Innovation coming out of a recession is unpredictable; however some clear trends are becoming apparent. It’s time for the annual list of ten technologies to look out for in 2010.

1/ Microsoft Windows 7

Windows 7 was released to very positive reviews on October 22nd and in fact beat Vista’s initial sales by 234%. Microsoft needed a successful hit and Windows 7 delivered it for them. Its impact on the bottom line is still unknown, but it’s likely that Microsoft will have strong momentum heading into 2010. From a user’s point of view Windows 7 is a massive improvement and will enhance the computing experience and environment greatly.

2/ Budgets won’t be as tight in 2010

This is a topic our colleagues at MindLeaders discussed recently. We also believe after the squeeze of the great recession organisations will begin to loosen their purse strings, even if it’s just by a little bit. However we think L&D organisations will be required to do better at providing metrics and business cases for their services. Usage metrics alone aren’t going to cut it much longer, clear measurement on the return on investment of technology is needed to justify spend and budgets.

3/ Increase in social learning

94% of organisations plan to increase their investment in enterprise social learning. The social learning conversation is no longer considered a Web 2.0 fad — it is taking place in homes, small businesses and corporate boardrooms, and extending its reach into the nonprofit, education and health sectors. From initial feelings of excitement, novelty and bewilderment, a growing number of people now speak of social media as simply another channel or tactic. In 2010 L&D professionals will stop talking about social learning and start focusing on the work based usage of the technologies.

4/ Competitor to the iPhone

Currently worldwide the iPhone alone accounts for about 33% of mobile web traffic and IDC predicts the number of mobile web users will hit one billion by 2010. In 2010 we will see a competitor to the iPhone, which will lead to an increase in the apps available to users. Over the last year Jane Hart has been building a list of apps (including optimised sites and web apps) for the iPod Touch and the iPhone that are useful for learning, performance support or productivity purposes. In 2010 we’re going to see apps being developed for non-Apple products, alongside the continued growth of those on Jane’s list.

5/ Real-time updates via the LMS

The cost and complexity of adding real-time systems to push updates between people, computers and websites fell dramatically in 2009. Hundreds of millions of people now experience real-time updates on Facebook and Twitter, and now sites, services and companies all around the Web are capturing significant benefits by implementing real-time systems for themselves. We’ll start to see these being integrated into LMS’s in 2010 providing users with significant benefits.

6/ Internet of Things

We will start to see and hear about the Internet of Things, when real world objects (such as lights, cars and packages) get connected to the Internet. This trend has added a significant amount of new data to the Web, so for that reason alone it is an important development. With continued advances in chipsets, accelerometers and compasses we can change the way we interact virtually with the physical world around us. The UK ranks fifth out of nine when it comes to the amount of broadband connections with a headline speed of about 8Mbps, this will need to improve considerably to support this new trend.

7/ Environmental Sensors

Imagine if in addition to making calls and snapping photos, mobile phones could measure air pollution or be used in health and safety training. These sensors have been attached to street sweepers in San Francisco, to taxi cabs and to student backpacks in a city in Ghana for trials.  When people started to read these sensors, their behaviors did change. They stood up and took notice of their environment.  At least one major mobile phone handset manufacturer will roll out a phone with built-in environmental sensors in 2010

8/ Postrank

Postrank the media analytics service tracks distributed conversation regarding blogs, feeding and scoring items based on the relative engagement of those conversations. The usefulness of this service just keeps improving. Postrank is completely free and a huge time saver. This service will gain widespread popularity next year.

9/ Video will go mobile

Videos can be viewed on many different devices. If a video is worth sharing on Twitter, it’s worth making it mobile-phone-friendly since 40% of Twitter users access the service via mobile devices, according to an October 2009 study by Crowd Science. Already, there are more than 4.1 billion mobile phone users worldwide – at least 10 percent of which are video-enabled smart-phones.

10/ Social Gaming

Whilst I think mainstream use of games in learning is some way off, there is little risk of social gaming proving a bad bet in 2010. FarmVille a social game on Facebook now counts more active users than Twitter. Meanwhile the social games company Playfish was recently acquired by Electronic Arts in a deal valued at up to $400 million. Of growing interest in 2010, however, will be the virtual currencies these games have spawned. In the allegedly un-monetizable world of social media, virtual buying and selling may be the route to riches for some social media sites. The sub culture that develops in social gaming will pave the way for games in learning in coming years.

These are my thoughts on the year ahead, if you have any technology predictions to add I would be delighted to hear from you. Finally lets wave goodbye to 2009.