Another one in the series of trends for 2009…

Trend # 7: Serious Media

In times of serious economic upheaval individuals have two options. The first option is to bury ones head in the sand and go somewhere else (everything from escapist movies to virtual worlds). The second route to find out what’s going on. Serious newspapers and magazines such as The Financial Times and The Economist are seeing increases in circulation and they are being joined by a plethora of steadfastly old fashioned ink-on-dead-tree titles such as Prospect, The Weekly Standard, Harper’s, The Atlantic and The Monthly.This trend is primarily evident within newspapers and magazines but the same affect can be seen with non-fiction books.

Implications

There is undoubtedly a large market for information and entertainment that is dumbed down and served in small bite-sized chunks. However, there is also a large market for the analysis of complex issues and ideas. Outside of media expect things to become more serious in other areas too. Fashion will become smarter and more formal (at least at work) and also watch for the disappearance of dress-down Fridays (replaced by no-email Mondays and no Blackberry Bank Holidays).

One outake here is that people rarely live exclusively in one world. People commute between high culture and flippancy and will happily read Nuts or Maxim magazine one minute and the New York Times another. Do not fall into the trap of categorizing people with simplistic labels based on age, sex, race, income, profession or geographic location.

Examples of the shift to seriousness include the rise of documentaries, the popularity of Intelligence Squared Debates (now London/New York /Sydney) and TED Conferences on YouTube.

Here’s number eight in my list of new trends for 2009.

Trend # 8: The Brain

With neuro-enhancement around the corner the brain is becoming sexy and is set to become the media’s favourite organ in 2009. This is links to developments in neuroscience, most notably MRI and fMRI technology. It also links with the fact that digital interfaces are starting to penetrate human flesh and brain implants are being developed to treat serious diseases such as epilepsy. The starting point for this trend will be developments in technology, especially within medicine, but the impactions go far beyond treating disease.

Implications

Expect to see a rush of books on the inner working of the human brain and how this relates to everything from our appreciation of music to work and human relationships. On the less serious side there will be a rash of products and services aimed at helping people to exercise their brain and also a bunch of pseudo science surrounding the use of brain scans to understand customer behaviour and to refine commercial messages. There will also be a continuing interest in brain-enhancing foods, brain-enhancing drugs and brain-enhancing games, especially for the over-55s.

In terms of threats, brain scans could replace lie detectors in an effort to see what we’re really thinking. The implications of this are extremely significant and ultimately boils down to who owns what’s inside your own head.

Here is trend #9 from my list of top consumer and business trends for 2009. It is perhaps worth mentioning that several people were writing about eco-cynics last year (and my own list of top trends for 2008 included eco-exhaustion). However, I think we were all a year too early and it will be 2009 that eco-cynicism really starts to bite.

Trend # 9: Eco-Cynics

People are becoming increasingly fed up with being told how to behave, especially from hypocritical and holier than thou politicians and celebrities that are driving a Toyota Prius one minute and stepping onto a private jet, wearing a fur coat, the next. There is even a UK-based arms manufacturer that is using lead-free bullets because they are kinder to the environment for heavens sake.

None of this is to say that acting on behalf of the environment is a bad thing. Far from it. It’s just that in many instances this new found environmental friendliness is nothing more than marketing hype and public relations spin — something green that’s cynically added to products and people to make them appear whiter than white.

I know of one US firm that uses the term ‘green plays’ for example. This could be an innocent phrase but I doubt it. A green play is more than likely one of many ‘plays’ that the company is trying out in the minds of mindless customers. Or how about the theme park in Australia with an Environment Shop. What’s inside this shop you ask? The answer is cute toy animals, largely made in China, largely from plastic and largely landfill within 12-months. In short, simplistic, tokenistic and opportunistic ‘solutions’ are driving ever increasing levels of eco-cynicism.

Implications

People are slowly waking up to the fact that climate change is a very complex issue and that nobody (including the experts) ultimately knows what will happen in the future. A degree of caution is obviously prudent but so too would policies that avoid faddish and shallow responses to the ‘facts’. Shonky carbon labelling and carbon offsetting schemes should therefore be thrown out in favour of better thought through alternatives. For example, investment in low-cost energy efficiency programmes (ways to use less energy) would almost certainly do more good than most of the expensive schemes currently under development.

I’m going to post my top ten trends for 2009 every day for the next 10 days (at least that’s the theory). Here’s the first one…

Trend # 10: Fear of the unknown

The point of this trend is merely to push home the point that the future is ultimately unknowable. Yes you can see general patterns and make well-educated speculations about next week and next year based on partly on past events and human behavior. But if history teaches us anything it is surely that totally unexpected ideas, inventions and events (the so-called ‘Black Swans’ in 2008 speak) have a habit of ruining logical and well laid-out plans. Uncertainty also links with ideas surrounding anxiety and complexity and it is interesting to note that during previous periods of rapid change and upheaval, superstition and dogmatic religious beliefs both flourished.

Implications

Anything can happen and impossible is nothing. Having said this there are clearly things we know. There are also things we know we don’t know and there are things we don’t know that we don’t know. Trend #10 is about the second group of unknowns (highly improbable but highly impactful events that tend not to follow trend lines or logic – those Black Swans again).

This trend (OK, it’s really more of an idea or observation) is about how when something big and unexpected happens (e.g. a financial crisis) we overreact after the event. We assume that the same thing will happen again and make plans to stop it happening again. For example, if terrorists take over two planes and fly them into buildings we assume that they will do it again, in almost exactly the same way and possibly even on the same date. The big link here is with our aversion to risk and the (largely false) idea that we can totally control risk or live in a 100% risk free environment.

Here, at last, is my 2009 trend blend map. Here’s how it works. The main body of the map contains the mega-trends. These are, in no particular order:

Global connectivity
Anxiety
Volatility
Uncertainty
Debt
Power shift Eastwards
Ageing
GRIN technologies
Digitalisation
Climate change
Sustainability

There are then eight arms, which represent the following sectors or areas:

Society
Technology
Economy
Environment
Politics
Business
Family
Media

The circles (or disc-like suckers in giant octopus speak) on each arm are the sector trends and the size of he circle is related to the likely impact of the trend over the next twelve months or so. Finally, there is a selection of global risks, some of which are deadly serious and some of which are not. Then again, everything is subjective. Some people might regard EMF radiation as a more serious global risk than Nicole Kidman winning another Oscar but I’m not so sure. Enjoy! ☺

PS – The map will appear at nowandnext.com under ‘trend maps’ shortly and will also have a hyperlink attached to it within 24-hrs.

It’s almost time. This won’t be the final list but it will be close. My report 2009+ Ten Trends is almost done and I have another of the now infamous Trend Blend trend maps almost ready to go too.
Ten Trends for 2009

1. Anxiety
2. Anger
3. Seriousness
4. De-leveraging
5. Back to basics
6. Un-plugging
7. We Not Me
8. IMBY’s
9. Eco-cynics
10. The brain

I should probably be promoting my own 2009 Trends report but I haven’t written it yet. Actually that’s not quite true. I’ve written it four times but things keep changing. In the meantime I thoroughly recommend The World in 2009 published by the Economist and, especially, the accompanying blog at economist.com/blogs/theworldin2009/

Here’s an excerpt, which I wish I had written myself:

“As I roamed the building site under the tower, what I noticed most was the smell. It was abiotic with cement and sand, sure, and shimmering, as if the heat had a stink of its own (which it did—it was the smell of buildings and roads baking in the sun, and oil flares, and bulldozer exhaust fumes), but then it occurred to me: it’s not the building site you’re smelling, it’s the absence of living things, the subtraction of what you took for granted before you arrived. Finally I understood: it was the smell of the future, of a tomorrow as it will be lived in many places when my children are grown up.”

Here are 100 words to describe 2009.

Anxiety
Austerity
Authenticity
Badoo
Basic
Blue
Busy
Change
Classic
Cloud
Community
Compliance
Connectivity
Control
Conviction
Core
Crisis
Debt
Deflation
Demur
Earthy
Eco
Enough
Ergomorphic
Eviction
Experience
Family
Factual
Fear
Free
Frugal
Gardening
Grateful
Green
Haptics
Home
Honest
Hopeful
Indebted
Inflation
Infrastructure
Intimacy
Juncture
Keepsake
Local
Meta
Natural
Overwhelmed
Pamphlet
Patina
Payoff
Polarisation
Privacy
Protectionism
Prudery
Purpose
Quality
Reassurance
Recession
Recovery
Redundancy
Regulation
Resentment
Resignation
Renovation
Restraint
Risk
Saving
Security
Serious
Shaken
Shortage
Shredding
Simplicity
Slow
Smart
Sparkle
Spike
Stress
Stagflation
Struggling
Surviving
Technophobic
Telepresence
Thrift
Tired
Traditional
Trustworthy
Uncertain
Unfashioning
Unplugged
Unwind
Unwired
Virtual
Volatile
Water
White
Xenophobic
Yearning
Zeitgeist