Five thoughts for 2022
Here are five trends that will have the biggest impact on us in Design, Data and Tech in 2022 and beyond.
It’s the first week of 2022 and here’s my quick observation on Creativity and Technology today:
2022 = 1999
New Creativity = (Making * Tenacity) * Anyone
Creators > Platforms
NFT = Opportunity * 0.05
Big Data + Profit = RIP
1. 2022 = 1999
2022 will be like 1999. Mostly up and then a sudden drop (like the dotcom bubble back in the day), followed by 15–20 years of drastic and upward changes like we’ve gone through in the last two decades but in new and unexpected ways.
2. New Creativity = (Making * Tenacity) * Anyone
Creativity is now decentralized. Creative work used to belong to the elite few: those who had access one way or another (i.e. money, resources, titles called “creatives,” etc). Now, it belongs to anyone with not only the will to make something but also the tenacity to continue making, i.e. Creators.
Now, this has been happening for many years now. Professor Scott Galloway talks about the Dispersal of Creativity in his article back in December of 2020.
Even before that, this dispersion was happening. Back in the late 1980’s, Macintosh democratized graphic design with desktop publishing, for instance. Whether you call it decentralization, democratization, or dispersion, one of the roles technologies–particularly, digital–play in people’s lives is that it gives tools, resources, and/or access to the masses, creating opportunities that didn’t exit before. It’s a good thing.
3. Creators > Platforms
The power is now shifting from Platforms (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc) to Creators (not “creatives, “ see above). Platforms are becoming homogenized and formats are increasingly the same (i.e. Snaps, Stories, Shorts, etc), making platforms less unique. By 2025 (if not already), many Creators will be their own Platforms. See what Taylor Swift and Nas Academy are doing.
Nuseir Yassin makes a point about the Creator Economy in this interview and argues how the platforms are becoming commoditized more and more. It’s definitely worth a listen.
4. NFT = Opportunity * 0.05
95%+ of NFT-related businesses today will be gone by 2030 or sooner, just like the dotcom companies of the late 90’s that flamed. While NFT has made crypto much more accessible, creating a NFT today feels like creating a website back in 1996–98. Anyone can do it but not anyone would do it because there still is a lot of friction. That means there is a massive opportunity ahead of us for success. This also means that there will be a lot of tools and businesses with no value.
I’m not an expert on NFT or the stock market but there is a lot of literature predicting the crash of the NFT craze, including Beeple, the digital artist who made $69 million selling an NFT piece of art in 2021, in this article.
The exact percentage is my random guess. Only time will tell.
5. Big Data + Profit = RIP
If the last decade has taught us anything, Big Data in the name of profit was the wrong pill to take. Data needs to be used for the betterment of humanity, not growth alone. Some companies would argue that they are using data to “connect humanity,” blah, blah, blah. Exactly.
Here’s to an amazing 2022 for everyone 💫