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We spend all of December counting down the days until Santa and the end of the year arrive.
LinkedIn uses the month to ask its community of influencers and creators to share the big ideas they believe will define the year ahead.
The social media network shares those each December.
For example, says one, expect “The Great Reshuffle” to continue in 2022. Millions of workers quit their jobs in 2021 and that trend isn’t leaving the marketplace any time soon.
For people in their 20s and 30s, look for professional nomading — that is, those digital professionals who have made making a living online from anywhere in the world a way of life — to become a more accepted way of life.
“Working remotely and switching locations every few months is no longer just an eccentricity of the tech-sector’s elite engineers; it’s become a viable option for job functions ranging from tele-sales to content marketing. ‘Work from anywhere’ may also become the ultimate perk that many employees insist on.
“Expect plenty of 2021’s job switchers to keep hopping, too. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ most recent report on job tenure found that, as of 2020, employees stayed with their employers for an average of 4.1 years. Look for that number to drop below 4.0 in the future.
"Who’s going to help anxious workers find the right path? All indicators point toward career counseling as a profession that’s ready to boom. One cluster of advisers will focus on people who worry that they have too many choices. Another pool will need to support people who feel trapped in a version of ‘The Hunger Games,’ struggling to survive in a harsh, volatile labor market.”
Interesting. The U.S., once a manufacturing behemoth, now a career counseling giant?
I jest. I think.
We picked out a few other interesting “big ideas,” including the world’s ultra-wealthy declaring self-sovereignty, from the LinkedIn survey. You can read the entire thing here.
The face of entrepreneurship will change
Over the past 18 months, new businesses around the globe have emerged like flies finding a carcass. This has been the era of the innovator, who has disrupted old models while searching for solutions for a post-pandemic world.
However, only 2.2% of venture capital funding went to female-founded companies in the first eight months of 2021. Likewise, black entrepreneurs only received a small fraction, just over 1%, of U.S. venture capital funding.
“More early stage investors have added diversity clauses to their term sheets, and major players like Softbank have begun to set up specialized funding programs to support diverse founders.
“Michele Romanow, co-founder of Clearco, predicts a paradigm shift in funding, as ‘technologies that democratize wealth-building opportunities and fix our broken distribution system of capital become the default option.’ More VCs may turn to AI to identify promising startups, placing an emphasis on business fundamentals over founder demographics, she says. Such tech may help root out the kind of initial biases that have slowed down diversity efforts.”
Teachers (and parents) will say goodbye to public schools
The year 2021 was not a good one for the traditional U.S. educational. Enrollment in public K-12 schools dropped in at least a decade. This now appears to be a “lasting change of the heart by both parents and teachers, who have left in droves, a reflection of low pay, vaccine controversies, and the frustrations of dealing with teaching in a socially distanced world.
We’ll drive on plastic roads
From the files of “I gotta see this to believe it” comes this eyebrow raiser.
But LinkenIn forecasts that one of the world’s biggest environmental thorns — plastic — may help roads weather the coming storms of a battered infrastructure system of roads and highways, and costly fixes.
“Roads made of plastic — the kind that would otherwise end up in an incinerator — are easier to build and better able to cope with heavy rainfall, explains PlasticRoad co-founder Anne Koudstaal. “Plastic roads can store around 300 liters of water per square meter, a multiple of most asphalt roads.
“Plastic roads last longer, are easier to repair and are, unlike asphalt, easy to recycle. It would also put the world’s surplus of plastics to good use, says Doug Woodring, founder of the Ocean Recovery Alliance. “I believe plastic roads, if created at scale, will offer an opportunity to absorb hundreds of thousands of tons [of plastic], almost overnight.”
Big Tech will rival — and even supersede — government on the global stage
Look out big government, and you did get significantly bigger in 2021.
Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, says, the days of nation-states being the primary drivers of global affairs for nearly 400 years will be no more. Tech giants such as Meta (Facebook), Google Amazon, and Alibaba “are increasingly acting as sovereigns, rivaling states for influence over our lives.”
“As more of the world becomes digitized, these companies’ control over the goods and services needed to run a modern society — including election integrity, telecommunication networks, cloud infrastructure, logistics capabilities, payment systems, space exploration and even national security — will deepen. Think about what happened on Jan. 6. After rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, it was social media companies — not law enforcement, Congress, or the judiciary — that sprang into action to punish those responsible. Now ask yourself this: Who will do more to influence the outcome of the 2022 midterm elections, the President of the United States or the CEO of Meta? It’s telling that we’ve reached a point where the answer to that question isn’t obvious.
“Tech giants’ influence will trigger plenty of backlash from leaders in the U.S., China, and Europe, all of whom agree that they need to get tough on technology companies. But don’t expect any of these efforts to go all the way — in part because leaders aren’t aligned on the nature of the problem, in part because they lack the expertise and institutions to regulate Big Tech effectively and in part because they fear that overreaching could hamper innovation and growth. Which means that, at least for the near future, the power of technology companies is poised to grow beyond the ability and willingness of governments to constrain their authority.”
Retailers will embrace old — and very new — tactics to compete against Amazon
Speaking of Tech giants. The transformation of retail accelerated during the pandemic. Many of those brick-and-mortars shut down for good, boosting the fortunes of Amazon, leaving many legacy retailers scrambling.
However, reports Siobhan Morrin …
“In 2022, these retailers will fight to win shoppers back, through a combination of old and very new school tactics.
“Customer service typical of the physical shopping experience will proliferate online, including concierge-style live chat services and new tech to accurately predict size and shopping habits. Offline, retailers will adopt white-glove return services, sending couriers to pick up unwanted items at shoppers’ doorsteps. And we’ll see a growth of partnerships with external firms to do all of this, says retail analyst Richard Lim.
“The shift from physical retail won’t stop there. More retailers will embrace virtual and augmented reality in 2022, allowing customers to interact with products in environments that go far beyond digital replications of a store. In November, Nike announced it had teamed up with online gaming platform Roblox to create a virtual world where users can play sports-themed mini-games and dress their avatars in Nike gear.
“‘The metaverse may do more to change retail than anything since the physical store,’ says Cate Trotter, head of trends at consultancy Insider Trends. ‘It's not about creating virtual interpretations of the store. It's about uncoupling retail from the store and reimagining it entirely.’”