Validating the demand for our Business Plan (LOCODOR):

Inspired by Founder & CEO of NewCo (John Battelle) article “Ten Predictions for 2017 - Trump, Apple, Snapchat, Tech as Villain, and more...” :  This is what I got out of it: Honestly, when I consider the coming 12 months, so much feels up for grabs that I wonder whether it’s wise to prognosticate. this year, the world feels like it needs a lot more sense making. Let’s see what happens….

  1. The bloom comes off the tech industry rose

As of this writing, the technology industry is now the undisputed leader of the business world, with the “Big 5” tech companies (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook) on top. This can’t stand. 2017 will be the year the industry is cast as a villainfor its ravenous and largely opaque data collection practices, its closed and self-serving approach to its own platforms, and its refusal to acknowledge or address the very real externalities, particularly in employment, created by its products and services. Some of this backlash will be unfair — but that’s not my point. Society vilifies those in power who appear to be unfairly profiting from that power. And in 2017, tech will be that villain.  

  1. The conversation economy breaks out.

This is certainly related to #1, if oddly oppositional. The Big Five will be in an all out battle to engage us through conversational interfaces this year. If you’ve been reading me for over a decade, you might remember my predictions around the “conversation economy.” I was a bit early, but the technology and the consumer behavior/expectations are now aligned to allow for a breakout year in user experience to finally occur.  The key will be meaningful interaction between all these services, instead of attempts to create a vertically integrated, locked-down walled garden. But that will only happen if…  

  1. Open starts to win again.

2017 will be the year that open starts to win again as a business model and an approach to creating a developer (and hence consumer) ecosystem.  It’s great that anyone can create a chatbot on Messenger, or Kik, or WhatsApp, but true innovation will come when anyone can create a chatbot that works with all of them, sharing data and user profiles across platforms. There will be meaningful demand from “users” to have more fluid and intuitive controls of their experience.