Predictions 2017: What Is My Score?

Not a bad year overall - for predictions, anyway

Dept. of Looking Back

Every year, I make predictions, and every year, I score myself. As I wrote nearly 12 months ago, 2017 felt particularly unpredictable. As it turns out, my musings were often on target. Except when they weren’t...

I’ve played with all manners of scoring over the years, but this year I’m going with a straight zero to ten rating. Zero if I whiffed entirely, ten if I hit it out of the park, and some kind of partial credit in between. Then add ‘em up, divide by the number of predictions, and that’ll be my overall batting average.

So let’s see how I did. I made ten predictions, so to each in turn….

#1: The bloom comes off the tech industry rose. I believe I hit this one out of the park. The backlash is at such a fever pitch, it seems tech has been crucified forever, but I peg the beginning of the end at Susan Fowler’s astonishing takedown of Uber, which was posted in mid February of 2017. Not only did her revelations precipitate the fall of Travis Kalanick and set the tone for the #MeToo movement in tech, it also gave the press an antagonist it could truly villainize, which set the stage for later takedowns of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple. Multiple books (the Four, World Without Mind, etc) piled on, as did the Russia/Facebook sh*tshow (and hearings), and the concerns of former tech engineers like Tristan Harris, whose “Time Well Spent” movement broke out in 2017. Overall, it was one hell of a bad year for tech (and to be honest, tech brought it on itself), and my words in January certainly rang true: “2017 will be the year the industry is cast as a villain — for 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…created by its products and services.” Score: 10 of 10.

#2: The conversation economy breaks out. This one is harder to judge. You may recall that a year ago, chatbots were all the rage, and voice-based interfaces like Alexa and Google Home were a novelty. One year later, chatbots have faded (but “appbots” are on the rise), and voice-driven systems have secured a place in our shared culture. That was a fast rise, comparatively speaking. In my post, I wrote: “Combine smart chat with voice, and … well, we’ll start to see a new UX for the web.” I still think that’s true, and we’ve had a year of very promising developments. But was it a breakout year? History alone will tell. Score: 5 of 10.

#3. Open starts to win again. Oh boy. Every year I have what you might call an aspirational post, in that I very much hope it will come true, but I’m pretty sure it won’t come true. What I do know, however, is that in 2017, the table was well and truly set for open approaches to make a comeback. The reason? Well, see #1: Tech’s gotten too big, and too powerful, and the best way to dissemble that power is a swing back to open data (see this post for more). I remain firmly convinced that open is on the rise. But I don’t have much proof that 2017 is the year that trend began “to win again.” I wrote a year ago: “This year won’t be a turning point in this battle, but it will show meaningful progress.” It’s true that Amazon, Google, and Apple managed to settle their differences, and Microsoft Cortana laid down with Alexa, (and this) but…a dramatic proof of my thesis did not emerge this year. Score: 4 of 10.

#4. Privacy will become a strong product category. I didn’t exactly predict the Equifax, Verizon, Uber, and scores of other data breaches which occurred this year, but they certainly reinforced my premise for prediction #4: Privacy is now front and center for all businesses and consumers. The question remains, however, if anyone will actually make a decent product suite that protects our privacy. Certainly in the business to business realm, privacy as a product boomed this year (there’s not a board in the world that didn’t authorize more spend for security this year). But last year I wrote: “But fear of cyber warfare, fraud, and over-reaching marketers and government will create huge openings for consumer friendly versions of currently opaque products like PGP, password managers, and the like.” Well, the openings are there. But the products? Not so much. Yet. Score: 7 of 10.

#5. Adtech has a ripper of a year. OK, there has to be one that was pretty much a whiff, and this one is likely it. I am still an adtech bull, and the market still grew, if mainly led by Facebook, Amazon, and Google. But the independent adtech business did not have a ripper of a year, instead, it was a year of retrenching, mostly. Yes, good growth and strong business, but not the breakout I had predicted. Score: 2 of 10.

#6. Apple releases a truly bad hardware product. Damn, if only Apple hadn’t pulled its HomePod product this year! Because if it had actually released it, it would have laid a massive egg, I’m sure of it (the company simply does not have the AI, voice recognition, and software chops). Instead, Apple was wise enough to realize it had a dud on its hand, and delayed what would have been a stinker of a consumer product. I even predicted it would be the HomePod that lays the egg…maybe someone at Apple reads me? In any case, I think I should get partial credit here, because besides predicting a bad release (the Watch release was pretty bumpy, after all), I also predicted 2017 would be the year the press turns on Apple, and that Apple would respond by acting like a typical corporation (repatriating cash to curry favor, buying companies to enter new markets, etc). It’s well on its way to doing just that (just bought Shazam, for example, and isn’t exactly fighting the tax bill). Score: 6 of 10.

#7. A Fortune 100 company will announce its intention to become a B Corp. Nope. Wishful thinking. Despite Paul Polman *sounding* like the CEO of a B Corp on Twitter all year long, this did not happen. Move along, nothing to see here. Score: 0 out of 10.

#8. President Trump leaves Twitter. Ha! He was kicked off by a mischeivious contractor, for ten whole minutes! I was…wrong. It’s true, debate did rage about why the president *should* be kicked off, and there’s still a few days left for Trump to decide he’s bigger than the blue bird, but besides that technicality, for which I am giving myself at least partial credit, this did not happen. SAD! Score: 2 of 10

#9. Snap soars — then sours. This is where a picture is worth a thousand words:

Score: 10 of 10.

10. Human connection commands a premium in the workforce. In this prediction I also wrote: “In 2017, we’ll come to realize that we’re valuing the wrong things, and start a conversation about paying people to connect with each other — because if we can automate the other stuff, why the heck wouldn’t we value each other more?! Related: The conversation around Universal Basic Income (or my preferred term, the Citizens’ Dividend) will become white hot.” So it’s complicated, but I think overall the conversation around the future of work and UBI did become white hot, and we did see a marked shift toward valuing human connection in the workplace. However, it’s rather hard for me to prove that inside of just this year. As with a few of my predictions, only time will tell. So I’ll score myself a partial win on this one. Score: 6 of 10.

So pulling back, how did I do, overall? Two whiffs (Adtech, B Corps), two home runs (tech backlash, Snap), three that were largely wins, one push, and two that were partial credit. Better than 50% — a score of 52 on a total of 100 points. Not terrible — about average over my nearly 15 years of doing this, stellar if you’re a major leaguer (of course, an “F” without a curve…). Regardless, I always have fun both making these predictions, and scoring myself against them twelve months later. I am honored that you take time to read my work, and I’ll be back early in the new year with predictions for 2018. Util then, have a great holiday season, everybody!

Read my past predictions here.