20 Trends To Observe In 2020
2019 is coming to an end and continuing my quest to better understand human behavior, I wrote down the twenty trends I have been noticing for a few years. It would be interesting to observe these trends in 2020 to see how they evolve and if they achieve wider adoption. There are multiple reasons why these trends have emerged but in this article we will only look at what the trends are. Unless specified, the trends are for the US.
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| Source: Wikipedia |
Here they are:
1. Phone calls on decline: Millenials and post-millenials do not talk on the phone much. They prefer text or image based messages (SMS, Facebook Messenger, SnapChat, Instagram, etc.) to phone calls and when they do synchronous communication, they prefer FaceTime or other video calls to phone calls. People use different platforms to communicate with different people. Because of the text heavy communication, verbal language is changing. For example, in English, people say OMG instead of Oh My God and in French people say A+ instead of à plus tard (see you later) when they are talking face to face. In the coming years, it would be interesting to see how language evolves with the use of technology.
2. Convenience over self-reliance: Millenials and post-millenials (younger people) prefer to stay on their parents' family plan for mobile service than to get their own. They live with their parents and stay on the parents' healthcare plans (at least until 26 years of age). It seems very practical. However, when I was younger, most people of my age wanted to be completely independent of our parents even if it was economically worse. How this trend evolves and effects relationships remains to be seen.
3. Rental over ownership: It has become a norm to subscribe to a music service like Spotify than to buy the music. Many young people rely on ride sharing services like Uber and do not own a car. Home ownership is on decline. In general, there is an acceptance in society of not owning things. In the business world, SaaS (Software as a Service) is a norm now. It means that you don't own the software, you rent it. It would be interesting to see how this trend expands into new categories.
4. Random encounters: When we are out in public places (coffee shops, buses, trains, bars, etc.) random conversations with strangers are declining because people are always looking at their phones and/or listening to music with the headphones. On the other hand, random encounters are on rise online. When we are avoiding the strangers in the physical world, we might be meeting them in the digital world. Over the next few years we might redefine what a relationship is.
5. Feelings prioritization: Younger people tend to prioritize people's feelings over intellectual honesty and debate. They have a different communication style and are much more sensitive to feelings. Even some college campuses are leaning in that direction. Furthermore, feelings is more of a topic of conversation now than it was ten years ago. People are afraid of hurting other people's feelings so they don't share their opinions. How would a society adopt new ideas if it does not debate and refine them?
6. Happiness seeking: The pursuit of happiness has been happening for a very long time. The idea used to be ownership of material things like house, car, handbag, etc. would bring happiness but lately the happiness is supposed to come from yoga and meditation. Furthermore, happiness is regular topic of conversation these days.
7. Space Tech: A lot of exciting things are happening in space. It seems like Space X is reaching a new milestone every few months. China landed a spacecraft on the far side of the moon this year. India and Israel almost landed thiers. US has a Space Force now. Many companies have satellite launch plans for multiple reasons. It is an interesting space to watch.
8. China flexing its muscle: China has dominated Africa more than any other country in the last two decades. Recently, it has taken over ports in Kenya and other African countries. In the US-China trade war, China is fighting back. In the Hong Kong protests, all the western companies (Swarovski, Calvin Klein, Versace, etc.) sided with mainland China. Italy has signed on to China's Belt and Road initiative. It used to be that an organization could not criticize China inside China but now an organization that does business with China might lose its Chinese business if it criticizes China outside of China. The world might have to get used to a more assertive China.
9. Private Equity (PE) rising: More capital is going into PE funds than ever before while the hedge funds are folding because they can not beat the S&P 500 index. New type of investment vehicles are emerging in PE like Softbank vision fund which is a mix of equity and debt. Recent skyhigh valuations of unicorns might be the result of too much deployable capital available to venture capital firms (a type of PE firm). Let's see for how long the run lasts.
10. American soft-power on decline: America pulled out of the Paris Agreement, which is a non-binding but still useful agreement, and from the Iran nuclear deal and did not join Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Europeans are doubting American commitment to NATO. The US policy on Syria is unclear. China, Russia, Turkey, and others are openly violating international norms and human rights. It used to be that the US was able to influence these countries. We shall see what changes if there is a new administration after the 2020 elections.
11. Changing work culture: These days, it is accepted that people in their early career years switch jobs every eighteen months or so. Video conferences are commonplace. Working remotely is also a trend on the rise. Tech companies have to offer a lot of perks to employees to keep them around. The boundary between social life and work life is getting blurred.
12. Urbanization: People are moving from rural areas to urban areas because economies in the rural areas are declining and the economies in the urban areas are growing. This trend has been on the rise for a few decades.
13. Community feeling on decline: Everyone is busy with work, commute, social media, and with pursuing love and happiness. Life has become very convenient over the last decade. A car comes to you when you want to go somewhere. Amazon delivers almost everything. Food and grocery delivery is on your fingertips. There is unlimited entertainment at home with Netflix and other streaming services. And, there is a dog to offer "unconditional" love and affection. Who needs a neighbor? People feel that they don't have the time or interest in getting to know a stranger. When I grew up the neighbors knew everyone and there was a sense of community and an understanding of interdependence among the neighborhood residents. In the coming years, life will get more convenient and people might feel more lonely.
14. Role of a corporation in society is questioned: After five decades of corporations operating with Milton Friedman's idea that the sole purpose of a corporation is to maximize shareholder value, in the last few years that idea is being questioned. The rethink comes from increased inequality in society for which corporations are blamed although it is a failure of governance and policy. Thomas Piketty's idea that Capitalism is responsible for inequality in society has gained traction. After the 2008 financial crises there was Occupy Wall Street movement but not much came out of that. Recently there has been a backlash against Google, Facebook, and Twitter for their role in elections, gun violence, etc. Business Roundtable changed its charter this year to expand the purpose of a corporation. I am curious to see what actually changes in the coming years.
I organized a thinking weekend event earlier this year in partnership with TED on the subject.
15. Environment consciousness rising: For all the criticism the younger people get for taking selfies and being on social media all the time, they are very conscious about the human impact on the environment. They are demanding products that do not harm the environment and the corporations are complying. There is a broader understanding in the world today that we need to do something about the climate change.
16. Health awareness increasing: This has been happening for over a decade. The younger people have accelerated the trend by being more aware of how food affects the body. They are switching to plant based diet. Both Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat have sold millions of plant-based burgers. Oat milk is getting more popular. Salad bars are hip. Millenials are drinking less. Furthermore, younger people are concerned about their mental health. They see therapists with no reservations.
Millions of people are wearing fitness tracking devices like Apple Watch. A decade ago, we noticed this emerging trend at National Semiconductor and created the first cloud connected consumer fitness bracelet.
17. Podcasting on the rise: Apple podcast has over 700,000 active podcasts. There are many other podcasting platforms like Google, Stitcher, etc. More than 20% of Americans listen to podcasts at least once a week. You can find a podcast on almost any topic you can imagine. Both the number of podcasts and the number of listeners is expected to continue increasing. Of course, podcast advertising spend will increase as well.
I have a podcast called Valley Nordic.
18. Streaming continuing momentum: Netflix has 60M subscribers in the US. Disney+ launched a few weeks ago with 10M subscribers (not necessarily active users) and AppleTV+ launched only with exclusive original content a few months ago. HBO and Comcast will launch a new streaming services next year. Google offers YouTube TV which a streaming version of the cable bundle. Of course, there is Hulu. In the history of mankind, there has never been so much choice to be entertained at home. In the coming years, more people will switch to streaming services and/or watch more content on streaming channels and get rid of the cable bundle. The competition might bring yearly contracts and weekly episode releases to the streaming market.
19. Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption increasing: Already, AI is part of our daily life. All smartphones use it. Personal Assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google are based on AI. China mandates people to activate their phones with their faces. It also tracks uighur muslims all over the country with AI based facial recognition system. Amazon uses AI to make its supply chain more effective and to make you buy more stuff. Self driving cars might be a few years away from being commercially available but the Tesla autopilot and parking assistants in many new cars, all use AI. There are many other applications of AI. Most AI applications today are based on Supervised Learning i.e. a model is built on available data and is backtested. It is continuously refined with new data. This process gives the model an ability to make decisions and predictions with new data. On the other hand, the Unsupervised Learning does not need data to learn. The system learns with trial and error based on the "rules of the game". It is still early days for Unsupervised Learning but it will have profound impact on society in future. I am curious to see new applications of AI next year.
20. Gene editing rising fast: Genome editing (also called gene editing) is a group of technologies that give scientists the ability to change an organism's DNA. These technologies allow genetic material to be added, removed, or altered at particular locations in the genome. Several approaches to genome editing have been developed. CRISPR-Cas9 is the most popular one. Last year the first genetically modified babies were delivered in China using CRISPR and it caused a big controversy. There are many startups working on CRISPR applications. Increase in AI capabilities is helping gene editing. In the coming years, gene editing might change our lifespan, health, and looks.
Gene editing raises many ethical questions. At TED2019 I facilitated a dinner table discussion on the subject.
The biggest trend of all is the digitization of everything and that is enabled by other underlying trends. I did not notice everything and I do not mention everything I observed.
Holidays are a good time to ponder these trends. How did they emerge? What is the long term impact on society? How can these trends help with new product development in the short term?
Since 2020 is a leap year and we get an additional day, I am sharing a few additions to the trend list from a good friend:
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Your list seems millennial (and younger) focused and centered around issues affecting product design, but there are other trends I think are critical to the world as well as to product design in the long term:
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Your list seems millennial (and younger) focused and centered around issues affecting product design, but there are other trends I think are critical to the world as well as to product design in the long term:
1) Population pyramid inversion
Our economic and social systems were developed when there were many more young people per old people. This is less true now, with implications for everything from Social Security to long-term care to how communities are designed. Those are still designed based on the old assumption. See https://www.census.gov/
This trend is older than 2010, but has continued in this decade.
The rise in the number of old and old-old (85+) people opens up product design opportunities. Note OXO is very successful in designing "old friendly" kitchen products.
2) "Populism" and fragmentation of globalization
"Populism" is misnamed to me (it used to mean helping poor people but now helps rich people and intentionally tries to hurt poor people), but from Trump to BrExit, there are movements to de-integrate countries from globalization as well as to support stratification of society. US politics is extremely partisan now, with a win-lose dynamic instead of a view of the US as an integrated whole.
3) Russia is growing in attempted influence
Russia interfered in the US election and is thought to have attempted to influence other elections around the world as well.
4) Mass surveillance is on the rise
Very personal data is on third-party servers (Google, 23AndMe, etc) and you don't control who they allow to see it. Google tracks cell phone movements, and can be served geofence warrants. (https://www.
Notes:
1) Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods burgers aren't necessarily healthy for people to eat; they are quite processed. I have yet to see a well-respected doctor or nutritionist recommend them instead of a whole-grain, vegetable based diet. You can eat chicken instead of beef, too. No one will make too much money selling healthy, unprocessed food that anyone can make at home, but that is what is very healthy.
2) "Streaming continuing momentum": you might want to mention the fragmentation of the streaming content market...you must now subscribe to many services to see everything. Amazon is starting to insert ads into "free" content ("Imdb Tv")...it's super annoying and unwatchable to me.
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Happy Holidays!
