Delloite Research has released its latest TMT Trends: Technology Predictions 2006. It refers to it as “The technology sector's top trends.”

 

Immediately I am skeptical since the intent is to predict the future which 98 times out of 100 is pure unabashed marketing. So I decided to see what DR considers the top 10 trends…

  1. Search engines will challenge email as the leading digital application.
  2. Research and development will become more collaborative as business, government and academic institutions increasingly work together on new innovations.
  3. Offshoring as a way of minimizing costs and optimizing efficiencies will continue to grow in popularity.
  4. Classrooms of the developed world will incorporate more digital aids in their instruction.
  5. Open source will pose an ever-greater challenge to the established software model, impacting both providers and end users.
  6. Governments will increasingly regulate the Internet.
  7. Technological advances such as speech recognition and voice synthesis, along with improvements in artificial intelligence, will change the way humans interact with computers and computers interact with each other.
  8. Products will become less static with the launch of many more devices, from cameras to cars, that can be upgraded remotely.
  9. The gap between those with digital technology and those without will widen and put undeveloped countries at an even greater disadvantage.
  10. Those technologies that permanently change human behavior will continue to be the most profitable.

Did anyone catch the first trend statement, “search engines will challenge email as the leading digital application”?

 

Does anyone really believe that? Who aside from those that hold the title or role as a researcher spend more time doing search engine queries than email? I can’t name a single one; not one. And I’m a power Google user undertaking 20-30 searches every day. Knowledge workers I know, those that have a computer at their desk, most average more than 75 e-mails a day. Some clients and colleagues process 500 or 600 emails a day. That’s extreme but I know of no client or colleague that processes less than 50 emails a day. I know of no client or colleague that comes close to undertaking that many search queries.

 

My point: we are being inundated by marketing messages every day and those messages are rapidly growing in frequency and rate. Some organizations are getting more clever in packaging their marketing. This report is a perfect example. DR is full of very smart people and very clever marketers. This report is superb marketing (I’ll admit that my company Prescient Digital Media does a little bit of this too. However, despite the name you'll not find me spending too much time on predicting the future, except for specific client endeavors).

 

Caveat emptor (buyer beware) – not everything you read is the truth.

 

NOTE: It is my goal to be as honest as possible in my writings and severely limit if not completely eliminate any commercial messages within articles if it has no relevance to the readers (you’ll also note that I have forsworn any Google ads on either of my blogs or websites). Sometimes however I may separately promote an event or a job opportunity that might be relevant to the user but has no direct compensation relation to the author. Though if you suspect me of trying to use any of my articles as a direct sales tool then feel free to call me on it.

 

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media