ShawnRosemarin.com

“Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.” – Bil Keane

Wow….It’s hard to believe that 2022 is right around the corner…Every year I take some time to reflect on the technology trends that I am watching evolve before my eyes. No doubt some will be transient, but others are in their infancy and will become foundational not just for us but to future generations!

Here are some of the trends that I am following – Ill dive into some of these in more detail in future posts. In the meantime, I’d encourage you to share some of your favorite trends in the comments below.

Trends in the workplace I’m following –

• Hybrid work becomes the new reality for all in the workplace aiming to strike the right balance between effective teaming, remote productivity and expense efficiency – This McKinsey article does a nice job of breaking down the considerations here
• Collaboration Spaces replace traditional offices with “in-person spaces” dedicated to inspiring ideation, collaboration, distillation and consensus. Ild expect to see the large swath of digital collaboration platform players consolidate their offerings into attractive platforms potentially even partnering with new age commercial real estate players. WeWork breaks it down here
• “The Great Resignation” will continue with more and more workers evaluating what they really want out of work, choosing to leave their current employer and then re-entering the market to join companies that better match their ambitions. This presents an incredible opportunity for companies looking to attract top-notch talent! Forbes talks about it here
• Professional conferences revert back to “face-to-face” marquee events (with full access virtual attendance) but over time will likely expand their reach with smaller, regional, intimate and exclusive events. Im looking forward to seeing what the market brings in this new era of face-to-face conferences.

Trends in the Technology Sector I’m following – 

• Multi-Cloud becomes table-stakes for the public cloud players. In the face of regulatory pressure tied to criticality of service and in an attempt to drive share gains public cloud players will leverage “multi-cloud portability” as an advantage. Think of this as a take on what the telecommunications provider allow for their customers allowing them to seamlessly “roam” on competitor networks when service is unavailable or degraded
• “Cloud Adjacent Storage” becomes popular allowing all secure data sets to embrace the benefits of the public cloud. While stateless compute and network consumption will continue to dominate public cloud spend, storage compliance and latency requirements will drive interest in cloud adjacent data services where storage sits at the edge managed locally but with ultra-high speed connections to the cloud. For an example of what this looks like you can check out our recent announcement with Azure Cloud for semiconductor design
• The security market consolidates…again…..(the last time we saw it was in endpoint protection, this time is much much bigger and much more expansive across applications, operating environments and all of it involving deep learning and algorithmic based threat detection.) KPMG does a nice job of painting out the opportunity in this report
• The “Metaverse” takes off faster than imagined…and it’s a heck of a lot bigger than just Facebook! It’s a natural evolution of the internet and mobile devices but offers a next level experience for all involved. Lots to be played out here over the next decade but no doubt that we will see the next billion and trillion dollar companies created as the physical and digital worlds come together to deliver “the immersive experience of a lifetime”. Here are what some of the world’s leading companies are thinking it means to them

Specific Industry Trends I’m following –

• Electric vehicles “cross the chasm” and become the focus for all manufacturers in all forms of transportation. We have already seen this in the automotive sector where electric vehicles are the leading edge of innovation. The next step will be heavy equipment, rail and even airlines. Here’s a quick look at what exists today
• Healthcare sees a continued flood of data with enterprise imaging and diagnostic medicine evolving at a record pace and researchers looking to unlock the value of that data to deliver predictive medicine. Data Services companies (Like Pure Storage) as well as the cloud will continue to play a key role in bringing the resources to bear to capitalize on this opportunity. We unpack the Pure Storage point of view on medical imaging here
• Public/Private partnerships bring EdTech to life allowing the world’s ultimate teachers to “digital first” training platforms and delivering top quality education to the masses (Remember MOOCs?). The in-person university experience still delivers the rest of the experience to those that can afford it. Good perspective here
• Governments around the world look to stable-coins and crypto as a way to quickly digitize their currencies and their financial systems. Today’s large banks and financial institutions play a large part in the process! Nice HBR perspective on the future of money here
• Governments increase their investment in technology as a force in dealing with climate change allowing them to predict and manage floods, forest fires and protect wildlife and drive more effective transportation of goods and services globally. Firefighting technology is already underway here

Enjoy the rest of 2021 everyone!

Shawn