Some Predictions!

1. Jobs that will become in high demand in the future: will include Business process Engineers, Organizational Development professionals and Technologists. Increasingly U.S. businesses will compete based upon the effectiveness and engagement of their people, their effective and efficient processes and the tools they use. Managers (in the traditional sense) will become increasingly irrelevant

2. PowerPoint presentations will be considered "old school". They will be replaced by video as Generation M enters the workforce. The "YouTube effect" will mean that younger persons entering the workforce will increasing become more comfortable with video capture and editing as a means of communicating and collaborating. Certainly, most people I know would rather view a 10 minute video than read a brochure or a website for the same information.

3. Communications will "come alive and converge" in the form of multi-media blogs. I recently played with embedding both video and a PowerPoint presentation in my personal blog. It was VERY simple to do (I consider myself the lowest common denominator) and I think will make for much more interesting presentation instead of multiple embedded links which lead to more text pages.

4. Collaborative social skills will propel the wiki to new heights in usage. What seems to come naturally to so many of the "younger generation" will revolutionize the way information is captured and continually refined. Most will see this as the smart way (the only way?) to work. The older generation's watch phrase "Knowledge is Power" will take on a new meaning: "Shared Knowledge is Power". Collaboration will be King.

5. It will take some time, but Mash Ups will rule the world. Mash Ups bring together various web services to create applications on the fly. Here's an informative video from IBM on their QEDwiki..