Biz Talk: Good year ahead for innovation

DAVE GALLAGHER

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Listening to Mark Anderson talk for an hour is like taking a whirlwind tour of economics, technology and geopolitics, but it sure is interesting.

Anderson is a technology futurist who founded Strategic News Service, a newsletter focused on investing and technology. Friday he spoke to more than 100 people at the Technology Alliance Group’s meeting in Bellingham, offering his top 10 technology and telecommunication trends for 2008.

Anderson takes a look at a wide array of topics before coming up with trends, whether they are changes in Russia (he speculates there may be another Cold War in our future) or the Summer Olympics in China (where pictures of pollution will capture much of the world’s attention) or the economy (global economy looks good, U.S. not so great for 2008).

DETAILS

Mark Anderson’s top 10 of technology and telecommunication trends: www.tapsns.com. Click the blog link.

Anderson hits the mark on some things. He was talking about oil hitting $100 a barrel three years ago when it was about $40 a barrel, for example. Listening to this year’s talk, several trends already appear to be happening. Here are some of the trends he mentioned that center on business:

A revolution in social networking. As advertisers try to market a variety of stuff on places like Facebook, users will revolt. “I wouldn’t be surprised if one of or two of these social networks are destroyed, followed by new sites that have smaller numbers, better privacy protection and are not inundated by advertising,” Anderson said. That might mean opportunities are possible for others to step in and create other networking groups.

Online content spreads everywhere. As the Internet moves onto phones and television, Anderson said it becomes invisible and terms like “multimedia” will become outdated. “The Web is moving beyond an interesting topic of conversation; it will just be everywhere. The content is what will become important,” Anderson said.

It’s finally time to talk about health care. Since 2008 is a big election year, Anderson expects candidates to really address health care, particularly after the primaries are over. “It’s a conversation that really needs to happen. If we keep doing what we’re doing, it’ll bankrupt every U.S. company,” Anderson said.

Carry-along personal computers become commonplace. The iPhone got things started, but much more is on the way. “Thank goodness, because the market is certainly ready for it,” he said.

LEDs (the lights you see on alarm clocks and calculators) will start shifting to commercial and residential use. Anderson thinks the LED screw-in light bulb should continue to drop in price, becoming more attractive for consumers because of its energy efficiency.

Overall, Anderson expects the year will be good when it comes to innovation, even if the U.S. economy struggles. “The U.S. economy is in for a tough year, but we’ve earned it,” he said. “We made some mistakes that we’ll have to deal with in 2008.”