Influx

I asked Influx readers last week, if they had any predictions for 09.

(Thanks to all who submitted their thoughts and ideas)…

I received quite a range from the very general to the extremely specific and fit into the following categories:

1. An Alternative Take
2. General Big Picture Stuff
3. Social Newtworks
4. Design
5. Advertising/Media
6. Market Research
7. Fashion

1.An Alternative Take

“After the inauguration, while getting undressed at home, George W. Bush will accidentally throw a shoe at himself.

A reality TV show will be created about the demise of scripted television.
 
Brad and Angelina will have four more children and be forced to give one up for adoption.

The U.S. will sell Detroit to Canada for low monthly payments and 0% interest.
 
A youtube video created by a 14-year-old in the midwest will bore someone to death.

France will love America again. Until they realize we don’t love them and never did.”

Rick Rosenberg

2. General Big Picture Stuff

“What if we used a bad year to make a good change – it’s not really a prediction, but it’s my hope for the year!”

Simon Law

“The recession and fear of doom would subside by june-july and people
would get tired of the doomsayers and start looking at things
positively….spending less of course but on ‘real’ experiences than
‘consumerist’ materials.”

Jassim Ali

“The Return of Craft: see Monocle’s recent issue on it, Richard
Sennett’s “The Craftsman”, or the a new line of clothes by Howies “

“The Barter Economy: local food (farm shares), local money to trade for services, local community involvement, local blogs…”

Ed Reilly

“Anti consumption will become the new conspicuous consumption (already has).”

Carol Costello

“New ways to barter will emerge as paper/coin currency is phased out
and we are left with credit and debit cards/transactions. Paper
currency has no value. The cost to produce and distribute the
paper/coins is too costly to us and the environment. This will cause a
wider divide between the few rich and many poor. Middle class is
extinct, lost in the 20th century.”

Jerrod New

PSFK’s Good Ideas 2009

3. Social Networks

“Given all the advancements we’re seeing in mapping, GPS phones, and
‘friend-finding’ capabilities, there’s going to be a lot more people
knowing where other people are, and what they’re doing.

Prediction
1 is that 2009 is the year of the friendscape (yep, that’s ‘friend’ and
‘landscape’ bodged together as only marketers are wont to do…)

So
it follows naturally, I would reckon, that 2009 is going to be the year
someone gets ‘blocked’ from following someone; a big tech-step-up from
common-or-garden stalking.

Prediction 2 is that someone will
be served a restraining order that prevents them from following someone
they become obsessed with… even though everyone else will still be
allowed to know where that person is and what they’re doing…”

John V Willshire

” I think location-based social networks will begin to take hold for the reasons I mention here:”

Adam Stewart

4. Design

‘I think “Universal Design” and the idea of “Integrative” take 2 current
movements, deeper – Specifically “Democratization of Design” and
“Hybrid”

Universal Design is the new “Design for All”.

While
we continue to see innovative ideas and solutions in mass products and
of course, sustainable design (now an expectation in any truly
innovative idea) I think Universal Design will be setting future trends
- it’s efficient, smart and not only works for the mass of humanity
that’s aging up, it democratizes design in a deeper, more meaningful
and functional way.

“Integrative” I think of as a more holistic view on “Hybrid.”

Total concept thinking without compromise versus mash-up.
It’s
playing out in health, fitness, nutrition and other areas of well-being
but I’m interested to see how this thinking, this approach to finding
solutions plays out in other areas of life and culture, too.”

Lauren Holden-Kilbane

“Companies will take classic cars and retro-fit them with electric
motors. The gas combustion engines will be taken out and the classics
will become green/turquoise. These classics will take the Pimp my Ride
concept to another dimension.”

Jerod New

5. Advertising/Media

“This might be an ‘09 trend to consider: that crowdsourcing will become a buzzword du jour in mainstream marketing and will start to permeate not only consume sourced innovation ideas, but also begin to seep into how clients think about their agency…”

Brian Lanahan

“The advertising industry will finally transform as a result of a much needed and greatly overdue down sizing.”

Carol Costello

“I got asked was what’s going to
happen in 2009. Whilst I have no idea, I’ve never been one to shy away
from a little future gazing and I think one of the things we’ll see
more if is the continued blurring of the modalities of media.”

Faris Yakob

“The Rise of Magazines: the foresight most blogs lack with info graphics and reporting newspapers can no longer afford

RSS
Feeds 2.0: RSS customizable to more formats, such as newspaper or
magazine, i.e. with actual art direction. Starting to see this with
tabbloid and Russell Davies’ “Things our friends said in 2008″.

Ed Reilly

“Advertising Models are undergoing a polar shift. They are all trying to
come up with a new direction forward. Mobile and social networking
applications are the new Interactive. Interactive/digital is the new
General market, followed by Direct marketing. General market, 360
degree multi-layered campaigns will now be fused into mobile, digital
and direct strategies to create brand interactions with multiple touch
points. No longer is a tv or print campaign produced first, followed by
creating a digital element that is back-engineered to fit the campaign
and strategy.”

“The hot jobs for 2009 – 2010 are interaction designers, user experience specialists and information architects.”

“New ways of tracking advertising’s touch point successes will be
introduced as a result of the strength of mobile, digital and direct
marketing.”

“Paper magazines and newspapers will be
replaced by digital magazines and newspapers that replicate the monthly
magazine experience and daily newspaper reading experience. These are
not websites. They are interactive digital magazines that offer much
more interaction and discussion with other readers.”

Jerod New

“Year of Alternative media in India. Every client worth his salt is
talking web, mobile, activation. I think Mobile is going to be really
big here with some 300 million users.”

Nishad Ramachandran

6. Market Research

“However the real growth opportunity of text analytics lie in the
surprisingly underutilized area of traditional market research (survey
open ends and qualitative), as well as a way of tapping into the
‘largest free focus group’ in the world (internet discussion boards).
Less conventional sources of unstructured data such as call center logs
and customer emails will remain underutilized for now.”

Tom H.C. Anderson

7. Fashion

“OBAMAnation will result in a new multi-culturalism. Fashion and
trends will take pieces of cultures, religions, histories and remix
them into new creativity, fashion and individualism.”

Jerod New

“Men’s Fashion: Higher waists for men’s trousers, but the fuller leg
doesn’t really catch on and tapering remains. Really skinny ties (1-2.5
inches) reach a saturation point. A happy medium of around 3 to 3.25
inches is agreed upon and becomes the mainstream. Wide ties of 3.75 to
4 inches remain unfashionable.

Chinese Street Fashion: More
sophistication for 2009, combined with frustration at the lack of
quality in simple cuts on the market; more brands rise to trye to meet
this demand. Fewer labels, lace, and pleather as people go for better
quality.

Chinese Necktie and Silk scarf industry: Someone
creates a low minimum producer that can compete with Como, thus driving
the Italians further into a corner in terms of their one remaining
competitive advantage.“

Nels Freye

Posted by Ed Cotton