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New Active Economies, 2020+
This original post was created in 2020, exploring predictions & insights
A clipping of the original post:
Prior to 2020, economic adoption across innovative industries was (largely) ineffective. Bitcoin was seen as a confusing, unstable, yet massively impactful economic product. Compared to the value of an economic interests like Visa or afterpay—Bitcoin felt a little too dark web for most.
As the world shifted during our global pandemic— Blockchain operations began to soar. The ability to connect users to their own wallets within a diverse at-home network was the beginning of our New Active Economy, at least within the public eye.
When Bitcoin partnered with Square in 2021, I saw the reality of this marketplace. [2021 Edit]
The tangible growth seen between mainstream adoption and emerging New Active Economies is now in full effect. The expansion of digital currencies has been exploding in response to the pandemic, despite prior attempts to make these economics go boom. This makes sense! With more time at home, our use of digital currencies has all but destroyed the dollar.
A Universal Language cannot be born, accepted, and adopted by the consumer unless it is "dumb. < Read > "Smart Code sucks, write Dumb Code instead..."
While it’s confirmed that the consumers of 2021 desire more transparency, the collective we still doesn’t really care how the sausage is made. As stated above— I don’t believe the public shouldn’t have as much access to Bitcoin and digital currency transparency as they want, nay; the mass-level of a product works best when it is farthest removed from the engineering of said product. But… things are changing. [2021 Edit]
As societies call for more transparency—consumers are also after the ability to edit and manipulate their own Active Economies, making things like Meta Wallets all the rage. As a Brand Systems Designer, this is cool. This means that the economies that we previously reserved for clients is now open to customers. This also means that the “dumb” code I just spoke too, has a place at the table.
How we interact with 2020 New Active Economies is calculated, designed, packaged, sold, and consumed. In fact, every process as a modern day consumer has been Designed. Some Designs are better than others— some use modern day magic, while others rely on cheap tricks and trend. My prediction is…
All co-built, co-supported, and co-distributed models within The Industry reflect current timing, needs, and awareness. Like any model or language, defining the next form or interaction helps push the intent of the tool, rippling our touch points out like a never-ending wave of impact. Distributed Models represent real-life and active examples of why we see a rise in freelance, decentralized, and consultant-based workforces, for example, and how this rise requires things like New Active Economies to fill our collective value needs across Brand, Product, and Consumer shift.
Old Economy is dead. Well, almost...
Behemoths like Visa can weather any storm, as can (so it appears) concepts and New Active Economies like Bitcoin and blockchain. Our modern consumer is ready to receive the intended use of Bitcoin— a true and ACTIVE step towards Change.
Finding sustainability within these New Active Economies is critical and honestly where I see the most impact across industry. Growing towards a merged “metaverse," I think we’re all pretty curious as to how we can FEEL VALUE. For the last 5 years, I have been working on a series of new algorithms and very simple equation centered around Operating Intelligence.
Let's be playful! Let's be curious! Let's ask big questions and challenge what we think we know.