iPad2,kindle3G,PlayBook,Galaxy,Zeus,Sony Vaio 3D,iPhone5,MacBook Air,Blackberry Torch,Nokia N8,HTC Desire HD,HTC 7 Trophy,LG Optimus 2X,Fossil Connected,impulse smartwatch,HTC tablet,Ubuntu Tablet,7” Dell Streak. Aaaaargggggh! Is there hope? Gadgets coming at us from all directions, no doubt accompanied by massive advertising spend.

Perhaps “Advertising” is the right business to be in for 2011?

Everyone is going be buying one or more of these gadgets. How do they choose the right one? What happens if the gadget they buy has a problem? Not everyone is a geek able to navigate support forums and self help guides. What happens if one of these gadgets is lost? Is it insured? Have you programmed the “phone finder” interface? What do you do?

Maybe supporting mobile gadgets is the right game to be in?

If you are in business these gadgets are going to want to sit on corporate networks. Most of the iPads in the Timico offices are owned personally by staff and not given to them by the company. Ditto iPhone and Android.

How does the company manage the security policies around these devices – especially with the proliferation of MPLS private WANs? Will the business begin to depend on these smart phones and tablets? What happens if the network access at any particular site goes down or degrades to the point of un-usability for some applications? Who is going to take care of this network? Can you get it back up and running quickly? How? Does it matter?

Is running this network going to be the thing to do in 2011?

Our world is filled with information. An enormous amount of information. I have around 13,000 photos on my laptop. I occasionally see something flash up on my screensaver that brings back a memory – birthday party, holiday perhaps. However finding out where in “My Pictures” that specific photo is held is a logistical nightmare – even using Picasa.

It isn’t just photos. It’s emails, blog posts, word documents. It’s train timetables, weather forecasts, hotel bookings, order tracking for online purchases. It’s also applications.

Android Marketplace now has 200,000 apps available for sale or free download. There are 300,000 iPad apps. How do you decide whether some of these apps will be useful to you. Using twitter? Google? How do I stay on top of all of these things?

I realise that there are probably answers to all of these questions. The point is that the number of things you have to keep track of is growing almost exponentially.

Is this a business opportunity in 2011?

If you are a business how does all of this technology and change fit with your existing infrastructure investment? Are you going to throw away everything you have done so far and start again? Is there an evolutionary, layered approach? Is there? Well? 🙂

There are a lot of questions here. For many of the answers I simply ask my kids but there isn’t always a kid around to help. Also I have just chosen examples from my own sphere of influence or experience (other than the “advertising” bit). I have missed out many many more than I have included.

Whatever your game, this wonderful complexity of modern living represents a huge opportunity. I would say that we are in the middle of the most exciting period of change that we have seen in my lifetime, and it has been almost half a century of continuous change.

Your view of the year ahead is going to be framed by where you are stood. For some it involves uncertainty brought about perhaps by the world economic environment. Many could lose their jobs. In fact for all of us uncertainty will be one of the few certainties around in 2011 but it is how you face up to this uncertainty that matters.

During 2001 when the dot com bubble burst I spent some time in SanJose. The strange thing was that despite the fact that my own hi-tech world was going through turbulent times there were other areas of industry that were completely unaffected by the problem.

Today I can see the exact opposite. Hi-tech is a buoyant market place, especially if you are in the world of communications. It is the public sector that is going to suffer. This may have knock on effects but if you haven’t already guessed it I am very bullish about the opportunity presented by 2011. Success isn’t guaranteed but it is certainly all there to go for.

Have a great New Year and good luck to all of you in 2011.

PS thanks to Collette Cullen for finding the gadget links for me 🙂