MiniTrends 2012 – Early Registration Ends Oct 3 – Register Now

September 28, 2012

Discover, Analyze, Profit! Longtime Austin-based Technology Futures, Inc. (TFI) is hosting an important conference, MiniTrends 2012: A Conference on Translating Emerging Trends into Business Opportunities, on October 17-18, 2012 at the Omni Austin Hotel Downtown, Austin, Texas. Early Registration ends Wednesday, October 3!

Don’t miss out on this extraordinary price for a conference with such an exceptional depth and breadth of speaker talent. Register now before the October 3 Early Registration deadline and save $100!

Twenty all-star business leaders and forward thinkers will discuss how you can start new ventures and grow established organizations through attention to MiniTrends–emerging trends that will soon become important, but are not yet widely recognized. Find out what future trends and convergences they see on the horizon and, just as importantly, how you can find profitable emerging trends of your own.

Fun and entrepreneurial-spirited Austin offers the ideal location for entrepreneurs, decision makers, innovative thinkers, investors, and job seekers to learn and network with others, while finding strategies and insights to create or grow their organization or find new avenues for job skills.

The regular price of $495 is a steal for a conference of this caliber, but with Early Registration by October 3, you pay only $395. (Promotional box is immediately above big “Register” button.)

In addition to our many other exceptional speakers, our Keynote Speakers are:

• Award-winning author and and Chairman of TFI Dr. John Vanston showing how to use MiniTrends to succeed in the “Age of Imagination”
• World-renowned Futurist David Pearce Snyder introducing the “New Normal” and its opportunities in the decade ahead
• High-tech trailblazer Byron Reese, CIO at Demand Media, assuring us that emerging trends will bring a “Golden Age of Humanity”

BONUS!!! In addition to information, ideas, and insights to participants for discovering, analyzing, and profiting from minitrends, all participants will receive the award-winning book MINITRENDS: How Innovators & Entrepreneurs Discover & Profit From Business & Technology Trends.

MiniTrends 2012: A Conference on Translating Emerging Trends into Business Opportunities

Wednesday, October 17, 1:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. & Thursday, October 18, 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. followed by conference reception until 7:15 p.m.

Early Registration: Only $395.00 until October 3 (then $495.00)

MiniTrends 2012 Conference – Early Registration Extended – Downtown Austin, Oct. 17-18

September 21, 2012

We are pleased to extend our Early Registration until Oct. 3 for MINITRENDS 2012: A Conference on Translating Emerging Trends into Business Opportunities scheduled Oct. 17-18 at the Omni Austin Hotel Downtown!

Come join us in Downtown Austin to hear twenty distinguished business leaders and forward thinkers discuss how to start new ventures or grow established organizations through attention to MiniTrends–emerging trends that will soon become important, but are not yet widely recognized. Find out what future trends and convergences they see on the horizon and how you can find profitable emerging trends of your own!

With its entrepreneurial and fun spirit, Austin is the ideal place for entrepreneurs, decision makers, innovative thinkers, investors, and/or job seekers to find strategies and insights to create or grow their own organization or find new avenues for job skills.

Our schedule and list of distinguished speakers keeps growing. Some highlights of the schedule include:

• Dr. John Vanston, Chairman, Technology Futures, Inc., showing how to use MiniTrends to succeed in the “Age of Imagination.”
• World-renowned Futurist introducing the “New Normal” and the opportunities in the decade ahead
• High-tech trailblazer Byron Reese, CIO at Demand Media, assuring us that emerging trends will bring a coming “Golden Age of Humanity.
• Entrepreneur Andy Fish discussing about how his new venture, Formula Austin LLC, is taking Austin by storm by plugging visitors into Austin’s culture and business scene during the U.S. Formula One Grand Prix, now here in Austin.
• Dr. Luis Medina, CEO, Tech BA describing how Mexican and other international technology companies define and successfully implement their business plan to enter the US market.
• Lani Rosales, popular blogger and COO of hit online magazine AGBeat.com sharing trends that offer great opportunities in the business and social media arenas.
• Rick Smyre, discussing innovative new trends in governance, economic development, leadership, and education/learning inherent in his growing Communities of the Future program.
• David Smith, CEO, HBMG, outlining important technology trends of the future.
• Dr. Peter Zandan, Global Vice Chairman of Hill+Knowlton and Angel Investor, gives the ins and outs of investing from his perspective.
• Several other inspiring speakers assisting attendees in launching their own innovative and profitable “MiniTrend Adventures.”

Come and learn how you too can launch your our MiniTrend Adventure! And please help spread the word to those you think would benefit from this important future trends conference. (See below for share icons that send out this page to your social media contacts. Visit share this for possible text.)

MiniTrends 2012 Conference – Keynote David Pearce Snyder – Oct 17-18, Downtown Austin

September 9, 2012

• An Entrepreneur wishing to identify, assess, and exploit attractive new business opportunities
• A Decision Making Executive, Director, Manager, or Professional in a Small or Mid-Size Business wanting to gain advantage by recognizing and utilizing emerging trends
• An Innovative Thinking Executive, Director, Manager, or Professional in a Larger Business aspiring to distinguish yourself by your special insights and perceptiveness
• An Investor interested in uncovering attractive new investment opportunities
• A Job Seeker wishing to define employment opportunities

• A creative mind-set and resources for finding and taking advantage of emerging trends and opportunities relating to your own area of expertise and interest
• A preview of MiniTrends that thought-leaders see developing
• Experience, knowledge, and wisdom from innovative leaders sharing how they use emerging trends to start new ventures or grow established organizations
• Tactics to identify untapped business opportunities from converging trends
• Interaction with speakers and fellow participants to learn, mix, and share ideas
• Strategy and insights to create or grow your organization and, in the process, find your bliss!
• An opportunity to enjoy the Live Music Capital of the World!
• BONUS!! Copy of award-winning book MINITRENDS: How Innovators & Entrepreneurs Discover & Profit From Business & Technology Trends.

Conference Chair: Dr. John H. Vanston, Chairman, Technology Futures, Inc.
John founded TFI in 1978, building the Austin, Texas-based company into a leading authority in custom research and technology forecasting. His MiniTrends concept, designed to increase creativity, innovation, and success, is summarized in MINITRENDS: How Innovators & Entrepreneurs Discover & Profit From Business & Technology Trends. The book has received several Best Business Book awards and excellent reviews and endorsements.

Keynote Speaker: David Pearce Snyder, Consulting Futurist; The Snyder Family Enterprise, Contributing Editor, The Futurist
David has been in the forecasting business for over 30 years, during which he has built an impressive track record with a wide range of clientele, while compiling a multi million item data base of trends and projections. He has been Contributing Editor of The Futurist magazine for over a quarter century and given thousands of seminars on strategic thinking. David has edited/co-authored five books, and written hundreds of studies, articles and reports on the  future impacts of new technologies.

Keynote Speaker: Byron Reese, Chief Innovation Officer, Demand Media
Byron brings his vast technical understanding to illuminate how today’s technology can solve many of our biggest global challenges. He speaks with the unrivaled authority of an accomplished high-tech trailblazer, inventor, and entrepreneur, and the wisdom of a life-long historian. Reese has served on both public and private boards of directors, has started several non-profit organizations and has just completed the forthcoming book, Infinite Progress: How Technology and the Internet Will End Ignorance, Disease, Hunger, Poverty, and War.

Conference Director: Carrie Vanston, Media and Marketing Director, Technology Futures, Inc.
Carrie has many years of experience in public relations, marketing, and sales at TFI and in the entertainment industry. As co-author of MINITRENDS: How Entrepreneurs & Innovators Discover & Profit From Business & Technology Trends, she brings a distinct real-world quality to MiniTrends activities, particularly in the media communications and social media areas.

Michael Bettersworth, Associate Vice Chancellor for Technology Advancement, Texas State Technical College (TSTC)
Michael founded TSTC Forecasting to identify and analyze new technical competencies needed by employers in order to improve student employability through curriculum alignment with market demand. TSTC Forecasting has published many studies on emerging technologies and occupations. New studies are currently underway in big data, unmanned aerial systems, and social media.

Andy Fish, President, Formula Austin, LLC; President and CEO at LISA – Legislative Information Services of America
Andy Fish and Anne Fish started Formula Austin LLC last year to plug visitors into Austin’s culture and business scene in the days before and after the U.S. Formula One Grand Prix, now here in Austin.  Formula Austin aims to link visitors up with authentic Austin experiences and has partnered with 42 local businesses, professionals and musicians to offer a large variety of activities.

Dr. August E. (“Augie”) Grant, J. Rion McKissick Professor of Journalism, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of South Carolina
Augie is a technology futurist who specializes in research on new media technologies and consumer behavior and market opportunities for emerging technologies. He is Editor of Communication Technology Update and Fundamentals, now in its thirteenth edition, which is used extensively in industry and has become one of the top-selling textbooks in the field of Communication Technology.

Christopher Justice, Chief Executive Officer at Sparksight, Inc.; Founder, Justice Pest Services
Christopher co-founded Sparksight®  in 2006 and has built the company into a well-respected design agency that specializes in event management, high definition video production and digital marketing. Combining wisdom and humor with common sense, Chris is a master at building better businesses through a combination of face-to-face and online marketing techniques.

Dr. Luis Medina, CEO, Tech BA — an Initiative of the Government of Mexico partnering with the IC2 Institute of The University of Texas
Luis has an extensive career as an entrepreneur in the business world as well as in academia both in Mexico and the US. As CEO of Tech BA he has interviewed, selected, trained, and helped  many Mexican technology companies define and successfully implement their business plan to enter the US market in a variety of segments.

Joy Miller, Marketing and Outreach Coordinator, City of Austin Small Business Development Program
Joy is a marketing and outreach professional with over 20 years of leadership experience in process improvement, human resources, and operations. She communicates with and counsels aspiring and existing small business owners in presentations and in personal communications to ensure understanding of City of Austin resources and assistance available to them.

Lani Rosales, Chief Operating Officer, AGBeat.com
AGBeat is one of the fastest growing digital magazines in the entire industry. Lani became the Editor-in-chief of AGBest in 2010, and was recently promoted to COO.  AGBeat condenses news information on technology, business, social media, startups, real estate, economics and more, so the reader doesn’t have to. Formerly focused strictly on marketing, Lani was named one of Real Estate’s 100 Most Influential, as well as 12 Most Influential Women in Blogging.

David Smith, CEO, HBMG Inc.
As a noted futurist, technologist, and business leader, David brings more than 30 years of experience in digital convergence, strategic planning, and emerging technologies.  He has assisted in creating and implementing plans for Fortune 100, emerging companies, universities, and government agencies. David is responsible for the global strategic planning, product development, and business execution at HBMG.

Rick Smyre, President, Center for Communities of the Future; Owner, Strategic Concepts, Inc.
Rick is an internationally recognized futurist. Over the last fifteen years he has pioneered the concept of “community transformation” and has keynoted and presented at over three hundred events in the US, Scotland, England and Canada. His present focus is on developing networks of people and organizations interested in the emerging concepts of Transformational Learning, Master Capacity Builder, and Creative Molecular Economy.

Charles Studer, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Briggo
Addressing the need for convenience in a fast-paced world along with social awareness, Charles converged robotics, mobile apps, and cloud computing to create a technology that enables customers to store favorite coffee recipes in the cloud, remotely order, and have those drinks produced with robotic precision. Using an ethically source organic Peruvian bean, the first Briggo kiosk was deployed at the University of Texas last fall with plans to extend fully automated kiosks across the country.

Dr. Lawrence Vanston, President, Technology Futures, Inc.
Larry is an expert on the future of telecommunications and its significance to organizations and people. Since 1985, he has been the director and principal author of ongoing reports commissioned by the Telecommunications Technology Forecasting Group (TTFG), presently comprised of AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon, and Windstream. Larry directs TFI’s popular TFI Asset Valuation Conference, now in its 7th year.

Dr. Peter Zandan, Angel Investor; Global Vice Chairman at Hill and Knowlton; Board member at Next Big Sound, Inc.; Investor at Klout; Sr. Advisor at Public Strategies Inc.; Sr. Advisor/Chairman at EarthSky
As an angel investor, Peter serves as an advisor and strategic investor in early-stage companies. At H+K Strategies, Peter helps direct strategic initiatives and is the worldwide research practice group leader where he provides assistance for clients in the financial services, energy, technology, healthcare and retail industries. His experience as a successful CEO/Chairman/founder of a public company, IntelliQuest, helps inform the advice and counsel he provides.

More speakers to be announced soon!

MiniTrends 2012: A Conference on Translating Emerging Trends into Business Opportunities

August 13, 2012

Discover, Evaluate, Profit! Join us in Downtown Austin on October 17-18, the place Forbes’ calls the “Best Big City for Jobs,” to listen and participate as business leaders and forward thinkers discuss starting new ventures or growing established organizations through attention to MiniTrends—emerging trends that will soon become important, but are not yet widely recognized. Find out what future trends and convergences they see on the horizon and how you can find profitable emerging trends of your own!

Achieving and sustaining success in the current environment of unprecedented marketplace innovation means being constantly alert to new and exciting MiniTrends that provide business and technological opportunities. MiniTrends offer great opportunities to those alert enough to recognize them, perceptive enough to appreciate them, and clever enough to take advantage of them. Austin is a growing entrepreneurial hub that offers a culture built on collaboration, innovation, and creativity. What better place to find out how you, too, can develop a Minitrend Mindset?

You Should Attend if You are:

• An Entrepreneur wishing to identify, assess, and exploit attractive new business opportunities
• A Decision Making Executive, Director, Manager, or Professional in a Small or Mid-Size Business wanting to gain advantage by recognizing and utilizing emerging trends
• An Innovative Thinking Executive, Director, Manager, or Professional in a Larger Business aspiring to distinguish yourself by your special insights and perceptiveness
• An Investor interested in uncovering attractive new investment opportunities
• A Job Seeker wishing to define employment opportunities

What You will Gain:

• A creative mind-set and resources for finding and taking advantage of emerging trends and opportunities relating to your own area of expertise and interest
• A preview of MiniTrends that thought-leaders see developing
• Experience, knowledge, and wisdom from innovative leaders sharing how they use emerging trends to start new ventures or grow established organizations
• Tactics to identify untapped business opportunities from converging trends
• Interaction with speakers and fellow participants to learn, mix, and share ideas
• Strategy and insights to create or grow your organization and, in the process, find your bliss!
• An opportunity to enjoy the Live Music Capital of the World!
• BONUS!! Copy of award-winning book MINITRENDS: How Innovators & Entrepreneurs Discover & Profit From Business & Technology Trends.

Chair: Dr. John H. Vanston, Chairman, Technology Futures, Inc.

John founded TFI in 1978, building the Austin, Texas-based company into a leading authority in custom research and technology forecasting. His MiniTrends concept, designed to increase creativity, innovation, and success, is summarized in MINITRENDS: How Innovators & Entrepreneurs Discover & Profit From Business & Technology Trends. The book has received several Best Business Book awards and excellent reviews and endorsements.

Keynote: David Pearce Snyder, Consulting Futurist; Contributing Editor, The Futurist

David has been in the forecasting business for over 30 years, during which he has built an impressive track record with a wide range of clientele, while compiling a multi million item data base of trends and projections. David has given thousands of seminars on strategic thinking, edited/co-authored five books, and written hundreds of studies, articles and reports on the impacts of new technologies.

Michael Bettersworth, Associate Vice Chancellor for Technology Advancement, Texas State Technical College (TSTC)

Michael founded TSTC Forecasting to identify and analyze new technical competencies needed by employers in order to improve student employability through curriculum alignment with market demand. TSTC Forecasting has published many studies on emerging technologies and occupations. New studies are currently underway in big data, unmanned aerial systems, and social media.

Andy Fish, President, Formula Austin, LLC; President and CEO at LISA – Legislative Information Services of America

Andy Fish and Anne Fish started Formula Austin LLC last year to plug visitors into Austin’s culture and business scene in the days before and after the U.S. Formula One Grand Prix, now based in Austin.  Formula Austin aims to link visitors up with authentic Austin experiences and has partnered with 42 local businesses, professionals and musicians to offer a large variety of activities.

Dr. August E. (“Augie”) Grant, J. Rion McKissick Professor of Journalism, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of South Carolina

Augie is a technology futurist who specializes in research on new media technologies and consumer behavior and market opportunities for emerging technologies. He is Editor of Communication Technology Update and Fundamentals, now in its thirteenth edition, which is used extensively in industry and has become one of the top-selling textbooks in the field of Communication Technology.

Christopher Justice, Chief Executive Officer at Sparksight, Inc.; Founder, Justice Pest Services

Christopher co-founded Sparksight®  in 2006 and has built the company into a well-respected design agency that specializes in event management, high definition video production and digital marketing. Combining wisdom and humor with common sense, Chris is a master at building better businesses through a combination of face-to-face and online marketing techniques.

Dr. Luis Medina, CEO, Tech BA — an Initiative of the Government of Mexico partnering with the IC2 Institute of The University of Texas

Luis has an extensive career as an entrepreneur in the business world as well as in academia both in Mexico and the US. As CEO of Tech BA he has interviewed, selected, trained, and helped  many Mexican technology companies define and successfully implement their business plan to enter the US market in a variety of segments.

Joy Miller, Marketing and Outreach Coordinator, City of Austin Small Business Development Program

Joy is a marketing and outreach professional with over 20 years of leadership experience in process improvement, human resources, and operations. She communicates with and counsels aspiring and existing small business owners in presentations and in personal communications to ensure understanding of City of Austin resources and assistance available to them.

Lani Rosales, Chief Operating Officer, AGBeat.com

AGBeat is one of the fastest growing digital magazines in the entire industry. Lani became the Editor-in-chief of AGBest in 2010, and was recently promoted to COO.  AGBeat condenses news information on technology, business, social media, startups, real estate, economics and more, so the reader doesn’t have to. Formerly focused strictly on marketing, Lani was named one of Real Estate’s 100 Most Influential, as well as 12 Most Influential Women in Blogging.

David Smith, CEO, HBMG Inc.

As a noted futurist, technologist, and business leader, David brings more than 30 years of experience in digital convergence, strategic planning, and emerging technologies.  He has assisted in creating and implementing plans for Fortune 100, emerging companies, universities, and government agencies. David is responsible for the global strategic planning, product development, and business execution at HBMG.

 Dr. Lawrence Vanston, President, Technology Futures, Inc.

Larry is an expert on the future of telecommunications and its significance to organizations and people. Since 1985, he has been the director and principal author of ongoing reports commissioned by the Telecommunications Technology Forecasting Group (TTFG), presently comprised of AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon, and Windstream. Larry directs TFI’s popular TFI Asset Valuation Conference, now in its 7th year.

Dr. Peter Zandan, Global Vice Chairman at Hill and Knowlton, Board member at Next Big Sound, Inc., Investor at Klout, Sr. Advisor at Public Strategies Inc., Sr. Advisor/Chairman at Earth and Sky

As an angel investor, Peter serves as an advisor and strategic investor in early-stage companies. At H+K Strategies, Peter helps direct strategic initiatives and is the worldwide research practice group leader where he provides assistance for clients in the financial services, energy, technology, healthcare and retail industries. His experience as a successful CEO/Chairman/founder of a public company, IntelliQuest, helps inform the advice and counsel he provides.

More speakers to be announced soon!

9 Futurists Give 2020 Digital World Predictions to Mashable

July 11, 2012

9 Futurists give Mashable's Amy-Mae Elliott predictions for the digital future. Image courtesy of S58y. Used under Creative Commons license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en.

We’re always interested in predictions for the future and were excited to be asked by Mashable’s  Amy-Mae Elliott for one of our own in her article “9 Bold Predictions for the Digital World of 2020.” Dr. John Vanston chimed in on how voice quality by 2020 will be so excellent that “Younger generations will hear something that theretofore only older generations remember: the sound of a pin dropping.”

A couple of the futurists’ comments in the Mashable article refer to the massive amounts of information that is increasingly available to everyone. According to Dave Evans, Cisco Chief Futurist, “We are amassing unprecedented amounts of data – a zettabyte alone this year. This data is social and public (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, etc.). Billions of devices (25-50 billion by 2020) will contribute exponentially to this avalanche of data … By 2015, Cisco Visual Networking Index predicts 1 million video minutes will traverse the Internet every second.”

According to Brian David Johnson, Futurist, Intel, “the size of the meaningful computational power keeps getting smaller and smaller. So, as we approach 2020 the size of the intelligent gets closer to zero in size, nearly invisible.”

Those that can use these massive amounts of information most imaginatively will have a very real advantage in the coming years. A good way to winnow through the information is finding minitrends in your areas of interest within the larger emerging trends. We talk extensively about this on this site and in our MINITRENDS book. Also stay tuned for our formal announcement of MINITRENDS 2012: A Conference on Translating Emerging Trends Into Business Opportunities scheduled October 17-18 at the Omni Downtown in Austin.

We are also intrigued by futurist Mike Walsh comments about virtual avatars:  “By 2020 retail virtual avatars – on screens and in holographic projection – will start to become popular.” Perhaps, these virtual avatars will be waiting on us in the not too distant future!

We talk about Virtual Worlds being a minitrends opportunity in MINITRENDS. For the free excerpt from the book, see “Expanding Involvement in Virtual Worlds.”

Cheers,
Carrie

Dr. John Vanston Speaks on MiniTrends at the Metro Breakfast Club on May 2

May 1, 2012

The Metropolitan Breakfast Club of Austin presents Dr. John H. Vanston speaking on MINITRENDS: How to Discover & Profit From EmergingTrends.

WHEN: Wednesday, May 2, 7:00-8:30am
(Breakfast: 7:00-7:50 am, Presentation: 7:50-8:30 am)

WHERE: UT Club, 6th Floor, Darrell Royal Memorial Stadium
2108 E. Robert Dedman Drive, Austin, TX 78705

In this presentation, Dr. John Vanston introduces a new concept — Minitrends — that offers very attractive possibilities to individuals and businesses that learn its principles and apply those principles in a practical business environment. This concept provides a new approach for finding and taking advantage of emerging trends that will become significant in 2-5 years, but are not yet widely recognized or appreciated.

Free MiniTrends Session with Dr. John Vanston, March 27, Austin, TX

March 20, 2012

RISE presents a free session with Dr. John H. Vanston speaking on MINITRENDS: How to Discover & Profit From EmergingTrends.

WHEN: Tuesday, March 27, 2012, from 2:00pm – 3:30pm
WHERE: Lake Creek Office Park Meeting Room, 13740 Research Blvd., Austin, Texas 78750

In this presentation, Dr. John Vanston introduces a new concept — Minitrends — that offers very attractive possibilities to individuals and businesses that learn its principles and apply those principles in a practical business environment. This concept provides a new approach for finding and taking advantage of emerging trends that will become significant in 2-5 years, but are not yet widely recognized or appreciated.

The event is FREE. But please sign up here!

InnoTech Conference Teeming With Emerging Trends

October 25, 2011

Sean Lowry, Exe. Dir., Innotech and Carrie Vanston, Co-Author, MINITRENDS at Innotech Conference, Photo by Sloan Foster

I’ve attended the InnoTech Conference and Expo and its associated eMarketing Summit for several years now and always learn a lot. This year I wanted to pass on some comments from experts that I heard yesterday relating to emerging trends that are becoming more and more important:

Sean Lowry, of the very successful InnoTech series, always does a great job of making sure everything runs smoothly. I was even able to steal him for a minute to ask what emerging trends he saw coming. He told me, “I see continued convergence of all the different technologies we are seeing here today. Development of mobile applications and host applications in the cloud are particularly important. There is so much video activity and a lot of it is being hosted in the cloud now.”

I asked Giovanni Galluci, social media expert and Dallas photographer what he thinks the next trend in social media is going to be. He said, “Getting over it. Everyone is burnt out with all the hype and now people are looking for more meaning in social media. Twitter is ridiculous. Those who do marketing are beginning to realize it. Online social media is becoming part of the umbrella of marketing, which is where it belongs. Social media is becoming more commodatized—as in more of a commodity.”

He gave several great hints about Facebook including that Facebook ads are the best way to grow a fan base; Facebook is the 2nd largest search engine, so take advantage of it (including using pictures with metatags, main key words in description, etc.); and put Facebook info on all your printed matter including cards and bills.

I chatted with William Leake, CEO of Apogee Search Marketing, and his take was that “More and more advertising presence is going to be driven by physical location. If you don’t have a physical location strategy, you are going to lose.”

Craig Wax, CEO of Invodo and a video expert, had a lot to say about the future of video marketing. According to Craig, “In the future, no one is going to stand in line anymore. Offline and online is no longer relevant. This is already starting to happen and it is going to become ubiquous.” He added that “QR readers are going to be incorporated into devices and the present obstacles to their use will be chipped away.” (On a side note, Craig was most recently the Senior Vice President and General Manager at Match.com. That had to be an interesting job!)

According to Pat Scherer, Web and Mobile Deployment Manager at The Detail Person,  “Mobile space is going to be huge. With the explosion of devices, I think it’s going to make a huge impact on the retail industry. Not only for payments, but for creating local-based experiences utilizing mobile social media. I anticipate this leveling the playing field with e-commerce.”

Finally, I got to chat briefly with siblings Kevin Olsen and Kerri Olsen, Co-Founders of the Austin Grand Prix. Having Formula 1 in Austin exciting!

Cheers,

Carrie Vanston
Media/Marketing Director, Technology Futures, Inc.
Co-Author, MINITRENDS: How Innovators & Entrepreneurs Discover & Profit From Business & Technology Trends

Google, Yahoo Struggle with Technology Innovation

March 30, 2011

Google is taking a slice from Apple’s strategy, bringing back company co-founder Larry Page to ignite innovation at Google, where the stock has flatlined for the past year. Page is scheduled to take over next week as CEO from Eric Schmidt, who is reportedly under consideration for the Secretary of Commerce position in U.S. President Barack Obama’s cabinet.

It’s often difficult for mature companies to innovate the way startups do. For one thing, they lack the financial compulsion that drives entrepreneurs to market or die. Look at how News Corp. has shouldered losses at MySpace while Facebook restlessly innovates, or what happened to AOL after the merger with Time Warner, or what might happen to The Huffington Post now that it has been acquired by AOL. Google can afford to simply hold onto a company such as YouTube without the pace of self-improvement often seen in startups.

Amir Efrati, who covers the Internet for The Wall Street Journal, has been stirring things up in Silicon Valley this past week with fascinating reports on attempts by Google and Yahoo to stay innovative. In an article last Saturday, Efrati used unnamed sources to speculate that Larry Page is being called back to “speed up what [Page] says has been sluggish decision-making at Google’s top levels.”

One of Page’s new edicts, according to The Wall Street Journal, is face-to-face bullpen sessions:

… [E]very afternoon, [Page] and the company’s executive officers sit and work on small couches outside a boardroom in Building 43 at Google’s headquarters.

That might have worked when Page left the company in 2001, with 200 employees. Whether it will work 10 years later, with over 100 times as many people on the payroll, remains to be seen.

The difficulty of fostering innovation in mature companies is one of the main drivers behind the Minitrends project at Technology Futures, Inc., the Austin, Texas, technology forecasting firm and publisher of the book, MINITRENDS, and this blog. The authors devote a significant portion of the book to fostering innovation in large corporations:

Fewer than 30 percent of the companies listed on the Fortune 100 twenty-five years ago are still on the list today. Often the primary reason for the demise of such companies has been a failure to recognize and react to changing trends.

One of the ways that companies innovate is through acquisition rather than invention. Efrati generated a second round of buzz this week when he quoted Yahoo’s director of development, Steven Mitzenmacher, on The Wall Street Journal‘s Digits blog as saying Google’s investment in YouTube was “crazy.” It’s an odd comment, given YouTube’s burgeoning revenues and the fact that Yahoo is embarking on a buying binge to remain relevant.

Savvy institutional investing reporter, Riley McDermid, follows the fallout from Page’s return to Google in an insightful article at VentureBeat. Always one step ahead of the competition, McDermid managed to write about The Wall Street Journal‘s article a day before the article appeared. It’s hard to keep up with futurists!

So where do large corporations find the stimulation they need to stay at the forefront of technology trends? Among the resources mentioned in MINITRENDS are innovation competitions and working papers. Among the best examples of where to find both is the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA), which held its version of “March Madness” — an innovation competition — in Washington, D.C., last Saturday.

The NCIIA competition is sponsored by companies that are working to stay competitive and rewarding innovation in education. The NCIIA has already published all the conference papers online, for free; they contain a treasure-trove of ideas for mature companies looking for a little stimulation or entrepreneurs looking for adventure.

If you prefer to watch rather than read, we recommend you screen the videos submitted to the NCIIA’s “Open Mind” Awards and nicely catalogued by David Orsman at Inventors Digest. It’s by doing research like this that you are likely to find the Larry Pages and Steve Jobs of tomorrow, who will set the technology trends that others follow.

STEVE O’KEEFE
News Editor, Minitrends Blog

Source: “Obama Nears Appointment Of Eric Schmidt As Commerce Secretary,” BusinessInsider, March 18, 2011
Source: “At Google, Page Aims to Clear Red Tape,” The Wall Street Journal,” March 26, 2011
Source: “Larry Page already cracking the whip at Google, a week before he takes the reins,” VentureBeat, March 25, 2011
Source: “Yahoo Executive Talks Acquisitions, Slams YouTube Buy,” The Wall Street Journal‘s Digits Blog, March 28, 2011
Source: “The Open Minds Awards: Taking Innovation off Campus & into Commercialization,” Inventors Digest, Feb. 18, 2011
Photo courtesy of Jeff Keyzer (mightyohm), used under its Creative Commons license.

Business Model Trends – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

March 22, 2011

Kevin Rose of Digg, Bill Gates of Microsoft, and Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures at the TED Conference (Photo courtesy of Steve Jurvetson).

Two days before an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale struck Japan, resulting in a devastating tsunami and near meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, we wrote on this blog about “the growing interest in nuclear power” as an alternative to coal fired power plants.

Oops!

While nuclear power-generating facilities have been greatly improved since the Fukushima reactors were built — and the prospects for nuclear energy in the future are still bright — the timing is bad. The prospects for nuclear energy in the short term have dimmed as the costs associated with using that technology are being recalculated.

That wasn’t the only thing wrong with my blog post. A reader called my attention to the case against venture capitalist Nathan Myhrvold’s company, Intellectual Ventures. Myhrvold is the former chief technology officer of Microsoft whose new company invests in technology rather than investing in companies. Intellectual Ventures buys the rights to patents it likes, then markets those patents to other firms. Or does it?

According to Mike Masnick, the prolific and outspoken editor of TechDirt, Myhrvold’s venture is not based on marketing patents but on “shaking down” companies by suing anyone using its patents without permission. Masnick accuses Intellectual Ventures of disguising its true business model by using shell companies to file the lawsuits:

[Intellectual Ventures] had decided to protect its brand name by getting other companies or creating those companies itself, giving the patent to those other companies that no one had ever heard of, and having them sue.

Ouch!

While we did praise Myhrvold’s business plan on this blog, his method for picking technologies to invest in was our focus, not his manner of collecting on those investments. However, without beating up on ourselves too much, we should point out that another company with a strikingly similar business plan has been the recipient of tremendous admiration in the media these past few weeks.

I’m speaking of ARM, the technology company behind the low-heat computer chips used in Apple’s iPhone and iPad, along with many other smartphones and tablets. The company is not bashful about its creative structure:

ARM has an innovative business model. Instead of bearing the costs associated with manufacturing, we license our technology to a network of partners, mainly leading semiconductor manufacturers and OEMs. These partners utilise our designs to create smart, low energy chips suitable for modern electronic devices.

This structure — licensing technology rather than manufacturing it — has led to a gross margin for ARM of 94%. With revenue of $631 million in 2010, ARM had a profit of $593 million. You have to envy that ratio, no matter what business you’re in.

ARM’s business model is similar to Intellectual Venture’s stated mission, yet while Myhrvold is the recipient of scorn from TechDirt and others, ARM is getting nothing but love these days. Renown technology strategist, Michael J. Fern, gushes over ARM’s business model, saying it confers “three significant advantages over Intel.”

The Wall Street Journal joined the praise parade, with University of Chicago-trained economist and new “Heard on the Street” columnist, Rolfe Winkler, noting “ARM… doesn’t have to deal with manufacturing costs or the risks of holding inventory. It’s a deeply profitable business.”

The best take on ARM’s business model, from a Minitrends perspective, comes from the recent article by Om Malik at the influential blog, GigaOM. In a post critical of Twitter’s business model, the highly-respected tech journalist compares and contrasts the business models of half-a-dozen tech companies, including Xerox, Apple, Google, and ARM. Relying heavily on the work of business guru Alex Osterwalder, Malik concludes that “the business model innovation is what turns great products into fearsome companies.”

Sometimes, the most beautiful business models can turn ugly down the road. I was teaching a workshop once when a perplexed attendee kept interrupting with questions. “How do you generate sales,” he asked. “I don’t have sales,” I answered, “I only have expenses. All I have to do is cover my expenses.”

I was describing the workings of a technology startup that made videos of businesses without charging those businesses. Costs were recouped by finding sponsors to cover the expenses. The fellow in the back of the room couldn’t understand the business model and, as it turns out, neither could investors or sponsors. An early online video play, the company died in 2008 for lack of revenue.

The clever idea of yesterday can seem brilliant or stupid a few years — or even a few days — later. That’s why, for your own Minitrends Adventure, we recommend spending as much time thinking about the business model as you do about the services or goods being sold.

STEVE O’KEEFE
News Editor, Minitrends Blog

Source: “Nathan Myhrvold on Uncovering and Investing in Technology Trends,” Mintrends Blog, March 9, 2011
Source: “Nathan Myhrvold’s Intellectual Ventures Using Over 1,000 Shell Companies To Hide Patent Shakedown,” TechDirt, Feb. 17, 2010
Source: “ARM Disrupting Intel with its Business Model?,” FernStrategy, March 10, 2011
Source: “Getting an ARM Up on Intel,” The Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2011
Source: “What Is Twitter’s Problem? No, It’s Not the Product,” GigaOM, March 8, 2011
Photo courtesy of Steve Jurvetson, used under its Creative Commons license.

« Previous Page — Next Page »