As we draw yet another year to a close, the IT industry and the UK, actually come to think of is the world in general is in a fairly turbulent time.\u00a0 Markets are down over 12% than they were last year; the China \u2013 USA trade tensions don\u2019t seem to be easing; the famous \u201cwall\u201d that Trump intends to build is now being touted as a \u201csee through fence\u201d; Brexit is only three months away with little light at the end of the tunnel\u2026<\/p>\n
Outside of that, what is really happening?\u00a0 We have see the #MeToo movement which has proven that there is still much more to be done to ensure parity for all.\u00a0 We have seen more celebrities pass this year \u2026 we are sadly now hitting the time whereby radio, television, films were hitting a mass audience, by default we (fifty or sixty years ago) were creating more celebrities and it’s only natural that we sadly see those legends start to pass in greater numbers.\u00a0 Barry Chuckle and Jim Bowen will never be replaced\u2026<\/p>\n
Over the last two or so years we have seen #DigitalTransformation raise its head, but even after that time has passed we still see little traction.\u00a0 We see that \u201cinsourcing\u201d is becoming more popular, we see automation at the heart of everything, as well as the need for high skilled workers, and the need for large IT to create internally competitive services\u2026 all of these things required higher levels of investment but the level of investment seems to be fairly flat \u2013 with cost still a strong weighing factor (as you would expect it to be!) the sums don\u2019t yet add up nor has the benefits case been properly written\u2026<\/p>\n
We have seen #Millennials arrive, with all the fuss that they brought\u2026 We now start to see them replaced with #GenerationZ.\u00a0 I am not for all this generic labelling and find the whole thing quite degrading personally.<\/p>\n
What is in store?\u00a0 Well, we have seen a lot of traction of \u201cwell being\u201d and \u201cmindfulness\u201d in 2018.\u00a0 Given that it\u2019s now impossible to turn off from work, I can\u2019t see this going away, and I actually see this as an area that will grow in 2019\u2026 financially as well as in importance.\u00a0 I am a big fan or work-life balance being correct.\u00a0 Work hard, but also play hard \/ spend time with the family.<\/p>\n
I see that AI (artificial intelligence) as well as Big Data will start to really show traction in 2019.\u00a0 There is a bit of \u201cvapourware\u201d about it at the moment and not enough people know enough about it to really make use of it\u2026 this will probably change during 2019 as it becomes more accessible.\u00a0 I think that wearables have now hit a peak, but I personally predict a small pivot which will see further growth in that area.<\/p>\n
Finally I predict we will start to see the realisation of how ‘digital’ we have become.\u00a0 Firstly, we will slowly see the value of \u201cus\u201d and what we are providing for \u201cfree\u201d to the big machines start to be reassessed\u2026 Apple and Google have both recently released notifications on how much time you spend on your phone.\u00a0 Kids wish lists are starting to include \u201cmy mum\/dad spending less time on their phone\u201d.\u00a0 We have see catastrophic data leaks with Marriot, Facebook, etc emphasising that it\u2019s not an \u201cif\u201d but a \u201cwhen\u201d our data gets handed to someone who shouldn\u2019t have it.<\/p>\n
This all points to the tide turning \u2013 I can see that we will slowly start to see more\u00a0 people wanting to take control of their own data again and become a little less digital.\u00a0 To have the driving seat of what people have about them and probably see the beginning of the demise of some aspects of this social media phenomenon which has been going on now for ten or so years.\u00a0 \u201cReal\u201d watches will start to make a come back, we will see value in spending time with people, and speaking to them, being ramped up\u2026 all coupled with the mindfulness agenda that is on the horizon.<\/p>\n
2018 has been an interesting year, mostly because we haven\u2019t really seen too much in the technology industry happen\u2026 2019 will be when the traction takes hold, be it good or bad, only time will tell…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As we draw yet another year to a close, the IT industry and the UK, actually come to think of is the world in general is in a fairly turbulent time.\u00a0 Markets are down over 12% than they were last year; the China \u2013 USA trade tensions don\u2019t seem to be easing; the famous \u201cwall\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[81,23,102,103,95,78,112,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agile","category-apple","category-digital","category-disruption","category-featured_posts","category-google-2","category-mindfulness","category-wearables"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/johnkendrick.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/hny1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3mjsZ-bk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkendrick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkendrick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkendrick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkendrick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkendrick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/johnkendrick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":705,"href":"http:\/\/johnkendrick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions\/705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkendrick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnkendrick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkendrick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnkendrick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}