Putting On Our Crystal Hat | Episode 15

This week Gary and David wax poetic (more Suess than Byron) about the past year and what 2022 might hold for us. Join us for our last episode of the year!

Here are the links to all mentioned articles/videos in this episode:

The Verge - Schools across US cancel classes over unconfirmed TikTok threats
Engadget - H&R Block sues Jack Dorsey's Block for trademark infringement | Engadget

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David Baxter - CEO of Big Pixel

Gary Voigt - Creative Director at Big Pixel

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David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

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Transcript

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I'm hoping I've been holding this little nugget out for you whenever we do something stupid, or we like cough or close a door or something that shouldn't be that he has to edit out. If he likes the sound, he actually stores it and puts it in another folder to use in his music. Yeah, he's gonna sample us from the podcast. He's got he's been sampling us. Yeah, he sampled like a door closed on on you last time. And I think sometimes he likes to decide. If I sigh he's grabbed that one. It's like this really interesting. Part of it's a little creepy that my site is going to show up in his song. He should grab every time that I say Microsoft Zune, and just make a remix of music. zoo, zoo, zoo. Nice. That's coming up. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the biz dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter. I'm your host today and most days, I'm joined by Gary Voight. How are you doing today? I'm doing good. Sweet. We're almost at the end of the year. It is we're recording this on 1217. This is our last podcast of the year. And because of that, I wanted to do things a little differently. I'm feeling reflective. I'm feeling a little what's the word self reflective, like on a personal level or a business level? They're both combined. I think a little bit of both. I'm just thinking about 2021. And I'm thinking forward to 2022. And I'm thinking you know what were some highlights of 2021 business wise personal stuff, tech stuff. And then what do we predict? The future will be for next prognosticating. We're gonna put on our crystal crystal hat. No, that's not right. No tinfoil hat. tinfoil hat crystal ball. We'll get there. I want a crystal somewhere. There's like a is it a gopher? Or an otter? Who comes out of the hole? That's a groundhog goober. Okay, whatever. The Groundhog Day, Groundhog Day? Yeah, I know. Yeah. Trying to mess it up. Because we were messing up the tinfoil hat and the crystal ball. Oh, I missed the joke complete. No, no, it's it's fine. I messed it up so good that it just went over your head? Well, it's not hard. I'm very short. And I mess things up very well all the time. So I want to start the day before we jump into our prognostications. I want to start with a little bit of news. Is there anything going on? Yeah, big news items that actually affected me personally, I'm sure a bunch of other people personally was the apparent threat of school violence made on tick tock. While we all know how I love tick tock, well, this turns out to be it was like a nationwide hoax, but didn't know that until late last night, early this morning. But yesterday evening, you know, received a phone call and an email from a local school district saying that they're aware of a possible threat on social media. They're taking all precautions, but they don't have any credible evidence and they can so you know, with the lack of information given but the idea that there was a threat, of course, I'm sure parents around the country were freaking out. So I remember when I was in high school, this happened, I think twice. Some goober would call and it was almost always a teacher. I'm not a bomb threat for exam week. Yeah. Not a teacher. That's wrong. Teachers are wonderful. No, it was a goober student who would call in Yeah, to get out of finals or a test or something. And he delivered the bomb threat. And that's illegal, right? They would that guy always got in trouble. They always caught him and all that, right. But it was real. Like I remember one, they couldn't substantiate it. And so they pulled us all out of class. And so we're all just standing around. I had I went to school in Texas, a really big school. So we're talking 1000s of kids just wandering around for like, 45 minutes, until they figured out there's no bomb. Is this in the modern version of that now? Probably. But the added fear factor to this is that if they threaten gun violence, it's not like, you know, parents and kids are gonna make no whatever, just another threat because sure there's literal gun violence in schools. Far. Yeah, I think they've, there's I saw thing or something like 31 gun related incidences happened from January to August. Now, that could mean anything from a threat to the real thing. But yeah, it's all hot. So yeah, it's everyone's a little bit more on pins and needles. But the idea that a tool like Tic tock, you know, it just a social media. It's spreading these rumors like wildfire. I don't even know if they've traced it back to the actual origin, because I don't know if there is one, but in the article, it does examine how the authorities kind of tried to trace it back or see if they were targeting any specific schools or school districts, but it was more of just like a blanket threat that just went out everywhere. And Kids started telling their parents parents started telling the school board and of course I think school boards and authorities also monitor it for these instances. But there was one school board in California that ended up canceling classes for the day. Wow. But it's just crazy like how much I guess you can call it misinformation and threats and just rumors that can spread through social media so quickly and still be anonymous in some way. So I have two thoughts one, this is why one yet another reason no one should use Tik Tok, but to now that this has happened. Our kids going to start doing it like the way those blowhards did it when I was a kid, right? I need to get out of a test. And so now I realize, ooh, I can do this. And I can create an uproar, and maybe I'll get out of school. Exactly the conversation. I have my wife last night. She was like, even though we know it was just a threat, we still keep them home. And then like, well, when this stuff kind of happens. And of course, if the threat is put out there and then schools start canceling based on that threat. Anytime a test comes around, or some kid doesn't feel like going in for an exam, that's going to happen every single time. Because trust me yet, you and I both know teenagers don't exactly make various decisions. Oh, I don't know, man. My teenagers make impeccable decisions all the time. I don't know what you're talking about. So of course, they all think they're gonna get away with it, and it'll continue to happen. And yeah, so not to sound like a cold hearted individual that doesn't want to try to protect kids. But at the same time, you know, there's a reason that people don't give into demands from terrorists and blackmailers. We don't come we don't negotiate with terrorists. So the other article, I saw this this morning, so this is hot off the presses. h&r block is suing Jack Dorsey for using the word block what are your thoughts there? Let's see h&r block the block and square block block. Yeah, definitely a little bit of a trademark infringement. Were they getting sued by someone else too? Or no, no, wait, that was Facebook and meta. Okay, so let's look another tech giant just deciding that they're more powerful than anybody else. Grabbing a name not doing the research and getting bitten afterward for it for the most part, they can write like, I remember this wasn't all that long ago when Lady Antebellum. Now this is a tech related but Lady Annabella the band the country music. They didn't want to when Black Lives Matter happened and everyone was you know, reflecting on that stuff. They decided I didn't want the word antebellum in our name. So they changed their name to Lady a. They didn't they just did it and boom, it was done. Well, the problem is there had been a I think she was a jazz singer, who had been using the name lady a for like 30 years. Right. And she went to battle and lost because she couldn't touch it. Right The Lady Antebellum lady a, with a huge band very successful. And of course, she was crushed. And I think she might have gotten some money at the end of the day, which Okay, cool. Well, you're also saying a jazz singer who was popular 30 years ago versus a band who has global recognition. She still she still played it. She wasn't done. But did anybody know who she was? Or was were they going to confuse the two? But does that matter? Right? That's ultimately what matters. Like it matters when you're talking about companies like block and h&r block. Yes, no, you're right there. I'm just saying that but it should just because one is smaller, doesn't mean the big boy gets to just dominate just because they're bigger. That's where that's why there's trademark agreements and or trademark and copyrights. Right? I hope I gotta say, my thinking here. Just a little I've read here. h&r block's been around for 60 years, they've called themselves the block for ever. So to me, and they have a little green box. I mean, this has been their thing. Yeah, they've got a lot of leg to stand on here. But the problem is, is Twitter or sorry, no square has so much money that they very well could just bury them. And I hate that that's not right to me. Well, you know, and it's probably good is probably just going to end up between lawyers and negotiating a fee. And then from that fee, it's going to be okay, you can use block here and here and here. But you can't use it like this and that and then, you know, h&r block is gonna say, Okay, well, we'll let you use in the blog, but our advertisements are going to use this and it's just going to come down to a settlement. But yeah, and the only people who went on settlements is the lawyers. True. It reminds me if you go back, the Beatles original recording company, was a company called Apple. And when Apple the tech company came about in the 80s 70s 80s, I can't remember exactly when they started They made an agreement when they started both. They started rising up, they made an agreement with Apple, the music company, that, hey, we're going to stay in our lane and you stay in yours and we will not worry about it. You'll be Apple Music. And we'll be Apple, the tech company and to iTunes until iTunes and exactly right iTunes came out and Apple said we'd like to do music now. And of course, the record company threw a hissy fit, rightfully so. And I think in the end, Apple ended up buying I could be wrong on this. But I think they ended up buying the music group and saying, no harm no foul. Here's Yeah, they even attempted to buy the rights to the recordings of the Beatles. Which man I speaking of that, this is totally random that you just remember reminded me of a Bruce Springsteen just sold all of his music for $500 million. He should have put it up as an NFT. I, but 500 million bucks for the boss. Dude, that is quite a retirement package. As I'm saying. I'm just shocked or surprised that he would even do that. It's like it seems. In a way kind of desperate forum. No, come on. desperate. Do you think Bruce Springsteen? Is the word desperate go together? Come on. No, that's why it's confusing to me. Like, I didn't think he was desperate enough to sell the rights to his own music for, you know, a payday in the end. I didn't think he needed the payday. But I don't think he does need a payday. I don't know the ins and outs here. I'm totally guessing. But yeah, I should probably read the article before I start spouting my mouth. I'm just I think there's probably something you know, he knows. I mean, he's in his mid 70s, or whatever. And there's probably a legacy thing, right? He's like, I can give my family a big pile of music that they have to deal with that because money or a big pile of money. Or you can even go the Dolly Parton way and set up like a foundation with that money and start doing good with it. From what I've heard, he's a pretty amazing human being. Yeah, that's why it struck me as odd that there's got to be more to it that I don't understand yet. I'll read the article. I apologize to our listeners. But yeah, my immediate takeaway was, why did he do that? His music is pretty sacred to a lot of people. And he didn't need the pay day. But yeah, I got to look on the bright side. Come on the boss as you wanted to talk about the year end review? And then what's in the future? Yes, I just kind of was was thinking the year is ending, I think it's a good time being the last podcast to think about, you know, what were the high points of 2021? And what do we think is going to happen in 2022? In terms of tech, business, etc, etc? Okay, you go first, I'll go first. Okay. So 2021. Let's see here, I think on a personal level, we moved offices and big pixel itself changed a lot. That was scary and cool and fun. We started this podcast, all sorts of fun stuff happened towards the latter half of 2021, which were really strong to me. But from a tech perspective, we got our first folding phones that were legit. I mean, I know they've been around for a few years. But the ones that they have now I think are actually legit. And you're going to start seeing them more and more. Did you want to talk about your Microsoft duo. The surface do I actually bought in 2020. So that it's not quite fair, but it only lasted a few months, because I had to get rid of it. It kept dropping calls so badly. And when you drop a business call, I'm done with you. I was just using that as a reference to the newer, the newer versions of the foldable, foldable phones seem to be in a much better place right now. Well, but the surface two didn't do much better. So they're they're still figuring it out. But I think the fold and the flip, which are Samsung phones, yeah, Samsung and Motorola are doing pretty good. Right. I think they're showing off what can be done. We'll see. I think that, and I think that is the future, I think, if nothing else, people will buy them because they're different. And as they become more cost effective, I have absolutely no intention of having a foldable phone. You might be surprised, I hope I get to make you eat those words, because someday you're going to own one, because they're going to be ubiquitous. And they're going to be very good. And they're half the size. And you're like, cool. Like there's really two arguments on the folding phones not to go into super detail here. But you have the I want to make it smaller so it fits my pocket better, right? Or I want a huge screen in my pocket that that fits. Those are your two options. And eventually Apple will make one and you will buy it. I'm calling it right now. Well, Apple's making the mini versions of their phones for the pocket ability if you want to call Yeah, but it's a small screen. Imagine is the size of the Mini, but it's got a screen that's seven inches wide. I mean, that's pretty sweet. I'm just calling it I'm gonna rub your face and when you buy your first Apple foldable phone, which I don't think it's coming anytime soon. So I have to really, really remember this. Yeah, I'll be using it when I'm driving my Apple car. No, you are cuz that's never gonna happen. Let's see what else happened in 2021. That was of note in a tech world I know I'm, I'm trying to think what comes to mind. And there's not a whole lot. We had the stuff with the epic Apple trial that didn't do anything real. But it will, I believe very firmly that was the first real chink in Apple's armor. And I think that that's going to be a big deal. I think all of the legislation that's coming against tech is going to be a big deal. So 2021 will be known as kind of the beginning of that. I think the tech companies are responding when it comes to moderation. Yeah. And I guess you can lump in the, the fix it yourself or right to repair kind of Exactly. Yes, that's legislation. That is it's not even real legislation. It's threats of legislation that are making, we've learned the hard way, that the only way to get a big giant trillion dollar company to do something is to threaten them. They won't do it on their own. There's no way Apple was ever going to let you repair your device. Unless that movement that has been going on. And I think I Fix It has been leading that charge for a long time. They made it scary for Apple, and so apples moving. And they all say, Oh, we've been planning to do this for years. Come on. No, you haven't? No, you have not. But I'm glad it is happening. Because people need to repair their phones. People can't afford a new phone every year. And they need to be able to repair their phone or I mean, and not pay Apple bazillion dollars, because they have to go to their place. Right? Yeah, the steps taken to make it irrepairable versus just someone with know how and the equipment to do it is yeah, that was getting egregious that was getting very, very aggressive, like, well, and I don't think it's important to keep in mind just because they now like Apple was promised. For those who don't know, sir. In the last few weeks, Apple has promised to release repair manuals and tools so that professionals that aren't Apple people can repair Apple devices. Now what they didn't say and this is the important part reason I bring it up. What they didn't say is that their phones are going to be any more repairable. Like I know the apple, iPhone 13 and 12. Which the first one they're allowing to have these manuals. They're still held together by glue. Yeah, I was just going to ninja glue down some various pieces that as soon as that glues popped up, they're pretty much unusable. You have to replace that entire part. You have to what in order the first thing that you'll see I fix do which you haven't seen I fix it. That's a website that takes apart tech, very cool site. Um, the first thing they do is they use their they have specialized heat guns and heat gizmos that melt the glue, and that allows them to take it apart. No, no average Joe is going to do that. You still have to be a pro. You're not going to go and buy this manual, take apart your iPhone and figure it out. But that's not happening. You're going to immediately just get rid of any warranty that was on there. Oh, for sure. Yeah, your warranty is shot. But and even if you get a refurbished device, I learned this the hard way. Any refurbished device has lost its waterproofness. The reason a lot of that glue is there is for the waterproofing. Okay, and I learned the hard way because I got a refurbished phone because I dropped it in broke the back of my phone. Actually, I didn't drop it. It fell off a table all by itself. Anyway, the back broke, and I got a refurbished phone. And I'm thinking oh, I have the iPhone. I think there's the 11 I was like, Ooh, I'm gonna be all cool. Yeah. Waterproof or water resistant? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I was like, I'm gonna take you to the pool because I'm a cool idiot. And so I did. And my wife was like, Why did you bring that in there? And I said, because I can. Those were the most famous last words ever. Within five minutes, that thing was dead. And I was really upset. And then the Asurion the people who do the insurance, they say, oh, no, when you get a refurbished phone, it is not waterproof. Oh, that's in the small print. Anyways. Oh, that's great. That's hilarious. You void your warranty. I'm such a jerk. So yeah, but I think the repair stuff that's going to be huge. I think 2021 is going to be known kind of as a a year of the beginnings of a lot of important things. Nothing really important that I can think of in terms of tech world. I know other things very important. But then the tech world, not a lot happened in terms of super important, but I think the groundwork was laid for a lot to be done. Yeah, I agree with that. And I agree with the there's a little bit of a feeling that some of the, I don't know if you want to say it was 2020 and 2021. But there's something that kind of makes big companies and even you could say government or capitalism in a way, start to understand that some of the power has to be put back in the hands of the people. And we're not just you know, so that that's a movement I can get behind and just little things like the right to repair and the fact that Apple has to allow, you know, sellers on their app store to add a button like little things like that seem to be a move in the right direction. So I'm all for that for the future as well. I think another thing we learned in 2021 Was that the pandemic didn't change nearly as much as people thought it would. In 2020, everyone said and all those companies, all the fitness companies, all the delivery companies, everyone said, Okay, this is the new world and everyone's going to work from home and they're never going to go to a gym again. And they're going to order all their food in and that 2021 Prove that is absolutely not true. All those fitness companies are now taking a shellacking because people went back to the gym. And the restaurant delivery took a beating because people actually do like going to restaurants, I think people thought that a lot was more was going to change that actually did change. I don't think that has any long term effects, except for those companies are going to get continue to get whooped. That's the just the the human nature of instead of preparing for what could go wrong, and then watching and observing and reacting, it's prepare for what can go wrong, and be the first and do it the most. And, you know, totally make that prediction to be either worst case scenario for society, but best case scenario for your company, and then work backwards. My it seems like a lot of people got shot in the foot that way. I just I don't understand if I'm one of those digital fitness people and I use Beachbody every morning. So I've been using the home fitness thing for a long, long time. I'm a big fan of those products. But the idea that those guys thought and I'm not blaming Beachbody there, but they really thought peloton is another good example, that we were going to change forever. It seems it's like they should have taken this profit 2020 2021 Who's going to be hugely profitable, let's do something smart with that money, and then realize it's going to go back to normal. No one did that they made huge bets, right? That they're they're really suffering for right now. So any other thoughts on 2021? And things stuck out to you? For me? Yeah, there's a couple of things professionally. 2021 was when I started full time with big pixel. Oh, that was exciting. 2021 is also the year where I was able to rebrand big pixel, because of the growth and everything that we saw. We had a fun leadership retreat in August, where I got to meet everybody in person face to face with masks. And that was awesome. So for those who don't know, big pixel is a remote company. We're, we're all US based, but we're all over the country. So I've known Gary for 16 years, I think something like that. So we have met in person a couple few times over the years. But when we had our leadership retreat this summer, guys who'd been working together for years had never met in person. And so that was really neat. They got to see each other for the first time. Yeah. Plus, it was a fun little trip from Florida up to North Carolina, where the headquarters are. And I have family in North Carolina. So I was able to see them for a few minutes. So that was fun, too. We also did an escape room, which I'd never done before, which was super cool. It was surprisingly way cooler than I thought it would be. Yeah, those things could get really cheesy real fast. But that was really neat. I really enjoyed it. It was really fun, too. Yeah, I was I was surprised how many people actually participated without the I'm too cool to participate kind of attitude. And everybody got really into it as soon as like the first clue was figured out. So that was really fun. Well, that's because they handcuffed us to a table. You kind of didn't have a choice. Anyway, so what are the big things happen to you for 2021 to speak about tech, the Apple M one pro I'm Oh, that laptop now. And it is the best computer I've ever used in my life. Can't believe how much of a jump it was from the old Intel i nine or whatever it is Apple check coming in the mail for you. That is their their free plug here. You get some money on the side there, buddy. If Apple sent me money, I would take instead of me constantly sending them money. That is fair. Yeah. Now on a personal level, and I will say this is slightly related to becoming full time with big pixel and stuff like that. I was able to take my daughter who is 16 and really into skateboarding to st league event that was in Florida, up in Jacksonville. And it was the last one of the year so it was like their finals, they called the Super crown. And if you're into skateboarding, you know that the street league super crown. And I'm gonna say this in a weird way. It's like the Olympics of skateboarding. Because I'm not including the Olympics of skateboarding because even though skateboarding did debut in the Olympics this year, it was kind of a mess. So I say seeing the actual like real end of the year contest event that has authority and has, you know, skaters get behind it. Like, like that was really cool to see. Awesome. So 2022, let's look ahead a little bit, if we're talking about major things you think are gonna happen to businesses that are gonna affect small businesses, and tech, but mainly I'm thinking startups and stuff, do you? What do you think is coming down the pipe that's going to change their world. I have a feeling and not really evidence. But maybe history repeating itself, there comes a time in design, where trends come and go, but then some stick. But what happens is because of those trends, there's a lot of products and little side things that designers will do create templates and, you know, create fake standards for what design should be. And we're starting to get overwhelmed right now, with a huge amount of templated. Either designs or design software, a huge amount of really kind of design inspired software, like 3d software that you can make in your browser, which some are going to be really good, some are going to be really bad. But the oversaturation I think is going to weed itself out. And you're going to be left with what's actually beneficial and good software moving forward. And I think companies that held the grip on design software, like Adobe, are going to start seeing a little bit of a Profit Loss with the more popular use of products like figma, and spy, a spline, the 3d software. A lot of these smaller companies are really starting to get good and fast. So I want to I want to poke that a little bit. So how does that affect a small business owner? Or someone who wants to start up? I mean, a year? Are you just off in the weeds? Or is there an actual practical side to that the practical side is if someone wants to start a business, or if there is a startup, and they do need a designer and a developer, these tools that are more available to a larger audience are going to make it easier for the learning and for the training on and you're going to have a bigger audience of actual talented designers being able to do work for you instead of just the standard. Well, if they don't use Adobe this, then we can't use that moving forward or if you know what I mean, there's like an industry standards are changing, which is opening it up to a broader talent pool. I see nothing you're saying makes me not want to just hire a guy from fiber. I don't understand what you're saying to me, it seems like fiber is still the way to go. Okay, now you just trying to hurt my feelings. Yeah. Hey, that's my Zune I get to out is revenue for for fiber that the Zune comment, I'm gonna give you a fiber comment. Okay, it's deserved. Okay, that's fair. It's fair. Right? Well, okay. And then counterpoint to that, because of the availability of these newer software products and design, you know, software products and templates. And, yeah, you'll have 50,000, designers on Fiverr, offering their services. And so from a business perspective, I can see a plus and a minus, right, because the lower that bar comes down, this is true for code to write development, the lower that bar becomes, the better it is for small businesses, right? Where because there's, it's cheaper, it's easier you think about when I started doing this, you know, standing up a startup and having to do your own servers and do all that that was a huge deal. And it was incredibly expensive. That bar is really, really low now, right? I can spin up a server in seconds. And I don't have to be a it ninja to do it. And design is the same way, right? Those tools are getting more accessible, they're cheaper, they're easier, that is good for business people to use. But at the same time, you're also going to get a bunch of people who are going to take advantage of that and offer a service poorly done. And that it's always a balance there, right? You always have bad coders, you really shouldn't be doing this. And you have the old Grom guards like me and you who are like these old whippersnappers because we want to protect our own right. It's it's a healthy tension. And I think in the end, I think businesses do benefit from that tension. Yeah, it's just the nature of the competition in business in, you know, anybody vying for that business. So, so anything else in 2022? Do you think trend wise is going to affect businesses? On a technology level? The processors? Hopefully, if the supply chain thing, I don't see anything major happening there? No, no, I think processors in 2022 will not make a big jump because they just did. If you want to talk about a jump we had the 30 ATS in the 3000 series from Nvidia and we have the AMD chips. Those were big jumps. Those were those were their generational jumps in the architecture of the processor itself. The performance both okay, like the the 3000 series of Nvidia made gaming, specifically, just it was a big jump. It was it was a big deal and the AMD chips for the first time Intel, I mean, Intel has been having a rough few years, because they cannot figure out and we could do a whole podcast on that. But they manufacture their own chips. And that puts them at a difficult thing. I think they got too comfortable with the contracts that they had that existed, they were just making so much money anyway, that they weren't really trying to innovate. And they are now facing a really tough challenge by the AMD Ryzen. Chips and not to nerd out. But they were a big jump. And so I don't see you're gonna see iterative changes on that front. I think from a tech perspective, what I'm curious, do you think that AR is going to matter? I honestly don't think AR is going to be as big as AR thinks it will like either get ever or just next year of definitely not next year. I mean, the AR push has been happening for an upwards of five, six years now. Right? in small amounts. But everybody's got a new breakthrough. Every single year, there's a new breakthrough. And then there's something added and changed, like just look at the Oculus glasses and stuff like that, like things come out. And then there's the new promise, but I don't think a majority of people in the, you know, market that they're looking for are going to adopt all this technology so quickly. One for cost to for comfort. Like it's just going to be awkward and weird for a lot of people. So I will disagree with you in that I think AR is going to be a massive deal. But it's not going to be next year. I think it's the AR being used on your phone for point of sale type stuff as being a huge jump. But people in their homes using AR on a professional or just an entertainment level. I don't know if it's going to make a big jump in next year. No 10 years from now we will all be wearing glasses. I firmly believe that just because planted into our eyeballs, or your you have it stuck in your face. No, I really do think that it is the next wave. And again, I'm not talking 2022 I'm talking like 2030 here. But when you can walk around with these little glasses on that don't look stupid and then up big and they last all day. And the tech is, you know, mature. Think about how much the smartphones matured in 10 years, right? I mean, we're talking days true big jumps, and we've got the you've got these glasses, and I can go and walk around and Yelp will tell me about any restaurant I look at. Right? I can just look at it. It knows I'm looking at the you know, Starbucks, and it knows how many reviews are there. It knows how long the line is. And I could jump in and make an order right there. I can look at a person's face. And I can know that that's Gary Voight and this is what he does for a living. This is coming. He was on social media. Here's this LinkedIn profile. Here's here's his LinkedIn profile, all this. All of this is coming. Now I'm not saying this is not scary as all get out it is. But that is all coming. I think 2020 Do an AR is going to be a lot of talk, a lot of smoke, but not a lot of fire. The only caveat is if Apple actually comes out with those AR classes. It does seem like if Apple jumps in, then it kind of pushes the industry to kind of compete. Yeah, everyone starts to pay attention. Because when they if they come out with something, and I don't think they actually will I bet that gets pushed up another year. But if they do, what they're basically saying is we have figured it out how to make a consumer level product even more expensive one. But we have made it we have figured out all the weird stuff. And we are proud of this product, that Apple doesn't come out with a half baked product like Samsung's first folding phone was a half baked product, right? It was it was it fell apart. It it was bad. But they took but they get major credit for trying right? This was two years ago. And Apple will never ever ever do that. They will only come out when it is right. And so if they're saying it's AR time or VR time, I don't think there's going to be AR glasses, they're going to be goggles. But the when they do that that will be a change. I don't think it'll happen in 2002. But when it does, it's gonna be huge deal. What I'm curious about is how much does that affect businesses from a day to day, think of website just a more immersive experience for the consumer. But that would be very, like, specific to market it well. But if I am if I go back 15 years ago, I own a small salon. And I was using the Yellow Pages and the white papers and I might kind of put my name up on cityscape or whatever, right? But I didn't have my own website because I'm stupid and expensive. Then it becomes you absolutely have to have a website and now it's you have to power most of your money is going to come from your website, right? Your appointments are all coming from the web. Now all of them I don't care who you are. Unless you're just like really old school but yeah, whether that's through Facebook or your own website. Yeah, I think AR is going to follow a similar path that It's going to hear it is. And if you're not in AR, whatever they end up calling it, I don't think it'll be called the metaverse, but whatever it's called, it's going to affect you as a business owner. Because if you're not there, you're going to start losing out on stuff. Like if I'm, if someone's walking around with glasses in five years, and I look around, and I don't see your business, yeah, your visibility is gone, your business has gone, you're really hurting yourself. And I think that's coming. And I'm wondering, from my perspective, do I need to start preparing for that now? Do I need to start preparing to build those experiences for people? Or is that still so far out? This is what we're weighing, right? Because we're the ones who lay this groundwork. The foundation, we're the ones who build these things for the small businesses are the ones who say, yeah, you definitely need to embrace this. And we're going to show you how we're going to lead that charge for you. I think we definitely need to introduce it into the conversation, just to kind of get a feel for it. But yeah, as far as implementing the actual learning how we're going to build this for people are still open. But justices, yeah, maybe a little bit premature. But hey, you know, it's always good to learn. Oh, for sure, for sure. I think the other thing that was it's maybe going to happen in 2022. is I think folding phones, again, we'll have another generation, I think you're gonna start seeing a lot more of those. And that matters, at least, from my perspective, because it changes yet another aspect of what someone's looking at, right? When we build apps and whatnot, that affects people. Yeah, it's definitely going to affect, at least the way I know, the responsive design has been a cornerstone for many years. But that's now going to have another little, I guess, what would you want to call it a break point or another little way of thinking about how you would design someone's store? Like for foldable phones, it's basically a browser, like a full size web browser or a tablet browser, it's not exactly a vertical, it's not a phone anymore. I'm trying to think it's there any other major things, I think, politically, next year is going to be a mess. And I think that's going to affect businesses. This is not that's not our realm, we're not going to go to the end of that. But from Stan going fix that, I think I'm hoping anyways, advance advanced medicines and these variants and everything else, we're dealing with the pandemic, hopefully, I think the variants might get weaker, and our vaccines might get stronger. And even if we do need more boosters regularly, hopefully, you know, people will jump on board, and we'll be able to see more people face to face and as a society without the fear, when it comes to just the pandemic, I would imagine 2022 will look a lot like 2021. That's just my hunch. And I think that affects businesses as well. I think to get hopeful, I think I think you're going to see you know that the standard, another variant is going to come out, it's going to scare people, you're going to have to get boosters every six months, if that's your way of doing it. If you're not into doing it, then you just do your thing. But if I think there might be some some treatments and stuff like that, but I think people are still largely, you know, there's a big population is still hunkered down. And I don't think I think your kids are going to wear masks in 2022. And that's unfortunate, because, you know, affects my kids in high school affects them. But I don't think we're going to be out of the woods for 2022, which, again, that's not really our world, but it does affect business, you've got to prepare for yourself. Right? If you're a restaurant, this you are absolutely feeling the heat of this. If you are a live entertainment venue, you are feeling the heat of this. And we even did a whole episode when we first started this podcast about how the pandemic affected business and bringing it digitally. And I think those trends will continue. I just don't think I don't think it's gonna be a radical change in that I think for 2022. That's unfortunate, because man, I would love to not have to wear a mask everywhere. But I'm just hoping that we're able to take a step forward in I don't know if you want to call it coping with it or dealing with it or just being able to make smarter decisions and protect ourselves from it, but at the same time, not live in fear and have to feel like we're hunkered down. Fair enough. Okay. I think I've gotten all the prognostication I can get in one episode. Do you have any other wisdom, pearls of wisdom that your crystal hat is given you? I don't know if I have any pearls of wisdom are predictions, but I do have a couple of goals. Now if you want to talk about any goals professionally or personally for the new year, sure, why not? I'm definitely going to get more good looking. I'm going to get younger. I'm going to get in faster at my job. And yeah, that's it. I'm gonna get back into skateboarding and be able to skate like I was 19 again. Wow, you really you have some really lofty goals. Well, none of them are realistic. You know, there's still goals. I think my one thing that I'm taking in 2020, personally is, I am going to stop caring about things that are not important. If it doesn't, if it's if I don't care who, whose What celebrity is dating who, and I'm not going to get in a fight about it, I'm not going to get in a fight with someone about what movie is best. I'm not going to get in a fight, if you want to You Be you, be me. And I'm not going to get cranky about it. And I'm tired of doing that. I've been bad about that. And I'll die on hills that make no sense at all. And so I am making if it was a resolution, that would be it is I'm going to only care about what's important to me. And if it's important to you, cool. We'll be friends. Right? That's, I think that's something I am actively going to pursue in in this coming year. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good outlook to have. Not that you're making anybody else's opinion, less important. But you're not going to let it affect you. Personally, most of the time, people die on hills that have nothing to do with them. Like they're just fighting to fight. And I'm guilty of that. And so that is that is my personal can even implement that in business as well just focus on the stuff that you can control and that you can make better. And don't worry about the, you know, the things that are out of your realm scope that you cannot actively affect. Fair enough. Alright, I'm gonna wrap it up. We do not have a question this week, which is fine. We're wrapping up anyways, and we're gone long anyway. So we don't have anything but we are going to end next year, we're going to change our email to Hello again. Hello. I think we're good. I appreciate everyone joining us this year with this is episode 14. So we're gonna have 50 ish episodes next year. And that's gonna be very exciting. I'm proud of us for doing this on a consistent level. And I'm super happy that just anybody listened at all. I mean, that's no. It's very cool. I've enjoyed doing this. And I hope to continue to do this. And hopefully, we can get more people to pay attention, but that doesn't really matter. I gotta be honest. It's fun one way or another. That's right. All right. And on that note, thank you all very much. Have a wonderful and safe holiday season. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Happy holidays. Good to see you.