As the selections of products and companies for the DEMOfall 09 event come to a close, we are beginning to see patterns. Without fail, casting the widest net, traveling around the world, talking to hundreds of companies large and small, our process at DEMO teaches us as much about the bigger trends than as it does about any single “hot” company that might make it into the mix.
This Fall, sixty companies from five continents will present at DEMOfall. (If anyone knows of a great product coming from Africa or Antarctica, we’d sure like to know about it.)
The roster includes an array of early stage companies, as always, along with a number of larger and returning companies that prove that growing a big business isn’t incompatible with fresh innovation.
In this difficult economic environment, we’ve seen evidence of the adage that bad markets are great times to start new businesses. Among the 60 products to launch at DEMOfall 09 are serious business tools and engaging consumer applications that customers will be happy to buy. In fact, that may be the most significant among the trends evident at DEMOfall: companies have embraced the value they are delivering to market and understand that a true “customer” is one who finds strong benefit in a product and is willing to pay for it. Business models for new products are much clearer today than they were even 12 months ago. While it’s too soon to predict the end of the “everything wants to be free” business driver, it’s clear that “free” does not a business make.
And what do these companies tell us about market trends? One strong indicator points to the recognition that, if social media has taught us anything, we now fully understand the importance of our business and social relationships. Two trend lines emerge in this broader theme: contacts are managed, relationships are nurtured. We’ll explore a number of tools that help us do both.
Having come to recognize the intrinsic value of relationships that we can now more easily enumerate, we need better tools to communicate, especially in our vast and virtual world. We’ll see a handful of new products that bring voice, video, and data together in a highly cost-competitive and supremely easy-to-use manner. The average business no longer need be envious of big corporations and their expensive video conference rooms.
While we’re on the topic of social networks and media, you knew it had to happen: the effective informal marketing channel is being formalized. Tools to leverage, manage, and measure social marketing are plentiful at DEMOfall. We identified those that embrace the culture of social media, skipping past those aimed at exploiting it.
As is typical in market cycles, this DEMOfall will demonstrate a shift from consumer Web 2.0 trend lines to serious business focus. The applications we’ll see next month embrace what’s best about Web 2.0 – smart interface and design, self-service and cloud-convenience, ease of purchase – while delivering services that really do make us more efficient in our work.
It wouldn’t be DEMO, though, if we didn’t also pay attention to play. A number of products offer sheer fun and one product, in particular, dramatically shifts the state of the art of consumer audio.
Still, DEMOfall is the place where the business of new products are taken seriously. I hope to see you there. www.demo.com/f9dblog
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