I have one of the world's coolest jobs I track trends for a living hundreds of Trends here's what's interesting in the last Global recession when the stock market lost $3.1 trillion 80% of the trends we track kept growing and all the ones I'm sharing with you today kept growing we use Trends to help organizations spot the next billion dollars of growth but Trends are relevant for everyone I'm here to share a few insights in how you can use Trends to stay ahead of the curve in a highly uncertain world the first tip some Trends are
a lot more predictable than others the price of Alibaba stock in 2016 the price of oil in 2015 the price of gold any day we call these items that are hard to predict dice rolls what is fascinating to serious futurists is there's a whole another set of trends that are so predictable you can set your watch by them these are trends like the rise of the Aging Market the rise of e-commerce the rise of entertainment and celebrity and the rise of Internet of Things connecting objects to sensors to the internets these are just four of
the many trillion dooll trends that we track even though these represent some of the largest opportunities on the planet many organizations have not yet built these Trends and their implications into their strategies take the market serving the growing population over 60 when this Market was worth 1 trillion it was called the gray Market when it went over 4 trillion kaching it was renamed the silver market now this isn't only about this growing population and how much of the wealth on the planet they control it's also about organizations understanding the shifting needs of this trend when
companies think of this trend they think of their parents and products their parents need we tell them to think of Tina Turner age 74 who headlined one of the top selling concerts of her life 6 years ago the future of this $4 trillion Trend belongs to organizations that can unlock products that Tina and the rest of us will want products that allow you to age in place brain Fitness or that smart appliance that teams with you to keep your diet on track now where the futurist work gets even more interesting is in spotting emerging billion
dooll Trends how do you know which Trends are good bets today and which will be great 5 years from today take the rise of Robotics it's 25 billion today it will be 67 billion in 2025 as prices come down and performance goes up you'll see robots move to whole new applications from mining Bots to carebots to agricultural Bots over the next 10 years expect to see robots move from making our cars to driving them but there is a second emerging Trend that gets a lot less attention than robotics it's inside many of your houses and
more than three times the size of the robotics Trend it's the 97 billion doll pet Market okay pets may not seem relevant for your company but when Eli Lily was looking for a new consumer segment for their anti-anxiety drug Prozac imagine the Creative Marketing Director who suggested they develop a chewable liver flavored version doesn't sound like a winning idea well it turns out that our pets share our anxieties the pet market for healthc care for dogs and pets is already 25 billion the US EU and Japan all now have more pets than children and last
year one of the largest IPOs wasn't a tech stock it was fizer's animal medicine division the trends that are relevant for each of you will differ but in a world with lots of uncertainty betting on more reliable Trends is critical now while the trends themselves are endlessly fascinating what turns out to be equally important is what you do with the trends and when each trend has its own pace this is the rise of the internet I think of a megatrend like a surfer trying to catch a wave there's the early period when the wave is
hard to detect it's far off you need to be suited up and ready to go but much of the energy is in tracking waiting then as the mega Trend builds momentum you have the opportunity to act and you need to Catch the Wave but less focused on is the fact that for many mega Trends there is a third period when it is often too late to lead the trend can switch from being an opportunity to a risk and companies that miss the wave they can get caught in an endless catchup cycle which for some companies
can be fatal take Kodak Kodak dominated the photography space for most of my lifetime they also happened to have a patent on the world's first digital camera Kodak saw the digital wave coming for certain they discussed it at almost every board meeting but they fundamentally misjudged its Pace their Kodak moment ended in bankruptcy filing January 2012 spotting a trend isn't enough you need to know the pace of a trend to act in the window of opportunity what does a winner look like on the digital Trend well luckily there are many winners they're all around us
but what surprised me when I started this job is just how many Trends companies need to spot and lead on to win in today's world take Amazon everybody knows Amazon as an e-commerce winner I think they have that position for sure but did you know that Amazon is also leading in web and cloud services and as of 2007 they're leading on the mobile device Trend with the Kindle even when pursuing this trend risk cannibalizing their existing sales and now Amazon is p pionering in robotic Advantage these are just four of the 14 major Mega trends
that Amazon has spotted and led to become the 35th largest company in the world in less than two decades Amazon spots Trends early has the courage to act and does so repeatedly now Trend tracking is an art and a science and it does depend on access to good databases and using the latest tools I'd like to share with you one of our more popular tools for spotting Trends in that early phase at first glance this looks like the archipelago for your next vacation but actually it is a map of Starbucks historic patent clusters patent maps
are a fabulous way to understand where a compan is investing that give you clues of products that may materialize years in the future this first island is Starbucks patents in coffee and Brewing here are their patents in packaging design those all important cups here's sandwich preparation here's Loyalty cards and digital music patent maps are just one of the many powerful tools that we use to get advanced notice of future moves and the waves that are are forming now so far we've talked about the trends individually but obviously powerful opportunities are created where the trends combin
in the last decade as a planet we have crossed many inflection points these are just three as of 2005 we now have more people on the planet over 60 than under five as of 2008 we now have more devices connected to the internet Than People connected to the internet and as of 2009 we have more people living in cities than not we all know about many of these shifts but how can you use this knowledge to build one of the world's greatest companies well take the world of toys in 2010 Lego was half the size
of Mattel in four short years as of the first six months of this year Lego is on track to be the largest toy company in the world how did they do this well first of all Lego is the First toy company to build toys for kids of all ages my husband has a very impressive Set of Legos and they took dumb plastic blocks and connected them to sensors building some of the most popular robotic kits for kids and adults and they took their Farm kits and they added some of the most popular toys for them
which is a set of toys around cities and Urban Design and as of earlier this year Lego participated in the entertainment and celebrity Trend helping in a movie that grossed $500 million and proving that everything is awesome when you live at the Confluence of multiple megatrends we live in a world where foresight is increasingly critical too many companies aim to be Market leaders in 2015 and not nearly enough are aiming to be Market leaders in 2025 foresight is a muscle that can be developed so if you want to stay ahead of the Curve first get
literate on the trends know your organization's Trend hot spots and blind spots second timing matters third leverage tools to get advanced notice of those waves and fourth Everything is Awesome at the Confluence of multiple Mega Trends and last in today's world there is no credit for spotting Trends shaping the future belongs only to those with the courage to act we need to become foresite Masters to navigate the challenges and leverage the opportunities of the 21st century thank you
