By Adam Fraser

Quite an ambitious blog title…

It can be hard in the fast moving, hurly-burly of the tech, marketing and social media landscape to see the bigger trends. We inevitably get caught up in features and functions, campaigns and month to month incremental changes.

In the EchoJunction podcast, I intentionally go long form (45-60 min episodes) to try to dive deep on particular topics ranging from Blockchain to VR, IOT to the future of advertising and look at strategic developments in the landscape.

Two pieces of content I recently consumed are definitely worth checking out in the context of “seeing the wood for the trees” or “joining the dots”.

On his excellent weekly podcast, Mitch Joel chatted to Google’s resident Digital Marketing Evangelist Avinash Kaushik to dissect the intersection of marketing and analytics. Given the importance of Google in the digital landscape, hearing about their future direction and the importance of AI was fascinating.

Linked to this podcast, Avinash recommended a video by Benedict Evans – “Mobile is eating the world”. Looking at uber long term trends, Benedict looks at the mobile revolution (we have now hit 2.5bn smart phones!) then discusses the impact of Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon moving from mobile first to AI first. He talks about the pending massive disruption in the retail industry together with changing dynamics in content, manufacturing, cars and much more.

If you can find a quiet couple of hours to put a wet towel on your head and think about where all of this is heading, I think you will find these two pieces of content highly thought provoking and worthwhile.