First things first, goodbye 2009, we are not going to miss you. What a year it has been. 2009 was difficult, challenging, testing and requiring one to run faster and faster just to stand still. Good, decent, upstanding and respectable clients went bust and some of the methods used by receivers are truly shocking, even the Times commented on this. All good for experience I suppose.
Last year as I looked forward to 2009 my Google searches did not reveal much to tickle my fancy. This year however there is plenty to digest. As a first observation more people seem to be looking forward, which I fully understand, more are taking guesses and are making interesting predictions.
The Scotsman even compares the previous year’s predictions. Nice. http://bit.ly/8GQ9zo
These are my favourites:
- Fox news: http://bit.ly/797XKz
- Regular geek: http://bit.ly/78W9Op
- Little box of ideas: http://bit.ly/6oYfNO
At Imre we probably need to pay more attention to these predictions.
Marketing Vox: http://bit.ly/4N7TEo
Then there are all of these:
- http://bit.ly/76pz7R – Good to know where gold and energy prices are headed.
- http://bit.ly/84IPiR – I am always interested in leadership. Those that have vision and can lead their troops into battle are worth their weight in gold. But this Murdoch thing seems foolhardy or is it just big balls?
- http://bit.ly/4ZLZBJ – Looks like HR managers will be busy, a good thing.
- http://bit.ly/7NwljJ – Gobbledygook.
- http://bit.ly/5vya4M -Fraud will be up, up, up and up. Now that is a one way bet.
- http://bit.ly/8hUeNy – Written in 1997 and predicting the 2010 political landscape.
- http://bit.ly/53w4yN Trendwatching.com. I remember them from last year. These people are very insightful and really do a good job. Urbany? Fluxury? All good to test your spell checker.
- http://bit.ly/5jv1M9 – Value is the new black.
- http://bit.ly/4J7WvZ – The future of social change on the web.
- http://bit.ly/6puGXl – 8 news media trends for 2010
- http://bit.ly/79LwzU – An actual blip in the Netcraft hosts curve. Then totally amazed to read about the growth of “nginx” : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nginx All new to me! (Did I work in hosting?)
So where does that leave us with the thinking for 2010?
Value, radical thinking, relentless change, social media maturity where we can expect the likes of toobla.com to tie up the lose ends to make things more workable. Local seems to come up again and again.
And for our clients?
Most are using smart phones, those that are not, really need to make the jump. Devices such as iPhones will bring home how local services can work, and also where there are a few spare minutes, dipping into social media is entirely possible. Most clients say that they do not have time for social media activities. I think 2010 will be the year that those who are not taking part in the conversations will find themselves exposed.
Cmon 2010, help us forget 2009! And it is time for an African team to show that 2010 belongs to Africa.
Happy new year from the IMRE Team!!
Late update:
From the Beeb for UK Manufacturing. Good for 2010.