Trendspotting

The first step of the shift from ‘industrial age’ strategy to ‘intelligence age’ strategy is to start getting comfortable with uncertainty.

Something that, as a species, we’re poorly wired for.

We crave predictability, purpose, plans. I suspect much of the mental health crisis affecting particularly younger generations today is from being flumoxed by flux.

The uncertainty won’t go away. It’ll almost certainly get worse. So, what techniques can we use - in business and in life - to replace predictability with plausibility and retain a sense of purpose and the ability to plan?

The answer starts with trends. But we’re not talking about the linear, backward-looking trends of old. We’re talking Trends - capital T! Big, scary, sweeping, interconnected forces that are reshaping our world. It doesn’t fit with the title of this piece, but I more commonly refer to them as “Societal Forces”. Let’s compare:

• Small trend: huge growth in the B2B SaaS market. Societal Force: AI will likely become embedded into all of our daily lives, with agentic AI giving us all the power of bespoke SaaS designers.
• Small trend: investment opportunities in niche circular / no-waste businesses. Societal Force: Circularity is the necessary foundation of a long-term economy.
• Small trend: we’re becoming less happy. Societal Force: that’s very unlikely to improve, likely leading to a ‘make or break’ moment.

In business strategy, my favourite resource for stretching my thinking on technology Trends is the Future Today Strategy Group’s annual Tech Trends Report. Out in March every year, spearheaded by the acclaimed quantitative futurist, Amy Webb.

And although every company is now a tech company and every person is now a ‘digitist’, it’s not actually all about tech, digital and AI.

Nor is there significant value in trotting out our old 90s pal, PESTEL*. At best it gives us trends (small t), at worst we drown in endless lists.

Instead, there are four Societal Forces that I keep coming back to:

1️⃣ AI (we are surpassing the digital age into the intelligence age)

2️⃣ Planetary boundaries (see the wonderful Mars Sucks campaign by Activista - we’re overspending our planet’s budget)

3️⃣ Ageing demographics (ageing populations, globally)

4️⃣ Deglobalisation (the fracturing of the post WWII world order)

There’s no shortcut to understanding these forces - you need to be a curious, impartial, deeply thoughtful and voracious consumer of information.

But if you spend some time thinking about how they might shape your life and industry, you’ll be well set for engaging with uncertainty and exploring different plausible future scenarios.

*political, environmental, social, technological, economic, legal