January 10, 2023 • 2023 Predictions

The Riveter Predicts: What’s Next In 2023 (Part II)

Riveter experts have a few (more) ideas.

Remember Cassandra? In Greek mythology, she was a priestess cursed to be able to see the future but never to be believed. (Sound familiar, ladies?) If you know anything about Greek mythology, you know that this is a bit of a downer way to start an article celebrating predictions from tons of smart women! Er, sorry about that. I just wanted to point out that these are all amazing predictions from top experts across industries and disciplines. We had so many great predictions last week that we invited even more smart friends to share some thoughts on where they see us headed in 2023 – the good, the weird, and the even weirder.

MEDIA

Hitha Palepu, founder of #5SmartReads and author of We’re Speaking: The Life Lessons of Kamala Harris

“I think we’re seeing the end of reducing people to caricatures and tropes in reporting, thanks to the rise of TikTok and short-form video that quickly debunks lazy reporting or old school narratives. And I, for one, can’t wait to see more nuance and full context presented – and to prioritize my news diet on publications that embrace this. These are the stories I want to share more of on #5SmartReads.”

Aliza Licht, Founder of LEAVE YOUR MARK, and author of ON BRAND

“My 2023 prediction is in the rise of the independent thinker. I believe we are at a point where people are tired of being part of the homogenous thought pool. This year will birth the resurgence of bold opinion pieces that span the spectrum of all industries and points of view.”

WORK

Melanie Hopkins, Founder, Finance Friend

“My prediction for 2023 is that in light of the difficult labor market, small and medium sized businesses will increase their outsourced labor. This will be great for small marketing, accounting, and design firms. So if you’ve been waiting to put out your shingle, this might be the time if you’re in  any of these high-demand fields.”

Candice Cook Simmons, Esq., Chief Strategy Officer for RadicalMedia

“I predict that professionally across industries this will be a year where we lean on the resiliency muscles that we were forced to dig into over the past three years.  There are so many who have held fast to the idea of holding tight until we return to “normal” and those holdouts will accept (albeit begrudgingly) that this is the new normal…and they will be okay.  People held tight for so long to get to “the other side” and now it turns out that the other side may be a recession and who knows what else.  But even if that holds true…what we have now (in every industry and field) that we didn’t have before are the true tools to survive and an appetite to thrive—no matter what. We survived (maybe battered and bruised), but we are here.  I don’t anticipate—despite the tectonic shifts that may be ahead–that we will find the crumbling and the inability to persevere that we may have found before. Now we are in a societal shift of an acceptance that life is hard, but joy is ours to be had despite the hardships. We are working towards the joy come what may.  It’s a shift that will affect us in the best of ways across industries and geography.  People may be tired, but they will not quit and they will lean into community.  When we as a society lost so much—we found each other and ourselves.  We all now know and will be reminded that we have come too far to only go this far.  We can do the hard things, but we must keep pushing.  Rest.  Rinse and repeat. 2023 may call upon the muscles that we hoped to have to not use, but we will use them and we will do it together….and in the long run we will be better for it—we are playing the long game.”

Christina Wallace, Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer and author of The Portfolio Life

“With flexible work here to stay, look to Wednesday to be the new target for happy hours, with the highest rate of professionals in offices (and wanting to show off the effort they put into their blow dry, makeup, and actual work clothes). Which means Wednesday may be your best bet for leisure travelers hunting for increasingly rare airfare deals.

Even as power shifts back to employers with the tighter labor market and increased cost cutting, employees are going to continue to enforce boundaries, use vacation days, ask for raises to accompany those title bumps and extra responsibilities, and decline unpaid overtime. As Roxanne Gay put it in a recent NYT column, ‘The expectation that we should go above and beyond for employers who feel no reciprocal responsibility is a grand, incredibly destructive lie.'”

Illana Raia, Founder, Être / Author, The Epic Mentor Guide 

“I see 2023 as a year of mentorship. A year of sharing candid career advice among peers and between generations. Specifically, of women passing workplace wisdom on to rising girls. As the next generation begins to eye early internships and first jobs, they are looking to role models to level with them – women leading in their fields who remember what it feels like to parse that first resume, broach that first interview, or practice that first salary negotiation in the mirror. The Epic Mentor Guide, a book that launched last year during Women’s History Month on the Today Show, participated in that conversation by matching global girls’ questions about the work world with answers from epic women already there. I see 2023 as a year of continued mentor moments, where women generously share their game-changing advice with tomorrow’s workforce.”

Sarah Aviram – TEDx Speaker, Author of Remotivation: The Remote Worker’s Ultimate Guide to Life-Changing Fulfillment

“My prediction is that job seekers that want location flexibility in their new job, get smarter about what they ask their potential manager in the interview process. While it’s way more common for job candidates to expect flexible work options, there are no guarantees that their future manager knows how to effectively lead flexible or hybrid teams. With the rise of proximity bias and other challenges leading hybrid teams, it’s critical that job candidates get more clarity (before they accept a job offer) on if they’ll be set up for success.

In 2023, I see interviewees asking their potential new manager critical questions like: “How is performance managed and evaluated in your company?, “How is creativity encouraged and recognized in your organization?”, “What defines the culture of your organization?”, and “What do you do to address and minimize potential proximity bias?”

Meredith Parfet, Founder and Managing Principal, the Ravenyard Group

“Through my work in crisis management, I see a constant interplay between the parts of people’s lives deemed personal versus those deemed professional. I’ve come to understand that these distinctions are arbitrary. There is no such thing as “work/life balance.” You only live one life and it unfolds no matter the setting. While we’ve gotten used to seeing people’s pets, children, and curated Zoom backgrounds, in 2023, I expect we will witness the separation between work and life continue to erode. It goes beyond the popularity of work from home and hybrid solutions, to ways that employers can restructure management and business models to fundamentally alter and improve the nature of work.  Humans are wired for meaning, even if we deny that need professionally.  Therefore, we must continue to ask how work, all people’s work not just that of a lucky few, can offer purpose beyond paychecks and profits.  

In my experience, crisis in the workplace most often occurs because of human error, often when people are checked out and disenfranchised. A move towards improving work will fix some of these before they start.” 

CHILDCARE

Sara Mauskopf, CEO and Co-Founder, Winnie

“Based on search data on Winnie from millions of parents looking for childcare, we see that parents are searching for more part-time and flexible childcare options recently. I predict that this trend will continue through 2023 with fewer parents wanting full-time, traditional 9am-5pm childcare and more parents wanting flexibility and part-time options. This is typically the demand trend we see during a recession because full-time care is more expensive, and I believe remote and flexible work options for parents will only accelerate this trend.

On the childcare provider front, I predict the hiring crisis will ease up in 2023. While attracting and retaining talent will continue to be important and challenging for childcare businesses, we have data to show childcare jobs are getting more competitive, though we still have a long way to go to improve the pay and benefits for childcare positions nationwide. We also see that more people are working than ever before in the United States, helping the labor supply in general.

Overall childcare is an extremely recession-proof market so we don’t expect massive change this year. At Winnie, we will be doubling down on our mission to make childcare more accessible and affordable for families, which only becomes more critical in a recession.”

Amy Kugler, Founder of Ad Astra Media and Co-Founder BEAM

“2023 is the year of storytelling that pushes new public policies. We know the power of one person’s story – how bravely sharing our lived experience helps others feel seen and heard. That power grows exponentially when we combine our stories and channel them in ways that we can’t be ignored. 

The biggest flex? I think moms and caregivers are going to lead this charge in huge ways in the coming months. Never underestimate the influence of more than 85 million women and non-binary individuals who want to see change.”

ONLINE

Bridget Todd, host of iHeartRadio’s tech podcast There Are No Girls on the Internet 

“We’ve all heard of social media platforms being likened to a “town square,” but I think in 2023, more folks will be looking for digital intimacy.

As platforms roll out murky policy changes or get bought up by less-than-savory billionaires, I think we’ll see folks looking for intentionally smaller digital circles, rather than defaulting to bigger is better. I think people will crave the intimacy of curated social audiences that newsletters, Discord servers, and private groups provide. I think social media will become a lot less focused on how many people you’re able to reach (have you noticed a lot of younger folks are turning off the number of ‘likes’ on their Instagram posts?) and instead will be focused on if you’re able to foster a meaningful digital connection.”

Paddy Johnson, Founder, VVrkshop

I predict this will be the year of the comeback platform. Blogs, Tumblr, email, youtube, Pinterest—they’re back. And they’re back because traditional social media platforms are failing us. I also predict a return for long-form content. There’s too much content out there, and frankly, it’s exhausting for content makers and consumers. Long-form is the obvious solution to this problem, and we already see that playing out on the platforms; longer Twitter, longer TikTok—longer substacks!”

Natalie Nixon, PhD, CEO at Figure 8 Thinking and Author of The Creativity Leap

“Escapism, Expansion and Expression: the yin to the yang of pandemic cocooning. This will show up in the form of the use of AI extending beyond artificial intelligence to artificial imagination. Chat GPT and MidJourney are just the beginning. Now- …whether or not these tech interventions will be used as catalysts or masks for creativity is another thing: a knife can be used to spread butter, or to harm someone. I’m hoping our more deliberate angelic selves will prevail.

This is linked to my prediction that we will need to get better at invisible work– pour most productive selves aren’t when we are writing emails, on Zoom or at the whiteboard- they are doing the deeper synthesis of work while daydreaming, going for a walk, engaging in a meaningful conversation, mentoring, or reading fiction. 

Counter-intuitively, we will be pulled toward getting better at slowing down, losing gracefully, following willingly and quitting with noble intention.”

BUSINESS

Brooke Hammerling, Founder, The New New Thing & author, Pop Culture Mondays

“I think B2B and enterprise is going to be the sexy businesses to be in. Crypto and web3 have taken massive hits. Consumer businesses are as well. The real growth and sex appeal will be in B2B where there is real money and real growth and real necessity. 

I think financial literacy will take even more of a front seat as Gen Z finds ways to learn and educate about things from Investing to saving money to how to navigate taxes and expenses.”

CULTURE

Lynn Harris and team, GOLD Comedy

“Multi-cam sitcoms may make a comeback, along with the weekly release (versus binge model) for TV. Also men will stop being funny (finally).”

Paddy Johnson, Founder, VVrkshop

“For the visual arts, 2023 will see more A.I. renderings and text generation in the galleries than any other year—but not without anxiety about what this means for art. Many artists express mixed feelings about the technology inside the artist membership I run, Netvvrk. On the one hand, they are curious and excited about the ability to experiment with A.I.s. On the other, they worry that technology aggregating artist labor is stealing from artists. Wherever you stand on the matter, though, the fact is, we’re going to see a lot more A.I. within the culture. So, we’ll see more of it in art too.”

TRAVEL

Regan Stephens, Co-founder, Saltete

“In 2023, travelers will seek out faster and easier ways to plan their trips. Increased remote work flexibility and pent-up demand for travel have highlighted glaring problems with trip planning for many travelers. The old methods — spending countless hours toggling between Google tabs to research the best hotels, restaurants, and things to do, or hiring a travel agent — are clunky and outdated. 
New tools are emerging to fill this hole in the industry, including expert niche travel guides and A.I.-backed products to help plan your next trip. Saltete, our new publishing platform that empowers travel writers to create and sell niche guides, can eliminate nearly all research time while providing on-the-ground advice and navigation. Meanwhile, companies like VIP Traveler, which uses proprietary personalization technology to help travelers discover and book vacations, is one of a handful of new services and products leveraging A.I. to tap into a roughly $645 billion (and growing) leisure travel industry.”

Elizabeth Blount McCormick, President & Owner, Uniglobe Travel Design

“Travelers aren’t going to wait to take those big international trip this year – they are already booking them. They’re not waiting for “bucket list” trips – they’re just booking. In other words, people aren’t waiting for a special occasion or a specific time. I am seeing this first-hand – we’ve received probably 50 or 60 requests for leisure travel since the beginning of the year. They’re reaching out to us saying, “I want to go to the Philippines,” or “I’m booking this amazing trip to Italy and Greece, and I need help.” And people are booking it with their families. In the past travelers who may have waited for a certain time, or a special occasion are now are saying, I need to take advantage of this time and I need to book it now. I think that Covid has really just encouraged people to realize that there is only so much you can plan for. And they’re making the time now.”

ENERGY

Laura Miranda-Browne, President & CEO, Bia Fund

“As natural gas prices continue to rise, interest in alternative energy solutions will increase for the “everyday” American, this will not stay a lefty-niche thing to care about.  Think of this way, if your bill goes from $0.15/kwh to $0.25/kwh, people will see their gas bill increase by a considerable amount.

Together with that, I think you will see an uptick in the cost of installing certain systems (think solar panels) due to supply and demand, but that ultimately, the prices for these systems will level out as production increases, and then the savings to the customer will increase.   

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) includes incredible incentives, not just for industry, but for individuals as well. Imbedded in the IRA are provisions to drive the production of green energy technologies here in the United States. So, again, costs will be momentarily high, but they will come down as more businesses grow to meet domestic demand.

My advice is to start small. Check out heat pumps!”

FASHION & BEAUTY

Julie Sygiel, Founder, The Pockets Project

“2023 will be the year of pockets. Women have been voicing the need for pocket equality for years and the sewing needle is finally moving (pun intended). From independent brands like Christy Dawn and M.M.LaFleur, to more established retailers Banana Republic and ModCloth (owned by WalMart), many brands are offering collections that have pockets. Bridal designers are incorporating pockets into wedding dresses as brides want to have their cell phone and lipstick close at hand on their big day. The Pockets Project, which I launched in 2021, is poised to expand in 2023 with new collections to respond to the demand for additional styles. We’ve started a movement, proving that pockets are essential for carrying everything from snacks to a bottle of wine.”

Christina Wallace, Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer and author of The Portfolio Life

“While Gen Z barrels full-speed-ahead toward Y2K nostalgia with the going-out top and low-rise flared jeans, elder Millennials and Gen Xers are thanking the rise of thrifting at scale to have fashion options that don’t make us relive our college days (and also, you know, save the environment one repurposed investment piece at a time). Look for TheRealReal and others to see record sales.”

Brooke Hammerling, Founder, The New New Thing & author, Pop Culture Mondays

“The good news is I predict women are looking for a more natural look – gone are overly filled lips and long long nails and BBLs. Not that plastic surgeons and media spas won’t be busy, just looking a bit different. Breast reductions, buccal fat removal, laser treatments vs fillers. Things like Morpheus and EmSculpt are taking off. 

The bad news is skinny is back – like 90s skinny no matter what the cost. I think there will be a backlash to this though.”

HEALTH

Stacy London, Style Expert, Author, Entrepreneur & Menopause Advocate

“Mid-Life not just Menopause.

What retirement looks like in the future for women who are breadwinners: more focus on intentional communities – not your grandma’s retirement home in West Palm Beach.

We are going to have to talk more about death. As we age, death becomes ever more present. Mortality feels more real. Death is inevitable. With the new use of psychedelics in order to ease this transition – we are gonna have to get comfy(er) with it.”

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, author, Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession

“I predict a boom in “destination fitness” — that is, people deliberately going out to exercise — and at every price point. Covid scrambled our fitness routines and made it clear how important a deliberate commitment to exercise is, for everything from mitigating comorbidities to boosting mental health and creating community. Remote/at-home exercise is by no means going away, but now that people are getting back out in the world, I foresee many being more deliberate in thinking about how and where they work out, and embracing opportunities to do so in spaces that aren’t one’s living room! This could mean joining a nearby Planet Fitness and having a standing workout date with your friend or teenager (they accept members at age 14), booking a dance class in a new neighborhood, building a day trip around tackling a hiking trail, or on the spendier side, planning a vacation around a half-marathon, Spartan race, or yoga retreat in a distant locale. Emerging from nearly three years in which so many health-related issues have felt out of our control, I think that this marks a positive turn in people claiming agency over their bodies and their lives, and in reconnecting to the joys of exercise, especially when it enables us to engage with the world!”

Dina Kaplan, Founder, The Path

“I think 2023 is the year losing your temper and losing your cool, especially at work, will go from looking cool (a la the traditional Entourage-esque  Hollywood agent or traditional chest-thumping CEO) – to reflecting badly, like you have lost control of your emotions and self control. At The Path, we are about to launch a brand new course to teach people to meditate on their own (i.e. without an app or guide) to help people gain awareness of the impact of their words & actions on others. And it will unhook people from meditation apps!”

Kara Cutruzzula, Writer, Do It Today

“My prediction? You will finally stop doing the things you don’t want to do. You will draw clear boundaries and adjust when needed. You will say “no” more often and you will be firm about it. You will forgive yourself for thinking you’re not where you are “supposed” to be right now. You will remember your potential, aim higher, rest when necessary, and repeat.”