Philip Wen's //

What will the future look like?

No doubt the state of the global economy has many of us contemplating on what the future may be bringing in the near future.  The geek inside me has always been curious on how technology will end up reshaping how business will be conducted.

For the past 20 years or so, the biggest impact of Technology can be summarized into the following two points:

1. Ubiquity of the internet, and
2. Ubiquity of the affordable internet enabled devices.

As the persistently-connected population worldwide reaches Critical Mass, how will the methods of inter-personal idea exchange– (and along the same vein, the exchange of Goods and Services) — evolve?

Like sunflowers, Social Networking sites that endlessly mushroom out on the ‘Net already give us a pretty clear indication of how people prefer to communicate.  Already, many of us are substituting phone calls with emails, and occasionally IM’s for emails, and now, Tweets and Wall Tags for IMs.

How will the business landscape be changed?  Everyone’s got different ideas, and once in a while I run into articles that I am surprised to encounter through that chance RSS sub.  While I largely agree with most of Tim O’Reilly’s thoughts, sometimes I think he is a little too optimistic in assuming that most of his readers are perched in the exact same echelon as himself on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Babbling aside, occasionally I hit upon other blogs that practically “stole the words out of my mouth”.  Which is great, because it means I am not too far out in the left field, and others can see the exact same trend I am seeing.

Take a look here.  Granted, Naseem did not mention anything new here that hasn’t been mentioned before, but it’s a great summation of the general consensus of modern technology thought leaders.

How do you predict things will be going?  Do you agree or disagree with any of this?

No matter where you turn, you can’t escape the depressing mood that has all but permeated all of media.  Blogs, Destination sites, TV, Radio– even ads have started using “The Downturn” to start their segment or its headlines.  For people that are constantly soaking in business news, I can’t see how there is any bit of ray of optimism left.

Then just a few minutes ago, I hit this blurb.

Downright discouraging, isn’t it?

So what is going to happening to the millions that have or about to lose their jobs?  With the job market shrinking rapidly, will these people just sit at home and hang their heads in despair?

Nope.  That’s not how the economy works.

For the fortunate few that have what it takes to immediately re-enter the workforce, things will immediately go back to normal.  Out of those that are not as lucky?  What will happen to them?

Of course, some (perhaps many) will suffer through some pretty rough times.  But as long as people are willing to fight and plow ahead, I have yet to hear that people can die from economic depressions.  Emotional depression can be deadly, but people do not die from the lack of money.

In this Land of Opportunity, it means a big chunk of these folks are actually enterprising enough, and will try to use this “down time” to try their luck at entrepreneurship.  After all, isn’t that how the Economy usually pulls itself back on its feet?

See this post here.  And if you are too lazy to, let me just spit out a quote from it here:

“Students are increasingly open to taking entrepreneurial risks now that the economy doesn’t exactly guarantee a dream job anyway” – Peter Winicov

So while we are only at the beginning of this downturn, and it may seem like the rain is really pouring down hard, the lesson here is – Don’t let it get you down.

Why?  Because!  Just because everyone is jumping off that bridge, doesn’t mean you have to.  The herding pattern is what got us here in the first place.  To quote that famous Apple marketing campaign: “Think Different.”

For some perspective on why there is never a better opportunity, let me quote our great friend Al:

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity” – Albert Einstein

Paul Graham also wrote about this subject here.  And since he may be infinitely more successful than I ever will be, perhaps you will listen to him.

If you’re too lazy again, here’s the gist: “Fortunately it has gotten very cheap to run a startup, and a recession will if anything make it cheaper still.”

Let me put it this way – You have to take risks to succeed, and if you don’t have a job anyway, you really aren’t risking much.   With the cost of running businesses being so low nowadays, you really don’t lose much even if you fail anyway.

So what are you waiting for?

Update: This topic seems to be the subject du jour.  See articles here.

Google`s stock plummeted this year

News have been traveling around the circles recently that Google is looking to shave down some expenses.  Today, this article floated up to the top.

Considering the rate that Google have expanded over the past few years, this one wouldn’t sound too surprising to me.  The way they would go about those lay offs don’t sound too far fetched either.  Google has accrued an army of System experts, whether Computer Systems or the Legal System.  But to think that they would lay off approximately half of their workers is a hard to imagine– the Google today is an Android compared to its RoboSapien past. Having ½ of Googlers running the show would be a bit too skeletal.  Then again, with GOOG losing more than half of its Market Cap over the past year, only the brainiac Googly bean counters would know best just how many heads would need to roll.

Internet Ad spending has been contracting at a rapid race, not just because of the economy, but the direction that the ‘net is going toward. (I will talk about this topic some other time)  I wonder if Google Trends is picking this up?

Regardless of its validity, it will be interesting to see how Eric, Larry and Sergey have in store to steer the Googlybot through this downturn.