Small Business Labs

5 Biggest 2022 Tech Trends According to Adobe's Chief Product Officer

Business Insiders' Adobe's chief product officer predicts the 5 biggest tech trends of 2022.  What caught our eye about this list is 3 out of the 5 trends relate to self-employment and independent work.  These are:

1. The next generation of top talent will have "Polygamous Careers," transforming the corporate world as we know it:  The article describes this as "One's profession will be a portfolio of projects, whether you're a designer, engineer, salesperson, or investor. The idea of "exclusivity" in an offer letter will be laughable faster than we think."

2. "The Stakeholder Economy" will turn customers (and employees) of businesses into owners: This trend is on the use of tokens and Web 3.0 to make it easier to share ownership in small businesses and/or create new forms of SMBs.  

3. The next generation will have a nomadic decade of life and work, and will love it: This prediction is that "... young adults in their twenties increasingly choose to spend a decade of their lives living between a set of rented or swapped spaces around the world, working remotely, and immersing themselves in communities and cultures."  In other words, there will be more digital nomads.

The final two trends are on specific technologies.  These trends are The rise of immersive experiences will mainstream 3D creation and Artificial Intelligence will make personalization too good to opt-out

That 3 out of the 5 trends relate to self-employment shows how mainstream the shift to independent work has become.  

See the article for more on the trends.

McKinsey: Almost One Third of Those Quitting Their Jobs Left to Start a New Business

McKinsey's The brave new (business) world covers research that found that the Great Resignation is leading to a lot of new businesses.  Key quote:

"Our research into the Great Attrition found that 31 percent of employees who left their job in the past six months did so to start a new business. Additionally, parents and minority women were comparatively more likely to leave to start a new business or to join the gig economy."

The article points out that their finding is supported by the surge in new business tax I.D. applications, something we've covered quite a bit.  

McKinsey suggests three ways companies can potentially engage and retain employees who are thinking of turning to entrepreneurship:

1. Value workers and ensure they feel a sense of belonging. 
2. Empower employees with greater levels of autonomy and flexibility
3. Encourage setting work-life boundaries

Regular readers know work flexibility, autonomy and control are key reasons people choose and are happy with self-employment.  The self-employed also often point out they weren't valued by their prior employer.  

So this is a pretty good list.

See the article for more details.  

Crypto's Fraud and Scam Problems

We recently listened to a podcast on creating cryptocurrencies.

We were pretty surprised when the podcast's guest "expert" laid out a crypto pump and dump scheme, which he said was guaranteed to make money.

We were equally surprised when the podcast host responded positively to the approach.

It's still unclear to us whether or not the podcasters knew what they were describing was illegal. 

But what is clear is that the crypto space has fraud and scam problems.  

According to Investopedia, cyrpto users and investors lost $10.5 billion due to theft and fraud in 2021. This is up from just $1.5 billion in 2020.

Related recent media articles include Rolling Stone's NFT Scams Are Everywhere. Here's How to Avoid Them, The Information's Crypto's Town Square Has Become "a Scammer's Paradise.", Yahoo Finance's Data: Illicit crypto wallets hold over $25B as hacks, thefts mushroom, and our favorite, Gizmodo's 7 Crypto Projects That Were Total Scams (January 2022 Edition).

Gizmodo's article is our favorite because it only covers large scams they found in January of 2021. Key quote:

We're taking a look at the biggest crypto scams of the month. And it should probably be noted this isn't necessarily a comprehensive list. These are just the largest scams we came across. 

Other crypto fraud-related news include last week's U.S. Department of Justice announcement they'd seized more than $3.6 billion in bitcoin allegedly stolen in a 2016 hack.  

And circling back to pump and dump scams, a group of investors recently sued Kim Kardashian and others for allegedly using such a scheme to defraud them.  

The crypto space is often (and correctly, in our opinion) described as the wild west. 

And just like the wild west, regulations and law and order will eventually tame it.  

We consider ourselves crypto optimists and are not suggesting you don't participate in the crypto space.   

But if you do, we suggest you follow Gizmodo's advice and "be careful out there, folks."

BTW, the picture is from last year's Evolved Apes scam, which netted the scammers $2.7 million in investor funds.

Ark Invest's 2022 Big Ideas Tech Trends Report

Ark Invest is an investment management firm that invests in companies it views as developing disruptive technologies.  

Ark and their fund manager, Cathy Wood, became investing superstars in 2020 due to their eye-popping financial returns. But more recently, Ark funds have fallen quite a bit due to the general decline in tech valuations.

Ark releases an annual tech trends report, and the 2022 version - Big Ideas 2022 - was released recently. 

The report covers 14 technologies Ark believes will have a transformative impact and generate substantial investment returns by 2030. These are:

1. Artificial Intelligence
2. Digital Consumer
3. Digital Wallets
4. Public Blockchains
5. Bitcoin
6. Ethereum and DeFi
7. Web3
8. Gene Editing
9. Multi-Omics
10. Electric Vehicles
11. Autonomous Ride-Hail
12. Autonomous Logistics
13. Printing and Robotics
14. Orbital Aerospace 

We consider Ark's report must reading for anyone interested in tech trends.  But we do have one caveat, which is their forecasts.

The folks at Ark are the ultimate techno-optimists, and their forecasts reflect this.  

For example, the report chart below (click to enlarge) shows their forecast for A.I.-related IT spending, which is four times higher than the current consensus forecast.

While we agree the consensus looks low, 4x the consensus is a very aggressive forecast, especially over the next 2-3 years.  

We've done some back-of-the-envelope math using their forecasts, and if all the forecasts came true (they won't), we think the result would be the world economy growing at an annual rate in the 8%-9% range over the next decade (it won't).  

So we think you should be a bit skeptical while reading their forecasts. 

But the Ark folks are very smart.

And they do a great job of describing the technologies they follow and why they're so bullish on them (we're bullish on them too, just not as bullish as Ark).  

So despite our view that their forecasts are too optimistic, we still think the report is excellent and well worth reading.  

The 2022 Meta Trend Report

No, this report is not about the metaverse or Meta the company. 

The Meta Trend Report "synthesizes 500+ trends from 40+ reports, ranking the 14 most frequently reported cultural trends for 2022." 

The sources included:

"Reports were sourced from: Accenture Retail, Bombas & Parr, Canvas8, Catawiki, Deloitte Insights TMT, Dentsu Creative, Dentsu Media, Deposit Photos, Exploding Topics, Falcon, Foresight Factory, Fjord Accenture, Future Laboratory, GWI, Instagram, Lippincott, Mintel, MTM, Nourish, Mind Body Green, Pinterest, Sparks & Honey, Spring Wise, Trend Hunter, Trend Watching, Ultra Violet, We Are Social, Webby, Well + Good, WGSN, Wunderman Thompson and more."

The report is written and curated by Matt Klein, who is a "cultural theorist" and the trends and strategy lead for Reddit.

The report chart below (click to enlarge)  illustrates the 14 trends:

For each of the 14 trends a summary is provided, along with a list of the sources citing the trend.

Trend curation and synthesis is something all trend analysts do when compiling their trends lists.

So you can think of this report as a curated and synthesized list of a bunch of other curated and synthesized lists.  

But we don't mean to imply the Meta Trend Report isn't of value. 

Just the opposite.  We find it very interesting and useful to see a consensus view of the top trends.

And we think anyone interested in trends will find the report well worth reading.  

See the report for details on the  trends.

Academic Paper on Workers Creating Meaning in the Gig Economy

Knowledge @ Wharton's How Workers Create Meaning in the Gig Economy covers an academic paper written by Wharton School professor Lynsey Cameron.  

Her paper, Making Out While Driving: Relational and Efficiency Games in the Gig Economy, was recently published in Organization Science.

It covers her multi-year research project interviewing and studying gig workers, focusing on rideshare drivers.

As part of this study, Cameron herself became a part-time Uber driver.

One of her discoveries was that her view of working as a rideshare driver before her study did not match her interviews. Key quote from the article:

"There's a cultural narrative that the gig economy is so terrible and so exploitive," Cameron said. "I honestly came into the research thinking that was true, but that's not what many of the drivers told me. They really liked it."

Cameron's research showed that many rideshare drivers used two mental models, which Cameron calls "games," to keep themselves engaged with their gig work. These are:

• The relational game — Drivers strive to provide excellent customer service to get great reviews. They see this as being professional and doing a good job, and they win by getting positive ratings.  
• The efficiency game — Drivers complete work quickly at the highest pay rate and manage passengers by minimizing personal contact. They win by improving their earnings.

Cameron points out that not all drivers play these games, some play other games, and many switch back and forth between them.  

The broader point of her paper is that gig workers use various mental approaches to find meaning in their work.

They do this because many traditional sources of job feedback and meaning, such as feedback from coworkers and bosses, don't exist with gig work.

And at least for some gig workers, this approach works. Key quote from the paper's abstract:

"My findings embed meaning-making in what is fast-becoming the normal workplace, largely solitary and structured by emerging technologies, and holds insights for explaining why people remain engaged in a line of work typically deemed exploitative."

Before reading this insightful paper, we hadn't thought much about the connection between meaning-making and gig work.

But upon reflecting on it, we realized our research also shows that meaning-making is an important tool, and one used by many gig workers - including ourselves.  

This is an interesting topic that we will explore this year in our research.

Tax ID Applications are not the Same as New Business Starts

The U.S. Census Business Formation Statistics have gotten a lot of attention since the start of the COVID pandemic.

The Census Bureau chart below (click to enlarge) shows why.

Since early in the pandemic, applications for business tax I.D.s (which is what the business formation statistics track) have dramatically increased.

This is has resulted in many sources saying that the number of small business starts has dramatically increased - and increased by the same number as applications for tax I.D.s.

While it's correct to say the number of small business starts has increased, it's incorrect to say they've increased as much as tax I.D. applications have.  

The reason is that only a small share of tax I.D. applications result in a new small business starting.

That's because applying for a tax I.D. is quick and easy.  But actually starting a business is hard.  So many who apply for a tax I.D. don't end up starting a new business.

For example, the Census reported 418,000 business applications filed in December of 2021.

Of the 418,000 applications, 137,000 were from what the Census calls "high propensity applications." These are the applications the Census thinks will result in the formation of an employer small business.

But the Census only expects a subset of applications will lead to the formation of an employer business.  Key quote from the Census business formation release:

"... the Census Bureau is projecting that 30,201 new business startups with payroll tax liabilities will form within 4 quarters of application from all the business applications filed during December 2021."

In other words, the Census thinks about 22% of high propensity applications will result in a new small business starting within the following year.

The Census doesn't estimate how many solopreneur businesses ("other than high propensity" in Census speak) will likely be formed.

But we do, based on asking about tax I.D. applications for over a decade as part of the MBO Partners State of Independence study.

We've found that about 18% - 20% of solopreneurs who file for a tax I.D. follow through and start a business that generates revenue and lasts at least one year.

This means probably around 56,000 new solopreneur businesses will be formed based on December's data.

So in total, we would expect that the 418,000 tax I.D. applications filed in December of 2021 will result in about 86,000 new businesses over the following 12 months.

The good news is that 86,000 new small businesses are still, by historical standards, a lot of new small businesses from just one month's filings. It's just not 418,000.

Boeing Invests $450 Million in Autonomous Air Taxi Manufacturer Wisk

Boeing recently invested an additional $450 million in Wisk, a 2019 joint venture between Boeing and air taxi startup Kitty Hawk.

Wisk's objective is to build the first autonomous air taxi. Their prototype is pictured below. 

And yes, this means Wisk hopes their air taxi will not need a pilot. Key quote from Wisk's press release on the Boeing investment:

"Wisk's 6th generation eVTOL aircraft will represent a first-ever candidate for the certification of an autonomous, all-electric, passenger-carrying aircraft in the U.S."

Wisk isn't the only air taxi firm looking for certification for their aircraft.

Joby Aviation has filed permits for a series of high-profile air taxi flights over San Francisco Bay.

The flights would not carry passengers and would be piloted remotely as a drone from nearby ground stations.  

Airlines seem to believe air taxis are likely to enter the market soon. 

According to Bloomberg's No, Really, Flying Taxis Are Getting Close to Takeoff, airlines have ordered more than 1500 air taxis in the past 2 years.  Key article quote on why:

"The carriers see the craft as the ideal means of transporting rich travelers and corporate passengers to and from the airport, loosening the grip of the car, train, and taxicab on drop-offs while improving the customer experience."

And McKinsey is quite bullish on the industry.  Their recent article on air mobility says air taxis will be flying by 2024 and:

"By 2030, the leading companies in the passenger AAM (advanced air mobility) industry could have bigger fleets—and offer many more flights per day—than the world’s largest airlines."

So flying taxis are just around the corner - again. 

But progress is being made, and this time air taxis may soon be in the air.