Just circling back 😉

Welcome back to Spark, a weekly newsletter from Vivace Content. We compile news signals from across the business, financial, and cultural landscape, and spark ideas to help you and your business jump on something new to talk about. Send tips and feedback to [email protected].

🎉 Happy New Year! We hope you had a restful and joyous holiday period and didn’t miss us too much in your inboxes.

Are you one for resolutions? Ours for this newsletter is to keep writing it as long as you continue to find value in it. To make it not just a tipsheet for the week ahead, but also to feature the most fascinating people and ideas in this crazy little intersection of news, business content, and great company communications and content marketing.

Best wishes to you for a fun and productive (short!) week ahead.

In today’s issue: More 2024 predictions, the Vivace Index, email bankruptcy, and one good AI deep dive.

🔮 Get ready for 2024

As we began discussing before the holiday break, the season of predictions continues apace! Our goal for this week is to get you ready for the year ahead by rounding up some of the best prediction packages we’ve seen.

• What’s in a word? Isolationism, elections, peace, fracture. Politico columnists sum up the year ahead with a single word. Buckle up. (Politico)

• Outlooks, aggregated: When chatting about this newsletter over cappuccinos in Canary Wharf a few weeks ago, a former colleague suggested we aggregate all of the big Wall Street firms’ market outlooks for 2024. It was a brilliant idea, and luckily for us, Bloomberg beat us to the punch. It’s a great piece, and you can sort by institutions, investment themes, and search terms. (Bloomberg)

• Breaking your views: Microsoft wins in mobile? Disney teams up with Apple? Mega multi-hyphenate Kim Kardashian kicked off Instagram? Our old colleagues at Reuters Breakingviews have some of the punchiest, best predictions in the business and have been rolling them out in the past couple of weeks. You can read them all at your leisure in this handy PDF. (Reuters Breakingviews)

• FT’s predictions, summarized: You should read the whole thing, but in case you’re short on time today, we’ll pick a few predictions from the FT for you (below). (Financial Times)

An AI deep dive, in 84 slides

If last year taught knowledge workers anything, it’s that we will all need to have a deeper understanding of artificial intelligence and how it will impact each of our respective fields.

Every year, writer, analyst, and former VC Benedict Evans produces a big presentation exploring macro and strategic trends in the tech industry that impact the world around us. Can you guess what this year’s is about? Lots of great nuggets here in an easily digestible format. (Benedict Evans annual presentation)

Vivace Index 👆

Introducing a new feature — a snapshot of the world by the numbers.

• $148 billion: How much in holiday gifts Americans are expected to return. (New York Times)

• 525,409: Number of battery electric vehicles Chinese automaker BYD sold in Q4 2023, overtaking Tesla as the world’s biggest electric car company. (CNN)

• 183: Ongoing conflicts around the world, the highest number in more than three decades (FT)

• 50%: Broadly speaking, 50% of Brits are feeling happy, 40% are feeling sad. (YouGov)

• +50%: Over half of new relationships in the U.S. now begin online. (Benedict Evans / Stanford/Gfk)

• 336: Number of days one-time media+tech favorite BuzzFeed has to figure out how to get out from under its massive pile of debt. Its stock price sits at just 26 cents as of writing. (A Media Operator)

• $2.59 trillion: The record amount of unspent investor cash private equity firms are beginning the year with. (FT)

• $117 billion: Commercial mortgage debt in the U.S. that needs to be repaid or refinanced in 2024. (FT)

Off the charts

📆 Upcoming days and events

• January elections: Bangladesh, Taiwan, and Finland. 76 democracies will hold elections in 2024. Check out this incredibly handy 2024 Global Election Quick Reference guide compiled by Marshall Manson.

• January 1: 25th anniversary of the launch of the Euro

• Jan 9-12: Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2024

• Jan 15-19: World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos - “Rebuilding Trust”

• January 25: 100th anniversary of the first Winter Olympics (FT)

Friends of Vivace: News and views

• Reuters journalist Lauren Young has always been a role model for all kinds of reasons. Today it’s for her bravery in starting the year by deleting her entire inbox.

• MarketPsych chair Richard Peterson always has the most fascinating insightas on LinkedIn. Check out this graphic on the most positive industries (by news and social sentiment) from 2023. In the top 3: Robotics, Renewables, and Tourism.

• Great recap on 2023 from PwC CMO Antonia Wade celebrating her team, plus the publishing of her book, Transforming the B2B Buyer Journey. Congrats on a great year!

Send us your shout-outs, strong opinions, and headlines to include in next week’s edition.

Thanks for joining us this week. Anything we missed? Something we should include next week? Please send all ideas and feedback to [email protected]. 

Spark is a production of Vivace Content, where we help our clients navigate what to say and how to say it every single day. Get in touch if you’d like a no-hassle consultation about how we can help you. Have a great week ahead, and see you next Monday.