Tag Archives: trends

Trends for 2017

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screen-shot-2016-12-14-at-16-24-58I’m taking to the BBC tomorrow about trends for 2017 and here are my top of my head thoughts. I may develop these on this blog, add to them, remove a few…although they all feature strongly on my new mega-trends map.

Continuance of volatility, confusion, ambiguity and uncertainty
Growth of dystopic sci-fi to counter or at least dilute the above
Growth of the internet of (everyday) things, especially smart sensors and controls
Growth of Augmented Reality and entry into business applications
Emergence of mixed reality (Augmented + virtual + real)
Continuation of cyber-attacks
Growth of nationalism/protectionism and to a degree isolationism
Digital services added to physical products (mirror worlds)
Voice interfaces and conversational computers (e.g. Amazon Echo)
Growth of emotionally aware machines (affective computing – close to the above)
Back-lash against Big Tech

Global Mega-trends Map

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Finally started the new mega-map of global trends & technologies after 2 or more years. I’ve got all the data as a word file, but it now needs to be added to the map and edited on the map and then all physically connected together. Got to love a job where you still get to use kids coloured felt-tip pens aged 50+

If you like mega-trends keep your eye on the blog as I’ll be adding quite a bit of material, including the long list of contenders.

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Don’t take it seriously or as final at this stage. Things will move around and be deleted. The lemon? Weighing the paper down in the wind (Bradley)! I was going to invert the image below, but I think it’s symbolic of a world turned upside down.

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Trends are not where the future is found

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Screen Shot 2016-02-03 at 12.42.39

I’ve had a bit of an epiphany. I was talking to someone last week about what the future of retail might look like…in 2020. That’s right, how the future will look in 48-months. Such a timescale automatically pulls anyone back into now and the projection of current trends and technologies forward. This is when reality destroys your thinking. I was polite and hopefully helpful but that’s me done. I’m no longer interested in the year after next or anything less than a decade away. As far as possible I am going to stop using trends as an excuse to talk about the future and think about the real future instead. From now in it’s timescales of 2030, 2040 and 2050 .