Top 5 Favorite 2022 Tech Predictions

(Photo credit @sunlifter)

Happy New Year to all of you! I can’t quite believe that we’re already in 2022. It’s a great time to consider whether a new year means a new job/career for you. 

#announcements

1. If you would like to drop in to say hello or ask a quick tech/career Q, please subscribe to the newsletter - and you’ll get the Q&A registration link!
   

2. I’m also launching a series of short workshops to help you jumpstart your job searches! Based on the LinkedIn poll I did, multiple workshop topics are appealing! (There’s still time to vote if you want to push one forward to the top.) I’ve decided to offer the first one as a free session on understanding tech, and then 4 other paid workshops related to tech resume revamp, job search strategizing, developing 30-second pitches, and finding contacts. 

   1. You can register for any of these workshops here: lu.ma/lizarnold

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#tech+careersoundbite

It is incredibly popular to do predictions around this time of year. Rather than add to the noise, I thought it would be useful to share 5 of my favorite tech+career predictions for 2022 & add my own commentary. I’d love to hear what you think! 

1. “The next generation of top talent will have “Polygamous Careers,” transforming the corporate world as we know it.”  – Scott Belsky, Chief Product Officer, Adobe.

   1. I love this one for likely obvious reasons. It’s great for creative types who have many interests & career goals, and helps to elevate side hustles from an auxiliary activity to one critical piece of your career/skill portfolio. It’s not really a new concept but I love the thought of it becoming more mainstream within many organizations. 

2. “NFTs will become mainstream and attract far more diverse consumers.” – Nicole Quinn, Partner at Lightspeed

   1. When I read this, it convinced me that I need to take NFTs more seriously: ‘NFT trading volume hit $13bn for 2021, which was a yoy increase of 43,000% (!!).’ I’m fascinated by how this tool can help creators of all types to better monetize their artwork, and at the same time, how brands can leverage the usage of unique NFTs in the new metaverses being developed. Your avatar could wear a piece by a designer or you could own a unique copy of a song from a new artist - and these are verified by the blockchain. More to come on NFTs in a future newsletter!

3. “The Zuckerverse Is the Biggest Tech Fail of 2022” – Scott Galloway, NYU MBA Professor & Founder, Section4

   1. Ready Player One has shown us that one company designing a metaverse game can easily go horribly wrong, and Meta (aka Facebook) is no different. They have already hosted 3 concerts that were poorly attended. And while I have no doubt that some will be attracted to their metaverse, if it is siloed off from other virtual worlds, it’ll likely die on the vine. 

4. “The spirit of Silicon Valley continues a spread outward.” – Tomasz Tunguz, Managing Partner, Redpoint Ventures

   1. The dispersion of tech talent from Silicon Valley to remote locales & the conviction of Theranos’ disgraced CEO Elizabeth Holmes is part of the subtle dismantling of a power concentration in Silicon Valley. It will always retain an allure & plenty of power due to all the company HQ’s – but it has been fascinating to watch other cities like Miami & Austin suck talent to them. I will be very curious to see what will happen in the coming months as hybrid/remote work becomes more commonplace. 

5. “Precision medicine is imperative to scaling care delivery amidst rising demand.” – Aike Ho, Principal, Acme Capital

   1. We need continued innovation in digital health to support the rising demand for healthcare services (hello neverending pandemic!) coupled with the decline in the number of healthcare professionals here in the US. The only way to scale services is via tech-enabled healthcare services. Tho as there are some worrisome trends about AI bias that could cause some unintended consequences, we & the growing health tech startups need to remain vigilant. Many of the communities that require tech services are in low-income and rural areas that are losing healthcare workers at higher rates. 

#random

Forget the metaverse - instead, contemplate the existence of the Multiverse. The TV show Fringe delved into this topic if you want to nerd out on a very weird yet binge-able show. 

Should you care about the metaverse?

(Photo credit PluggedIn)

In the blink of an eye, summer has almost slipped by and we are nearing the month of September. I am definitely not ready for pumpkin spice anything and will continue to enjoy being outside.  Maybe I should plug myself into an alternate universe where summer lasts all year? Nah - I already lived in Arizona and my internal body clock ended up really missing how time was marked when there were four distinct seasons. 

#techsoundbite **check out the rename for this section - what do you think?**

I couldn’t resist diving into the metaverse this week as it’s not an area I am really familiar with, so this was a learning opportunity for me too. After Mark Z's big announcement that Facebook will focus on bringing the metaverse to life, the internet is all abuzz. My favorite simple definition of the metaverse is: a single, persistent virtual environment shared by everyone on the planet. The concept of a metaverse was coined in 1992 by author Neal Stephenson in his foundational sci fi novel ‘Snow Crash’ -- and it is positioned as the successor to the internet. If you’d like to fall down a giant metaverse rabbit hole, you could read VC Matthew Ball’s 9-part primer series. Or the NYTimes offers a slightly easier-to-digest topical review. 

Now if you’re like me, you’re probably asking yourself why you should care about this? I’m not a gamer, don’t have any VR headsets, and I kinda like our real world. But in these times, I can understand wanting to escape from the world for brief (or even extended) periods. Especially if I could travel... 

Reason #1 to care: who is building this world that many millions or billions of people will inhabit? And is it a good world for us to inhabit? Will it be like The Matrix where you have to jack in and out, and the VR world is all pristine because it’s been carefully curated? Or will it be more like Epic’s vision to extend Fortnite? Not surprisingly, there are many companies competing to define what this universal metaverse will look like. Microsoft envisions an enterprise metaverse, which seems to be an extension of the IoT universe, a hybrid of the digital and physical worlds. And Facebook’s grand plan is that multiple companies partner with individual creators to build a new virtual world where work, commerce, shopping and education all can happen. I’ll admit - I’m skeptical of the 3D world that Facebook will create, given the bang-up job they have done so far with the 2D world. And these are only 2 of companies that have visions for how the metaverse will be created - it would be helpful to understand who all the other players are to understand motives and goals as the internet 2.0 is being created. 

Reason #2 to care: how will this virtual world interact with our real world? What type of funding/money is at stake here? If this new virtual world is as extensive as many envision it will be, we will conduct our commerce there, take shopping trips, travel to faraway places, and meet with colleagues at virtual workplaces. Cryptocurrency companies believe their currency will be the de facto coin of the realm. Marketers and CPG brands are considering the endless possibilities to position their brands in a new 3D virtual world. 

One big challenge is that the hardware to connect seamlessly with the growing metaverse is still years away, though Oculus is aiming to be at the forefront of the VR headset revolution. Another challenge: I cannot believe that there are many (or any) workplaces yet where employees are clamouring to interact with colleagues in a fully virtual world. What social cues do you lose? I could see beginning with an AR world to try to help us imagine we’re working together in the office...but I’m not buying the VR world yet, except for maybe a few specific workplaces (like small startups). My friend Scott joined Mark Zuckerberg & others for the first public test of the new FB Horizon Workrooms last week and wrote in-depth about his experiences. It is interesting how the VR world can feel both more and less real than our current one - so I’m intrigued but not holding my breath.