In the first ScotlandIS event of the year, Richard Marshall opens with the word we should be keeping in mind with regards to anything in tech in 2022: Intentional.

According to Marshall, this means there should be intentional reasoning behind – among other things – implementing new tech, undertaking a digital transformation journey or engaging with what is deemed as disruptive tech.

The former Gartner analyst outlined the need for patience and more discerning considerations when it comes to the tech we invest in, extoll, or utilise in our businesses and daily lives.

Following this, he outlined 10 tech trends that he deems will have a large bearing on the sector throughout 2022.

1 – Fleeing FOMO

“How do we avoid shiny toy syndrome?” Marshall posits.

He referred to the huge number of failed digital transformation projects to illustrate a propensity for companies to embark on digitisation projects without clearly outlining their objectives. “If we look at DT – a lot of money has been spent, with 70% of initiatives failing, a value of around £900 billion a year, says Marshall.

“A lot of this was driven by fleeing FOMO – they didn’t have their objectives set.”

To adhere to the concept of intentional change, we need to understand why we’re engaging in digital transformation. It has to be continuous, it’s not a one-stop shop. Always consider the journey and not just the goal.

Finally, Marshall warned against “cults of irrational exuberance” with regards to tech that’s just not quite there yet – driverless cars, blockchain, metaverse being a few examples he gave.

2 – Conversational Systems

Chat and voice will move to intentional conversations.

“We’re at a point where pop up ‘can I help robots’ will improve dramatically,” says Marchall. Intentional dialogues – that go beyond text-based systems – will removes barriers for people who aren’t sure how – for example – software works because the software will understand you.

Marshall goes on to say: “The biggest innovation to come in this space? Voice. This will help those with difficulty typing, provides access to the illiterate. Voice processing embedded in phones will also usher in the users who can’t currently interact using a type-only system.”

Out with the context of UX and customer journeys and speaking in a more conventional, business sense, it will serve to optimise processes in a businesses.

Marshall ends by saying: “If interactions with a system or software becomes less archaic, like we’re seeing it with the roll-out of EVA AI – a fully animated virtual agent with voice sync being used by insurance companies. These kinds of systems have the potential to be transformational.”

3 – Specialist Processors

“A lot of AI-enacted technology is enabled through specialist processors,” says Marshall.

We’re moving away from generic to dedicated in the technology pendulum – things like GPUs and insert flow devices.

“We’re likely to see computers and phones incorporate more dedicated processors to allow for tech like AI and decrease energy consumption.”

Marshall also expects to see the continued resurgence of wafer scale integration. On this, he says: “This was a big thing in the 80s, when we were going to make a ‘wafer’ in which the chips were fabricated. We’ve got to the point now where the processes are sufficiently high quality where the rejection rate isn’t economically crippling.”

4 – Cloud Nativity

Marshall opens: “People are looking to build things cloud native.”

Cloud isn’t just about using someone else’s hardware. Intentional development – and utilising it to not just for hosting, but how to change your integration patterns with the cloud in mind.

Marshall discussed elasticity of software in the cloud, saying: “The workload that is running in these systems can be reengineered for elasticity – they should all be connected up through microservices.”

Closing out, Marshall talks about the “need to plan for modern disasters”.

He adds: “What happens if Azure active directory identifications fail? It’s not going to be the hardware, it’s going to be the software and the cloud can act as insurance for business continuity.”

5 – Asynchronous Work

“Remote-first work has won,” Marshall says.

There’s a need for businesses to evolve methods and processes to accommodate human-centric work.

On this, Marshall says: “An intentional move towards human-centric work and away from management culture is built on a model based on trust.

“With asynchronous work, you can write something down, communicate it by text and people can respond when it’s practical,” adds Marshall.

This form of non-linear work patterns stops people from breaking their flow when they’re working with Marshall referring to Gitlabs remote manifesto as a resource for detailing the benefits of this kind of work functionality.

Marshall adds: “A lot of this comes down to the role of management and taking the onus to un-lead.”

Expect through the year to see the way organisations are structured to change in line with human expectations and expect a lot of changes in the way we communicate.

6 – Low/No-code Development

Low code tools are an incredibly important element in catching up with the latent demand for software provision.

These aren’t something to bypass software development, but to accelerate it. As Marshall says, “developers can write snippets of code with an intention, with the heavy lifting being picked up by low-code tools”.

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API consumption has huge implications for us having a “rich tool box that lets us pull together applications, with most low-code tools enabling us to very easily consume APIs and create API end-points that other people can consume,” says Marshall.

Marshall re-visits this topic later in the webinar when fielding a question around the subject, offering the analogy: “When you become a bricklayer, you don’t learn how to build bricks.”

7 – Carbon Counting in Technology

“We need be aware of the energy consumption of what we’re building,” says Marshall.

The question of carbon cost is becoming ever more salient to the point where it’s just as vital a consideration as the monetary cost. This isn’t just the shifting sands of collective consciousness around the topic, but will likely become more and more a matter of legislation.

On this, Marshall says: “There’s a need to start embedding carbon accountancy into software, a calculation of everything we do with regards to emissions. From there, we can optimise the processes behind it.”

8 – Tech Inequality

There’s a culture of stubbornness where businesses fail to modernise because they already have a system in place. We need to “intentionally choose to modernise, not wait for things to fail,” says Marshall.

The current lack proactivity – whether it’s down to resisting change or companies being inflexible – creates a backlog of employee problems and slows things down, or, as Marshall puts it, “the cost of fixing things versus the cost of waiting for them to break”.

Marshall also touches on the broader societal issues of tech inequality, brought into start focus with the pandemic.

On this, he says: “When kids were sent home, a lot of them didn’t have the tech to support their continued engagement with education. Having the tech – as most of us in the webinar do – isn’t the universal experience, we need to enable people to engage with technology.”

9 – Web Without Cookies

Google and some other vendors are phasing out cookies and martech has to find new solutions.

According to Marshall, account-based marketing approaches for B2B and marketing supply chain services are some interesting movements in this sector.

However, as he puts it, “this is a huge opportunity for companies in martech to come up with different solutions”.

10 – 15 Minute City

A focus of the pandemic. “People aren’t moving around as much so they’re spending much more time in their immediate neighbourhood.”

Paris has become the embodiment of the 15 minute city – the concept of everything you need being within a 15 minute walk or cycle. “It’s the idea of bringing things back together,” says Marshall.

Beyond this, Marshall posits: “How do we intentionally design for local access? How do we rethink how we deliver software? We need to spread services out – things like alternative work spaces.”