Non-Obvious 2019- How To Predict Trends and Win The Future

by Rohit Bhargava

  Most significantly, the quest to find new ways to declutter our minds and lives will become commonplace, leading us to constantly think differently about how we spend our time and money, the media we consume, and the experiences we choose.

  How to Use This Trend

  Let people opt for less–As your customers or audiences declutter their lives, they might choose to opt out of all communications or interactions with your brand—unless you give them an alternative. When it comes to email outreach, you can accomplish this by offering subscribers the option to receive less frequent emails rather than unsubscribing altogether. Consider other ways you might be able to remain connected with them while still respecting or even helping them to engage in their own.

  Offer a decluttered experience–The “Dining Without Noise” movement from Spain is a perfect example of this. How can you create an environment or experience that removes unnecessary distractions and caters to people’s increasing desire to declutter? Removing such distractions may end up being the ultimate way to position and distinguish yourself—and the reason people keep coming back to you.

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  Deliberate Downgrading

  What’s the Trend?

  As tech-enabled products become overbearing, consumers opt to “downgrade” to simpler, cheaper, or more functional versions instead.

  Kyle Wiens is a modern-day superman on a quest to save the world...one broken piece of technology at a time.

  In the past several years, he has singlehandedly become the voice of the “fixer movement,” and a crusader for any consumer’s right to fix the products they buy instead of being forced to throw them away. His weapons of choice are something called a pentalobe screwdriver and a journalist’s talent for telling stories to inspire indignation.

  The popular blog Boing Boing described him as “a culture hero of the 21st century,” and he is a frequent contributor to some of the most influential publications in the world including The Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, and WIRED.

  Why all this attention on a guy whose day job is running a cartoonishly-named company called iFixit? And what the heck is a Pentalobe screwdriver?

  The pentalobe screw is the “five-pointed do not enter sign” used on most Apple devices. Shaped a bit like a five-leaf clover, the proprietary screw is meant to prevent consumers from opening up Apple devices to fix or upgrade them. Thanks in part to this barrier, most older Apple devices end up in a landfill. According to Wiens, Apple is one of the biggest enemies of the fixer movement, making devices that are notoriously closed to tinkering by tech-savvy users or any sort of hacker upgrades. To fight back, iFixit was the first to develop its own pentalobe screwdriver and sell it on the Internet.

  The move is emblematic of Wiens’ personality. He lives to take on large brands and promote the idea that it is every consumer’s right to open up the things we own and fix or modify them as we choose. Though it seems like a logical mission, this “right to repair” movement has ballooned into a billion-dollar legal debate. At stake is the very nature of ownership itself, and whether or not we truly own the products we buy.

  Who Owns Your Tractor?

  The company propelled to the center of this debate, thanks to a lawsuit in late 2015, was farm equipment manufacturer John Deere. At issue was its fervent legal argument that farmers, in fact, did not own the tractors they had purchased (and sometimes paid close to half a million dollars for), but rather received “an implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the vehicle.”[52]

  Incensed by this particular bit of legalese, Wiens did what he does best, and took to the media. In an op-ed published in WIRED magazine, he called this high-tech farm equipment a “nightmare” for farmers.[53] In an interview on public radio, he pointed out that that the problem comes down to the law. “Laws that govern the computer and the tractor were written by entertainment lawyers out of L.A. back in the 90s, when they were trying to prevent DVD piracy...it’s just time to update some of these laws.”[54]

  Governments worldwide are tackling exactly this problem with several pieces of legislation, but the problem for many farmers is that they can’t afford to wait for the outcome. Most have found an understandable workaround they are returning the new tractors and instead seeking out older tractors with less technology.

  We call this Deliberate Downgrading, and this desire for older and less tech-enabled products (instead of their more recent replacements) is happening across many other industries, as well.

  Desirably Dumb Devices

  When it comes to technology, we generally assume that newer is better.

  Computers get faster, cameras add more megapixels, design gets sleeker, and old products aren’t built to last - even if we do try to open them up with pentalobe screwdrivers to fix or modify them.

  Despite the appeal of shiny new devices, there have been growing signs over the past several years that consumers overwhelmed by the frequent upgrade cycle of technology are actively seeking ways to press the pause button, or even rewind to simpler times populated by more basic devices.

  While global sales of smartphones increased by just 2 percent in 2017, sales of “dumb phones” (simple phones without apps or Internet access) rose by 5 percent.[55] In some cases, featureless phones were sought out by people looking to cure their tech addictions, or older people looking for an easier-to-use phone. In other cases, the growth has come from people frustrated by the side effects of smart phone such as the fact that you can barely make it through an entire day of phone usage without your battery dying.

  One product that solves this problem is the Punkt MP 01, made by a Swiss startup. Punkt is an “un-smartphone” with no web browsing, no touchscreen, and no camera. It focuses instead on features like a multi-day battery life, high-quality audio, and built-in noise cancellation.

  Punkt Phone

  The key factor driving the Deliberate Downgrading of phones is consumer frustration with things like lower battery life or overly-complicated functionality. In other sectors, this downgrading may be driven less by frustration and more as a matter of preference.

  Why People Still Love Print Books

  The death of print books is predicted every year with regularity.

  For years, e-book sales had been on the rise consistently every quarter, while sales of print books continued to decline–until they seemed to hit a wall in 2015. Since then, the book industry has been reporting a curious reversal, quantified by industry statistics year after year showing a decline in e-book sales. In the first three quarters of 2018 alone, e-book sales fell 3.9 percent, according to data from the Association of American Publishers, while hardcover book sales grew by 6.2 percent in the same time period.[56]

  Some blamed the unnecessarily steep e-book price of $9.99 to $14.99 favored by the largest (and greediest) “Big 5” publishers for the decline. Others suspected something more fundamental might be at play. After all, a decline in e-book sales doesn’t explain a corresponding rise in print book sales. Was it possible the industry had overestimated how much the younger generation loved to read books in digital format?

  That may be exactly the case, accordingly to a Nielsen Books and Consumers Survey, which reluctantly noted that “teens continue to express a preference for print that may seem to be at odds with their perceived digital know-how.”[57]

  Another study run by the University of Colorado on the evolution of the book industry found that college students, in many cases, actually preferred printed textbooks, because they felt that having the print book helped them concentrate better and avoid distraction. “Consumers have an emotional and visceral/sensory attachment to printed books,” researchers wrote, “potentially elevating them to a luxury item.”[58]

  Supporting this theory was the fact that the research showed the top three reasons consumers choose a printed book is because it is easier on the eyes, they prefer the look and feel of paper, and they want the ability to add the book to a personal library.

/>   E-books may offer a superior experience when it comes to the gratification of reading them instantly, but the data suggests that print books remain an indulgent (and perhaps even luxurious) deliberate downgrade. The choice of holding a printed book in your hands still feels and smells and inspires the same way it always has.

  The Return to Vinyl

  Another immersive experience going through its own Deliberate Downgrading movement is music... specifically, the return of music on vinyl.

  British music retailer HMV predicted that turntables would be the “must-have gift” of the past holiday season, and U.K. store John Lewis sold out of eight of the twenty models it stocked in the 2017 holiday season.[59]

  Independent music stores across the world are now scrambling to make sure they carry enough record players to support the growing demand. Meanwhile, vinyl sales are at a twenty-year high. While some audiophiles may disagree with my categorization of this choice as a “downgrade,” given their preference for the lovably imperfect sound of songs played on vinythe choice to leave behind all the “digital remastery” of modern music in favor of a more authentic listening experience is yet another example of the appeal of this trend.

  The Return Of Paper Voting

  In April of 2018, a University of Michigan computer science professor named Alex Halderman posted a video showing exactly how easy it was to hack an electronic voting machine. As a small audience watched, he infected the machine with malware that would guarantee a particular result no matter how the votes came in. The fear of hacking in the political process is a global concern, and one that has made headlines in the U.S. recently thanks to Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential elections.

  The solution to the problem is decidedly lo-fi–move back to paper ballots. As Halderman told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “voting is not as safe as it needs to be. The safest technology is to have voters vote on a piece of paper.” It is an opinion shared by many activists around the world and has been leading to a widespread return to paper voting because we live in a time where many people simply don’t trust the security of electronic voting anymore.

  Abbreviated Sports

  Another reason for the popularity of Deliberate Downgrading is time—and the growing desire to optimize how we spend it. This shift toward productivity and the gradual reduction of attention span has created a crisis moment in slow sports that take a long time to play...like golf.

  By even the most optimistic numbers, the decline of golf has been pronounced. Down from a high of 30.6 million golfers in 2003, fifteen years later, the National Golf Foundation reported that only an estimated 23.8 million people had played on a golf course, a reduction of almost 20 percent.[60] Even more worrying for the industry is that 63 percent of the playing population of golf is over 34 years old, and almost one-fifth of that group is over the age of 65.

  The price and time commitment (often up to six hours for a full 18 rounds) are often cited as the most common barrier but there is a movement within the industry to try to appeal to this younger demographic by addressing the time barrier with initiatives such as the industry’s “Time For Nine” campaign, focused on enticing younger golfers to come and play an abbreviated half-round of nine holes.

  This invitation to enjoy a downgraded and less time-intensive version of a sport also explains the increasingly popular Twenty20 version of the 500-year-old British sport of cricket, which features each team batting for only 20 overs as opposed to the usual 50 overs. The game can be completed in 2-3 hours versus 7-8 hours for a one-day match or a full five days for a test match.

  Each of these traditionally long-playing sports is adapting to the fragmented media landscape of today, and offering both younger and older people with shrinking attention spans new ways to downgrade their experiences into shorter and more palatable chunks of time for watching and participation.

  Rejecting GMOs

  One final example of Deliberate Downgrading applies yet another lens to the trend by considering how an awe-inspiring seed bank and a return to simpler and more natural foods may be an example of choosing to “downgrade” your eating habits to avoid processed or overly-modified foods.

  In Europe a few years ago, two thirds of all countries upheld a ban on all genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Despite the disagreements about their safety, the debate itself is leading many people in food-secure countries to select older, more natural, and presumably safer products. For example, there are “seed swaps” taking place among farmers and home gardeners to keep non-GMO crops alive.

  These are evidence of the increasing fear that “enhanced” foods may be causing health dangers we don’t quite understand. The natural reaction is people choosing to deliberately downgrade to food grown with more simple and human methods, without growth hormones and free from the genetic engineering.

  Building on that fear, there is even a vault situated on a tiny remote Norwegian island near the Artic Ocean which holds more than 100 million untainted seeds for nearly 1 million food-crops from around the world. Often dramatically called the “Doomsday Vault,” the Svalbard Global Seed Vault’s mission is to keep the world’s seeds save in the event of global catastrophe, so the survivors might replant the planet.

  Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Photo Credit: www.croptrust.org)

  While the vault and the scenario it was created for may seem far-fetched, the challenge of increasing our planet’s food supply to account for our growing human population is a fierce global debate.

  Why It Matters

  The fundamental shift described in this wide-ranging trend is the idea that we, as individuals and consumers, often choose “downgraded” products and experiences that were once described as sub-optimal. Over the past year, the value of these supposedly inferior products and experiences has become multi-faceted, and is causing a reevaluation of which features really matter.

  Technology can be too smart, sports can take too long, and crops can be too engineered. Driven by the underlying expectation of empowerment and choice, a greater number of consumers will choose to selectively opt out of innovation they don’t value, instead returning to the comfortable past, where food seemed safer, books were tactile, and things just worked.

  How to Use This Trend:

  Offer a “classic mode”–When Microsoft launches a new operating system, there is usually a way change your interface to use the “classic view” you were used to from the previous version. How could you offer a “classic mode, for your own products and services?

  Respond to the zeitgiest–The word zeitgeist refers to a prevailing thought that captures the culture of a particular time, and it is often used when talking about new cultural trends. Media seek it out, researchers report on and it offers valuable advice for leveraging this trend, as well. When record players started generating buzz, for example, it created a big opportunity for a certain type of store to begin carrying and selling them. Zeitgeist can be like that: an early predictor of what people will care about. Brands must learn to watch and respond to these early signals.

  This trend was originally named “Strategic Downgrading” and published in the 2016 Non-Obvious Trend Report. It is included in this new trend report with revised examples and new insights.

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  Enterprise Empathy

  What’s the Trend?

  Empathy becomes a driver of innovation and revenue, and a point of differentiation for products, services, hiring, and experiences.

  Over the past several years of researching this report, my team and I have been bullish on the power of empathy. Last year, I wrote extensively about it under the trend prediction of Virtual Empathy, which described how technology and art were coming together to help us feel empathy for those unlike ourselves. We saw this trend in everything from the many VR experiences designed to put us in someone else’s shoes (be a prisoner in solitary confinement!) to pioneering, immersive in-person experiences the evoke empathy (like the powerful Pollution Pods in London).[61]


  Since then, my team has continued to study the new ways in which empathetic experiences are being delivered to a greater number of people. In many of the stories we came across, we discovered an interesting twist: companies and entrepreneurs were discovering that focusing on empathy can not only improve relationships, but also be surprisingly profitable.

  Empathy as a core differentiator is increasingly at the heart of new products and services that are doing very well for their companies, their employees, and the people they ultimately serve. These empathetic products and customer experiences are shifting industries—or even creating new ones—by leveraging (and often monetizing) human emotions.

  We call this trend Enterprise Empathy, a term that encompasses the growing number of brands, startups, and even large corporations that are benefitting from encouraging more empathy from workers and while also delivering it to customers more regularly. To see Enterprise Empathy in action, let’s begin by looking at a range of new products designed with empathy built in.

  Made with Empathy

  This October, Proctor & Gamble announced a new bottle designed for its Herbal Essences shampoo and conditioners that allow people with vision impairment to distinguish between the two bottles. The design idea was the brainchild of Sumaira “Sam” Latif, a special consultant for inclusive design at P&G.