Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Resolutions and Predictions

I was going to rehash the year, but Nancy did a good job of it. Read it here:

NancyWD’s Blog

My Resolution – I only have one resolution: Practice good Time Management.
I know how to manage my time, and when I do, I do well. When I do plan my time on a weekly basis, I get a lot done. I get a momentum going, and get better each week. The problem is when I don’t plan, momentum the downwards direction twice as fast as upward. It seems the laws of gravity, momentum, and friction apply to more than just our physical surroundings.

Predictions
I have lots of these, so I’ll put each one in a category.

Economy
The economy will pretty much continue as is, for quite a while. While it seems were in a slow economy, it’s still fairly stable nationally.

In the future, economic ups and downs will be retained in smaller areas, much more regionally. Because of the world economy, the other regions will have only small bumps in economic change. More likely, economic problems will happen mostly in specific cities, and outlying areas, but as close as sixty miles away will have a economic booming city.
Cities will fight more for growth, and citizens will fight against it. They will have up/down cycles, and the citizens of cities will become more transient in nature. Mostly people will move as much as every five years.
Construction and housing will react to this, and move with the cycles. As construction companies become more agile, they’ll move with the economic trends. Construction companies will become larger, more national, and more general. Like Microsoft, larger construction companies will buy smaller ones. Construction workers will need to be portable.

In 2006, we will see some areas continue the housing surge, and some areas start to back down. We will also see an outcry against the oversized homes. Buyers of oversized homes will examine their purchase, and frequently decide to downgrade. Toward the end of 2006, the trend toward oversized homes will stop.

Politics
The divide between conservatives and liberals will become greater, but both will begin to agree against President Bush’s domestic policies. Whether or not people agree about Iraq, and how the war on terror is being fought, they adamantly do not like the idea of the National Security Agency spying on us. We will see hearings, probably closed-door, on past warrents Bush signed, and reasonable cause questioned.
While many people agree with his principle, more and more people do not agree with Bush’s practices. Even many Republicans call him the “Fake Republican President”.

Technology
Things are headed in a very certain direction:
1. The PC will be integrated into the Cell Phone/PDA, and other external parts will give it Home PC functionality
2. Software on the PC will become less. Web services and online software like a web version of MS Word will increase in demand. A PC will need to keep only a few programs. The webbrowser will be most important.
3. Systems that are small, cheap, and continuously provided internet will become popular. Operating systems (Windows, Mac OS, and Linux) will focus on simplicity, small design, and multi useful – it will need to be able to convert instantly from cellphone to desktop.
4. Windows Vista will probably be the beginning of the downfall of Microsoft. This doesn’t mean that Windows Vista is not a good product- that remains to be seen. But, Vista will need higher requirements for hardware, and most people are tired of having to upgrade their machines every two years.
5. With outdated Window machines, consumers will convert to free Linux systems, and continue using these ‘legacy machines’. Linux will increase in popularity, especially the Fedora and Ubuntu distributions.
6. The Linux community is making a special effort to get into the mainstream consumer, and lower income consumer. With more people becoming familiar with that systems, it will carry into the workplace, then the home.
7. Google will produce their own low cost PC, with a Google Linux Distribution. It will become the best selling PC.
8. Apple will pretty much remain a fixed commodity, unless the provide a PC version of MacOS. If that happen, you’ll see a hugh conversion to Mac, and Microsoft will fall behind.
9. OpenOffice will replace Microsoft office fairly quickly.
10. The iPod will have more competitors, but will continue to dominate the market. The novelty of the video pod will wear off, as far as watching action or dramatic TV episodes. But, Video Podcasting will take off. People will begin producing their own video content, news shows, talk shows, expose`, etc. The video iPod will have a market. I’d bet my money on companies that will provide software, services, and deliveries of Videocasting.
11. The cellphone will become the center of everyone technological life. It will become much more than a cellphone. It will become everyone’s portable connection with the entire world, at their fingers.


Education
Our education system is out of date, and cannot properly teach our children well enough to prepare them for the future. It not the education systems fault either.

Our society still runs it’s schools on agricultural/industrial age models, not today’s information age. Our schools have no other model to go by, and the examples provided by other countries aren’t much better. How the education system will look in the future is an unknown, but something has to change.

1. The K-12 age/grade system must go. It hold back the kids who can excel in a specific area, and is too fast for other kids. In the future, each kid will not be in a specific grade. They will be at different levels at different stages of the educational career.

2. The large structure model for schools is too costly, to encumbered, and cannot deliver material efficiently. The classroom, itself, will go away.


In 2006, you’ll begin to hear serious examination of the education structure in the USA. News, talk shows, possibly even congress will get in on the discussion. It may even be a serious point in the next presidential election. Personally, I’d go with whichever side is willing to try something different.

News and Newspapers

Blogs, Podcasts, and Videocasts will put a serious crunch on the current news media, especially newspapers. People will be able to find the news specific to them, and read, view, or listen to it at their convenience (education should take note of that). Newspapers and Magazines with an online presence will have to become free to compete.

The online blogs, podcasts, and videocast will increase in popularity. Super camera cell phones will allow anyone to become an instant video news reporter. People will compete for online popularity. Some will do well enough to make a full time income with it. In 2006, expect to see a lot of these pop up, and three Indies will come out on top.

In 2006, the newspapers will show discontent with online providers, and lawsuits will rage back and forth. In the end, just as predicted, the Fourth Estate will die a slow death.

New Raves

A hot new job this year will be time management consultants. For a reasonable fee, a time management professional will be able to help you reach your goals by proper planning. They will be your “Personal Time Coach”. This will become a fast growing online franchise, and actually produce pretty good results. Other accompanying products will emerge. Time Management will be the key to success in the knowledge worker age.

Now you see my purpose in working on better time management.

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