Top 5 Tech Trends of 2022

Today Cris and Andrew highlight 5 tech trends that we are seeing in 2022 (now that we are halfway through the year). Which of these gets you most excited? Are there others you think should be highlighted?

Full Transcript Below:

Andrew:

Tech to help businesses go green.

Cris:

The world is obviously ever-changing and ever-moving and things are just adapting at every turn and we're seeing trends, obviously take place.

Andrew:

DevOps and sys admin team that help look at our servers help assess things. So, yes.

Cris:

So if you aren't involved in that space, you're kind of missing out on a really big moneymaking opportunity.

Cris:

The world is obviously ever-changing and ever-moving and things are just adapting at every turn. And we're seeing trends obviously take place. I wanted to talk today about five digital trends. There's a million trends obviously, but, and many in the digital space where we're going to touch on these five digital trends. And number one is tech.

Tech Enabling Remote Work

Cris:

We're seeing a lot of tech that is now allowing collaboration, hybrid work schedules, remote work, all that kind of stuff. The last few years have obviously been a big shake up for the world as a whole. So tech is having to address this and we're seeing so much more collaboration stuff happening. Unpack it.

Andrew:

Right. And there's... And I mean, even since we've come out of the pandemic.

Cris:

Sure.

Andrew:

There's been lots of... I think, a really good thing about that was like you said, the adoption of remote work, not that it's right for everyone or... But it does, I think it does play a part in the way we work with our people the way we work with clients. I mean, I can't think of how many times that I've been on a video conference with a client where some of the people are in the office, some are remote and obviously that impacts them, that impacts us.

Cris:

Well, it used to be in the past I mean, even so we've been doing this for we're coming up on 15 years here you know, 10 plus years coming up on 15. It's like when we first started, yes, there was remote video chat stuff kind of. It was mostly still just text chat and some emails and mostly jumping on the phone. Now you're dealing with teams that are doing full digital, whiteboarding, collaboration type stuff. You know, Google Meet, Zoom all these things we've seen Google Hangouts live and die and resurrect again and die a second time. You know, it's like all these tech, large tech industries and even small startup type companies, they're having to pivot and adjust and adapt because remote work and hybrid work is not going anywhere.

Andrew:

Right.

Cris:

It really is becoming part of the zeitgeist and the way of the future. So if you aren't involved in that space, you're kind of missing out on a really big money making opportunity.

Andrew:

Well, and I think in our space, remote used to essentially be akin to being overseas. They were remote because they were overseas.

Cris:

Right.

Andrew:

Which also brought with it huge time zone differences in most cases. Where now we're working with people remotely that are at the same time zone, two, three hours difference so some of the downsides that we would see to remote are actually not there anymore.

Cris:

Sure. And I mean, and those developers and those teams also aren't going anywhere, you still are seeing I'm working with the team out of Zurich and then out of Paris and then they're also collaborating with the team in Silicon Valley and so we are still dealing with that. So tools to allow for those time differences and to continue to adapt and make the world ever smaller rather than bigger is obviously where things are headed.

Security Threats and Solutions

Cris:

Number two, you got all this tech floating out in the world now. It's ever adapting, it's ever-changing. Security threats and solutions. I think both companies that are providing secure data solutions, stopping security threats, I'm seeing a huge rise in flux in those kind of companies starting to come out and just overall more tools out there mean more opportunities for actual threats and hacks and exploits. Any thoughts.

Andrew:

I mean, we're doing our part to help raise awareness with clients to push back on things that are maybe not the most secure. We have an in-house DevOps and CIS admin team that help look at our client servers help assess things. So, yes. I mean, I think the threats have only increased, but also our tools for dealing with those threats have also increased.

Cris:

Number three. What other trends are we seeing?

Tech to help Businesses Go Green

Andrew:

Tech to help businesses go green could look like energy efficiency. It could be looked like adding solar. It could look like, I mean, what are some other things that come to mind?

Cris:

Yeah. So, I mean, I couldn't tell you how many times I have people knocking on my door to put solar on my roof. So obviously from that that's a hardware kind of thing, but you know we've seen solar go from, this is something that gets thrown up on your roof and generates some power to, this is something that goes up on your roof that is generating power. That is now being banked. That is being analyzed. There's an app that's connected to it. So you can see what your data usage is and make sure you're getting the most efficient use out of it. And so on and so forth. And all that is software that needs to be written. We're seeing technology obviously changing and adapting on both the technical side of the software. And also these tech companies that are focused on new hardware solutions with bigger, better batteries for your kind of electric vehicle solution type stuff.

Cris:

You know, companies starting to think about emission standards as they're starting to grow, as we're doing more Bitcoin mining, we're generating all this energy. Well, how are we stopping the carbon footprint or at least lessening that footprint as we're continuing to add more and more and more and more technology and hardware and people into the world. You have to think green. And so companies that are helping those in the tech space think from that perspective, I think is healthy and is also just a huge industry for making a lot of money. So go green is a big thing. It's a trend that has obviously been around. I think it's almost kind of, it's almost a fallacy to say it's a trend, but also it has blown up so much in the last couple years and it's just not going to go anywhere. So at some point it is not going to be a trend anymore. It is a way of life and people are going to be thinking from that green space. Number four.

Blockchain Technology

Andrew:

Blockchain.

Cris:

There it is. I touched on it.

Andrew:

That's probably a whole topic in itself, but we won't go into that.

Cris:

So how many times do you have a client when you're on a sales call or talking about something where they throw out blockchain?

Andrew:

Oh yeah.

Cris:

Throw out something.

Andrew:

They're going to store their contracts on the blockchain. They're going to store something on the blockchain they're yeah. We're going to do NFTs for high school football students, whatever it might be. I mean, when I think of blockchain, obviously I think of NFTs, of crypto, of just kind of the blockchain itself, but that is without a doubt, a huge trend right now.

Cris:

Yeah. And don't get me wrong. I think that it definitely has its place and it's been amazing to see how people are applying blockchain technologies. I would say just overall machine learning, AI type stuff, just overall leveraging computers to be able to handle a lot of stuff that normally we would do and again, be secure and kind of decentralized while also bringing the world back together has been really cool. But blockchain is a huge thing. I don't think it's going anywhere, depending on when this video is being watched, who knows, you know what crypto's going to look like. It's an ever kind of up and down, up and down kind of a ride. But I think overall the trend is up and I think blockchain is going to win and is winning. So I'm interested to see how this trend goes.

Andrew:

I know. Me too.

Automation and Integration with APIs

Cris:

Number five, automations and integrations. We'll kind of bring it back home. I heard a statistic that it was, oh, somewhere, maybe like 2015, 2016. You know, you had these companies that were dealing with creating APIs and that sort of thing. And it was say a half million, million dollar kind of an industry companies that are focused on API connections and that sort of stuff. We're talking a $2 billion industry today, as of 2021 Forbes says companies that are around API style connections, the companies that do that 2 billion. So automation integration, this is huge. That's a big jump over the short amount of time.

Andrew:

An overarching thing that we're seeing through all this is connection. You know, connection is a trend. Increase connection, increase communication. We're in different places. We use the internet to communicate. So yeah, connectivity and our ways to communicate is just always having new flavors and new trends with how we do it.

Cris:

Yeah. And I think that is healthy because the more we're starting to co-locate the more important I would say it is for us to not lose that human connection. Yes. We can invite automation into things. We can be working with the blockchain, AI technologies, all these security ways of keeping ourselves kind of walled and safe, but keeping human connection is important and I do feel that there are a lot of companies out there right now that are trying to keep that in the forefront. They want people to be connected. They want the world to feel larger and more inclusive rather than exclusive.

Alexandra:

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Bixly Tech Tuesday, where Cris and Andrew talked all about five big digital trends that are happening this year in 2022. If you have any questions about what they talked about today, go ahead and leave them in the comment section and we will get right back to you. And don't forget to check out the description box down below. We have a bunch of really helpful links for you guys, including a link to our free custom software guide, which will be particularly helpful for you if you are in that startup phase. You can also check us out online at bixly.com. And right at the top of our website, we have the big button that says "Start My Roadmap" and that actually gets you a free 60 minute call with Cris to talk about your next app idea. Until next time, this has been an episode of Bixly Tech Tuesday.