wireframe

A job well done = fast, effective and delivered with the collective genius baked in…

Problem: Nokia is struggling with a fractured product offering and image.

Solution: a renewed focus on the user’s needs and an immediate re-organization of all consumer-facing projects around this premise.

Irrelevant is a powerful word in a capitalist economy. Irrelevant happens when a company’s products or services don’t meet or exceed the baseline expectations. In the fast paced technology marketplace, if you don’t provide a comparable service you lose market share and become irrelevant in a very short time frame.

Nokia may still be the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world, but that may not be enough to keep them relevant to the consumer dialogue happening around mobile applications, social networking and location based services. After reviewing their offering and taking an informal survey about their brand, I’ve generated some conclusions expressed in this post.

My observations are that (1) its all about the software; (2) Nokia must match their competitors before they can exceed them; (3) they need to leverage their newly emerging service platform; (4) they need to unify their communications to support one brand; and finally (5) I think they should consolidate their handset lines.

Here are my five thoughts in greater detail:

1. The Software Now Drives the Hardware

Hardware and software are no longer distinct in the eyes of the consumer. They must be as one. The touch screens place the emphasis on the software interaction. This new paradigm provides greater flexibility as the user interface (UI) can evolve over time and change according to an application’s needs. If the software must conform the hardware’s inputs, it is constrained. The hardware must only serve as a container for the software experience.

The fact that the UI drives the car is why Nokia may soon be irrelevant if their new flagship model, the N97, doesn’t create a stir with a satisfying TOTAL user experience. By total I mean the entire physical and screen experience. This includes: how the device sits in your hand; how the buttons feel when pushed; what feedback is provided upon input; how the UI behaves; how intuitive each transaction feels; and even how the whole phone syncs. Simply put, their OS needs to match the iPhone’s OS. That is the gold standard.

2. Match Standards

Nokia is still viewed as a hardware company by most of the world. They make a huge range of phones that serve a variety of audiences. If they are to succeed, their services solution (Ovi) needs to be fully integrated with their media handsets. If they can develop truly smart phones that has a comparable OS to their competitors linked to an expanding application marketplace, then they can match their competitors.

The key will be if they can do something unique with the core software applications (mail, calendar, contacts, media files, etc.). One application that is part of the Ovi offering is mapping. After a thorough review, my opinion can be summed up in two words, “not yet.” They haven’t even incorporated the basic features that we have been taught to expect by Google or Yahoo Maps. Once they can provide the baseline, then they can make incremental improvements.

The CEO has publicly declared that they are a “solutions company”. He has also stated that they are placing a greater emphasis on location based services. They will need to match the standard set by a number of others, like Google’s Latitude service, in order to fulfill on that promise. Once that is achieved, then they can start providing innovative solutions.

3. Be an Open API Service Provider

As with all social structures and software initiatives that are fluid, Nokia must harness the power of the community. Communities know what they want. They are quick to reward a product or service that successfully addresses a need.

To stay innovative, Nokia should focus on providing developers with their OS and Ovi Mapping API. If Nokia provides a solid OS and core applications platform, then fully opens (not partially) the APIs, the development community will go nuts. The mapping features can be expanded and touch all the core communiation and social activities. that model simplifies Nokia’s task immensely by placing the burden of innovation upon the community.

So follow the open-source movement. Focus on creating a platform that encourages experimentation, commercial reward and community input. Considering the market share of handsets that Nokia enjoys, they can easily get momentum in their favor.

4. Unify The Brand

Nokia currently has a number of products and services that utilize different style guides and messages. This provides their marketing and service vendors with a huge opportunity to unify the consumer’s perception of Nokia.

“Comes With Music”, the Ovi Store, the Nokia Store, local and global websites, and .Mobi all appear different and disconnected in the online environment. There is little energy around their traditional marketing. It feels fragmented and unfocused. They need to consolidate their vendors and unify their internal fiefdoms. It’s a process of change management on a very large scale.

The rewards will be a consistent impression of the company and its services. Remember, a brand is not what YOU say it is. A brand is what THEY say it is. Capture your core audiences loyalty and their friends will follow.

5. Cull The Herd

Lastly, I think they need to bring down the variety of handsets they offer to fewer lines that target specific activities and budgets. Each line should service a particular need in a simple and elegant manner. Each phone should always, always sync with their software service, Ovi, so a continuous bond between handset and software services is established. The user must feel that they are taken care of by Ovi and Nokia. If a Nokia phone will be desirable if it allows for immediate ownership of cool apps, then people feel special. Consumer’s are all about how to be special within their tribe.

In a world of options, the consumer needs focus. Nokia needs to provide that focus and direct their audience to the right product. Right now, its too confusing.

In conclusion, if Nokia took just a few of these suggested steps, it would gain mind share again. From a recent survey I took of friends from the U.S. and European markets, I learned that Nokia does not control the conversation about their brand. It is a fractured perception- just like their offering. They are not perceived as relevant to the market forces that are driving the mobile industry.

To their credit, they may be putting in place the tools to reenter that space. They are probably wrapping all of their services into the Ovi Store and beginning to unify their brand. The launch of the N97 will hopefully make a splash. The mobile phone market is moving quickly and the consumer’s expectations of how their “media device” must behave has shifted in a massive way.

It’s time for Nokia to turn up the volume and be relevant to the consumer’s needs. It’s time for user-centered product development approach.

When I work towards generating possibility in others, what I get back is the satisfaction of seeing those around me shine. When they are lite up, I’m lite up. Only then can I produce my best work.

When creating a product or service, it is successfully achieved only if everyone feels they are contributing in a positive manner. It doesn’t matter if I’m creating a dinner with family or an international music service. I want to find how to get the best of each person involved. It takes compassion, insight and the ability to listen. This video reminds me of that way of engaging with others.

Benjamin Zander is a person whom I know of only through an audio podcast. I heard his words, his passion, his humor- and now I want to meet him! I was unable to ponder his words without considering my own contribution. Mr. Zander appears to know how to lead those around him to be active participants in their lives.

This talk was recorded live at the TED conference in Feb. of 2008.

Video not working? Here is the direct link.

David Neeleman: Jet Blue CEO’s story was impressive and inspirational.

Alice Waters: Shared her passion for good food. She underscores the importance of the ritual around food preparation and dining. It’s a good reminder of the family table..

Jake Burton: Snowboarding icon and creator of the market. Brought his passion to his work. Like Chounard and Patagonia, Burton represents the melding of fun and making a living.

It’s inspiring to read about this kind of maverick business leader in today’s business environment. It’s antithetical to managing overhead and determining productivity. However, that may not be true. If employees can establish their own goals and accomplish them, a company can then more accurately predict what it can achieve.

Here’s an interview with this unusual man–and author of the best-selling book, The Seven-Day Weekend.

In a word, that is what the book I’m currently reading does for me. It’s called Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything written by Tapscott and Williams. It looks at the emerging language of the net-generation that has and is growing up with the internet. Their forms of communication differ greatly from their predecessors.

They are using digital tools to share and collaborate in highly creative ways that may seem senseless to those of a different generation. They are not interested in a hierarchical business model. They seek creative, stimulating experiences that are communal in nature.

Apparently, this is a huge population that will be entering the work force in the next five years. They will completely change the landscape by forcing companies to evolve. Corporate transparency will be required. Self-expression will be mandatory. Lifestyle will play an important role.

Companies can leverage the N-Gens only by embracing them. I was reading a few years back how HR departments were having to re-learn how to deal with the incoming 20-somethings whose need for mobility and self-expression led them to buck the internal management of established companies. Resentment and disbelief over that generations unwillingness to earn their stripes or pay their dues was causing massive managerial problems. It was a generational divide.

That is going to happen again. However, the next generation will require the very foundations of the companies business practices to alter, not just their management style.

Change is the wind… adapt or perish…

Get the book!

Here is a man who has nothing to gain, but something to lose- his credibility. He may be marginalized by being defined as an old man who is irrelevant and out of touch. His words, however, cannot be ignored.

They cut to the point about leadership and the lack of leadership this country currently suffers. It’s not name calling. It’s specific instances and examples of how “our” leaders don’t act the part. They deal out platitudes. They orchestrate their audiences. They manipulate the system for the gain of the few. They suspiciously act like fascists.

Let me be clear about that word- “fascism.” To me, it means government and corporations working in concert towards shared goals. Mussolini called it “corporatism.”

I’m not talking JUST about the Bush administration. Congress is also culpable. Here’s a direct quote from the book…

“Congress was in session only ninety-seven days in 2006. That’s eleven days less than the record set in 1948, when President Harry Truman coined the term do-nothing Congress. Most people would expect to be fired if they worked so little and had nothing to show for it. But Congress managed to find the time to vote itself a raise. Now, that’s not leadership.”