HI! I'M MANOLO.

1. MICROMOMENTS WILL BE MIGHTY.

Each micromoment is an opportunity for brands to shape our habits. 

Today, someone is always listening. We have listening devices strapped to our wrists that encourage us to run farther or put down that extra slice of cake. Devices in our homes listen and respond.

WHAT TO DO Be first or be non-existent. Early movers will have the ultimate advantage. Imagine a scenario where you ask Alexa for more yogurt, and she orders a brand you preselected. Instantly, every other brand is edged out with a single command. Not every brand should develop its own wearable, nearable or connected environment. Consider whom to partner with to distribute your service.

2. BIG DATA WILL GET SOME MANNERS.

Collecting personal data is nothing new. However, in the post-Snowden era, the public has developed an Orwellian sense of mistrust. Businesses can turn that anxiety into an opportunity by implementing services with manners. The concept of "privacy by design" is key here. 

WHAT TO DO Act it out. Act out interactions as if they were a conversation on stage. Make your experience a human one. Imagine you were asking a stranger on the street for private information. Be real. Be explicit. But also be nice. Make sure the intent of a data exchange is upfront, friendly and clear. Find etiquette allies.

3. ORGANIZATIONS WILL DESIGN AND INNOVATE FOR THEIR MOST IMPORTANT ASSET: THEIR EMPLOYEES.

As a result, we are seeing the emergence of employee experience (EX) design, where workplace processes, structure, and culture are reimagined at an organizational level.

4. APPS AS WE KNOW THEM WILL DISAPPEAR.

The act of toggling between apps may disappear. Look at WeChat, a Chinese messaging app with nearly 600 million monthly active users. Known as the "everything app," WeChat functions beyond the traditional definition of an app or even a browser, with 10 million third-party apps hosted inside. 

It’s about designing for humans, focusing on interactions instead of transactions.

Companies should invest in understanding what future "points of x" will be for users and design around them.

Service design tools reveal opportunities. Journey maps, service blueprints, touchpoint reframing: these are standard tools in the design kit these days and they are becoming even more relevant as the self-contained certainty of apps dissolve.

5. LUXURY SERVICES WILL BE AVAILABLE TO ALL.

Redefine luxury. In the luxury business? What does it take to remain a true "luxury" brand in an era of digital democratization? Examine your role from the consumer perspective and ask how you can disrupt your service model now that delivering luxury can be done by anyone. In the era of liquid expectations, what exactly is luxury and high-end?

Look for the platform. Seek to transform one-directional businesses into scalable platforms that will empower future users not just to consume services but to find solutions to their problems.

6. GOVERNMENTS WILL EMBRACE DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES TO IMPROVE HOW THEY SERVE THE PUBLIC.

Digital natives are entering junior ministerial ranks, bringing with them their knowledge of, and passion for, technology. This is the year technology will be used in service of the public good. And more importantly, technology will enable a new breed of citizenship.

We’re also seeing a rise in private digital citizenry, where technology enables social good. In the case of the recent Syrian refugee crisis, Berlin-based Refugees Welcome, described as "Airbnb for refugees," has helped refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan and Somalia. So far it has allowed 26 German citizens to invite refugees into their private homes. 

WHAT TO DO Use plain language. Governments should use simple language focused on content, structure, navigation, grouping, and completion. Sweden, for example, has legislation that requires all government communications meet plain language standards.

Employ outside-in design. Use a research-led approach to generate new ideas. By considering the entire ecosystem, and using research to uncover insights, service design reveals an outside-in view of: •The people in the ecosystem (citizens, intermediaries and government staff) •The places in which the service is experienced (face to face, online, on the phone) •The products used by everyone (software, digital tools, printed material, physical products) •The processes that people follow •The performance of the whole system

7. HEALTHY IS THE NEW WEALTHY.

Health is no longer a complex cost managed by a closed set of entrenched players. With the rise of self-monitoring technology, like fitness trackers, health is now something we can all keep track of, learn from, and reward. 

WHAT TO DO Imagine your products and services as wellness agents. Companies like Kaiser Permanente and Aetna are opening their platforms to third parties to enable them to build new services on top of their data connecting third-party wearables, apps, and services.

Facilitate cultural change. To rebuild healthcare in a sustainable way, we need a new mindset. The customer journey has to be rebuilt from the ground up, moving the "point of care" (or as we might say, experience) from costly hospitals to the patient’s home and the level of care from specialized care to self-service.

8. VR’S DREAMS COME TRUE.

Virtual reality will make its mainstream debut in 2016. Not too long ago, VR was a technology so bulky and expensive that it was relegated to military flight simulations. Fast forward to 2016, the "critical year for virtual reality," as Sony, Oculus, and Samsung will release consumer versions of their products in the first half of the year.VR will obviously offer the next dimension in gaming, but it’s the unexpected applications that we are intrigued by. From education to tourism to health, VR will begin finding its place in our work, play, and homes.

Think beyond gaming. It will be crucial for businesses to understand how the technology can be used for business processes as well as customers. Will VR conference calls be more productive? Can travel be eliminated or scaled back, in favor of virtual collaboration? Can you work on-site, while staying off-site?

9. SIMPLICITY WILL WIN IN AN ERA OF ALL-YOU-CAN-CHOOSE. innovation at this speed comes with an unintended consequence—a never-ending glut of options. From more than a million apps in the Apple Store to your grocery’s milk aisle, every aspect of our lives now requires making a choice. It is becoming increasingly difficult for consumers to make sense of all the noise. In 2016, brands will help people take things off the "thinking list."

When Proctor & Gamble cut its Head & Shoulders line from 26 products to 15, the organization saw a 10% increase in sales.

Use algorithms and expert curation. We don’t necessarily want a music service to clean up its music to just the most popular. Bottom line: While simplification wins, don’t oversimplify and sacrifice thrill of discovery. (ej: zite)

10. DESIGN FROM WITHIN.

In 2014, $1.6 trillion was spent in R&D globally. Yet, in consumer goods, for example, research shows that more than 85% of the products fail.

As a result, we’ve seen corporations invest directly in business incubators and innovation labs, bringing design thinking and problem solving in-house. 

WHAT TO DO Success looks like this. Consider having C-level support, pilots and MVPs use a common language for design. Drive conversations from principles and bridge organizational silos. Encourage collaboration and co-creation workshops.

Space does matter. Create spaces where design can thrive and foster creativity in everyone. Make places where the walls become the workspaces and everyone sees the collective progress being made.

Who love to crash will hate it. Who hate to crash will love it.

It’s not that technology necessarily equates to brand vibrancy, but “tech connects us in better, deeper, broader ways,” Taylor said. “The product experience is much more in tune with culture.”

“What’s happening with Apple is that the brand’s becoming less inspiring, and Samsung has now caught Apple on this dimension. And there seems to be a shift that Apple is becoming the more corporate [brand],”

“Post-Jobs, who personified the brand and kept it more human, it seems to be losing some of its humanity and mojo, certainly. When you look at what Samsung is doing from a marketing standpoint, it’s bringing the products to life in a way that literally connects to you, for example, with eye tracking. That certainly comes through in their communications as well–it’s about being a more human and connected brand.”

ATTENTION: HARDER TO CAPTURE THAN EVER

The National Center for Biotechnology Information has estimated that the human attention span dropped from 12 seconds in the year 2000 to just 8.25 seconds in the year 2015

A critical priority in marketing and advertising is creating and reinforcing positive brand memories, associations that lead customers to buy