One of my team asked me where my predictions for 2011 were. I never got around to finishing them or fleshing the out… Here is where I got to… better late than never…

1. 2011 will be the year in which transmission-based communications (Letters, Fax, Email) will further accelerate towards obscurity. As more of us move our communications into the “stream”, the older forms die. Text, Twitter, IM will continue to accelerate in usage and adoption, supported by the flip to Smartphones. As an aside, I thought it would be nice to buy Sophia a stamp album for Christmas – that’s not as easy as you would think.
2. We will increasingly make technology choices based on our information consumption model. Multiplexers – those that create, consume and process information – will continue to demand increasingly powerful notebooks and desktops. Consumers – those that consume – will move towards tablets and smartphones. Processors – those doing simple information retrieval and processing – will work through the browser in virtualized sessions on personal devices and a new generation of hyper efficient Enterprise systems. Specialists will demand hyper-scale computing power delivered through the cloud and on powerful desk-side and desktop systems.
3. Cloud Consumption will accelerate as we move to the other side of the hype-cycle. Their is no question that cloud is over-hyped and over-played. Many businesses and CIOs have been executing a iteration of the cloud for years. What is new is the hyper-scale, hyper-efficient capability provided by the likes of Microsoft Azure and Rackspace. These companies are game changers for any business looking to scale with agility.
4. More business will adapt businesses processes to software as a service versus building custom apps or using high-cost apps on infrastructure they run. SaaS is going to will see explosive growth in the coming year.
5. The walls will continue to come down between the personal enterprise and professional enterprise. The majority of the business still maintain a rigid wall between their employees personal lives and then their business. The walls will come down this year with more businesses blurring the line than not. I’m tracking this and will report out. The impact of this will be improvements in productivity and further acceleration of the pace of business.
6. Managing the life-stream will become a priority. Attention deficit will increase as a by-product of us not having the skills to manage the intersection of life and the stream. This will place even more emphasis on individuals and organizations being accountable for developing new skills.
7. Web 2.0 leaders will start to set new standards for marketers and businesses operating in their streams and spheres. And some of this will be bought about looming Government intervention and regulation. Affiliate marketers will come under particular scrutiny.

More to come…