A non-obvious trend is a unique curated observation about the accelerating present.
Unlike many other far-future predictions, the trends and methods in this book are designed to help you right now. There are plenty of people who can tell you what the world might be like twenty years from now. Sadly, many of those are guesses or wishful thinking. How many trend forecasters do you think predicted the rise of something like Twitter back in 1996 when it was first created? Exactly zero.
Yet this doesn’t mean curating trends (or honing your ability to predict them) is useless. The most powerful trends can offer predictions for the short-term future based on observing the present. The truth is, knowing the short-term future is more valuable than you may think.
Why Does Trend Curation Matter?
Most of our life decisions happen in the short-term, though we may describe them differently. You choose to start a business in the short-term. You choose who to marry in the short-term. You change careers from one role to the next, all in the short-term.
Long-term decisions start in the short-term, so understanding how the world is changing in real time is far more valuable in your day-to-day career and life than trying to guess what will happen in the world twenty years from now.
When I speak at industry events, I often describe myself first as a “trend curator.” The reason I use that term is because it describes my passion for collecting ideas and taking the time to see the patterns in them to describe the world in new and interesting ways. In this book, you will learn the exact step-by-step method I use and how to become a trend curator yourself.
The result of all of my idea collection is that for the past eight years I have published an annual list of fifteen trends that will shape the business world in the year to come. Across that time, I have advised some of the largest brands in the world on business strategy, taught several courses at Georgetown University, and been invited to speak at events in thirty-two countries around the world.
All of this gives me the valuable chance to gain firsthand insight into dozens of different industries and to study media, culture, marketing, technology, design, and economics with an unfiltered eye. Adding to these real-life interactions, I also read or review dozens of books and buy magazines on everything from cloud computing to Amish farming methods.
My philosophy is to collect ideas the way frequent fliers collect miles—as momentary rewards to use for later redemption.
Why I Wrote Non-Obvious
When I first started writing an annual list of predictions in 2011, my intent was to share trends as ideas that didn’t have a home with any project I was working on at the time in my role at a large marketing agency. In 2015 the first edition of this book expanded beyond the trends themselves to feature an inside look at my process for curating trends and detailed instructions for how you can learn to curate your own ideas.
The book is divided into four parts.
Part I is dedicated to sharing my methods of trend curation, which I have usually only taught in depth through private workshops or with my students in class. You will learn the greatest myths of trend prediction, five essential habits of trend curators, and my own step-by-step approach to curating trends, which I call the Haystack Method.
Part II is the 2018 edition of the Non-Obvious Trend Report, featuring fifteen new ideas that will shape business in the year to come. Each trend features supporting stories and research, as well as an outline for why that trend matters and concrete ideas for how to apply the trend to your own business or career.
Part III is filled with tips on making trends actionable, including a short description of workshops you can host yourself to bring these trends to life in your organization. In this section, I also discuss the importance of anti-trends and how to use “intersection thinking” to see the patterns between industries and stories.
Finally, Part IV is a candid review of 105 previously predicted trends from the past seven years along with an honest assessment and rating for how each one performed over time, all sourced from a combination of conversations with industry insiders and a review panel of trusted colleagues.
You can choose to read this book in the order that it’s presented or you can skip back and forth between trends and techniques. Whether you choose to focus on my predictions for 2018 or jump to the last part to see how previously trends rated, this book can be read in short bursts or all at once.
Either way, like Asimov, you don’t need to be a speed reader.
Being a speed understander, however, is a worthy aspiration. It’s my hope that this book will help you get there.
1
The NORWEGIAN BILLIONAIRE:
Why Most Trend Predictions
Are Spectacularly Useless
_
In 1996 Christian Ringnes was a billionaire with a first-world problem—he was running out of space for his favorite collection.
As one of the richest men in Norway, Ringnes is well known as a flamboyant businessman and art collector whose family started the country’s largest brewery more than a hundred years ago. In his hometown of Oslo, Ringnes owns several restaurants and museums and has donated more than $70 million for the creation of a large sculpture and cultural park, which opened in 2013.
In his heart, Ringnes is a collector. Over decades he has built one of the largest private collections of art in the world. Yet his real legacy may come from something far more unique: his lifelong obsession with collecting mini liquor bottles.
This fixation began for Ringnes at the age of seven when he received an unusual present from his father: a half-empty mini liquor bottle. It was this afterthought of a gift that led him on a path toward amassing what is recognized today as the largest independent mini-bottle collection in the world, with more than 52,000 miniature liquor bottles.
Unfortunately, his decades-long obsession eventually ran into an insurmountable opponent—his late wife, Denise.
As the now legendary story goes, Denise wasn’t too pleased with the disorganization of having all these bottles around the house. After years of frustration, she offered him an ultimatum: either find something to do with all those bottles or start selling them.
Like any avid collector, Ringnes couldn’t bear the thought of selling them, so he created a solution based on his wealth and personality.
He commissioned a museum.1
“To Collect Is Human”
Today his Mini Bottle Gallery, located in downtown Oslo, is one of the world’s top unique museum destinations, routinely featured in irreverent travel guides and global lists of must-see Scandinavian tourist attractions. Beyond providing a place for Ringnes to store his collection, the gallery, which has a restaurant, is also a popular venue for private events.
It was here, while in Oslo for a conference dinner that included a tour of the Mini Bottle Gallery, that I got my first personal introduction to Ringnes and his story.
I have 52,500 different miniature bottles in a museum in Oslo. They’re completely useless. But men, we like collecting. We like having things. That’s human. Once you get fascinated by something, you want it and then you start collecting.
Christian Ringnes, Founder, The Mini Bottle Gallery
The museum lived up to its quirky reputation.
The entrance is a bottle-shaped hallway leading into an open lobby with a champagne waterfall. As you move through over 50 unique installations spanning three floors, each features its own composed soundtrack, customized lighting, and even some unique smells. Like all great museum experiences, the rooms of the Mini Bottle Gallery are carefully curated.