Maybe with the current funding priority shifts in the tech world, and some of the push back on the startup way of life, we could pause a little bit and just let everyone catch up with their API strategy, before moving on to the next big thing. I get emails, DMs, and the occasional phone call from journalists looking for wisdom on what is next for the API space, where my answer is always, "more of what we have been doing". Sadly, my quote(s) never see the light of day--I am ok with that.
Before companies look at doing bots, internet of Things, or begin playing with any of the new shiny objects on the landscape, we should just focus on doing APIs, doing them well, and realizing the fundamental benefits they bring to the table before getting distracted (yet again). I'm guessing that all of the resource available on your websites, and in your web applications, aren't all exposed as simple APIs in a coherent way. I'm guessing there are numerous sub-projects within your API ecosystem that you could be working on to improve integrations and performance. I'm sure there are numerous things you could be doing to support, and engage your developers better.
One of the downsides of the whole tech rat race, is we are always looking to stand out by doing the next cool thing. Truly getting to know the digital resources we are exposing, rolling up our sleeves to define them better using hypermedia (invest in hypermedia!), and reaching out to our consumers isn't always the cool thing to be doing that will get us written up in Techcrunch, but they are the things that will matter in the future. Maybe we could learn from the crazy pace of the last decade and take a break in 2017, and just work on getting our house in order before we focus on anything new?
