MIGHTY MEGATRENDS Discover the tidal waves of change that break all other trends
By Anders Lindgren
The trends that break all other trends MEGATRENDS are strong global forces affecting everything and all life on our planet. By viewing the world from a distance and over several centuries, there are 3 revolutionary turning points and 8 global forces of change that stand out and break all other trends. By understanding these deep founded grass root trends and the forces that have shaped the society we have today, it is also easier to predict the future. Especially if we understand how the different forces interact. Our population boom, rapid urbanization, consumption patterns, manufacturing methods and technology craze are all inextricably linked.
In the same manner as ocean waves can amplify one another, the 8 megatrends are gaining in magnitude and influence, as they interact with one another. Together, they are producing the greatest changes the world has ever seen. Opposing forces and counter cyclical trends will surely arise. They tend to balance things out and are as natural as life itself. They too, are easier to spot when we have a good grasp of the waves of change shaping our past, present and future lives.
Anders Lindgren, Futurist, PR-veteran, Digital Pioneer and Services Marketer
The world is
COMPLEX
To understand the
CHAOS
You have to
Observe it…
From a
AFAR…
And over
2000
TIME
1600
1200
100 years of ups and downs in the american stock market (S&P Index adjusted for inflation)
800
400
0
Source: Robert Schller, professor of economics at Yale University
You’ll discover the mighty megatrends
HIDDEN behind all the turmoil and change‌
The megatrends impact all life and
EVERYONE
They are macroeconomic forces Spanning hundreds of years Backed by verifiable data They are undeniable in their magnitude
Eight mighty MEGATRENDS stand out Population boom
Wealth inequality
1 8
Rapid 2 urbanization
Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation
Ferocious consumption
4 Technology rush
Three revolutionary TURNING POINTS stand out
1
The Agricultural Revolution (16th and 17th Century)
2
The Industrial Revolution (18th Century)
3
The Digital Revolution (20th and 21st Century)
Let’s go way, way BACK IN TIME
Once UPON A TIME...
Life was SIMPLE...
Humans HUNTED...
GATHERED food…
FOUGHT disasters and diseases
Life continued like that for
12,000 YEARS
Then in the 17th century we reached a TURNING POINT
According to anthropologist it is the most significant change in our way of thinking and living
10 000 BC 8000 BC 6000 BC
1700 4000 BC
AD 1 2000 BC
1
Two small things ignited a MONUMENTAL CHANGE We understood the vital importance of personal HYGIENE We improved our NUTRITION by cultivating food crops
It vastly improved our living conditions
Historians call it the
Dawn of Civilization
The AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION started
Life on Earth
EXPLODED!
In both good ways and bad ways
Let’s look at the 1st MEGATREND Population boom
Wealth inequality
1 8
Rapid 2 urbanization
Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation
Ferocious consumption
4 Technology rush
1 Population boom
We have grown from 1 billion people to
9 billions
7 BILLION
YEAR 2050
7 billions
in just 200 years!
YEAR 2016 2000
5 millions 8000 BC 1800 6000 BC
1700 4000 BC
300 millions
1 billion
AD 1 2000 BC
The Agricultural revolution
It’s population will double by 2050 while Europe’s is expected to shrink.
The strongest growth will be seen in AFRICA
Technical
Social
Creative
The boom has TRIGGERED explosive growth in all areas
Shortly after the population boom started in 18th century
A 2nd revolution happened 2
The industrial revolution came with full speed
The steam engine gave it power
2 1800
1900
1850 YEAR
1950
2000
30
It fuelled rapid economic progress Growth in world Domestic Product
20
15
10
5
2 0
1800
1900
1850 YEAR
1950
2000 Source: Angus Maddison
TRILLION DOLLARS
25
MANUFACTURING became more efficient
FACTORIES shoot up like mushrooms
Masses of WORKERS came searching for jobs
It led to rapid growth of URBAN AREAS
That brings us to the 2nd MEGATREND Population boom
Wealth inequality
1 8
Rapid 2 urbanization
Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation
Ferocious consumption
4 Technology rush
Rapid urbanization
2
In 1800, only 3% of the world’s population lived in cities.
Today it’s
Source: United Nations Population Division
By 2030, two-thirds of the world’s population WILL RESIDE IN CITIES
Apparently, we are compelled
to crowd together in big cities
Explosive growth of
MEGACITIES
1970
Today
2030
30 today and counting: The number of megacities with > 10 million people is expected to grow to over 40 by 2030.
Through a combination of migration and childbirth
Every year, 70 million people join the URBAN POPULATION
CLIMATE CHANGES and wars also force people to move
SOURCE: Synthesis Report, Climate Change, Global Risks, Challenges & Decisions
Every year millions of refugees migrate to urban areas in search of a better life
No wonder, we see such rapid growth of URBAN AREAS
Our cities are more
DENSELY populated than ever
Inevitably, this is putting cities’ social fabric and infrastructure under pressure
The cities are struggling
TO KEEP UP
With growing need for houses, transport, food, water, sanitation, care and education
1 BILLION
Source: UN-Habitat
people live in urban slums
The number is expected to rise, despite great efforts to counteract the problem
Air pollution is now the deadliest form OF POLLUTION…
SOURCE: The Cost of Air Pollution 2016, the World Bank
and the fourth leading risk factor for premature deaths worldwide
Managing urban areas has become one of the most important development challenges of the 21st century.” – JOHN WILMOTH, Director of UN DESA’s Population Division
We face TOUGH CHOICES…
trying to keep our cities livable for everyone
Quai Branly Museum. Photo courtesy http://www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com/
At the same time opportunities for SMART solutions abound
Obviously, there is still plenty of space in RURAL AREAS
SOURCE: GRUMP
Only 3% of Earth’s landmass is urbanized
Many urban people long back to the COUNTRYSIDE
In everything from interior to personal development and housing we can see groups of people seeking back to their natural heritage and RURAL LIFE
SOURCE: Jean Viard and Bertrand Hervieu
SMARTER TRANSPORT and new digital advances
makes rural development more feasible than ever
Now, let’s look at the 3rd MEGATREND Population boom
Wealth inequality
1 8
Rapid 2 urbanization
Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation
Ferocious consumption
4 Technology rush
3 Ferocious consumption
World production of goods and services has grown 240-fold
1500
$ 250 $ 60,000 BILLIONS*
2016
BILLIONS
* In today’s dollars, World economy (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced. Source: Angus Maddison and the World Bank
For the privileged industrialized countries THE WORLD IS AWASH in material goods
… eat more
WE…have ABUNDANT choices
… live longer
… love technology
… play more
… travel greater distances
ABUNDANT choice of groceries
The median size of today’s supermarket in the US are 46,000 square feet (6 x FOOTBALL FIELDS) Source: Food Marketing Instititute
ABUNDANT choice of groceries
Average number of items in a US supermarket has grown from 15,000 in 1980 to 50,000 in 2014 Source: Food Marketing Instititute
Shopping has RADICALLY changed
The size of a typical grocery store in the 1920’s was probably around 1,000 square feet
ABUNDANT choice of cars
1908
2016
ABUNDANT choice of TV channels
Average number of channels per US home
2014
189 1960
6
Source: Nielsen
IN SHORT: We have become the greatest consumers in the history of life on earth
People in EMERGING economies like Brazil, China and India and Russia‌
Also want a richer material life and are swiftly adopting the western consumer culture
In 2020 the size of the middle class in Asia Pacific is expected to overtake Europe and America combined
Source: World Bank
India and China will be the new BIG SPENDERS
There is a
PARADOX
that puzzles experts
The race for riches doesn’t seem to MAKE US HAPPIER
The overwhelming abundance of
CHOICE
Often causes choice overload
The getting and spending
CULTURE
Seem to eat away the time to nourish family ties
SOME CLAIM:
People are made happy by one thing and one thing only A good feeling in the body and peace of mind!
The debate goes on…
One thing is for
SURE:
Consumerism drives business growth
That leads us to the 4th MEGATREND Population boom
Wealth inequality
1 8
Rapid 2 urbanization
Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation
Ferocious consumption
4 Technology rush
4 Technology rush
Adoption of new technologies is ACCELERATING
89
38
Time to reach 150 million users, years
14
Phone
TV
Cell phone
7
iPod
5
4
Facebook Internet
Source: The Magazine Imaging Notes. See also Ray Kurzweil's book The Singularity is Near and The Economist
2
Google Earth
Patents has grown to DIZZYING HEIGHTS
800,000
China
600,000
USA
Number of patent filings in leading economies
400,000
Japan
200,000
EU 0
Source: WIPO,
There’s been a rush of new
TECHNOLOGIES
AGRItechnology
ROBOTICStechnology
ENERGYtechnology
BIOtechnology
NANOtechnology
COMMUNICATIONtechnology
Two innovations has
MEANT MORE than anything else
The transistor and INTEGRATED CIRCUIT
The rate of progress defies the
IMAGINATION
The first transistor invented in 1947 could be held in your hand
Today the worlds tiniest transistor is the size of a single molecule
Something else is
TRANSFORMING our society…
Our exploration of the DIGITAL UNIVERSE
That brings us to the 5th MEGATREND Population boom
Wealth inequality
1 8
Rapid 2 urbanization
Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation
Ferocious consumption
4 Technology rush
Digital transformation
5
It all started in the 70’s with a revolutionary turning point
THE DIGITAL REVOLUION
Welcome to the INFORMATION AGE
All of a sudden, almost every aspect of life around the world is being recorded and stored in some information format. That's a real change in our human ecology.” – PETER LYMAN, (1940 – 2007) professor emeritus at UC Berkeley
DID YOU KNOW?
2020
We live in an exploding digital universe. By the start of 2013, there were almost as many bits of data in our digital universe as there are known stars in the physical universe (4.4 zb). By 2020, the amount is expected to be 10x. Size of circles indicate actual and expected amount of digitally stored information in the world.
2013
2005 0,1 ZB Source: The EMC Digital Universe study
4,4 ZB
44 ZB
By one calculation, we’ve created more information in the last 10 years than in all of human history before that.” – DANIEL LEVITIN, McGill University psychology professor, author of The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload.
All of this is more information than the brain is configured to handle.”
– DANIEL LEVITIN, McGill University psychology professor, author of The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload.
Never have people had so much
INFORMATION & CONTENT to choose from
It has radically changed how buyers READ, SHOP and PROCESS information
People are ADAPTING their lives
in 7 ways
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
We have become digital animals We try to avoid content overload We want things to be easy Everything should happen quickly We seek help and guidance We want to be seen and heard We trust word of mouth
There are only 4 types of people says experts
They read, buy and shop differently so learn about their differences.
Do what you can to understand every step of the
CUSTOMERJOURNEY
People use the product or service.
People try demos and seek proof points to compare solutions.
A stimulus sparks an interest that meets a need.
People reevaluate the purchase and share their experiences.
People decide to buy, join, sign up etc.
People ask around and go online to find out more.
The better you do it, the easier it will be to do and say the right things in your communication customer handling
This human quality will be a key to SUCCESS
empathy
noun | em·pa·thy | \ˈem-pə-thē\
The ability to identify with the situation and emotions of other people. The capacity to understand what other beings are experiencing as if we were feeling it ourselves.
Be alert to the IT’S CALLED DIGITAL DETOX! On the new digital free resorts, people are forced to ditch their smart devices as they check in
LOG OFF mini-boom
It’s about turning off, shutting down and logging out from the digital world
Businesses have great
OPPORTUNITIES To streamline their business and delivery model
To create a seamless buying process fit for our digital age
The smart ones utilize
digital technologies
The advances in digital communications
Is directly linked to how CONNECTED WE ARE
That leads us to the 6th MEGATREND Population boom
Wealth inequality
1 8
Rapid 2 urbanization
Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation
Ferocious consumption
4 Technology rush
6 Global connectedness
2010
$ 15,000 BILLIONS
1947
$ 57
BILLIONS*
Global trade has
EXPLODED
Source: Manfred Steger, Globalization: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford 2013
There’s been a surge in international
CAPITAL FLOWS
Nothing flows more freely than
INFORMATION
With the WORLD WIDE WEB
as platform‌
Map reveals every connected device in the world Source: John Matherly
we can connect like never before
Through internet we have instant world wide reach
40%
of the world’s population is connected to internet today. In 1995 it was 1%.
25 billion
In just 4 years time, between 20 and 30 billion things will be connected to the internet. In 1992 it was 1 million
Source: Internet Live Stats
Source: Gartner, McKinsey
ENGLISH has become a truly global language
Growth in English speakers and learners globally 1582
4
MILLIONS
2016
2000 MILLIONS
Source: Neil Reynolds, Spread the word
When trade and information flows..
CULTURE FLOWS
Labor also find more ways to cross
BORDERS
It means that things
SPREAD faster than ever
The good
STUFF
Democratization (voting right is key)
The good
STUFF
100
80
60
Rise of democratization Number of nations scoring 8 or more on Polity IV scale, a measure of democracy
40
20
Source: The Polity IV project.
But also the really
BAD STUFF
The market is more
VOLATILE
2000
1600
1200
The ups and downs in American stock market
800
(S&P Index adjusted for inflation) 400
0
Source: Robert Schller, professor of economics at Yale University
People are more
VULNERABLE
The networked world isn't just a little bigger, a little faster, and a little more complex. It is qualitatively different.� – JAMES CLEICK, author, reporter, and essayist
Everyone & everything is inextricably
LINKED
We are especially linked to this
BLUE BALL
That brings us to the 7th megatrend Population boom
Wealth inequality
1 8
Rapid 2 urbanization
Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation
Ferocious consumption
4 Technology rush
Environmental degradation
7
As a species, we have much to be
PROUD OF
We have … almost put a stop to wars
… built wonders of the … tamed world wild beasts … landed on the moon
… close to eliminated child mortality
We have won the evolutionary
ARMS RACE
Climbing and clawing our way to be the top rung of the food chain
In fact, we have
OVERRUN the planet
We have cut down forest, drained swamps, dammed rivers, flooded plains, laid railroads and built skyscraping megacities
The bad news is that we
DESTROY NATURE in the process
Our colonization of the planet has been a disaster for plants and wildlife
Historical records makes Homo sapiens look like an ecological serial killer.�
– YUVAL NOAH HARARI, professor of history, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of the international bestseller Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind.
All the experts give us the same
MESSAGE United Nations (IPCC), World Resources Institute, NASA, IUCN and WWF
The scale of damage to the natural ecosystems that are vital to our lives
IS ALARMING
Up to 25% of the world’s food production may become lost due to environmental breakdown by 2050 unless action is taken.” – UNEP, (United Nations Environment Programme)
More than 80% of the natural forests that once covered the Earth, have been destroyed.�
– World Resource Institute, Global Forests Resources Assessment 2015
Over the past few hundred years, humans have increased the species extinction rate by as much as 1,000 times over background rates typical over the planet’s history.” – World Resource Institute, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Our planet has lost more than half of its creatures since 1970
Population sizes of vertebrate species mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish - have declined by 52 % the last 40 years.� – World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Living Planet Report 2014
IN SHORT: We have become THE MASTER OF THE PLANET and the terror of the ecosystem
It’s time to remember a fact that’s so obvious IT’S EASY TO FORGET
THE FOOD you eat
THE WATER you drink
THE AIR you breathe
THE FUEL you use
THE TIMBER in your house
THE FIBERS in your clothes
Are all products of this living ECOSYSTEM
So, let’s stop destroying
NATURE
Earth’s natural resources are the very foundation of our lives
That brings us to the 8th megatrend Population boom
Wealth inequality
1 8
Rapid 2 urbanization
Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation
Ferocious consumption
4 Technology rush
8 Wealth inequality
The good news: Total global wealth just HIT A NEW RECORD
New York City is ranked as the second richest city in the world after Tokyo
US and Europa are the main drivers, but also emerging markets like Asia Pacific and China
In China and India, millions have risen out of poverty to join the working MIDDLE CLASS
The bad news: The rich and poor gap is not only chronic, IT KEEPS WIDENING
THE RICHEST of the rich are getting richer
The top 1% wealthiest people now own 50% of all household wealth in the world Source: Credit Suisse and Oxfam
Still, far too many are living with far
TOO LITTLE
2 billion people live on less than $3 a day Source: World Bank
Living on $10 or less per day
71% of the world’s population remain
LOW INCOME OR POOR
Source: Pew Research Centere
The problem with these kind of
1%
STATISTICS
They are just numbers and hardly touch us
Hopefully this touches
YOUR HEART
And motives you to care and act
They are neither stable nor sustainable in the long run
Abraham Lincoln’s legendary definition of democracy: “Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people.”
Extreme unequal societies break with the
DEMOCRATIC IDEAL
The world’s leading economists ties it all
together for us
Growing income inequality is the biggest risk the world may face within the next 10 years. It has already squeezed the middle class in both developed and emerging economies.�
– World Economic Forum, The Global Risks Report 2014
The top 1 per cent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn't seem to have bought: and understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 per cent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 per cent eventually do learn. Too late.� – Joseph E. Stiglitz, winner of the nobel price in economics
What about the future? To change our future, we must understand the past. Looking back on the 12,000 year history of humankind, there has really been small changes in our way of thinking that has ignited monumental changes. We understood the importance of having a language, cultivating food crops, keeping clean, utilizing technology and working together. These five small things started the greatest revolutions the world has ever seen.
Perhaps another small change in our way of thinking will be enough to create a better life on earth for everyone including animals and plants? Perhaps we only need to understand that the world is so much more than the physical and material things we see around us. Maybe we simply need to see and honor the soul and spirit in ourselves and all other beings and life forms. All the best wishes for a bright future. Regards,
About the author Hey, my name is Anders Lindgren. People who know me well, will label me as a B2B services marketing specialist, digital pioneer, PR-veteran and futurist. I have two decades of experience as a marketing and communication director for large professional services firms, primarily PwC, AT&T and Sopra Steria. Throughout my career I have been passionate about understanding the world around us, sharing insights and helping people and brands communicate in a way that makes them shine.
© 2016 Anders Lindgren. The information in this guide is copyrighted. Sharing and copying is permitted only if the information remains unchanged and licensee "Anders Lindgren" is referred to as the source. The information can not be published in print in any media without the prior consent of the copyright holder. Text , design and illustrations : Anders Lindgren Photos: © Adobe Stock, © Dreamstime Typefaces : Myriad Pro , Myriad Pro Black and FFAD Matro Contact: Anders Lindgren. E- mail: Phone :