Today’s The Day
Friday, April 11th, 2008Today’s the day that “2011: Trendspotting” is officially released.
So… What’s it all about?
Start with a clear head and a sense that everything that’s happened in the last couple of years is about to fall away, whether you want to pick at the dead skin or not. Then take an overarching peek at what’s ahead—while knowing that the conventional wisdom is totally wrong. After that, you laugh a lot at everything you’ve livedthrough—and some of us even have to take a gander at those horrible haircuts of the 1970s to remind ourselves that mistakes are meant to be remembered, chuckled at, then forgotten forever.
For the cherry, you dust yourself off and start anew, usingthe tools you have learned from everyone you listen to andbelieve in. If those people are saying anything resembling thetruth, you are in good shape.
So it is: an exploration of trends that will affect our lives and a sense of what we have to overcome just beforewe leap into the new about-to-be-filled space. Or, as Woody Allen once said: “A kind of void, you know, an empty one.”
And now the news: I don’t want to predict a thing—notreally. Regardless of what the soothsayers you read have beensaying (and think about it: a book? Are you kidding? How old- world, anyway?), prediction of even the simplest events is extremely difficult and at best a finger in the air.
What am I going to do, predict new types of cities and worldviews and sex and networking and the dance between workers and employers, yada yada?
Or, particularly, forecast how we all change constantly? Then there’re the topics I have chosen: notorious people and famous places, social movements, ecologica lideals, communication issues, artistic thoughts, sex forthe ages, science, and all that outlandish tech.
Predicting all that is just impossible. What I’ll do, rather, is explain and forecast a range of possible futures for the subject, which is what will begin happening around the year 2011 and beyond—create a map, rather than aspecific one-dimensional destination!
Most books build credibility by employing a tone of absolute authority and driving away any shadow of uncertainty. When I am working in fields where one can make credible projections or where there are accepted techniques for long-term forecasts, I will speak with confidence and say you can’t stop this. But a kind of majestic confidence is false—fake, actually. (See the chapter “Self Something or Other,” on artificial confidence.)
On the contrary, it is imperative that I admitonce and for all that looking into the future is an uncertain business—except for certain people who read magic eight balls with uncanny ability.
Here I explain to you - already doubting you - why this is so and why it can be a cause for anxious hope. Am I a futurist? I guess so. Since the publication of my first trends book, “TrendSpotting,” in 2002, I’ve been told I am—by the major andminor media, and by a host of influentials.
But I don’t believe in clichés and run from them with my legs flailing! The book did a good job of looking ahead for you (and me). A book teaching folks how to look ahead for business calls for intelligent, grounded speculation, and of course professional expertise was the call of that day. I am not really as much futuristic as I am a show-off: I want you to use this stuff thatI’ve gathered and realized to chart possibilities.
Here is what we will talk about in these pages. Will this book tell you about the future? More than anything,it’s loaded with topics: ideas to spur you on, move you in certain directions, and inspire you to look ahead.
* We all will work while we’re sleeping. Gosh, are all thesenew products going to be, ahem, utilized in hours when we’re supposedly adrift in our dreams? So no more wasted hours for us suckers!
* Self-involvement evolves into an art form. What used to be gross and looked down upon—self-aggrandizement— becomes in no uncertain terms beloved and coveted. Everyone wants to be like David Geffen.
* Slow attention span takes precedence. ADD peaks.We begin to take a backseat to speed, and the sudden craze is, “Why rush? We have all the time in the world.” Some businessesare born; others are down!
* Customer service finally becomes law. That’s enough ofbeing put on hold. After years of thinking silently, a newmovement is afoot: it’s an adhered-to policy to take care of the paying folk!
* Look forward to “turn of the decade syndrome,” where we reboot our lives. Come January 2011, the actual start of a new decade (and not a moment too soon, y’all) is upon us. Everyone prepares madly—just like Y2K, but positively—and uses it to make the one change to themselves that they’ve been desperate to achieve. So quit, start, redo—or forgive. It all happens on that very day!
* There’s a movement to stay at home that occurs because— there’s no real explanation, so why fake it? Our friends are more relaxed and friendly there.
You’ll notice in the book that each chapter is short, seriously so. That’s what you want, and belaboring 70 or 90 topics seemed really dull and unnecessary.
Take a look at it.
The future of the future is a huge idea. It scares the crap outof me. The only way to make a book out of it (except that I had a contract, dude) was to give as much knowledge as my braincould muster, and try to leave out nonsense that I found fascinating when I honestly knew that it was only me who got what it was—or cared.
Thanks for joining.
