Month: January 2022

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DIGITAL & TECHNOLOGY ECONOMY, BUSINESS & COMMERCE EDUCATION & INFORMATION STRATEGY FUTURE & HUMANITY STRATEGY, INNOVATION & CREATIVITY

Colliding Worlds – Experiential on Steroids

Metaverse - Virtual Worlds
Metaverse background as a futuristic streaming media symbol as virtual eye or eyeball and augmented reality and computer media concept as a 3D render.

In 2021 Meta and Microsoft announced their plans for the Metaverse or Metaverses which are likely to take several years to fully develop and will invite global collaboration and contribution. Anyone with the means, know-how and desire can participate in the Metaverse, either as a developer, brand or individual. In the meantime gaining the competitive edge in 2022 and beyond involves developing and delivering audience journeys that are ‘experiential on steroids’.  Commercial and creative focus are about bringing real objects into the virtual world and virtual objects into the real world.  A brand offering a personalized product with accompanying original digital design in the form of an NFT (non-fungible token), is one commercial possibility. 

As mobile and wearable devices for augmented reality become more accessible with new products launching, these technologies deliver far reaching opportunities for entertainment, leisure, shopping, education, and other information sharing and consumption. Multi-sensory essentials such as smell, taste and touch (haptic) are still in their infancy.  Proprioception (kinaesthesiais), the ability to sense movement, action or location is a vital ongoing area of research, which in the future, will have a powerful impact on entertainment, leisure and education.  In the meantime, spatial awareness technologies such as LiDAR, used for visualising store products in your home, or seeing the complete anatomy in a medical lecture, for example, are more quickly advancing and in commercial use.

Extract: Digital World Predictions 2022

About the Author

Deborah Collier is a strategic and futurist leader in business, digital, media and education. She is founder and President at Digital Skills Authority, a Non-Executive Director and media group CEO. She has delivered digital world and digital business predictions annually for 13-years, which have been featured in a number of national and industry publications.

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DIGITAL & TECHNOLOGY ECONOMY, BUSINESS & COMMERCE EDUCATION & INFORMATION STRATEGY FUTURE & HUMANITY LEADERSHIP & GOVERNANCE

Digital Governance Fast Forward

Digital Governance
Digital Governance

This decade has ignited a number of evolving digital services and products.  Digital and e-business history is already testament to the need for effective governance alongside innovation. However, it often takes years for governments to respond with legislation, while organisations set their own policies or continue without risk management – often at their own peril.  Ethics of course are essential in effective and reputable policy-making, but are not always deployed. Diligent and impacting digital governance is essential for ‘Central Bank Digital Currency’, data and processing, AI, infrastructure and deployment, as well a digital business. While the protection and processing of data is largely regulated around the globe, there is currently no governance for blockchain (a technology providing unique identification of records).  Regulations for cryptocurrency (which is enabled by blockchain) are in their infancy and evolving around the globe.  While regulations to fight fraud are a primary area of digital governance, another more human element has come to the forefront.  Regulations to protect against online harms, have been evolving for some years, but not swiftly enough. With further pressure on the social networks to manage content responsibly or have legal liability, employees are also taking liability and their own protection more seriously.  According to a recent article by BBC News, a TikTok moderator has sued their employer “over psychological trauma due to the requirement to watch and moderate extreme and graphic violence for up to 12-hrs a day.” With the volume of content posted online, Artificial Intelligence has to be the first mechanism for moderation. If we are to avoid psychological harms to humans, we need more intelligent Artificial Intelligence to moderate and block harmful content, before humans moderate a smaller selection further with limited exposure, combined perhaps with more joyful work.  ‘Content Moderator + X’ could be a hybrid role of the future.

Extract: Digital World Predictions 2022

About the Author

Deborah Collier is a strategic and futurist leader in business, digital and education. She is a media group CEO, Non-Executive Director and President of Digital Skills Authority. She developed a ‘Digital Governance Framework‘ which is delivered throughout the organisation’s management and leadership programs.

Categories
EDUCATION & INFORMATION STRATEGY FUTURE & HUMANITY STRATEGY, INNOVATION & CREATIVITY

Human-Centric Strategy – 2022 and Beyond

Harmony
Harmony

Positive communications are vital, but audience is everything. In 2022, enhanced human-centric strategies will be engrained throughout marketing, communications, product and services development and delivery whether these be commercial or governmental. As we navigate the virtual world more confidently, blending real-world with online, industry and government organisations explore how to leverage technology and maximize automation, while balancing and refocusing attention on human interaction, audience engagement and customer experience. Bringing digital into the real-world, rather than focusing entirely on immersing us in the digital world, creating that perfect balance and harmony, missed by so many during the pandemic, will be an exciting challenge. A combination of media, social media and the pandemic has caused an acceleration in humanity. In response to this evolution, human skills such as empathy, cognition and cultural awareness come to the forefront. In addition, promoting positive psychology for both customers and employees will be a productive ingredient of 2022 and beyond.

Extract: Digital World Predictions 2022

About the Author

Deborah Collier is a strategic and futurist leader in business, digital, education and media. She is a President of Digital Skills Authority, a Non-Executive Director and Media Group CEO. With a strong background in digital, in 2016, she was listed in a publications ‘Top 100 Chief Marketing Officers in the World.’

Categories
ECONOMY, BUSINESS & COMMERCE STRATEGY, INNOVATION & CREATIVITY

E-Commerce Businesses Move Home

E-Commerce
E-Commerce

During the pandemic, E-Commerce has been a lifeline for many businesses and indeed new ventures have launched.  However, key challenges with distribution, taxation and import and exports are still prevalent, if not crippling in many parts of the world, with a heavy impact on sales in some countries as a result.  The United Kingdom, a world leader in e-commerce has been heavily impacted by Brexit, and taxation in and with Europe has become unnecessarily complex, particularly with digital products.  Tax rulings for each territory dependent on whether the sale is to a business or a consumer, have also become unworkable for many businesses without the ability and desire to register for VAT in every country sold to, or the investment for e-commerce systems that auto-calculate the relevant sales tax.  These over complex rulings designed to add fairness with taxation exclude many SMEs.  In 2022 and beyond, if governments do not address their sales taxation rules and trade agreements effectively, businesses who wish to sell further than domestically, will need to consider the viability of running an e-commerce or Internet business in their own country. 2022 will see a further flurry of exporting businesses moving to alternative countries around the world.

Extract: Digital World Predictions 2022

About the Author

Deborah Collier is a strategic and futurist leader in business. She is founder and President of international business Digital Skills Authority and has several years experience with digital business and international business strategy. During her career she has advised and taught leaders and teams from Fortune 500 companies and other organisations around the globe.