Deloitte seer and communicator extraordinaire Duncan Stewart has become one of the big draws on the business breakfast circuit. 

Around this time every year, he tours the nation to offer his “Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions” for the coming year, bought to you by your local Deloitte office. Deloitte’s a big supporter of TEC Edmonton, a corporate sponsor, and Deloitte’s Edmonton-based Jeremy Webster is one of the company’s top Technology, Media and Telecommunications Industry leaders.

 So TEC Edmonton was proud to be a presenter of Stewart’s breakfast talk, on Friday, Jan. 27, 2012 at the Westin Hotel, and TEC Edmonton’s Chris Lumb participated in an after-talk panel.

When Deloitte first presented Stewart’s predictions in Edmonton two years ago, 18 people attended. Last Friday, the Westin half-ballroom was full.

You can read (or watch) Duncan’s presentation – it’s well worth the time – at Deloitte’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions 2012. The presentation, incidently, is refreshingly free of any gratuitous plugs for Deloitte’s services.

His main predictions:

BIG DATA IS A BIG DEAL: 

Video game producer Zynga, Duncan uses by way of example, has 50 million monthly users of its popular CastleVille game. As participants play, they can upgrade by buying virtual goods. Five percent of those users do, representing $2 billion in income.

“If Zinga can bump up its player purchases by 10%, they go from $2 to $4 billion in revenue. It uses enough computer capacity to watch the behavior of every player every 15 seconds. Which takes 18 terrabytes.

“Only some companies need Big Data at this point, but its users include government, health, finances and media space. It will be a $1.5 billion industry by the end of the year, and it’s still in its infancy.”

Converting the smart phone to a digital wallet is big business, as is just about every other application for an NFC chip-embedded phone. Not only can it be used for Pay ‘n’ Go, but it can replace keys for access, replace QR codes … “Consumers are careful, only about 2% of using NFC technology for purchases. But by 2013 there will be 300 million NFC devices, compared to 50 million in 2010.”

Fifteen percent of laptops (and most tablets) have no hard-disc drives, as they become thinner, smaller and lighter. “Home machines will still use HDD (hard disk drives) because they’re cheaper, but 10% of new storage in 2012, especially on smaller mobile devices,  will be solid-state. It’s far less draining on batteries, boots up faster, and had dropped dramatically in price.”

Like cars and phones, most homes will soon have multiple tablets lying around the house. “Five per cent of tablet sales this year will be second tablets in homes,” says Duncan. “Connectivity and price will make them as ubiquous as power sockets.”

Canadians have learned, Duncan says, that you can’t seamlessly stream to mobile devices. “Shows will be down-loaded to mobile devices overnight, to be watched on the LRT on the way to work.” Which also means broadband providers (Rogers, TELUS, Shaw etc.) will soon be turning off the “all-you-can-eat” data supply, and start charging more for bandwidth after consumers reach their purchased limits.

Despite the availability of video/TV content any time after initial release, most Canadians still watch TV in real time or in “near real-time” within 24 hours of the initial broadcast. We seem to be hard-wired, Duncan suggests to watch our average 32 hours and 47 minutes of TV a week in real-time.

Extensive psychological consumer research is resulting in less “targeted” advertising and more “feel good” advertising. Duncan showed a minutes-long, intriguing, back-to-nature mini-cartoon that only at the end charmingly advertised the Chipotle Mexican Grill name. “It was never on TV, there’s no logo until seven seconds from the end. It went viral and has had 10 million views. It has a “feel” connection. I had a Chipotle taco after I saw the damned ad!”

The declining cost of technology will keep consumers purchasing new TVS, smart phones, tablets and other computing devices. “For the cost of a TV in 1977, you can now buy tons more stuff. 

You can download your own copy of Deloitte’s print version of the 2012 Canadian and Global TMT Predictions with far more information than has been presented here.