This is Hamamoto from TIMEWELL.
The following is a session report from SXSW covering a talk on emerging technology trends for 2023. The session addressed 35 technology trends and the methodology for thinking through their convergence and implications.
35 Trends and the Importance of Convergence
The speaker introduced 35 technology trends currently shaping the landscape, but the core methodological argument was not about the trends individually — it was about what happens when they intersect.
The signal, the speaker argued, becomes visible only when you look at trends in combination rather than in isolation. A single trend can be tracked without much difficulty. What requires deliberate effort is understanding how multiple trends reinforce each other, conflict with each other, or produce emergent conditions that none would generate alone. This is the practice of strategic foresight — identifying which combinations of signals are likely to produce meaningful change, and on what timeline.
The concept of "prioritizing at the atomic level" was introduced as a tool for this: breaking down large trend categories into their component elements (the "atoms") and then mapping how those atoms connect across different trend areas. This produces a more fine-grained picture than treating each trend as a monolithic category.
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The Growing Power of Major Technology Platforms
A significant thread in the session concerned the concentration of power in large technology companies. The speaker noted that major platforms are continuing to grow larger and more powerful — not just in terms of market capitalization but in terms of their ability to shape the conditions under which smaller players operate.
This creates a structural challenge: organizations and individuals who are not keeping pace with technological change are increasingly at a disadvantage, not only in the labor market but in their capacity to participate meaningfully in economic and civic life. The speaker named this directly as a digital divide problem — there are too many knowledge workers who have not received adequate training for the environment they are operating in.
The trades observation was specific: the same dynamic that is displacing some knowledge work is simultaneously creating shortages of skilled tradespeople, because trade skills require physical presence and physical learning in ways that are harder to automate.
The Digital Swag Bag
As a practical resource for session attendees, the speaker assembled a "digital swag bag" — a shared folder containing:
- Multiple trend reports
- Open-source methodologies for strategic foresight
- A blank atom chart for individual use
- A how-to guide for building strategic foresight capability
- A curated Spotify playlist designed to support the kind of creative, exploratory thinking that futures work requires
The underlying message: the tools for this work are available, the information is accessible, and the primary constraint is not resources but whether people commit to using them together. The session was framed explicitly as a beginning of collaborative work, not a standalone information delivery.
Key Takeaways
- Technology trends matter most when understood in combination — convergence produces emergent conditions that individual trend analysis misses
- The digital divide is not closing; large technology platforms are becoming more powerful, and knowledge workers without adequate training are falling further behind
- The trades shortage is partly a consequence of the same forces driving knowledge work displacement
- Practical foresight tools — atom charts, trend convergence maps, open-source methodologies — are available and should be used
- Collective action and shared effort are prerequisites for navigating this period effectively
This event report was produced by TIMEWELL.
Reference: https://one-x.jp/PMiwA1Mb/nqoW9McQ
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