Small Business Labs

Bain Consulting on Predicting the Next Tech Disruption

Predicting the Next Tech Disruption from Big 3 Strategy Consulting firm Bain and Company discusses 4 forecasting tools (shown below) Bain uses to predict when disruptive technologies will be widely adopted.

Two of the tools - experience curves and adoption curves - have been around a long time and widely used.

For example, we use both - and especially adoption curves - in our forecasts. And much like McKinsey also suggests, Bain suggests using similar technologies to help you develop your adoption curves. 

This is something we've done for many years and have found very useful. 

Bain's Elements of Value tool is focused on consumer technologies. But we think it could be modified to also work with B2B tech. You'd just need to create the equivalent of Maslow's hierarchy for business users.

The tool we found most interesting is what they call barriers and accelerators. 

We spend a lot of time examining potential barriers and countervailing trends that could impact our forecasts. This is because we've observed that most technology forecasts are overly optimistic because they don't include these.

A good example is drone forecasts back in 2014. The vast majority of these forecasts at that time simply ignored the wide range of barriers to broad adoption drones faced. 

Other examples include autonomous car forecasts, Internet of Things forecasts back in the early 2000's and again in 2010 through 2015 and pretty much all the forecasts that A.I. and automation would eliminate huge numbers of jobs by 2020 that were put out 6-8 years ago. 

In all these cases barriers and countervailing forces were either missed or ignored. So we certainly agree with Bain's inclusion of this tool.

Forecasting is obviously not easy and no one can actually predict the future. But using tools like the ones Bain suggests will help your forecasts miss by less.

Outdoorsy - An Aribnb for RVs

Outdoorsy claims to be the largest recreational vehicle (RV) rental marketplace. And we certainly don't know of a bigger one. 

RV owners use Outdoorsy to rent their idle RVs to people who want to hit the road but don't want to own an RV themselves.

So think of Outdoorsy as an Airbnb for things that roll that you can sleep in. 

Outdoorsy nicely illustrates several trends we follow:

Asset Monetization: Just as Airbnb allows people to turn their home into income, Outdoorsy does the same for RV owners. 

Digital Nomads: These are folks who have a location-independent lifestyle that allows them to travel and work anywhere they can plug into the Internet. 

While the digital nomads that tend to get the most press are the ones that travel internationally, a growing number hit the road domestically in RVs and camper vans. Outdoorsy is obviously a good way for people to try out a nomadic lifestyle. 

Platforms supporting microbusinesses: Outdoorsy recently announced a vehicle purchase program geared towards very small RV rental businesses. With this program even a solopreneur can more easily start an RV rental business. 

And, of course, owners who rent out their RVs are creating a source of self-employment income.

Outdoorsy's short video below nicely describes the company.

"The Venture Capitalizaton of Belonging"

Fast Company's Social clubs died out in America. Now, venture capital is bringing them back provides an interesting look at the changing landscape of American social clubs.

The article starts by pointing out the long decline in the membership of traditional clubs. Key quote:

"Over the last few decades, sociologists and political scientists have found that American clubs of all stripes–from youth service clubs to bowling leagues–have experienced steep declines in their memberships. ... The Freemasons has lost 3.8 million members since the late 1950s. The Elks ... has seen its membership drop from 1.6 million in 1980 to 803,000 in 2012. The Rotary only has 330,000 members now and only 10% of them are under 40."

It then covers various kinds of new types of clubs that are mostly in urban areas and cater to those with relatively high incomes:

"These are stylishly designed, members-only spaces that often come with a high price tag, thereby limiting membership to the wealthy and privileged. There are social clubs like Soho House, Spring Place, and the Battery, which serve as gathering spaces for well-heeled professionals.

There are special-interest clubs like The Cultivist, which, for $2,200 a year, gives art-lovers access to museums and galleries without the hassle of making bookings. There are private gyms like Equinox and Peformix House where you can work out with celebrity coaches using top-of-the-line equipment. There are beautiful coworking spaces like WeWork, the Wing, and the Riveter."

The broader point of the article is that the new wave of clubs need to charge high prices because they are ventured backed, have lots of amenities and high costs. This is very different from the traditional grass roots, self-organized clubs where membership is either cheap or free. 

Our favorite quote is final sentence in the article:

"But we need to ask ourselves: Are we, as we are building community, creating a Tocquevillian society full of associations, or are we creating the Gilded Age of Louis the 14th.”"

Good question - and one that can easily be asked more broadly about income equality in America.

We've long covered the shifting nature of social clubs. This is due to our coworking research.

We've also dug into the topics of loneliness and belonging. This is because solopreneurs, remote worker and home-based workers report loneliness and lack of belonging among their biggest work challenges. We also look at these topics because of the community building aspects of coworking.  

Because of this, we've been exposed to some fascinating work on these topics.

A great example is the How We Gather project, which is a collaboration between Harvard Divinity School, the Fetzer Institute and the On Being project. 

It's an extension of a Harvard Divinity School report that looked at declining church membership.

It too is called How We Gather and it has become a very influential paper on this topic.

It also inspired coworking pioneer Tony Bacigalupo to create The Gathering Summit, which is an online conference that brings together community builders from all over the world to learn from and support each other.

The list of presenters at the Gathering Summit is a who's who of the experts these topics. So if you're interested in this area, visit the Gathering Summit homepage. 

The need for belonging and community is part of being human and it impacts many aspects of our lives and work. Included are impacting the future of work, the future of small business and the future of self-employment and the gig economy.

So we will continue tracking and reporting on this topic.

The Great Risk Shift - and Economic Insecurity - Continues

"Risk shift" is the trend towards economic and other risks - and the responsibility for risk management - being shifted from institutions to individuals. 

Examples include corporations shifting more responsibility for retirement, career planning and healthcare to their employees and governments reducing social safety net programs.

Political scientist Jacob Hacker explored this trend in-depth in his 2006 book The Great Risk Shift.

We consider this one of the 3 books that best explain how the economy and jobs have changed over the past couple of decades.

Hacker recently released an updated 2nd edition of The Great Risk Shift with new data and insights. 

It's on our "must read" list.

He also recently wrote the NY Times Op Ed The Economy Is Strong. So Why Do So Many Americans Still Feel at Risk? 

His answer to this question is economic insecurity. Key quote from the article:

"... many Americans feel insecure. They may be doing well at the moment, but they fear that, however high they are on the economic ladder, a single bad step or bad event could cause them to slip. A booming economy hasn’t quieted these concerns, because insecurity remains a huge and growing problem in ways that voters and candidates instinctively get but the sunny job numbers largely hide."

Reinforcing this, the Federal Reserve just released their 2019 Survey of Household Economics and Decsionmaking study. 

It shows that 39 percent of Americans said they wouldn’t be able to scrape together the cash to meet a $400 emergency expense, 6 in 10 said losing their job would mean they couldn’t cover three months of expenses, and only a bit over 1 in 3 (36%) said their retirement savings were on track. 

So despite strong overall economic numbers, a large share of Americans are dealing with economic insecurity and uncertainty.

We see the impacts of the risk shift all the time in our research. It's a key reason for the growth of the gig economy because increased financial insecurity has resulted in more people needing to supplement their income.

We consider the risk shift one of the most important trends we follow. 

See our economic uncertainty section for more on this topic. And read Hacker's book. 

U.S. Birth Rates Continue to Fall

The Axios article The American Baby Bust covers the latest fertility data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Key quote:

"The U.S. fertility rate has reached a record low, and the total number of births in 2018 was the lowest it has been in more than 30 years ..."

As the article chart below shows (click to enlarge), in 2018 there were 59 births per 1,000 women ages 15-34. 

This translates to a fertility rate - the number of babies a woman of childbearing age is expected to have over her lifetime, of 1.72, which is a record low. It's also well below the replacement rate, which is 2.1.

The fall in fertility is being caused by a variety of reasons, many of them good reasons.

These are nicely covered in Time Magazine's It May Not Be a Bad Thing Fewer U.S. Babies Were Born in 2018 Than in Any Year Since 1986.

It points out births by teens are at an all-time low, mistimed/accidental pregnancies have also declined and women are choosing to have fewer babies because of greater career choices and increased levels of education.

But as we pointed out in 2014, kids get a lot of bad press due to the cost of raising them and the potential problems they can have or cause. This leads to fewer adults wanting them.

Also, the decline in birth rates is another example of the impact of economic uncertainty. Simply put, if you're uncertain about the future you're much less likely to have kids. 

Immigration has offset the declining U.S. birthrates and helped keep the U.S. relatively young.

So we're in much better shape demographically speaking than most developed countries and especially countries like Japan, Spain and Russia which are experiencing population declines.  

But obviously the U.S. is hardly welcoming immigrants these days, so we may not be able to count on them filling the gap going forward.

Declining fertility rates have enormous social and economic implications. We'll have more on this in the future. 

Deloitte on the Future of Work

Deloitte has become, in our opinion, one of the key go-to sources of information and analysis on the future of work. Their recent article Redefining work, workforces, and workplaces is a good example.

In a relatively short article, it nicely synthesizes and explains "multiple converging trends and how they are already fundamentally changing all aspects of work ...". 

As the article chart above shows (click to enlarge), they focus on three main areas: work, workforce and workplace.

The work section discusses the impact of automation and points out that technology will in some cases replace humans, but tech will also augment human workers. Key quote:

"The jobs of the future are expected to be more machine-powered and data-driven than in the past, but they will also likely require human skills in areas such as problem-solving, communication, listening, interpretation, and design."

The workforce section discusses the changing nature of talent and the growing use of contingent labor. Key quote:

"Organizations now have a broad continuum of options for finding workers, from hiring traditional full-time employees to availing themselves of managed services and outsourcing, independent contractors, gig workers, and crowdsourcing."

The workplace section covers the shift to more remote work. 

"Organizations are now able to orchestrate a range of options as they reimagine workplaces, from the more traditional colocated workplaces to those that are completely distributed and dependent on virtual interactions."

The future of work is complex. With this article Deloitte has done an excellent job simplifying it. 

Gartner says Half of All Job Postings Target Just 39 Roles

Gartner's Most Competitive Roles 2019 provides an interesting look at the jobs big companies are hiring for. 

The key finding is there is a lot of demand for a relatively small number of critical jobs. 

According to the report, "49% of all job postings by S&P 100 companies in 2018 were for just 39 roles. The remaining 51% were for 872 other roles."

The report chart below (click to enlarge) lists some of the high demand roles. 

Not surprisingly software developers, marketing managers and computer system engineers/architects are in high demand. So are sales managers and customer service reps.

And despite everyone saying accountants are being automated away, it's one of the 39 top jobs of 2018.  

This report nicely illustrates where the war for talent is being fought - functions such as IT, research and development, financial management, marketing, sales and customer service.

Because recruiting full-time talent for these jobs is so hard, corporations are increasingly turning to independent contractors to do this work. We'll have more on this in the near future.

See the report for the full list of the 39 high demand jobs.

The Rise of "Superjobs"

From Jobs to Superjobs covers the results of a Deloitte study looking at how automation and A.I are changing work and jobs.

The key finding is Deloitte sees automation changing jobs instead of simply replacing workers.

By this they mean many jobs are evolving and requiring new combinations of human skills and capabilities.

In particular, they see jobs increasingly requiring both hard and soft skills.

Deloitte see two types of jobs emerging due to increases in automation and the growing use of A.I. 

One type they call "hybrid jobs", which they describe as:

"Roles that perform work using a combination of skill sets drawing on both technical and soft skills. Historically, these types of skills have not been combined in the same job."

The other type are "superjobs", which are:

"Roles that combine work and responsibilities from multiple traditional jobs, using technology to both augment and broaden the scope of the work performed and involve a more complex set of domain, technical, and human skills."

The emergence of superjobs is going to require new types of thinking by both organizations and workers.

In particular training people for jobs that require strong hard and soft skills will not be easy. It will also require major shifts in thinking. 

It's not just traditional employees who will become super. According to Fast Company's A Growing Crop of Supertemps is Changing Work, independent workers are also becoming super.

So whether you want to be a traditional employee or an independent worker, you're gonna need a mix of skills - and a cape. 

TV Sitcom Explores the Blending of Work and Life and the Barriers Between the Professional and Amateur

Salon's Mike Schur's new sitcom "Abby's" is "Cheers" for the gig economy is an interview with the producers of a new NBC sitcom that takes places in a backyard bar. 

The interview covers what a show set in an illegal backyard bar says about modern culture. 

The interview explores multiple themes. But the most relevant to us here at Small Business Labs are the blending of work and life and break down between professional and amateur.

These shifts are happening across our society. A good example is when friends reach out to sell you something, which is increasing common thanks to the growth of side gigs.

Abby, the bar owner in the show, faces this on a regular basis because her customers are also her friends and neighbors. Key quote from the article on this:

There's one part of your question that I found interesting, and it is something that we talk about in the writer's room a lot. That is, where does the relationship between our patrons and Abby, when does it become personal and when is it professional? We dealt with that in a really explicit way in one episode with Beth [Abby’s next door neighbor] grappling with, "I thought this was a friendship and the way you're behaving, you're making me feel like you don't see me that way."

The blending of work and life is making answering this question both increasingly challenging and important.

We also find the show's view on the blurring distinctions between professionals and amateurs interesting. Again from the article:

There's also this weird thing in our culture now, where if you want go out somewhere, but you don’t want to drive, you use your phone and you get into some guy's Toyota Camry. It’s his car. It's like the barriers between what you would think of as a professional and amateur are completely broken down now, right?

These are both cultural and work shifts that are happening at least in part to the growth of the gig economy. It's interesting to see TV shows picking up on and exploring these trends.

Somewhat related, the popular online game The Sims is adding "freelancer" as a career choice. Sims will be able to be a writer, artist or programmer.

Just like in the real world, freelancing Sims can choose not to take gigs and instead take more time off.  Or, if they need more simoleons (money), they can take on extra gigs.

Having both TV shows and online games adding freelancing and alternative work arrangements illustrates the growing role independent work is playing.

Podcasting Entering the Mainstream

In case you hadn't heard, podcasting is booming. 

According to The Infinite Dial 2019, an annual survey conducted by Edison Research and Triton Digital, more than half of all adult Americans have listened to one.

And as the report chart below shows (click to enlarge), 32% of all Americans aged 12 and older listened to a podcast in the last month. This equals about 90 million people.

There are a number of drivers of podcasting's growth. These include:

• There's now a diverse array of interesting podcast content.
• Large audio/music firms like Spotify, Pandora and Apple have embraced podcasting.
• So have big media companies like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.
• Smart speakers have made it easier to find and listen to podcasts.
• The use of internet audio in cars has become easier and more widespread.
• Successful business models are emerging.

Most revenue estimates for the podcast industry continue to be small - ranging from $500 - $700 million in 2018. But as the TechCrunch article Y Combinator Bets on the Booming Podcast Industry points out, revenues are expected to rapidly increase. 

Podcasting is interesting to us here at Small Business Labs because it's yet another example of small businesses and even individuals successfully competing with large corporations. 

In fact, many successful podcasts come from solopreneurs and micro-businesses. This is due in part to podcasting's low production and distribution costs.

The other part is creating compelling content, which a lot of solopreneurs and micro-businesses are capable of. This is especially true for podcasts designed to build community or used for content and/or influencer marketing. 

Medium's 10 Big Takeaways from 2019's Infinite Dial Research covers the study in more detail.