 |
|
|
|||||
The best laid schemes of mice and men [often go awry], wrote the poet Robert Burns in 1785. In other words, even our most carefully crafted plans rarely unfold as expected. Nearly two and a half centuries later, in the fast-moving age of AI, that insight feels more relevant than ever. For entrepreneurs, staying competitive means building a business plan that can keep pace with evolving technology. After nearly two decades as CEO of a SaaS company, Ive learned that planning isnt about predicting the future with perfect clarityits about being ready and adaptable. Here are five planning strategies that have helped me make my company more tech-responsive and allowed me to future-proof our growth. Building flexibility into budgets If the past few years have taught us anything, its that change is the only constantand that rapid change is more likely than ever, whether in technology, the economy, or global health. To keep up in a fast-paced and largely unpredictable tech landscape, leaders need to build flexibility into their budgets. At Jotform, that means factoring in a bit of slack for experimentation and unforeseen shifts. We make space for pilot programs, internal beta testing, and regular software updatesnot as an afterthought, but as a core part of our planning process. This approach enables us to pivot as needed and stay open to emerging tools or trends, like AI agents, that could give us an edge. In a landscape defined by constant evolution, adaptability can become a competitive advantage. Revisiting the tech stack quarterly Its essential to regularly revisit your tech stackthe software tools, frameworks, and infrastructure that keep the wheels of your company turning. An interface or database that worked well six months ago may be completely obsolete today. Whats more, Ive found that you can almost always identify ways to make your workplace more efficient. While many companies revisit their tech stack annually or biannually as a rule of thumb, for businesses operating in environments where technologies are evolving fast, Id recommend a quarterly check-in. Conduct your review with an automation-first mindset. With the right tools and tech, you can streamline entire processes and eliminate tedious, manual tasks, freeing up employees for work that truly matters. Nowadays, Im investing my time and energy in researching the latest AI agents to integrate into our tech stack. These are autonomous tools that can independently carry out tasks or entire workflows. You give them the goal, and they figure out how to execute it. Think of it as regularly tuning your engineand you dont want to cruise, you want to race. Creating a cross-functional tech committee At our company, cross-functional collaboration is second nature. Since most projects span multiple departments, weve found that bringing together diverse expertise not only builds momentum, but also leads to smarter, faster decision-making. By involving key stakeholders early, we avoid costly delays and hiccups down the road. Today, most companies need a dedicated tech committeeone that keeps a pulse on emerging technologies, evaluates the companys existing tools, and offers strategic guidance on implementation. To make the best decisions for the business, this committee should include representatives from across the organization: developers, designers, sales, HR, finance, and beyond. A cross-functional makeup ensures that all perspectives are considered when shaping the companys tech stack. Investing in digital upskilling As a growing body of research shows, professionals across the board are anxious about the impact of AI on their job security. A recent survey, for example, found that 74% of IT professionals fear AI will render their skills obsolete. And yet, many companies continue to take a wait-and-see approach when it comes to AI, mistaking a fundamental shift for a fad. But as each day makes more patently clear: AI isnt going anywhere. To stay competitiveand to ease employee concernscompanies should adopt a top-down strategy for digital upskilling. Fortunately, AI itself can be a powerful solution. AI-powered tools offer scalable, cost-effective training tailored to each employees role, skill level, and goals. Take those AI agents, for example: They can design personalized learning paths, identify targeted materials, and conduct Socratic-style sessions to deepen understanding. Imagine a social media manager aiming to upskill in AI-generated content. An agent can provide curated lessons, recommend practice exercises, and schedule check-insmaking it easy to integrate learning into the workday without cutting into personal time. Monitoring adjacent industries Finally, monitoring industries adjacent to your company is not a planning tipits a strategy for survival nowadays. Consider the cautionary tale of Blockbuster. By ignoring advances in technology and e-commerce, and consumers shift toward convenience, they missed the streaming revolution. They filed for bankruptcy in 2010. Meanwhile, Netflix is crushing it in 2025. The takeaway? Leaders who track innovation beyond their own industry are quicker to adopt the right solutions for their companies. Identify the right thought leaders, check software review sites like G2, and stay plugged into emerging tech. Your plans still might not unfold as expected, but with the right tools, youll be able to adapt.
Category:
E-Commerce
The New York City subway is not a glamorous scene to behold. Between the grime, the crime, and the occasional scurrying rat, it is best experienced in small doses and only when the need arises. Unless, that is, you’re traveling through Grand Army Plaza. As of May this year, anyone passing through the Brooklyn transit hub will be stopped in their tracks by a 7-foot tall, papier-mâché T-Rex looming over what may well be New York City’s most outlandish bodega. Titled Rex’s Dino Store, the bodega is located inside one of the city’s defunct newsstand kiosks. It features newspapers with titles like The Maul Street Journal, Jurassic Park Slope, and various pun-laden products like a Steg-Yun poster and Snarlboro cigarettes, all purchasable with a Master-claw card. [Photo: Megan Armas] Alas, none of the items on display at the bodega are actually for sale, since it is an art installation more akin to a diorama. “We are also glad to bring some whimsy to MTA riders commute,” says artist Sarah Cassidy, who created the project with artist Akiva Leffert. “Even if youre having a bad day, its difficult to resist a good dinosaur pun.” [Photo: Megan Armas] Rex’s Dino Store is the culmination of the MTA’s so-called Vacant Unit Activation Program, which aims to breathe new life into the subway system’s long-empty retail spaces by offering them, rent-free, to artists. Since launching in spring 2024, the program has helped convert 12 previously vacant units across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronxwith half a dozen other locations set to open this summer. But according to Mira Atherton, a senior manager in the MTAs real estate department and the curator of the initiative, Rexs Dino Store marks a turning point for the initiative, which has primarily grown through word-of-mouth. Its in a very visible part of the station, and it’s such a fun and creative and loud activation,” she says. In the past month, Ive gotten so many inquiries from artists. [Photo: Megan Armas] The vacancy struggle The MTA has long struggled to fill its retail spaces. Of the roughly 195 retail units scattered throughout the subway system, only 52 are open for business, reflecting a staggering 75% vacancy rate that has worsened since the pandemic stalled foot traffic. [Photo: Megan Armas] Previous attempts to reinvigorate them have included leasing to coffee kiosks, and ATMs. Some have floated more radical ideas. Assembly member and NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has proposed transforming these unused spaces into crisis and drop-in centers to assist unhoused New Yorkers. His $10 million initiative would fund outreach workers stationed inside empty units, offering immediate care and connecting individuals to longer-term services. Meanwhile, the goal of the Vacant Unit Activation Program is to enchant the transit experience by bringing moments of unexpected delight into the city’s drab underground corridors. Might these art installations eventually attract paying tenants? Atherton says that hasnt happened yetbut its not off the table. And if a commercial partner does express interest in a location, the art installations dont necessarily have to go the way of the T-Rex. “The hope is it will inspire retailersbut that could work for an entire corridor rather than a single unit,” she says, noting that some subway stations have more than one vacant unit. [Photo: Megan Armas] A problem with a solution Atherto was entrusted with the project in January 2023. At the time, she says, the vacancies were “a problem with no solution.” First, she considered launching a design challenge for architecture and design students, or bringing on a master tenant to program the spaces, but ultimately, she landed on an open call for artists and cultural organizations. It launched in November 2023 with a purposefully non-prescriptive brief. “We don’t want to say ‘this is what you should do,'” says Atherton. “The point is that the MTA doesn’t know. I would have never thought of putting a dinosaur in a bodega.” (The program is entirely separate from the better-known MTA Arts & Design initiative, which has its own budget and commissions permanent mosaics, murals, and digital works across various subway stations.) [Photo: Megan Armas] The first installation opened in May 2024 and was created by artist Natalie Collette Wood, in partnership with the nonprofit ChaShaMa. Titled Urban Oasis: Nature in Transit, it was located at Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, where Collette Wood transformed an empty store into a lush, plant-filled terrarium, granting New Yorkers an unexpected pocket of calm in Midtown Manhattan. At the time of writing, a total of eight stations feature active art installations, each with their own focus and flair. At 50th Street, in Manhattan, an installation titled Safe Space by artist Traci Johnson imagines a pink, plush interior designed to provide the comfort of a mothers womb. At 81st Street, near the Museum of Natural History, an interactive piece called SoundBooth invites passersby to plug in their instruments for a spontaneous busking session. And at Jackson HeightsRoosevelt Avenue, the Queens-based nonprofit Los Herederos has turned a former retail unit into a vibrant, community-inspired space that doubles as a home base for their web radio station, LH Radio. [Photo: Megan Armas] A play on the subway? This summer, new installations are coming to Jay StreetMetroTech and Sterling Street stations, both in Brooklyn. A new project will also replace Urban Oasis at 53rd Street, offering a fresh perspective on the same stretch of corridor. And later this year, if all goes to plan, Atherton hopes to unveil her most ambitious idea inside a long-abandoned unit at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The idea? An as-of-yet-undefined collaboration with a theater group called Jewel Box, which already hosts plays in a speakeasy-style room. “There’s a ton of vacant space that’s difficult to program because the electrical systems are outdated and the power supply is very limited,” she says, but she’s determined to get creative. At Grand Army Plaza, the MTA had to undertake some construction to make the kiosk usable. Cassidy and Leffert faced several challenges and bureaucratic hurdles, from securing artist insurance to fireproofing the materialsincluding Rex himselfbut they say the delays only gave them more time to sculpt a better dinosaur. (The entire installation cost about $5,000 out of pocket.) Initially, the pair had proposed an immersive sound installation, but the MTA rejected the idea on safety grounds. Sound equipment, for example, would require live supervision, and there was no budget for that. So, they went back to the drawing board. The kiosk already had a newsstand with a countertop and shelving in place, so the cogs started turning. “A bodega on the moon? A bodega for cats? It was an old bodega. So how old was it? A bodega for dinosaurs?” From there, Cassidy says, “the puns started to write themselves.”
Category:
E-Commerce
Generative AIand the velocity of its evolutionis forcing every breed of designer to contemplate a future without them. Will Midjourney and DALL-E eliminate the need for graphic designers? Will Claude and Gemini obviate the UX lead? What happens to motion artists in a world where Sora supposedly becomes the newest auteur? We’re no sages. And were certainly not clairvoyant. But we can comfortably say that, even if an AI-driven design industry apocalypse is coming, it hasn’t arrived yet. Our second annual report on the state of the design industry draws from a dataset of 176,000 job listings weve gathered on Google Jobs (which consolidates listings from across the internet, including Indeed, LinkedIn, and regional job boards) from October 2023 to February 2025. They span several design disciplines: graphic, interior, game, urban, UX, product, and architectural. The clearest and perhaps most reassuring takeaway this year? Designers are still needed. Graphic and UX design job postings are flat from last year, game design postings are up, and urban design postings are way up. Only architects and product designers saw a dip, with postings for the latter down 24% from last year. So its not time yet to abandon that art or architecture degree in order to become a prompt engineer. Still, several things have definitely changed since our last report. Austin has become less of a magnet for architects and urban designers. Canva, software that had initially been met with skepticism among professionals in the industry even just a few years ago, is becoming a mainstay in the graphic designer’s arsenal. And UX designers arehallelujahgaining a bit more job security. Heres what Fast Company found. {"blockType":"immersive-block-embed","data":{"embedSource":"","backgroundColor":"","paddingTop":0,"paddingBottom":0,"paddingLeft":0,"paddingRight":0,"mediaType":"ceros"}} {"blockType":"immersive-block-embed","data":{"embedSource":"","backgroundColor":"","paddingTop":0,"paddingBottom":0,"paddingLeft":0,"paddingRight":0,"mediaType":"ceros"}} {"blockType":"immersive-block-embed","data":{"embedSource":"","backgroundColor":"","paddingTop":0,"paddingBottom":0,"paddingLeft":0,"paddingRight":0,"mediaType":"ceros"}} {"blockType":"immersive-block-embed","data":{"embedSource":"","backgroundColor":"","paddingTop":0,"paddingBottom":0,"paddingLeft":0,"paddingRight":0,"mediaType":"ceros"}} {"blockType":"immersive-block-embed","data":{"embedSource":"","backgroundColor":"","paddingTop":0,"paddingBottom":0,"paddingLeft":0,"paddingRight":0,"mediaType":"ceros"}} {"blockType":"immersive-block-embed","data":{"embedSource":"","backgroundColor":"","paddingTop":0,"paddingBottom":0,"paddingLeft":0,"paddingRight":0,"mediaType":"ceros"}} {"blockType":"immersive-block-embed","data":{"embedSource":"","backgroundColor":"","paddingTop":0,"paddingBottom":0,"paddingLeft":0,"paddingRight":0,"mediaType":"ceros"}} {"blockType":"immersive-block-embed","data":{"embedSource":"","backgroundColor":"","paddingTop":0,"paddingBottom":0,"paddingLeft":0,"paddingRight":0,"mediaType":"ceros"}} MethodologyWe extracted jobs from the Google Jobs search module monthly from October 2023 to February 2025, resulting in 26,624 jobs when duplicates were removed. We used a combination of Gemini and manual tech token search to extract information on salary, company type, and software tool usage. The categorization of jobs as full-time or contract/internship and their geographic locations were contained as separate structured fields in Google’s data. Monthly and hourly salaries were standardized to yearly rates by multiplying the rate by 12 for monthly salaries, and by 2,080 for hourly salaries.This article is part of Fast Company‘s continuing coverage of where the design jobs are.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||