Monday, January 30, 2012

Moving onto new research ...

I'm just in the process of publishing my latest research for the LEF, so it's time to move on to a new area of research. Before I do, I thought I'd post something about the past research and a quick summary of a few of the points worth noting.

Explosions of industrial creativity rarely follow the invention, discovery or subsequent innovation of a technology but instead its commoditisation i.e. it wasn't the discovery of electricity but Edison's introduction of utility services for electricity that produced the creative boom that led to recorded music, modern movies, consumer electronics and even Silicon Valley. However, utility provision of electricity did more than just create a new world, it disrupted existing industries (both directly and through reduced barriers of entry), it also allowed for new practices and methods of working to emerge and even resulted in new economic forms - such as Henry Ford's Fordism.

This isn't a one off pattern. The cycle of innovation / commoditisation repeats throughout our industrial history, following a surprisingly consistent pathway. Understanding this pattern is critical to anticipating the changes emerging in our industry today - whether that's the web, cloud computing or the future changes that 3D printing will bring.

The actual cycle itself is rather simple but as with all things it creates complex interactions. I've tried to summarise some of the effect in figure 1 (below) and I'll go through it in the general notes.



General Notes

1. All business activities evolve through a common pathway. This pathway is defined by how ubiquitous and certain (i.e. well understood & defined) an activity is. The relationship between these two I have previously discussed on many occasions. What's important to remember is that activities evolve through domains including genesis, custom built examples, products (including rental services) and commodity (including utility services). What drives the process of evolution is user and vendor competition - i.e. the need for something and the desire to supply that need and outcompete others.

2. It's not just activities (what we do) that evolves but also practice (how we do something). Practices evolve through equivalent domains - novel, emerging, good and best (known as the cynefin framework). It's important to remember that practices can, and often do, co-evolve with activities. For example, best practice for resilience and scaling with computing infrastructure products (the activity) was N+1 and scale-up. As the activity evolved to more of a commodity this enabled emerging practices such as design for failure. These emerging practices will evolve over time to become best practice for a utility infrastructure world.

3. Practices and activities can themselves be grouped into three stages - chaotic, transitional and linear. Chaotic activities (i.e. genesis to custom built) are scarce by nature, poorly understood, uncertain, rapidly changing, deviation is desirable, serendipity matter and they are a source of future worth. Over time the same activity becomes abundant, well defined, predictable, measurable, deviation is undesirable and nothing more than a cost of doing business.

4. The process of evolution creates a cycle i.e. as activities become more of a commodity they enable new (higher order) activities to develop - i.e. utility provision of electricity lead to consumer electronics. This is standard componentisation and it often has a dramatic effect causing a rapid growth in genesis of new activities.

5. The cycle itself has different states - war (disruption), growth (build) and peace (margin). Each state is suitable for different strategies and approaches. For example in the peace state, competition between competitors is relative with sustaining change tending to exceed disruptive. In the war state, competition is a fight for survival and disruptive change exceeds sustaining. How much this impacts you depends upon the activity in question and whether you're directly effected (i.e. it's something you produce) or it's a barrier to entry into your business.

6. The cycle is controlled by inertia barriers for both customer and vendor. On the customer side these are normally referred to as "risks" such as disruption (loss of skillset, political capital etc), transition (trust in new suppliers, transparency, change in governance etc)  and agency (loss of strategic control, lock-in, lack of pricing competition etc). On the vendor side these inertia barriers are built upon from past success and include such things as culture, incentives, structure and external forces (such as financial markets). This is why the inertia barriers are often broken by a company that is not encumbered by the previous model (e.g. Amazon vs Hosting companies).

7. The cycle itself can be local to a specific industry (i.e. range of activities) or can have major macro-economic effects. Whether it does depends upon if the activity can be a component of future activities, the number of activities built up behind the inertia barriers and if the activity can enable others to cross the inertia barriers. The macro economic waves that we see are known as Kondratiev waves and we often refer to them as 'ages' - industrial age, mechanical age etc.

8. During the war state, new forms of organisation appear. These organisations have different strategies, practices and activities than previous organisations. Over time the practices of this next generation diffuse i.e. utility provision of electricity enabled the development of Fordism which spread to become a major influencing factor on most companies.

9. During each of the cycles, we see rapid increases in un-modelled data. It's not unstructured, simply we don't know how to model it as it's in the chaotic (i.e. uncertain, constantly changing) state. Over time we attempt to model this data generally leading to arguments over schemas and classification and technology etc. We've seen this in both Georgian (first industrial age) and Victorian ages (mechanical and railways age) and every subsequent age.

10. As additional points (i.e. this post is too long already) :-
* knowledge also diffuses through the same stages (chaotic to linear)
* there are multiple accelerators and de-accelerators to the process of evolution.
* there are forcing strategies which companies can deploy i.e. use of open source, network effects etc.
* there are many counter strategies which companies can deploy i.e. use of patents, branding, legal system and ownership of lower orders of the value chain.
* the characteristics of the stages are why no "one size fits all" methodology works i.e. in project management agile is most suited to the chaotic where deviation is desirable and structured methods (e.g. six sigma) are most suited to the linear where deviation is not desirable.
* there are multiple ways of exploiting the cycle to your advantage
* organisations consists of a mass of activities and therefore can be in different states of the cycle at the same time and even have multiple fronts at the same time (i.e. multiple parts in a state of war).
* this entire cycle occurs throughout an organisations value chain and hence from simple premises creates a complex world of management.
* linear activities tend to low margin but are stable whereas chaotic activities tend to high margin but are unstable. Creating a profitable and sustainable company requires a constant balance of both.
* many of the memes of modern management e.g. "business alignment" are consequences of how we structure ourselves and ignore the impact of evolution.
* the cycle is accelerating

We can see the effects of this model clearly today. For example, cloud computing which is simply the shift of various IT activities from a product to a utility service domain (a more evolved form) which has been initiated by companies not encumbered by the previous model (Amazon etc) and hence have broken the inertia barriers has instigated a state of war. The normal round of customer "risks" (trust, transparency, governance changes etc) have been raised along with resistance from past vendors (e.g. dismissing of cloud).  As a result of the state of war, new forms of organisation have emerged which have fundamentally different structures, strategies, practices and activities from the past. At the same time new architectural practices (resilience, scaling) relating to this activity (e.g. infrastructure) have co-evolved and are now diffusing. 

We have also seen the explosion of new activities built upon these commoditised component services along with increases of un-modelled data which the technology enables us to exploit (hence big data). We should increasingly see the disruption of past vendors who are stuck behind the inertia barriers due to their past success and hence have cultural, institutional and structural barriers to change. Equally the war will spread to other industries through the reduction of barriers to entry i.e. retail banking, insurance etc.

I could go on with formation of competitive markets, role of standards etc but it's almost a text book classic of the cycle. The only thing that is surprising is how many people are surprised by the changes.

Of course, cloud computing is based upon an underlying component which itself underwent this cycle. That component, which commoditised the means of mass communication, is the internet and it caused disruption (both direct and through reduced barriers to entry) of many industries from media to retail to travel. It also caused explosions of growth, un-modelled data, new practices and new forms of organisation - the web 2.0.  Naturally, their practices (e.g social media, social networks ...) diffused amongst those companies that survived and adapted to the new economic state.

That was also a text book classic of the cycle.

Of course, the internet is a component of the next cycle which refers to the commoditisation of the means of manufacturing - e.g. 3D printing, printed electronics etc. It will have exactly the same effects but then I covered this in talk between 2005-2007 (based upon earlier research) and it's just the same old thing.

The above is brief notes and this work was developed from my original models and research pre-2005 which I've used extensively in competition. It's only recently however that I've been able to extend the model to organisational evolution and obtain the volume of data necessary to be confident with the entire model. Its validation required a cycle of change. It'll still require another cycle before its predictive capabilities are fully tested though.

None of the above is new to anyone that has been following me over the last five years, in fact it's probably very dull having heard much of it so many times before. I still find the nuances interesting, i.e. why companies in a peace mode that find themselves in a war state often attempt to reduce cost to restore profitability and hence quicken their demise or why you have no choice over evolution (Red Queen) of the impacts of Jevons' paradox or ... well there's lot.

However, I'm moving on into how to really exploit evolution of the value chain and play the game. So I thought I'd just put this up here as a brief reminder to the work I've done.



Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Stop Online Piracy, NOW!!!!

If Congress (or anyone else) wants to stop online piracy, there's another way. Ban all content which is not creative commons or equivalently licensed material (e.g. GPL) from the internet.

This will kill online piracy as there will be nothing to pirate, only stuff you can copy. Well, almost, as some of that pesky material will still leak online. Hence any infraction should be treated as other security violations and made the responsibility of the copyright holder for not taking enough security measures to ensure that their content never reached the internet.

Certainly it'll make investigations into infringements easier (books and films usually take great pains to specify who wrote them) and you can imagine those future law enforcement conversations ...

"Now, sir. I see your film is available online and has been downloaded and copied 100,000 times. So if it's not a creative commons licensed film then that's a 100,000 security violations. Gosh, Mr CEO, that's going to be a huge fine and prison sentence. Won't you miss your jet and lavish lifestyle? Bet you wish you'd kept that film in a locked safe now don't you, silly billy. Now, are you sure your film wasn't creative commons license because if it was I wouldn't be able to charge you with anything?"

I'm quite convinced that by introducing the above scheme, the amount of people going to prison or being fined for copyright infringement will drastically reduce. We will have in effect stopped online piracy and the crime will cease to be.

Won't that destroy online films?
Of course not, people will still want easy access to content from a convenient and trusted source (such as NetFlix) and where there's demand, supply will follow. The trusted brand is all important and people will still pay a reasonable subscription for it. The content producers will just have to adapt to a world where they can still make money from abundantly used creative commons licensed content rather than scarcity.

Won't that destroy online journalism?
Of course not, people will still want easy access to content from a trusted and respected source which provides an analysis of what is happening. The trusted brand is again all important and advertisers will still want to promote their messages. Certainly, people will copy it, so you'll need to build a loyal following and look at those copying sites as free marketing.

Won't that destroy the online music industry?
Of course not, people will still want to hear their favourite bands live, attend gigs, buy merchandise from the band site and they'd still pay (either through subscription or advertising) for a trusted and useful service. Certainly others will copy it, so you'll need to do the usual - build a loyal following, focus on creating a strong trust relationship and think of those copying sites as free marketing.

Won't that destroy the past models of media?
Well the media industry always cries wolf over piracy and change but certainly forcing them to keep copyrighted material secure will make it difficult for them to distribute. However, since many don't seem willing to adapt to a new world (hence SOPA/PIPA) and the cost of introducing legislation to protect them will harm more future focused industries (i.e. the internet is a component of these) then maybe legislation may be needed to force change.

Even if the content is freely available, I'd still pay to have easy access to it through a useful and trusted service, I'll still want to attend gigs, attend lectures, buy merchandise (even books) and watch movies that include product endorsements etc.

Yes, it will be a different world but either the traditional Media companies adapt to a world where you make money from abundance or the US will need to sacrifice its future competitive position (by harming its internet industry).

It's not like those traditional companies haven't had almost two decades to prepare for this change. What have those media executives been doing - playing golf with Kodak? What did you honestly think that digitisation and the internet was going to do - increase your profits by reducing your distribution costs?

Banning copyrighted material is an extreme option and I do believe in a more balanced approach. However, if the traditional Media industries are going to try and use legislation to avoid change, then someone needs to start thinking about how to use legislation to force them to adapt. Otherwise the US tech companies will be constantly in a defensive, rear guard action against acts like SOPA / PIPA etc.

The best form of defense is a good offense.

Reprinted from G+ :-)

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Mystic Me 5.0

I'm a bit late with my predictions for this year as a couple of components have already started and so I've had to re-write those parts. However better late than never and in any case this is mainly for my testing purposes. The normal rules apply, the predictions are built up of individual components and each and every component must be correct for the prediction to be correct.
Since, I managed to overshoot my target for last year, I've made the predictions even more detailed using well over 100 different components. I'm aiming for a 50% target (not higher and not lower) which is the ideal balance between usefulness and accuracy.
So, without any more egging of the custard, here goes :-
Predictions for 2012
  1. Cloud:Open stack will gain further momentum in the popular press with multiple providers coming online to form a fledgling market. However debate will intensify over the wisdom of providing multiple APIs and whether Open Stack should focus more on being an AWS clone due to evidence of the growing success of Eucalyptus. This situation will be further complicated by Amazon launching a managed "Data Centre in a Container" product aimed at at large enterprises as an onramp to use of public AWS services.

    The adoption of cloud computing will continue to outstrip earlier analyst predictions and pundits will cite AWS as exceeding $2 billion in revenue.

    The confusion over "enterprise clouds" will grow due to marketing efforts promoting Enterprise Class vs Commodity based clouds, however there will be a backlash including some high profile customers declaring them as of dubious value. Platform as a service will have a strong year with CloudFoundry in particular growing significantly in both community involvement and media coverage.

    There will also be no let up in the pace of mergers and acquisitions in this industry with a particular focus on Devop and Management systems. Both ARM and Ubuntu will strengthen their positions in the cloud space. In particular, we will see increasing mention of a standard computing stack involving Ubuntu, OpenStack and CloudFoundry.

    Countering these developments will be an increased involvement of Gov bodies with the view of introducing legislation to the cloud with licensed cloud operators.

    Big Data will continue to rapidly grow in prominence, however the focus will switch more towards utility provision of big data systems and the importance of algorithms. In particular, data competitions will have a strong year and it will become increasingly clear that they are used not only for improving algorithms but as sources for recruitment of talent.

    There will be a number of high profile articles questioning when (not if) cloud will dominate financial ERP and more traditional Enterprise spaces with popular wisdom shifting towards the near future i.e. less than 5 yrs. However, what won't be clear in the first half of the year is which companies will dominate this space and instead concerns will be raised over whether existing software vendors can overcome internal inertia. By the end of the year, it will be clear that an outside player will dominate.

  2. Environment:Total Arctic Ice volume will decline to the lowest level on record raising concerns that a tipping point has already been reached. The melting season will be considered to have extended again and the UK will suffer one of the most severe winters on record. Despite the unpopularity of nuclear power, there will be a number of high profile environmental articles highlighting it as a necessary evil in terms of combating climate change.

  3. Economy:Despite assurances by the BOE (Bank of England) that inflation will reduce by the second half of the year, RPI will have increased on a year by year basis. The technical recession in the UK will turn into a full blown recession with increasing discussion in the BOE for another round of quantitative easing. Interest rates will be kept at their current historic low. The driving forces behind many of the UK actions will be from Europe.

    In detail, the sequence of events include :
    In the first half of the year there will be continued uncertainty over the European debt crisis and exposure of banks to financial instruments based upon this. There will be increasing calls for the ECB to act as the lender of last resort and underwrite individual countries debts across Europe but the ECB will initially refuse.

    With increasing social pressure within European countries, the core group of Europe will take drastic action. First, selected countries will default on the Gov debt but remain within the Euro causing increasing market reaction to Euro debt, weakening of the Euro and strengthening of UK gilts and GBP. As GBP strengthens, the FTSE will weaken (as foreign capital seeks to take profit) and to counter this the BOE will embark on a significant round of quantitative easing, possibly in excess of £500 bn depending upon how insane they are.

    At this point, the ECB will step in and consolidate the remaining Gov debt across the core Euro group into EuroBonds and act as the lender of last resort for future debt. Investors and rating agencies being caught flat footed will cry foul, however the strengthening of the core Euro group will cause both the Euro to rise and the debt crisis to recede in Europe. However, investors in those selected countries which have defaulted (i.e. banks etc) will be left with a realisation that they have been gamed. Legal actions will result but losses in those investors will be enormous.

    In the core European countries, those banks most impacted will be nationalised and it will become increasingly clear during the year that this had been planned as the most significant damage will be felt in the city of London. By the end of the year, the core Euro groups will start to re-define the single market agreement to be limited to a Eurozone. Faced with mounting debts, weakening of the financial market and the strengthening of the Euro market, the FTSE will start to fall significantly by the end of the year. The BOE will then again raise the spectre of even more QE.

  4. Society :
    There will be continued protests in Europe over austerity measures in the first part of the year, however by the end of the year these will lessen. In the UK however the reverse will happen.

    Protests and strike action in the first part of the year will be mild, however by the end of the year with a massive increase in gov debt (due to QE3), rising inflation (due to QE3), weakening internal economy (due to QE3), isolation from Europe (due to Euro core and ECB action), further bail-out of the banking system (due to Euro core and ECB action) and increasing government austerity ... the mood will darken considerably.

    Someone, somewhere will write a popular but ridiculous press article on whether this is the "End of Britain?" By the end of the year, one member of the MPC will write an article explaining their concerns that they have got it wrong.

  5. Politics :The year will show increasing tension between the coalition partners with a number of high profile spats. Despite this and with press pundits predicting a collapse of the coalition, the darkening public mood will convince both parties that an early election will lead to a rout. In their own interests, not in the interest of the country, no early election will be called.

    Despite the calls for more legislation of the internet and protection of vested interest, there will be a growing realisation that the UK must embrace a future which is not the past. Such calls will find a champion and increasingly the Government will talk about the end of large scale IT projects, embracing a more open future and a need for industry to adapt. Increasingly measures will be discussed to encourage high technology start-ups, to support open source, to end current Government purchasing practices and to limit IP effect on the wider industry.

    By the end of the year, despite the poor economic situation, the first glimmers of a bright future will appear as a number of high technology companies will openly discuss moving to the UK.

  6. Technology:VMWare will clearly act as two operational divisions - one focused on infrastructure, the other on platform whilst VCE will be touted as a potential IPO for 2013.

    The dominance of Android on phones, tablets and TVs (as demonstrated by market share of units shipped) will increasingly raise speculation over Apple's future with several popular press articles asking whether this is a re-run of the Mac vs IBM PC.

    Amazon will also have an exceptional year in sales of their tablets with Amazon and Samsung being seen as as the two dominant players (by volume of units) in the tablet space.

    Google TV & Google Wallet will exceed expectations with G+ continuing to grow rapidly exceeding 350 million users by the end of the year. Despite hostility to the integration of G+ with Google Search, and the potential dangers of data gravity effects, Google will not discontinue the effort. As a consequence Facebook will buckle and start to adopt a more open approach to data.

    Early in the year pundits will discuss the potential for Twitter as 'the' worldwide real time messaging system and there will be, at least one, high profile attempt to acquire it. Twitter will both refuse acquisition attempts and refuse to integrate into G+. By the end of the year the pundits will change tune and articles will question whether Twitter is a "dead man walking".

    Mobile banking will also have a phenomenal year with pundits speculating whether this is the beginning of the end for many traditional retail banks.

  7. Media :Despite early success, 2012 will be marked by an increasing "war" between past industries and the future. The battle of IP will cover many fronts simultaneously including legislation through Congress, further introduction of DRM on devices and attempts to reinforce Global IP laws.

    The battle in the US will turn particularly bleak as media companies aggressively fight a campaign through traditional media channels including assaults on the characters of many public opponents. The pro IP lobby will also find an unlikely ally in China. Due to expansionist policy, Chinese backed companies will increasingly become active in US IP law and provide funding to increasing IP / Copyright legislation. Opponents will highlight how China's policy in the US differs from its own home policy which will not strengthen such laws.

    Despite vocal public opposition the US Congress will continue to enact PIPA or an equivalent. By the end of the year, a number of leading Internet companies will have openly raised concerns that they may need to move out of the US. Media companies which have adapted to the new environment, such as NetFlix, will continue to grow rapidly but increasingly will find themselves dragged into the political battle with content providers.

    At the very end of the year, a high profile article (probably HBR) will be written concluding that the US has just handed the future of the internet to other nations.

  8. Manufacturing :Both 3D printing and printed electronics will have a robust year in terms of growth and public awareness. There will be a marked rise in start-ups and funding in this space, with numerous public articles describing the technology as the future of manufacturing.

    The first hints of hybrid printers (both electronic and physical form) will surface along with technology articles questioning whether new forms of computing language will develop covering both physical and digital function.

    None of the major printing companies will make significant moves into this space during 2012.

    A number of articles will also raise concerns on the issue of security and whether this technology will lead to widespread piracy. These articles will conclude with the importance of DRM and a fledgling lobbyist organisation will form to promote these concerns in the US.

  9. Things to Watch :The key watch words of 2012 are Ecosystem, Openness and "Do it yourself" IT.

    Increasingly there will be a clear separation between traditional organisations and a new form of next generation companies. Key characteristics of this next generation which will be highlighted throughout the year include :

    use of cultural strategy
    cell like organisational structures
    use of platforms to develop ecosystems with competition based upon ecosystems
    use of commodity components in IT
    emerging architectural practices (design for failure, chaos engines and distributed systems)
    extensive use of analytics and algorithmic regulation
    intensive focus on strategic gaming in competition
    use of open source as a tactical weapon against competitors
    a focus on disruption of existing industries as opposed to profit or expansion into geographical emerging markets.

  10. MISOG's :Despite the best efforts of the Olympic Committee there will be endless grumblings about the Olympics in London covering the cost, the legacy, the exclusiveness of the event, ticketing, transportation issues, failure of IT systems, unpreparedness, rising costs of rent and excessive security. There will be some protests over the event with increasing concerns that the project costs have overrun and the UK could ill afford the event. Much of this will be couched in terms of the increasing economic gloom in the UK which will overshadow the event. Despite this, the UK will have a good event.

An open letter to Congress on SOPA / PIPA - from Aliens4SOPA

To understand the impact of SOPA / PIPA we need to get rid of some very basic misunderstandings.

First, explosions of industrial creativity DON'T follow the invention of a technology but its commoditisation i.e. it wasn't the invention of electricity but Edison's introduction of utility services for electricity that created an economic boom that led to recorded music, modern movies, consumer electronics and even Silicon Valley.

Electricity is an essential component of these industries and it had to be provided as a standard component before they could flourish.

Now the internet commoditises the means of mass communication i.e. mass communication existed beforehand but the internet turned it into a standard component. Hence we've seen an explosion of industrial creativity based upon this component i.e. Google, Facebook, Twitter etc.

Each time an activity - whether electricity or mass communication or trade - is commoditised, we see explosions of creativity, the formation of future industry and the disruption of past industry. As Edison commoditised electricity provision, new industries formed and past industries such as Gas lighting companies were disrupted.

Those past industries had a choice. They could either consolidate, acquire and adapt which is what they did or they could have tried to get Congress to pass legislation to stifle the electricity market. Had those Gas Lighting Companies succeeded in doing that, then Edison and those future industries such as Hollywood, Silicon Valley, General Electric would never have formed in the US. Instead they would have formed somewhere else and the US would be a fraction of the economic power that it is today.

SOPA is simply an attempt by past industries who face disruption AND refuse to adapt, to persuade Congress to legislate in favour of past models. Its effect will be the same as Gas Lighting companies persuading Congress to legislate against electricity. It's an economic blunder.

You live in global economic market and you compete against other nations. If because of concerns over piracy the US makes such an economic blunder, then as competing nations we will act like pirates by plundering your future. If we don't, China will.

We will happily take Silicon Valley off your hands. Send it to London, we would love it.

We will happily have those jobs, those future industries. If you don't want it, we do.

They key point to understand is the internet is an essential component for future industry just like electricity. Mess with that at your peril.

Of course, Media industries complain about a changing world, they've been crying wolf for decades : "8 track tapes and piracy will destroy recorded music", "video and piracy will destroy the film industry", "internet and piracy will destroy …" blah blah blah blah blah.

Adapt or die is all I'm going to say and if you don't want those future industries please send them to us where we would care for them. So as Alien from a competing nation, I'm all for Congress destroying the US economic future. Go for it.

As they say, fortune favours the brave or more aptly :-

"OUR FORTUNE IS FAVOURED BY CONGRESS CHARGING BLINDLY INTO AN ECONOMIC ABYSS"

We love you Congress.

PS if you could also persuade the Murdoch empire to shift permanently to the US that would be cool too. We've been giving them hints in the UK but I'm not sure they've got the message.

Friday, January 06, 2012

Review of Mystic Me 4.0

Before giving predictions for 2012, I'd better start by reviewing last years.

Of the 51 separate component predictions made (grouped into ten categories, see below) then :-

  • 1 is yet undecided
  • 4 are clearly incorrect
  • 46 are demonstrable

This gives a 92% rate of accuracy for individual components. I'll publish the data when I get a spare moment and have completed the next round of predictions.

However, spotting individual components and trends is the easy bit (i.e. big data will become a hot topic etc). Combining it all together into a coherent story is the real trick.

When scoring a category, every single component prediction in that category must be accurate, timely, spot on etc for the story to be considered accurate. In other words, if a tiny part of the entire prediction for that category is wrong then the whole thing is wrong – no excuses.

I don't believe in the idea of "well I was 70% correct in my statement", it's simple binary - yes or no.

The results are as follows :-

#CategoryNotesScore (0-1)
1CloudAll ten components are demonstrably correct1
2EnvironmentOf three components, two are demonstrable, one has yet to complete but can be considered likely to fail.0
3EconomyOf nine components, eight are demonstrable but one is clearly wrong (i.e. the FTSE did not drop below 3,000).0
4SocietyAll four components were demonstrably correct1
5Technology BusinessOf seven components, two are not demonstrable (i.e. VMWare will increasingly act as two operational divisions and CPTN holdings will turn out to be a patent troll) 0
6Media TechnologyOf seven components, one was clearly wrong (i.e. government regulation to introduce censorship based services designed to "protect the most vulnerable") 0
7Manufacturing BusinessThe one component prediction specified is demonstrable1
8Words to watch forAll five component predictions are demonstrable1
9Social MobilityBoth component predictions are demonstrable1
10MISOG'sAll three component predictions are demonstrable1

Overall this gives 60% accuracy but since the goal was to increase specificity to achieve a target of 50% accuracy then I can conclude that I overshot the prediction target and 2012's predictions will have to become even more demanding and more specific.

Hence the result is close but no cigar

For reference, the list of component predictions were:-



#CategoryComponent Prediction for 2011
1CloudConventional wisdom within the popular press shifts towards seeing open source architectures dominating the cloud computing space
2CloudCost efficiency arguments around cloud computing will increasingly be replaced with customer innovation stories
3Cloudthe adoption rates of cloud computing will outstrip many early analyst predictions
4CloudPundits will cite AWS as exceeding $1 billion in revenue
5CloudEnterprise IT will increasingly focus on new value creation, architecture and vendor management techniques
6CloudIncreasing mention of terms like supply chain management and new business models based upon outcome
7CloudPlatform as a service (PaaS) will overtake Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) as the main buzz of cloud computing
8Cloud There will also be no let up in the pace of mergers and acquisitions in this industry
9CloudGovernments will also increasingly become engaged in discussing regulation of the cloud
10CloudSome official will be talking up the idea of licensed cloud operators
11EnvironmentTotal Arctic Ice volume will decline to the lowest level on record
12EnvironmentThe melting season is considered to have extended by several weeks
13EnvironmentThe UK will suffer another cold winter.
14EconomyInflation, as measured by RPI, will continue to rise.
15EconomyBecause of instabilities in the recovery the MPC will hold interest rates low
16EconomyBoE will implement a last gasp round of quantitative easing
17EconomyLondon will experience a property bubble for high value residential property
18EconomyThe overall housing market, according to the Halifax House Price Index, will suffer a fall in prices
19EconomyUK will fall back into recession
20EconomyInstabilities will be driven by overexposure of banks to instruments based on sovereign debt
21EconomyThere will be increasing market attacks on sovereign debt and a drop in consumer confidence
22EconomyThe FTSE 100 will drop below 3,000 during the year.
23SocietyWe will see increasing civil disobedience in many countries.
24SocietyUK will experience increasing protests and strike action
25SocietyDespite the necessity to reduce debt, the coalition (in particular the Liberal Party) will continue to wain in popularity polls
26SocietyDespite pundits predicting collapse of the coalition, it will muddle through.
27Technology BusinessVMWare will increasingly act as two operational divisions - one focused on infrastructure, the other on platform. Some public pundits will start to question whether one of the units will be sold.
28Technology BusinessCPTN holdings will turn out to be a patent troll, its target is not Android or FOSS specifically but Cloud in general.
29Technology BusinessWe should see examples of companies trading on variability in cloud infrastructure prices through the provision of true brokerage services
30Technology BusinessThe volume of tablet sales will sky rocket with new competitors flooding into the market
31Technology BusinessExisting industry will see a decline of traditional laptops
32Technology BusinessThe concept of social searching will become increasingly important with a continuation of the plethora of start-ups providing new ways of ranking, mining and determining social reputation
33Technology BusinessPundits discounting the future of Google will get a rude awakening
34Media TechnologyIn the UK, there will be further high profiled efforts to carve up the Internet.
35Media TechnologyThe use of government regulation to introduce censorship based services designed to "protect the most vulnerable"
36Media TechnologyPaywalls will continue to be the rage
37Media TechnologyLargest effect will come through the proliferation of devices with on-chip DRM
38Media TechnologyMedia pundits will raise the question whether these devices and the introduction of two tier environments means the Internet can be effectively controlled for the average consumer
39Media TechnologyOnline video will continue to grow exponentially
40Media TechnologyYouTube becoming increasingly seen as the future distribution channel of media
41Manufacturing BusinessPrinted electronics will have a robust year in the popular press, with pundits talking up the potential for this technology especially when combined with 3D printing
42Words to watch for:Consumerization
43Words to watch for:Shadow IT
44Words to watch for:Ecosystem
45Words to watch for:Cloud computing will still cause confusion
46Words to watch for:There will be a continuation of marketing efforts to distinguish between enterprise and public cloud
47Social MobilityIncreases in tax and a crackdown on tax avoidance
48Social MobilityNo mass exodus of wealth from the UK.
49MISOG'sThere will be a considerable amount of grumbling over the Royal Wedding and how much coverage it's getting.
50MISOG'sUnfortunately no private company will step upto the plate and offer to pay the bill
51MISOG'sSomeone, somewhere will write an article about how the cost of giving everyone an extra days holiday could stall the UK recovery