Welcome to 2023 — Who’s on First and What's on Trend? I Don’t Know. 🤯
Edition 1, Volume 3 of The Grey Swan Guild News Wrap
The first edition of Volume of the GSG Wrap was published 2 years ago, in Jan 2021. We talked about Tic Tok, Healing from the Storming of the Capitol in the US and Protests in Russia. We covered the news of the week that has an impact around the world. The concept was to look across the week and see what was going on with a “Good, Bad and Ugly” sensemaking lens to consider emerging trends, ideas and issues.
As we do in the Guild, The News Wrap is an experiment that morphs with the needs of the time and the editor and writers who generate it. The GSG News Desk Team has created almost 100 Wraps that focus on future-forward, reward-cogitation and an assembly of views to get ready for the next week and to shed light on what might emerge. We know it is a time capsule and well binoculars for the next 1,000 days. To kick off for the year, GSG Wrappers Sean Moffitt and Rob Tyrie look at improbable but guessable Grey Swans, like the massive increase/decrease in bitcoins, the multi-national war in the middle east and disaster in space. Thankfully and hopefully, these are the “long-shot-not-gonna-happen-but-what-if-they-do” category. We hope we are good about the good stuff and we miss by miles on the good stuff.
The first News Wrap of the year will turn the binoculars forward and take a look at the White Swans — a thing highly likely to happen and, as Faith Popcorn will chime — “on trend”. On trend, big waves should be easier to scope, but as we all know, prognostication is a fine art. 🔮
So, let's hope aboard the GSG Trend Tardis and see what is Great, Good, Bad, Ugly and Uncertain for 2023 on Day 8 of 365 years, 51 more weeks to go in 2023. Let’s see what is #OnTREND for 2023 and very likely to happen. We see White Swans, trends with a big impact.
Trendsters — Let’s Wrap.
The Great🥳
The Tech Sector, Space and Manufacturing will be big this year. On trend will be software companies that shift the fastest with new tech and a swing back to stable business in countries without wars. With so much dry powder and a dearth of investments in 2022, look for jumps here and doubling down on enterprise tech that works, like Salesforce and Snowflake, and stuff that is maturing, like space biz, mobile robotics, battery tech, and wind energy.
1.Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow. Amid all the tech downsizing, Tech company Snowflake’s rapid expansion is everywhere. The “data cloud” software-as-a-service that’s real and networks database, data-lake and data-warehouse, the data-everything company has been on a tear and now looking at international expansion and verticalization and an expansion in manufacturing, retail and finance. Their stock will go north before south as Microsoft and Oracle react and Databricks eyes going Public. If growth slows too much and the stock price melts, Snowflake will get acquired, by one of the big Blues, like Salesforce or IBM, who both need growth stories in 2023. Look atAlphacode, GPT-3 and GPT-4 et al build out whole new classes of seamless data warehouses that are easy for humans to talk to and make sense of. #OnTREND — Data Cloud ⛅
2. Space. Finally, Some New Bold Frontiers. with DART hitting the target in Space, and successful missions for Blue Origin, SpaceEx and Virgin flying high, space is on people's minds around the world. Internation companies in Canada, Italy and Luxembourg (yes, the Duchy) launched over 50 satellites as of 2021; Space is a growing industry full of investments and new kinds of jobs and spin-offs. America has launched over 5,500 satellites in the same timeframe as Russia’s +3,300. One hundred years ago, the Earth had one satellite, The Moon. Speaking of that big international park in space, we are all heading back to the moon and mars with the beautiful visuals pouring in from the football filed sized James Web Telescope. This activity and mainstreaming will bleed over into other industries, from fashion to toys and entertainment, just like it did in the 60s. These were the most critical Space stories of 2022 from the great graphic communicators at Visual Capitalist. Run Away to Mars, indeed. Are you buying the new Buzz Lightyear Robot? — #OnTREND Space Spin-offs 👩🚀👨🚀
3. It's Good getting easier to be Green. All those Cop 27 tears are long behind us now; we can find good news about the green thing in the world. The Energy sector keeps shifting not only like the wind but with wind power, solar power and coastal countries hurrying to the energy that is not oil-based nor natural gas based (formerly known as sour gas). Jobs will be with the wind and the sun, and 2023 will see personal and national bests in moving to alternative energy production for the sake of humanity and, umm, profit. Look for prices to drop for wind turbines, batteries and solar panels. And less carbon footprint for all the new energy formats. Let the sunshine in. #OnTREND Green Energy — 🌞🔋
The Good😇
1.Housing Bubbles, did you hear the popping sound in your neighbourhood? With a mix of saving, inflation and migration, housing prices in large and small cities worldwide went up and up. Suitable for the owners and rentiers but bad for the people wanting to get into property owners' ships. Outside the warring world, it looks like prices have declined, and supply is reacting in the places people want to live. As the dust settles, the hope is that families get what they want and good schools are nearby. With lower prices come lower inflation and lower interest rates. And those are welcome them most.
2. Games People Play when they are stuck in the middle with you. Gaming and Entertainment are an ever-growing economic powerhouse. New forms of entertainment are evolving with interactive streaming, massive multi-player games, the overlap of games and the gamification of everything else.
A Statistica report into the global revenue of selected entertainment sectors found that video gaming is the most lucrative entertainment industry worldwide. It was worth $145.7 billion in 2019 which far surpassed the $42.5 billion in movie box office takings and $20.2 billion for music.
Look for a GPT Gaming company to become a Unicorn in 2023; think about a “build your own adventure game that's largely generated. NPC conversion will never be the same after ChatGPT et al are integrated into role-playing and other D&D-esque games. There will be at least 1 or 2 direct to streaming cartoon movies or live-action movies with scripts written mostly by AI. The actors will make it good. What is sure for 2023 will be new blockbuster games like Grand Theft Auto, More innovation and “blend-ins” in Fortnite, and complete emersions in all sorts of games people play together on Twitch and Steam. We are not even counting on any breakout games on the metaverse to keep this buoyant market alive. With over 3 Billion people's attention in games, money can be made if you do it right in on a suitable device. Angry Birds Fortnite, Anyone? Pickleball with IoT Paddle? #OnTREND Play Ball.⚾🧢
3.Post-Pandemic Thinking — Given the new catchy XBB COVID-19 variant and the wave of COVID in China without radical lockdowns, we know the pandemic of COVID is not over. Over the last 200 years, fewer than 7 Cholera pandemics have existed. Humanity and civilization come with diseases, it seems. What is good about this? Post Pandemic thinking has us set up for better medicine, safer practices and more sane reactions that are less disruptive than what occurred in most of the world in 2020. There are some silver linings and predictable wins coming from the learnings from COVID-19 that span working from home to new vaccine therapies beyond coronaviruses. Like Ginseng, anything healthy is trendilicious. #OnTrend Wash Your hands.🤝🚽
The Bad
1.Hey Teachers, don’t leave those kids Alone. Education is taking heavy hits on many fronts. Before the pandemic, grade inflation, lost skills, teen anxiety and dropping scores in STEM courses concern all parents and governments. Adding to that, higher education costs than ever in history at the same time of freely available online education from the likes of edX and Khan Academy put a whole new set of pressures on education institutions to change and adapt. Enter lockdowns, covid sickness, closed schools and wholesale movement to online and hybrid education over Zoom and Google Classroom before teachers were ready has thrown Generation Alpha into turmoil. The early measures don't look good. Students are behind and shaken. What’s going to happen to not leaving behind? Not enough. Unfortunately, this happened in WW II, and there was a measurable drop in the life success of a whole generation of children. This crisis needs solving and will take more than Chromebooks and free courses. #OnTREND Fix education.
2.The Game is the Thing. What should be the height of civilization and the human spirit has been mired in problems, from doping and cheating to misuse of power by coaches and sporting institutions devolving into toxic cultures that aren’t self-aware. It will take more than paying college athletes to play to fix things. More than adding goal-line tech too. Unesco is stepping in to create a fund to address cheating in sports. Is it enough? Wholesale change is regulations and tearing down the old-guard looks to be the only way. It is likely to get worse before it gets better. #OnTREND Score some changes in how we care for the athletes and the love of the game.
3. You’re So Bad. Software that's a drug. The battle struggling over Tik Tok continued over 2022. It is regulated in China but not anywhere else in the world. The program algorithm for engagement is designed to addict users into hours of use in their chosen areas of interest. If only this superpower could be used for good things like Cognitive Behavior Therapy instead of schlocking ads. As a business, if it is a phenomenon, its impact on our children’s mental health is terrible. Period. #OnTREND Regulate Software.
The Ugly👺
1. War. It's not a good sign when war is on trend for growing economies. The war Between Ukraine and Russia is drowning in billions of dollars of expenditures by the world military-industrial complex. The FT asks if it is even necessary. All this money is not just being spent in Ukraine. All NATO countries are increasing their military spending, especially those countries in Europe that are close to the Russian Steppes. #OnTREND Daddy Warbucks never left.
2. Rational Expectations of peace is at risk. Political Risk — Investopedia defines Political risk as “the risk an investment’s returns could suffer as a result of political changes or instability in a country. Instability affecting investment returns could stem from a change in government, legislative bodies, other foreign policy makers or military control” As has been seen in the US, Russia, Brazil and China, the political risk increases costs and increases the flight of capital from unstable countries. At a minimum, trade is affected, and corporations experience higher insurance costs and damage to partnerships. Political polarization and toxic debates that lead to even small-scale violets limit growth; you guessed it, it is inflationary. #OnTREND Take Down the Temperature.
3. Who ya gonna call? Misinformation, Disinformation is a critical problem that is created using modern cloud technology and advanced computing. The maturity level of misinformation to create political instability such that elections are affected is horrifying and dystopic. With the arrival of advanced conversational AI, experts are concerned misinformation will explode as fakes, spam and bots are generated at scale in an assault on their truth. The responses by the UN and Nations are slowly turning, but is it enough to have new training and Cyber Forces or does more have to be done? Let’s say there is no International Court nor laws to contain this threat, and criminals and bad actors are getting better tools. #OnTREND Fact Finding, Truth Lenses.
The “What Me Worry” Uncertainty
Trends funny things. They start small, come out of nowhere and are surprising and often confusing. Pet Rocks, anyone? Sometimes trends are cultivated by the big brands, and sure things like the $250 Moon Swatch fast following the Omega Space Travel, OO7 Homage for around $9,000. Can you imagine the price if it actually went to the moon?
Here are five other trends that we will call out definitely as uncertain and therefore driving anxiety. Let’s see what happens this year
- The Future of Remote and Hybrid Work or the Return to the Office?
- The Great Efficiency hunting out the Quiet Quitters?
- Air Travel and Sea Travel or Back to Disney?
- Inflation Infatuation?
- Bollywood or Tollywood?
Tapestry
Here’s the heartbeat of the Zeitgeist sourced from the large language model the internet is curated by real, living, conscious, sentient Swans, not ChatGPT.
Top Anticipated Movies 2023
Movies, Released and Streamed are #OnTREND
New Charts — Gimme 3
1. Economic Growth Projections- Positive outside NA.
2. Pandemicy Outbreaks in the Middle East
3. Gaming Growth. People who can play, play.
5 Sources of Product and Culture Trends — Some Usual and Some Surprising
If you wonder how some of the worldviews are set at the New Desk, here are some sources that are always one tap at the GSG News Desk.
Meme of the Week — Trendy
Political Cartoon on Trend for 2023
Top 10 2023 Comeback Big Cap Tech Stocks — Source: The Zeitgeist
- Meta — too much of a beating, and they have cash
- Salesforce — Rightsizing and acquisition
- IBM — Quantum support from LLM
- Google — AI Openview Response, Edge Computing
- Microsoft — Entertainment — AI and Gaming, Streaming, Search
- Shopify — eCommerce and side gigs plus generated stores
- Boston Robotics — NewAI for the dog and those charming yet terrifying humanoid bots, plus TeslaBot Competition
- Disney — Big bold moves by the old guard
- Alibaba or Amazon — because AI and Conversational Commerce
- The Country of Senegal — Because Oil
