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Friends,

It’s the first day of the new year. I always feel the same on this day - excited about the year ahead, but under prepared for it may bring. The predictable decade of cheap money, accelerating globalisation and hyper scaling unicorns has given way to cost of living crisis, hostile de-globalisation and tougher, uglier yet hardier businesses - the resilient camels. We are now deep into a period of systemic change, perhaps first ushered in by the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 and now manifesting in society, culture, politics, technology and economy in ways that were predicted yet surprising to us now all the same. No doubt 2023 will dazzle and dismay us in equal measure, like the years immediately previous.

In these discombobulating times, I draw comfort from the lessons we learned over this period; to stay strong in community and network, to be agile with a small ‘a’, and train yourself to handle unexpected, unscheduled game changing interruptions, to apply ecosystem thinking and create the habit of thinking how you, as an individual, can contribute to its health. Helping others, after all, is a form of therapy and may be in the end the best way you can help yourself.

Thank you for being with me on this journey. We don’t know what is going to happen, but we are fortified to know that we will find out together.

Happy New Year - and my very best wishes to you for your year ahead

Hung

What do Brainfooders Think?

Or rather, what do Brainfooders eat for the holiday season. It seems we are varied bunch, with turkey really being a UK outlier, due I think in large part to something Henry VIII did…..

Going to keep doing these polls folks, every week you’re going to be asked something in End Note, so make sure you scroll down to the end to say your piece!

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep187 - Forecasting the Recruitment Year Ahead

What is going to happen in our industry this year? If the past 3 years have taught us anything it is that it is a fool’s errand to be overly confident in our predictions, but that should not stop of us from thinking about the challenges and opportunities in the year ahead. We’re getting experts from industry bodies, industry analysts, active practitioners, service providers and recruitment technology founders to discuss what 2023 looks like for us going forward: We’re on this Friday 6th January, 2pm GMT - register here

The Brainfood

1. Big Ideas 2023 Bold Predictions for the Year Ahead

LinkedIn asked some UK ‘top voices’ to make some bold predictions, and I’m pleased to say that the result contains more brainfood rather than cliché 🤣. You are not going to agree with every forecast (shopping goes physical?) but you’ll discover a few you might have not thought about before. Agree on menopause and women’s sports becoming big business in 2023. Have a read folks, especially UK readers

SOCIETY

2. Big Ideas in Tech 2023

An outline of the future economy can be traced in this predictions post by Andreesen Horowitz - healthcare, biotech, fintech, space engineering, new energy, robotics and the rest. Each of these sectors outlined will have sustained demand for talent and might be happy places for recruiters who are thinking about which sectors might have most demand for their skills. The post strikes exactly the right balance between comprehensiveness, accessibility and depth. Must read folks.

ECONOMY

3. 12 HR Trends for 2023

So David Green one such influencer we should all be following by now. His compilation of 12 HR Trends is a collaborative effort with some of the smartest people in industry, in the end becoming part forecast, part call to action. Like all forecasts you will agree with some more than others, but all of it will be food for the thought in the future. Have a read here, follow David here.

CULTURE

4. HR Technology 2023: What’s Hot? What’s Not?

Josh Bersin is another influencer we should all know by now. This predictions post on the HR Tech market is excellent for two reasons: firstly, the degree of specificity he gets into without actually calling the deals and secondly, the emerging taxonomy of HR tech products which posts like this really help crystallise. Worth reading for this part alone, helps you think about the HR Technology landscape and how to pieces all fit together. Great to see an in copy shout out for Stacey Harris also for the 25th Sapient Insights HR Tech survey - free to download, so all tech entrepreneurs / buyers should really do so.

FUTURE OF WORK

5. The Future of Humanity in 2023 (Written by ChatGPT)

Despite the fact that ChatGPT was released only in November, it quickly become the breakthrough technology as users worldwide dived into to experience the almost magical responses it often gave to our prompts. You can also ask it to do fun / scary experiments like this, predicting the future of humanity. It’s a full of problems, but hey, anything for an interesting life eh? Brainfood Live on ChatGPT for recruiters is on the 20th Jan, this will be oversubscribed so register here, and Irina Shamaeva, has set up ChatGPT for Recruiters Group on Facebook, which I am co-moderating - apply to join here.

AI

6. Predictions in The Talent/People Space for 2023 and Beyond

My friend and general cool cat Brainfooder Jo Avent wrote this exceptional predictions post last month. I particularly like the winners / losers formulation so often missing from forecasts, which usually err on the side of over optimism and become things that you would like to see, rather than what you think will happen. Jo will be joining us on Brainfood Live this week, make sure you register.

RECRUITMENT OPERATIONS

7. Collaboration at Work in 2023: Predictions from Leading Experts

Prediction - Evidence - Prescription formula of this post works exceptionally well - setting the template of how predictions posts should be. 12 of them to review, including focus on the reduction of the ‘cost of then collaboration’ which I am sure we have all by now have had direct experience of. Excellent PDF from Asana, download.

REMOTE WORKING

8. Hootsuites Social Media Trends 2023

What are we going to be doing with social media in 2023? Using more influencers that’s what, according to this research from Hootsuite, who surveyed 10,000+ social media managers / marketers on how they were going to do customer acquisition. Less ads then, more indirect marketing through folks who have already got an audience. We should see more of this in recruiting - one of my predictions I’m going to make is influencer marketing will come to talent acquisition in 2023. Whose going to be first to do it? Download the report here, online version here.

RECRUITMENT MARKETING

9. What’s Next for the Metaverse in 2023?

Cynics will say ‘not much’ but with Microsoft and Apple joining Meta in building the augmented reality future, it will be only a matter of time they stumble onto the killer application for this type of immersive experience. The current fixation with hardware improvements is an early stage challenge - feels similar to video 3g phones in the pre-smart phone era. Someone is going to crack it though and this balanced overview gives us some ideas as who and how.

AR / VR

10. Outrageous Predictions for 2023

Saxo’s outrageous predictions are always the most fun. Lets properly stick our neck out and say what needs to be said 🤣. Exactly none of these predictions are going to come to pass but being accurate isn’t the point of this exercise, its about speculating long into the future and extrapolating observable trends today into who could happen in 10 years time. Fun read, one of to think about, especially for the long term futurists / disaster preppers / investment managers amongst us.

SOCIETY

The Podcasts

11. The World Ahead 2023: Five Stories to Watch For

India over takes China as most populous country, legalisation of party drugs as psychotherapy, Bank of Japan increases short term interest rates, Repair rather than Replace as fashion goes eco-friendly and Camilla wears the Koh-i-Noor in Charles coronation, accelerating the debate on the repatriation of colonial objects looted by Empire. It’s a great 20 minute video

ECONOMY

12. Unpacking Forrester’s 2023 Tech Leader Predictions

You know what makes predictions interesting? Specificity and the reasoning behind it. Great effort here by Forrester, who gather together tech leaders and ask them what they are going to be spending their money on in 2023, and how CIO’s and CTO’s compete for talent in a globalised marketplace.

ECONOMY

13. Simpsons Predictions For 2023 is Unbelievable!

Nobody knows what’s going to happen - we are part of a hugely dynamic, complicated system of billions of moving parts, many of which are under studied and under weighted. I’m personally going to try and test my prediction ability on Metaculus next year, with my baseline being the cartoon series which gets it right more than many others

CULTURE

End Note

I don’t make new years resolutions, but I do have some vague ideas as to what I want to get better at in 2023. I need to ‘walk the talk’ on being AI enabled, so need to deep dive into generative AI tech, get good at all the things which are going to change the game for us. This usually takes me minimum 6 months (slow learner) but once I get it, I get it. Need to also do more to connect population groups, especially those who may otherwise find themselves at odds with one another. Finally, I need to physically into some sort of shape, as Panettone addiction has had negative impact on my body composition. So here’s the poll for this week - call it this year - give it a vote and let me know what your priority is going to be.

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