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High Power Distance societies tolerate a high level of authority in their leaders, and their orders are often unquestioned. Symbols of this power are important. On the other hand, Low Power Distance societies have bosses that are much closer to their employees in power levels, and instructions can be debated or challenged.

Slow Messaging cultures are more easygoing about the speed at which messages and information travel. Fast Messaging cultures demand that information travels quickly and efficiently.

I propose we use cultural variables to show the appropriate content for specific groups of users in the same way that we use media queries to show content according to viewports or breakpoints.

How do we make our fellow humans comfortable with our interfaces and site? Start using cultural queries in our designs.

Neuroscientists explain that synapses occur inside the brain when we’ve made a connection between various different things. The more random the components connected, the more synapses occur. Synapses are the basis of creativity. In other words, synapses firing equals creative joy. As kids, that happens all the time because everything is new. Everything is unlike. And we aren’t constrained by the rules about what “goes together.” Why else was putting the Barbie in the toy car wash more fun than putting the car in the car wash? The visual web frees us to return to this childlike state, where we can adventure through a whole array of different, seemingly unrelated images and clips--be they old, new, from a world away or own backyard--sparking our all-important synapses and helping us come up with new combinations and ideas so easily.

The only thing better than going on this journey of discovery is sharing it with others. This “gift” of sharing contributes to an energy exchange that amplifies our own pleasure--and is something we’re hardwired to do.

start thinking like a creator, less like an advertiser. While posting the glossy photos from the photo shoot or :30 spots online may be part of your approach, it shouldn’t be your entire approach. Think content, not commercials.

Help us rediscover the beauty of a forgotten familiar. Find something familiar--in your product, brand, or from people’s lives--and help us see it in a fascinating new light. It could be as simple as taking a kitchen appliance and turning it into a science experiment or reminding people to capture just one second of their daily lives and compile a beautiful montage.

Search for your brand online. Chances are your fans are already mixing and mashing your brand with something seemingly unrelated. Build on it, fuel it, steer it, and help us make more with it.

Ditch the pitch. Instead, start an energy exchange. Create content that reminds us of our own capacity for excitement, happiness, and vivacity so we want to share in it with others.

Bluegg studio manager Rob Mills reckons 2013 will see a “further step in the direction of storytelling and personality on the web, achieved through a greater focus on content and an increase in the use of illustration”.

Apps remain big business, but some publishers continue to edge to HTML5. Redweb head of innovation David Burton reckons a larger backlash is brewing: “The gold rush is over, and there’s unrest in that apps aren’t all they promised to be. We now live in a just-in-time culture, where Google can answer anything at the drop of a hat, and we no longer need to know the answers. The app model works the old way. Do we need apps for every brand we interact with? Will we even have iPhones in five years’ time? Who knows? But one thing is certain – the internet will remain, and the clever money is on making web apps that work across all platforms, present and future.”

Designer/developer Dan Eden says that with “more companies focussing web efforts on mobile,” designers will feel the pressure to brush up on the subject, to the point that in 2013, “designing for desktop might be considered legacy support”. Rowley agrees projects will increasingly “focus on mobile-first regarding design, form, usability and functionality”, and Chris Lake, Econsultancy director of product development, explains this will impact on interaction, with web designers exploring natural user interface design (fingers, not cursors) and utilising gestures.

We’re increasingly comfortable using products that aren’t finished. It’s become acceptable to launch a work-in-progress, which is faster to market and simpler to build – and then improve it, add features, and keep people’s attention. It’s a model that works well, especially during recession. As we head into 2013, this beta model of releasing and publicly tweaking could become increasingly prevalent.“

“The detail matters, and can be the difference between a good experience and a great experience.” Garrett adds we’ll also see a “trend towards not looking CMS-like”, through clients demanding a site run a specific CMS but that it not look like other sites using the system.

“SWD is a methodology for designing websites capable of being displayed on screens with both low and high pixel densities. Like RWD, it’s a collection of ideas, techniques, and web standards.”

They throw into relief the larger questions of privacy policy we’re currently wrestling with as a culture: Too much disclosure of the social graph can lead to friends feeling that you’re tattling on them to a corporation. The interest graph can turn your passions into a marketing campaign. The behavior graph can allow people who wish you harm to know where you are and what you’re doing. And revealing the personal graph can make it feel like an outside entity is quite literally reading your mind.

companies are actively constructing these graphs already. These products and services are in the market today, but most in existence target only one or two of these graphs. Few are pursuing all four, both given the immaturity of the space and a lack of clear targets to shoot for. This has the unintentional effect of highlighting the risks of using such services, without demonstrating their benefits. For the potential of contextual computing to be realized, these data sets must be integrated.

In an ideal contextual computing state, this graph would be complete--so gentle nudges by software and services can bring together two people who are strangers but who could get along brilliantly and are in the same place at the same time. It could be two people who share a friend and who simultaneously move to Omaha, where neither person knows a soul.

It’s easy for data to depict what you actually do instead of what you claim to do. Sensors do the job. So do, if less elegantly, self-reporting mechanisms. This data can sit in pivotal contrast to the interest graph, allowing computers to know, perhaps better than you, how likely you are to go for a jog. It would be useful, too, for a travel site that notes how you tell friends you’d like to visit China but records that you only vacation in Europe. Rather than uselessly recommending vacation deals to Beijing, a smart travel app would instead feed you deals to Paris or Berlin. The behavior graph provides the foundation, to some extent, of Google Search, Netflix recommendations, Amazon recommendations, iTunes Genius, Nike+ run tracking, FourSquare, FitBit, and the entire "quantified self" movement. When mashed against the other three graphs, there’s a potential for real insight.

Within a decade, contextual computing will be the dominant paradigm in technology.

Context isn't an optional approach for brands; it is one increasingly mandated by a connected smart consumer.

brands can no longer rely on buying attention. Just in case anyone didn’t realize it, most television technology these days is being developed in an effort to avoid the advertising industry.

As Dove’s transformative content shows, brands don’t have to invent social challenges to solve. With attention to authenticity and curation of relevance, a thoughtful brand can make an impact beyond the bottom line.

Agile content development is best executed by a partner that has strategy, production, and analytics under one roof, combining what agencies traditionally do best with what production companies traditionally do best.

When strategy, creative, and production teams can sit side by side and collaborate fluidly, agile content is the by-product.

A perfect example of this is Red Bull, which has even gone a step further to combine brand, agency, and production company into one. No one would argue that they are not one of the most successful agile content marketers on the planet.

The most important part of setting your brand’s agile content strategy is having a clear idea of why your brand is creating content to begin with.

Next, your responsibility is to make sure that the content you’re creating is meeting your brand’s overall objectives. Your selected content partner should be responsible for making sure the content you create is something that your target consumer actually wants to see.

Once your brand’s content strategy is set, it should be seen as a living framework that should evolve over time. Recognize that your brand and content both live in a dynamic world that changes constantly.