I zipped down to San Jose last night for the Churchill Club's "Top Ten Tech Trends" event. No-one bills it as such, but this is arguably the event of the Silicon Valley calendar. Featuring four of the Valley's most eminent soothsayers, the panel discussion provides an unofficial perspective on what Silicon Valley's most excited about - which usually translates as "what Silicon Valley thinks will make money" in the year head.
The thing is, this year's event was a little different. It was as if Silicon Valley had awoken to two new realities: (1) that innovation doesn't always happen in silicon and (2) that innovation doesn't always happen in Silicon Valley.
For a region that prides itself on its unique risk-taking culture and concentration of technology-focused innovators, these seemed like major (but healthy) admissions and the strongest indicators yet of what Silicon Valley 3.0 (or is that 4.0?) will look like.
Anyway, get your wallets out. Here's what the experts said we can expect to see (and profit from) in 2007 and beyond:
1. The proliferation of single-use mobile devices - gadgets will become like shoes. We'll have lots of them and regularly change them based on where we're going and what we're doing. The converged device will die! (My verdict: please...don't make me hang anything else off my belt.)
2. The granting by the FCC of a new broadband license to disrupt domination of current wireless carriers - the panel said we desperately need this to reverse the trend that sees the USA sliding down the chart of top broadband nations. As moves are already afoot in this area, this looks like a good bet!
3. There will be a shake-out of Web 2.0 companies (a mini-dotcom crash) - Google paid WAY too much for YouTube and we'll soon see a dip in the fortunes of these seemingly unbeatable Web 2.0 leaders. (I'm with the prediction, except I don't see a crash - just lots more new business models from where YouTube came from.)
4. Moore's Law will bifurcate: memory advances will outstrip logic (computational) advances - molecular technology will be the next big thing. Self-assembling molecular memory is just around the corner enabling massive advances in memory, but the logic industry needs to hit the re-set button to maintain a similar pace. (Molecular technology? Just when I thought I understood the tech industry...)
5. A power shift within the G7 will change our global view of customers and markets - the UK will soon by the only European nation in the G7 and Russia, Brazil and China will seize the initiative, not just because of their current growth rates and size, but because of their demographics. The current G7 nation populations are aging too quickly to support their economies. (Hard to argue with that one...)
6. Active Media will rise to the detriment of Mainstream Media - "I'll watch what I want, when I want it" was the sentiment here. While 80% of advertising revenues still come from the 30-second TV slot, the concentration of viewers on the major networks is the lowest its ever been. Soon, TV advertising just won't make sense. (And of course, the exact same thing is happening in PR: fragmentation driven by new media and new influencers. No argument here.)
7. Web 2.0 (community-based communications) comes to the Enterprise - Soon we'll be looking for our business acquaintances on FaceBook was the crux of the prediction here. Aren't we already? LinkedIn, anyone? And apparently, there's already a FaceBook Corporate edition.
8. The first synthetic life form will be created - another mind-blowing prediction from Steve Jurvetsen. Steve says that within a year we'll see the creation of a bacteria-sized synthetic organism designed for either a biofuel or medical application. Apparently, UC Berkeley professors are already working on a mutation of a bug that excretes an anti-malarial compound. Wow.
9. The brain becomes a hot new investment area - this prediction centered on the relatively recent hypothesis that mental illness is often the result of a physical imbalance in the brain that should be treatable with the right understanding. Apparently, 100 companies in the Bay Area alone are already working on brain research. (Watch out for a Text 100 Brain Research Group soon...well, maybe not that soon!)
10. Congress will mandate a cap on greenhouse gases on this President - no matter how excited John Doerr gets about innovation saving the planet, he fears that we're simply not doing enough. Even Brazil's much-celebrated shift to biofuels has only reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 10% - and Brazil only contributes 1.3% of total global emissions. In short, we have to do more, starting right here at home. Let's hope Congress and the American people prove him right.
See you back here next year, same time, with your investment portfolio.
David McCulloch.
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