You know, if you've gone to most airports now they have driverless trains.
Yeah, you know Detroit Nor many of them get on the air train.
It's remote, you know, and electric, and so pretty soon they'll be
The shuttle busses will be that. Pretty soon, the city mass transit will
be that. Pretty soon, the train and mass transportation system will be that.
I think we're going to see that first. And then you know,
autonomous technology right now is here and it's it's up to standard. It's just
a question of us as humans being willing to accept it. You're listening to
Carrie. Let'sa's financial survival network where you get valuable information you just can't find
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newsletter and gift. Financial Survival Network now more than ever, And welcome you
are listening to watching the Financial Survival Network on yours Carrie Lutz. Well,
it's a new year. There's new things happening. There's things that were happening
before that you didn't even realize were happening. The Master of trend Analysis Carl
Gould is with us now you find him at Carlgould dot com and Carl's happy
New Year. It's great to have you back on the show. Hey,
happy twenty twenty four, Carrie. Great to be back and looking forward to
a productive year. All right, so what of twenty twenty four? What
you know, we've talked about people working from home, not going back to
the office. This has led to like massive dislocations in the commercial real estate
industry. Things like that are going on. Looks like less and less people
heading to the malls all the time. What do you see for twenty twenty
four in terms of trends. Yeah, so if we want to take commercial
real estate as the first one, commercial real estate has to reinvent itself.
It's been a troubling time. The pandemic accelerated what was already happening, which
is that you know, companies just simply don't need as much space as they
did before. Right, so the pandemic comes along. We have to set
all of our employees home. But we've got these massive leases that we have
for commercial real estate, so we have to get rid of those. We
have the league, we have to break those leases. We have to get
out of that commercial space. And so now there's a glut of office space.
The New York City has off the space. There are a number of
you know, there are hundreds of thousands of square toir feet that are empty
right now. And the commercial real estate world has to reinvent itself and you're
seeing it where they're converting what was once off the space into partially residential,
partially industrial. There's rezoning that's going on now because of that that affects businesses.
They don't they want to come back to the office because over the last
couple of years they realized that you don't build a great business by sending everybody
home, putting them in a silo, and then rarely speaking with each other.
So they want everyone to come back, but they don't even have the
space for all of them if they could get them back. So what are
they doing. So the hybrid work for the hybrid workplace is becoming more and
more prominent, and you're going to see that as a trend for at least
the next five to ten years. Okay, So the hybrid workplace, we're
talking where you work like two days or three days in the office, two
or three days at home. So can people really be as productive at home
as they are in the office. We're not talking about people that own their
own companies, but employees and other contract workers and such. Is it possible
to keep them as productive? I struggle with are they as productive? They
can be efficient a little bit more efficient because they're not driving for work and
driving back, and if they're already on their computer. There are certain things
that if you know, for a long, long term project, that sort
of thing, so they're not in erupted as much. But for the most
part, you're going to be more productive at work. There was a study
that showed that if you put a lowerduct productive person next to a higher productive
person, the lower productive person will increase their productivity by at least fifteen percent
just by being in the same room with a higher achiever or a higher product
higher performing person. So there is something about being in the same room with
other people. Right You're not as likely to just go take a nap or
walk in the next room and watch TV. If you're at deep office,
you're more likely to maintain the momentum of the day and you're more likely to
get things done. If you have to leave by a certain time, whereas
when you're working at home, you're gonna say, yeah, what's the big
deal, I'm home anyway, I'll just pick it up tomorrow. So there's
that aspec and there's also the mental health aspect of it. We you know,
it's those coincidence that mental health issues have risen, you know, during
the time of the pandemic when everyone was stuck at home for that extended period
of time. It's not a coincidence. Okay, So I buy that that
productive people, that's why you hired them, and they bring a certain energy
to your workforce and help you get more out of your workforce than you could
perhaps by yourself. Is there any way to replicate that from working from home?
Do you think? Well, you could have, and I've seen teams
do it. You could have what's called virtual workshop time. So rather than
having a huddle that says, hey, for the next few days, we're
going to work on these projects on our own, you would leave the video
on as if everybody was in the room together, and you would all be
working and collaborating as if you're all in the same room. So there's a
law firm that we know of where one of the one of the partners at
his desk leaves his video on if he's working remotely, and you can walk
into his office as if you were there, and you could have impromptu meetings
on the spot. So there are ways to do that. We've seen that
work that could be And again, you still have the you know, you
still have the person looking at you, you're looking at them, you're working
together at the same time, So there are there are ways that you could
be a bit more productive. The other thing that you can do is use
a techniquell time blocking where you where you block out, say two hours,
and you say, I'm going to give you this deliverable two hours from now,
let's say two o'clock, and that person at eleven fifty goes on there
and says, hey, do we have that. Yes, we do,
great, thank you, and they take that and they run with the next
they run with the next part of that task. So you can use time
blocking, you can use deadlines, you can use open virtual workshops. So
there are ways to remain equally as productive. Okay, so you know,
I was watching something the other day. Even air traffic control towers they're doing
remotely. No, obviously you can't be an air traffic controller from the comfort
of your living room. But they're actually in smaller airports with less traffic.
They're setting up remote towers, and then in a larger air traffic control center
they've got the feeds to those cameras and a controller you know, spends part
of his time controlling that airfield that was otherwise uncontrolled and hopefully making them more
safe. Sapping mostly in Europe, not so much in the US, So
that type of remote work really can be beneficial. And the ability to tie
together offices so you have a big screen there and you keep the video feed
going and everybody's one kgappy family, right, yeah, you're live. It
might be best. So if you think about it, if you have three
small airports that required one person at each, that person is literally working in
a silo by themselves. However, you take those same three people, put
them in the same room and say you are now responsible for these three small
airports. You can have rotating ships, you have people collaborating at the same
time. That might actually be that's one of those scenarios where being remote,
because it's live, it's interactive, and it's collaborative, you know, can
build a really strong culture yeah, yeah, I like the concept of it,
and it should increase overall safety and then it's pretty soon it's like,
you know, they build these huge towers at airports. They're like three hundred
and fifty feet high, so they can see everything that's going on, and
still they can miss things. But if you have like a bunch of video
feeds, they don't necessarily need to be at the airport or in They could
just be in a regular building and doing the same or better work. So
this is the example where the technology just never really it never really stops moving,
does it, right, And in a case like that, they're using
basically the same technology that they would use if they were at that airport.
Yes, you are missing the availability of a window where you can look out
and physically see the runway, but for every other use, you know,
it's the same. So yeah, those are some examples as to where it
could be. You know, I think over time, as we're seeing a
massive restructuring of the workforce. Now we always say to our clients, you
should staff to the valleys, sub contract to the peaks. That's a big
thing for us, so and we're seeing that more and more as a trend.
So companies are saying, what's our slowest time of year. We will
have w two employees for that, and we will use agencies and other companies
in a strategic alliance to cover our peak busy times. That's going to allow
a company to correct itself and have everybody back into an office. So I
think the trend is back to the office. The office is going to be
a more enjoyable place to be because it's not just going to be work.
It's going to be work play, right, You're going to work play,
relax. It's going to be like a third spot. There's going to be
a lounge. There's going to be some interactive areas, there might be a
gym in the building. You know, it's going to have other services.
So going to work is not going to be the same as it was,
you know, ten twenty years ago. Hey, I find it interesting.
You know, I've been working from home for the past thirteen years, and
for me, it's my company. I'm going to be as productive as I
can be regardless where I'm working. But I do miss the concept of having
some place to go, and I thought about a co working space. It's
just not practical when you have a studio. They do have studios there,
and I kind of discounted that, but I do miss the ability to see
people and interact and tell jokes and stories and all that. So I feel
like this millennial generation or disease who really came into the workforce during the pandemic
and after kind of missing out on something. Hey, one other trend I
want to talk about is the real robot trend optimists from Tesla, which appears
that they're really going to be doing tasks that in the past only humans can
do. And how fast is that going to catch out? I think it's
going to be huge, Yeah, I think. Look, robots have been
part of our lives for years. We haven't used the word all that much,
but when we send an email, we used a robot. When we
went online, and we reserved our table at a restaurant, we used robot.
Right, So robots have come in a lot of different forms, but
robots, you know, robots have been cutting our lawn and they've been cleaning
our carpets for a while, you know, and robots have been cooked,
you know, uh, brewing our coffee and heading over a lar you know,
sending you know, announcing our alarms. In the morning. So,
yes, you're going to see a trend where there's going to be more and
more and more robots. So you remember the Jetsons cartoon, all right when
you're a kid. I love that. That was basically the final It was
the Flintstone set in the future exactly exactly exactly, so the Jetsons where there
was a robot made and they did video calls, and they got into the
little spaceship and when they went to their office, and you know the kids
used at the time, they show that they used these phones, these these
small phones that you could make video calls on all of those things. That's
where we're headed because look, the reality is is there are certain asks that
we just as humans don't need to be doing, but we're doing them because
we haven't invented the robot yet. Think about we used to wash our dishes
by hand. We put them in a dish washer. Now is anybody really
lamenting the fact that we're not washing dishes? You know, is there gonna
be a world crisis if you know, all of our carpets and our walls
get cleaned by a robot or a drone. No one's gonna care because we
don't want to be doing that work anyway, right, So there are certain
work that just makes sense to because you know, and it just there's better
things to be doing with our time. And so I think you seeing increasingly
more use of robots, and I think we're going to embrace it. I
don't think this is one of those things that we're regretting or trying to shun.
I think we want them. I think there's jobs that we never contemplated
doing because it is impossible for a human to do it. And these jobs
will be able to be performed by robots and they're meaningful, but they were
just impossible before this. Remember that the tractor was going to end civilization as
we knew it because it was going to put the farmer out of work.
And what are we going to do with all the rules and the courses,
Yeah, a tractor. Right, So you're right the people think that technology
is going to hurt or change our lives. It's the opposite. The lack
of technology is slowing down the progression in our lives. I go back ludd
Heights. They were members of a nineteenth century movement of English textile workers who
opposed the loom. You know, Yeah, fortunately they lost because if they
had won, Uh, we probably wouldn't have any technology. Now that was
two hundred years ago, exactly exactly, and because of the loom, it
led to other types of manufacturing, and now we have mattresses and slows and
we can create products that we could never create before for on any on any
scale. I mean, it's going to it does require change, and I
know change is scary for some people, but at the end of the day,
there are you know, technology is going to make our lives better in
many ways, not necessarily inhibitos. And you know, if they try to
go smash the Optimist robots, those robots might be fighting back, right,
Well, we want that jets since we don't want the turbineer for sure.
That you know, well in warfare, you know, drones and everything else
we're saying in pretty soon, I believe that robots will displace many of the
soldiers on the battlefield and then it's going to be who can build the best
robots and with the most robots at any any given time. Right, Oh,
there's no doubt. Listen, my son is in the army, he's
out in the field, and I love the fact that they have drones that
they can send a personal drone around the corner to see where the enemy is
rather than sending humans out there and only one, you know, to find
out where the enemy is. So yeah, drones are very much in use.
Writing it out a lot of technology. If you remember, the reason
why the movie Top Gun Maverick book so long to make was they were trying
to find a viable story because in you know, in air warfare, drumones
are in such prominent use. There's just simply not a lot of adult fighting
that happens anymore. You know, we have the planes, we need them,
but the drones do most of the dirty work they do, and they
combine, they become a force multiplier. Well, thank you for your sacrifice
and your son's service. We appreciate that. And yeah, it's it's it's
really interesting because you know it just the AI combined with the robotics taking over.
I mean, you can see the day coming when knocking any drivers anymore,
right right, well there, you know you're starting to see that already
with municipalities airports that are using you know, if you've gone to most airports
now, they have driverless trains. You know, Detroit newer many of them
get on the air train. It's remote, you know, and electric,
and so pretty soon they'll be the shuttle busses will be that. Pretty soon,
the city mass transit will be that. Pretty soon, the train and
mass transportation system will be that. I think people are going to see that
first. And then you know, autonomous technology right now is here and it's
it's up to standard. It's just a question of us as humans being willing
to accept it. But the technology is here now, we can deploy it
now. Yeah. So you know, with this winter and this cold staff,
there was a lot of things that people having problems charging their cars at
public charging stations the evs and the range goes down because it's cold, and
you know that the modern day Luddites are basically saying, no, you see,
we told you these evs are do good. But evs are here to
stay right and they're going to predominate. There's no question. There's no question
the evs are here to say. You know, let's think back to when
cell phones first came out. There are more cell phones than this than there
was support. You know, the more there was more cell phones than there
were networks to support them. Remember, when you the whole thing. And
we still talk about it today. How many times do your calls drop?
How many times you drop me? Can you hear me? Yeah? Hear
me? Now? Can you hear me? Now? Do you have me?
Oh? Sorry, dropped off the call? We accepted it was there.
There are still more. I remember I had the big bag phone in
my mica. Oh god, you know in the night right, yeah exactly,
it was. It was a you know, it's like that you know,
recon thing you put on your back. It was. It was a
brick and and so even still thirty years later, there's still more phones out
there than you know, networks to support it. Go to a hotel or
go to a concert, or go to a you know, a conference center
and try to use the Wi fi there. It's so slow because it can't
handle the ten thousand people that are on it at it and given time.
So there's always going to be that, and ev car sales will always be
greater than the electrical grid to support. It's always going to be the case
for the next you know, probably yeah, exactly exactly. But you know
what's going to happen is it will force those that will profit from it to
figure out how to make better battery technology, or if you remember, Tesla's
vision in the beginning was that they would own the battery. You would drive
the car, so you'd pull into a charging station, they would just swap
out your battery pack. Right, So we might see, you know,
the fuel cell. We might see that, you know, the battery cell,
I should say, so we might see that still, I mean there
there will be there will be uh echnol much fool advances that allow for us
to support the electrical grid. You know. I think I think those cars
make sense. There's a lot of there's a lot less moving parts, there's
a lot less maintenance. You ask a Tesla owner how much service they have
to do to their vehicle after for a few years, they just it's rare.
It's software update. You might have to redo the breaks, you might
have to change the tires. But it's a lot less moving parts. So
there's a lot of efficiencies there, you know. So I see that's a
trend that's going to continue. Very true. Well, a lot of interesting
things coming for twenty twenty four, and you just have to pick your place
and go for it. I think Carl, just tell us again, where
we find you. How we connect with you on the web. You can
find me at Carlgould dot com. That's c A R L G o U
l D dot com and that's the best way to do that. We can
intersect, all right, and we'll save you the typing in the URL.
Just go to the show notes to this show and Financial Survival Network dot com.
The link is there. Click it take you right there. While you're
there, sign up for your free newsletter Carl Always a pleasure. Thanks for
stopping by, Thanks Kerriy. Happy twenty twenty four to you all. Thanks
for listening to Carrie Lenz's Financial Survival Network, your solution to today's trying times.
For the latest, go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network
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