Trends – key takeaways
Trend – Subscription on demand
This trend should of course not come as a surprise to anyone, but our behavior of paying monthly for the subscriptions we like to have (Netflix, Spotify et cetera) still remain strong. This is mainly driven by our need for convenience. There’s also an increasing number of personalized subscription services, here in Sweden services as Linas matkasse or Glossybox are typical examples of this trend.
Also: it looks like we’ve got some good news for the newspaper industry as well, as David mentioned that between 2017-2018, the number of digital newspapersubscriptions almost trippled.
Trend – IoT and GDPR
I know – I’m tired of hearing IoT and GDPR too! However, we’ll just have to get used to it, as there are still lots of practical (not to mention ethical!) questions popping up as the IoT trend continues to evolve. All the data sharing – Google and Mastercard anyone? – that takes place can of course be scary as we as users and individuals loose control of a lot of integrity aspects, but it should also be pointed out that IoT also brings us useful products.
Did you for example know that nowadays there’s such a thing as smart diapers as well? Let’s not get into more details about diapers in this blog than we need to (!) but in short: this diaper senses when the diaper is done with its mission and then gives an indication so that the parents know what they need to do…
Previously, we’ve spoken about IoT as in ”Internet of things”. In the future, a more realistic scenario is that we’ll use ”The intelligence of things” instead, as AI is integrated into the calculation as well.
How to handle….
So how do you handle these trends then? Especially as some of them might indeed be tricky to keep up with, given the rapid technological development. David shared some tips on this too:
Trend: Data
– Be transparent with how you’re handling your customer data. An interesting case here is H&M and how they’re currently adapting their stores locally by using big data
– Show the customer that the customer gains more on his/her data than your company does
– Cut down – don’t collect more data than you actually need
– Fix your forms now (GDPR is coming for ya….)
Trend: Voice search is increasing
Whether or not you have started to use voice search, you’ll have to be prepared as your stakeholders soon will be using it. Here’s some practical things to think about when you write for your web or app:
-Write your preambles as if they were ”featured snippets” (position zero)
-29 words or less are common answers to voice searches
-Bullet lists and structured content = exceptionally good
-Think about the difference between spoken and written language
Last but not least, some candy for all you fellow aesthetic nerds out there – Pantone 16-1546 TCX! Yup. This is the color of 2019 according to Pantone. Google it and let this beautiful coral red tone seduce your senses for a while before you head back to work 😉
/Malin