THE COURSE: The 8 mighty megatrends

MIGHTY MEGATRENDS Discover the tidal waves of change that break all other trends

By Anders Lindgren

The trends that break all other trends MEGATRENDS are strong global forces affecting everything and all life on our planet. By viewing the world from a distance and over several centuries, there are 3 revolutionary turning points and 8 global forces of change that stand out and break all other trends.

By understanding these deep founded grass root trends and the forces that have shaped the society we have today, it is also easier to predict the future. Especially if we understand how the different forces interact.

Our population boom, rapid urbanization, consumption patterns, manufacturing methods and technology craze are all inextricably linked.

In the same manner as ocean waves can amplify one another, the 8 megatrends are gaining in magnitude and influence, as they interact with one another.

Together, they are producing the greatest changes the world has ever seen.

Opposing forces and counter cyclical trends will surely arise. They tend to balance things out and are as natural as life itself. They too, are easier to spot when we have a good grasp of the waves of change shaping our past, present and future lives.

Anders Lindgren, Futurist, PR-veteran, Digital Pioneer and Services Marketer

The world is

COMPLEX

To understand the

CHAOS

You have to

Observe it…

From a

AFAR…

And over

2000

TIME

1600

1200

100 years of ups and downs in the american stock market (S&P Index adjusted for inflation)

800

400

0

Source: Robert Schller, professor of economics at Yale University

You’ll discover the mighty megatrends

HIDDEN behind all the turmoil and change‌

The megatrends impact all life and

EVERYONE

They are macroeconomic forces Spanning hundreds of years Backed by verifiable data They are undeniable in their magnitude

Eight mighty MEGATRENDS stand out Population boom

Wealth inequality

1 8

Rapid 2 urbanization

Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation

Ferocious consumption

4 Technology rush

Three revolutionary TURNING POINTS stand out

1

The Agricultural Revolution (16th and 17th Century)

2

The Industrial Revolution (18th Century)

3

The Digital Revolution (20th and 21st Century)

Let’s go way, way BACK IN TIME

Once UPON A TIME...

Life was SIMPLE...

Humans HUNTED...

GATHERED food…

FOUGHT disasters and diseases

Life continued like that for

12,000 YEARS

Then in the 17th century we reached a TURNING POINT

According to anthropologist it is the most significant change in our way of thinking and living

10 000 BC 8000 BC 6000 BC

1700 4000 BC

AD 1 2000 BC

1

Two small things ignited a MONUMENTAL CHANGE We understood the vital importance of personal HYGIENE We improved our NUTRITION by cultivating food crops

It vastly improved our living conditions

Historians call it the

Dawn of Civilization

The AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION started

Life on Earth

EXPLODED!

In both good ways and bad ways

Let’s look at the 1st MEGATREND Population boom

Wealth inequality

1 8

Rapid 2 urbanization

Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation

Ferocious consumption

4 Technology rush

1 Population boom

We have grown from 1 billion people to

9 billions

7 BILLION

YEAR 2050

7 billions

in just 200 years!

YEAR 2016 2000

5 millions 8000 BC 1800 6000 BC

1700 4000 BC

300 millions

1 billion

AD 1 2000 BC

The Agricultural revolution

It’s population will double by 2050 while Europe’s is expected to shrink.

The strongest growth will be seen in AFRICA

Technical

Social

Creative

The boom has TRIGGERED explosive growth in all areas

Shortly after the population boom started in 18th century

A 2nd revolution happened 2

The industrial revolution came with full speed

The steam engine gave it power

2 1800

1900

1850 YEAR

1950

2000

30

It fuelled rapid economic progress Growth in world Domestic Product

20

15

10

5

2 0

1800

1900

1850 YEAR

1950

2000 Source: Angus Maddison

TRILLION DOLLARS

25

MANUFACTURING became more efficient

FACTORIES shoot up like mushrooms

Masses of WORKERS came searching for jobs

It led to rapid growth of URBAN AREAS

That brings us to the 2nd MEGATREND Population boom

Wealth inequality

1 8

Rapid 2 urbanization

Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation

Ferocious consumption

4 Technology rush

Rapid urbanization

2

In 1800, only 3% of the world’s population lived in cities.

Today it’s

Source: United Nations Population Division

By 2030, two-thirds of the world’s population WILL RESIDE IN CITIES

Apparently, we are compelled

to crowd together in big cities

Explosive growth of

MEGACITIES

1970

Today

2030

30 today and counting: The number of megacities with > 10 million people is expected to grow to over 40 by 2030.

Through a combination of migration and childbirth

Every year, 70 million people join the URBAN POPULATION

CLIMATE CHANGES and wars also force people to move

SOURCE: Synthesis Report, Climate Change, Global Risks, Challenges & Decisions

Every year millions of refugees migrate to urban areas in search of a better life

No wonder, we see such rapid growth of URBAN AREAS

Our cities are more

DENSELY populated than ever

Inevitably, this is putting cities’ social fabric and infrastructure under pressure

The cities are struggling

TO KEEP UP

With growing need for houses, transport, food, water, sanitation, care and education

1 BILLION

Source: UN-Habitat

people live in urban slums

The number is expected to rise, despite great efforts to counteract the problem

Air pollution is now the deadliest form OF POLLUTION…

SOURCE: The Cost of Air Pollution 2016, the World Bank

and the fourth leading risk factor for premature deaths worldwide

Managing urban areas has become one of the most important development challenges of the 21st century.”

– JOHN WILMOTH, Director of UN DESA’s Population Division

We face TOUGH CHOICES…

trying to keep our cities livable for everyone

Quai Branly Museum. Photo courtesy http://www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com/

At the same time opportunities for SMART solutions abound

Obviously, there is still plenty of space in RURAL AREAS

SOURCE: GRUMP

Only 3% of Earth’s landmass is urbanized

Many urban people long back to the COUNTRYSIDE

In everything from interior to personal development and housing we can see groups of people seeking back to their natural heritage and RURAL LIFE

SOURCE: Jean Viard and Bertrand Hervieu

SMARTER TRANSPORT and new digital advances

makes rural development more feasible than ever

Now, let’s look at the 3rd MEGATREND Population boom

Wealth inequality

1 8

Rapid 2 urbanization

Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation

Ferocious consumption

4 Technology rush

3 Ferocious consumption

World production of goods and services has grown 240-fold

1500

$ 250 $ 60,000 BILLIONS*

2016

BILLIONS

* In today’s dollars, World economy (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all final goods and services produced. Source: Angus Maddison and the World Bank

For the privileged industrialized countries THE WORLD IS AWASH in material goods

… eat more

WE…have ABUNDANT choices

… live longer

… love technology

… play more

… travel greater distances

ABUNDANT choice of groceries

The median size of today’s supermarket in the US are 46,000 square feet (6 x FOOTBALL FIELDS) Source: Food Marketing Instititute

ABUNDANT choice of groceries

Average number of items in a US supermarket has grown from 15,000 in 1980 to 50,000 in 2014 Source: Food Marketing Instititute

Shopping has RADICALLY changed

The size of a typical grocery store in the 1920’s was probably around 1,000 square feet

ABUNDANT choice of cars

1908

2016

ABUNDANT choice of TV channels

Average number of channels per US home

2014

189 1960

6

Source: Nielsen

IN SHORT: We have become the greatest consumers in the history of life on earth

People in EMERGING economies like Brazil, China and India and Russia‌

Also want a richer material life and are swiftly adopting the western consumer culture

In 2020 the size of the middle class in Asia Pacific is expected to overtake Europe and America combined

Source: World Bank

India and China will be the new BIG SPENDERS

There is a

PARADOX

that puzzles experts

The race for riches doesn’t seem to MAKE US HAPPIER

The overwhelming abundance of

CHOICE

Often causes choice overload

The getting and spending

CULTURE

Seem to eat away the time to nourish family ties

SOME CLAIM:

People are made happy by one thing and one thing only A good feeling in the body and peace of mind!

The debate goes on…

One thing is for

SURE:

Consumerism drives business growth

That leads us to the 4th MEGATREND Population boom

Wealth inequality

1 8

Rapid 2 urbanization

Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation

Ferocious consumption

4 Technology rush

4 Technology rush

Adoption of new technologies is ACCELERATING

89

38

Time to reach 150 million users, years

14

Phone

TV

Cell phone

7

iPod

5

4

Facebook Internet

Source: The Magazine Imaging Notes. See also Ray Kurzweil's book The Singularity is Near and The Economist

2

Google Earth

Patents has grown to DIZZYING HEIGHTS

800,000

China

600,000

USA

Number of patent filings in leading economies

400,000

Japan

200,000

EU 0

Source: WIPO,

There’s been a rush of new

TECHNOLOGIES

AGRItechnology

ROBOTICStechnology

ENERGYtechnology

BIOtechnology

NANOtechnology

COMMUNICATIONtechnology

Two innovations has

MEANT MORE than anything else

The transistor and INTEGRATED CIRCUIT

The rate of progress defies the

IMAGINATION

The first transistor invented in 1947 could be held in your hand

Today the worlds tiniest transistor is the size of a single molecule

Something else is

TRANSFORMING our society…

Our exploration of the DIGITAL UNIVERSE

That brings us to the 5th MEGATREND Population boom

Wealth inequality

1 8

Rapid 2 urbanization

Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation

Ferocious consumption

4 Technology rush

Digital transformation

5

It all started in the 70’s with a revolutionary turning point

THE DIGITAL REVOLUION

Welcome to the INFORMATION AGE

All of a sudden, almost every aspect of life around the world is being recorded and stored in some information format. That's a real change in our human ecology.”

– PETER LYMAN, (1940 – 2007) professor emeritus at UC Berkeley

DID YOU KNOW?

2020

We live in an exploding digital universe.

By the start of 2013, there were almost as many bits of data in our digital universe as there are known stars in the physical universe (4.4 zb). By 2020, the amount is expected to be 10x.

Size of circles indicate actual and expected amount of digitally stored information in the world.

2013

2005 0,1 ZB Source: The EMC Digital Universe study

4,4 ZB

44 ZB

By one calculation, we’ve created more information in the last 10 years than in all of human history before that.”

– DANIEL LEVITIN, McGill University psychology professor, author of The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload.

All of this is more information than the brain is configured to handle.”

– DANIEL LEVITIN, McGill University psychology professor, author of The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload.

Never have people had so much

INFORMATION & CONTENT to choose from

It has radically changed how buyers READ, SHOP and PROCESS information

People are ADAPTING their lives

in 7 ways

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

We have become digital animals We try to avoid content overload We want things to be easy Everything should happen quickly We seek help and guidance We want to be seen and heard We trust word of mouth

There are only 4 types of people says experts

They read, buy and shop differently so learn about their differences.

Do what you can to understand every step of the

CUSTOMERJOURNEY

People use the product or service.

People try demos and seek proof points to compare solutions.

A stimulus sparks an interest that meets a need.

People reevaluate the purchase and share their experiences.

People decide to buy, join, sign up etc.

People ask around and go online to find out more.

The better you do it, the easier it will be to do and say the right things in your communication customer handling

This human quality will be a key to SUCCESS

empathy

noun | em·pa·thy | \ˈem-pə-thē\

The ability to identify with the situation and emotions of other people.

The capacity to understand what other beings are experiencing as if we were feeling it ourselves.

Be alert to the IT’S CALLED DIGITAL DETOX! On the new digital free resorts, people are forced to ditch their smart devices as they check in

LOG OFF mini-boom

It’s about turning off, shutting down and logging out from the digital world

Businesses have great

OPPORTUNITIES To streamline their business and delivery model

To create a seamless buying process fit for our digital age

The smart ones utilize

digital technologies

The advances in digital communications

Is directly linked to how CONNECTED WE ARE

That leads us to the 6th MEGATREND Population boom

Wealth inequality

1 8

Rapid 2 urbanization

Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation

Ferocious consumption

4 Technology rush

6 Global connectedness

2010

$ 15,000 BILLIONS

1947

$ 57

BILLIONS*

Global trade has

EXPLODED

Source: Manfred Steger, Globalization: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford 2013

There’s been a surge in international

CAPITAL FLOWS

Nothing flows more freely than

INFORMATION

With the WORLD WIDE WEB

as platform‌

Map reveals every connected device in the world Source: John Matherly

we can connect like never before

Through internet we have instant world wide reach

40%

of the world’s population is connected to internet today.

In 1995 it was 1%.

25 billion

In just 4 years time, between 20 and 30 billion things will be connected to the internet.

In 1992 it was 1 million

Source: Internet Live Stats

Source: Gartner, McKinsey

ENGLISH has become a truly global language

Growth in English speakers and learners globally 1582

4

MILLIONS

2016

2000 MILLIONS

Source: Neil Reynolds, Spread the word

When trade and information flows..

CULTURE FLOWS

Labor also find more ways to cross

BORDERS

It means that things

SPREAD faster than ever

The good

STUFF

Democratization (voting right is key)

The good

STUFF

100

80

60

Rise of democratization Number of nations scoring 8 or more on Polity IV scale, a measure of democracy

40

20

Source: The Polity IV project.

But also the really

BAD STUFF

The market is more

VOLATILE

2000

1600

1200

The ups and downs in American stock market

800

(S&P Index adjusted for inflation) 400

0

Source: Robert Schller, professor of economics at Yale University

People are more

VULNERABLE

The networked world isn't just a little bigger, a little faster, and a little more complex.

It is qualitatively different.� – JAMES CLEICK, author, reporter, and essayist

Everyone & everything is inextricably

LINKED

We are especially linked to this

BLUE BALL

That brings us to the 7th megatrend Population boom

Wealth inequality

1 8

Rapid 2 urbanization

Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation

Ferocious consumption

4 Technology rush

Environmental degradation

7

As a species, we have much to be

PROUD OF

We have … almost put a stop to wars

… built wonders of the … tamed world wild beasts … landed on the moon

… close to eliminated child mortality

We have won the evolutionary

ARMS RACE

Climbing and clawing our way to be the top rung of the food chain

In fact, we have

OVERRUN the planet

We have cut down forest, drained swamps, dammed rivers, flooded plains, laid railroads and built skyscraping megacities

The bad news is that we

DESTROY NATURE in the process

Our colonization of the planet has been a disaster for plants and wildlife

Historical records makes Homo sapiens look like an ecological serial killer.�

– YUVAL NOAH HARARI, professor of history, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of the international bestseller Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind.

All the experts give us the same

MESSAGE United Nations (IPCC), World Resources Institute, NASA, IUCN and WWF

The scale of damage to the natural ecosystems that are vital to our lives

IS ALARMING

Up to 25% of the world’s food production may become lost due to environmental breakdown by 2050 unless action is taken.”

– UNEP, (United Nations Environment Programme)

More than 80% of the natural forests that once covered the Earth, have been destroyed.�

– World Resource Institute, Global Forests Resources Assessment 2015

Over the past few hundred years, humans have increased the species extinction rate by as much as 1,000 times over background rates typical over the planet’s history.”

– World Resource Institute, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Our planet has lost more than half of its creatures since 1970

Population sizes of vertebrate species mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish - have declined by 52 % the last 40 years.� – World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Living Planet Report 2014

IN SHORT: We have become THE MASTER OF THE PLANET and the terror of the ecosystem

It’s time to remember a fact that’s so obvious IT’S EASY TO FORGET

THE FOOD you eat

THE WATER you drink

THE AIR you breathe

THE FUEL you use

THE TIMBER in your house

THE FIBERS in your clothes

Are all products of this living ECOSYSTEM

So, let’s stop destroying

NATURE

Earth’s natural resources are the very foundation of our lives

That brings us to the 8th megatrend Population boom

Wealth inequality

1 8

Rapid 2 urbanization

Environmental degradation 7 3 Global 6 connectedness 5 Digital transformation

Ferocious consumption

4 Technology rush

8 Wealth inequality

The good news: Total global wealth just HIT A NEW RECORD

New York City is ranked as the second richest city in the world after Tokyo

US and Europa are the main drivers, but also emerging markets like Asia Pacific and China

In China and India, millions have risen out of poverty to join the working MIDDLE CLASS

The bad news: The rich and poor gap is not only chronic, IT KEEPS WIDENING

THE RICHEST of the rich are getting richer

The top 1% wealthiest people now own 50% of all household wealth in the world Source: Credit Suisse and Oxfam

Still, far too many are living with far

TOO LITTLE

2 billion people live on less than $3 a day Source: World Bank

Living on $10 or less per day

71% of the world’s population remain

LOW INCOME OR POOR

Source: Pew Research Centere

The problem with these kind of

1%

STATISTICS

They are just numbers and hardly touch us

Hopefully this touches

YOUR HEART

And motives you to care and act

They are neither stable nor sustainable in the long run

Abraham Lincoln’s legendary definition of democracy: “Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Extreme unequal societies break with the

DEMOCRATIC IDEAL

The world’s leading economists ties it all

together for us

Growing income inequality is the biggest risk the world may face within the next 10 years. It has already squeezed the middle class in both developed and emerging economies.�

– World Economic Forum, The Global Risks Report 2014

The top 1 per cent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn't seem to have bought: and understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 per cent live.

Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 per cent eventually do learn. Too late.� – Joseph E. Stiglitz, winner of the nobel price in economics

What about the future?

To change our future, we must understand the past. Looking back on the 12,000 year history of humankind, there has really been small changes in our way of thinking that has ignited monumental changes.

We understood the importance of having a language, cultivating food crops, keeping clean, utilizing technology and working together.

These five small things started the greatest revolutions the world has ever seen.

Perhaps another small change in our way of thinking will be enough to create a better life on earth for everyone including animals and plants?

Perhaps we only need to understand that the world is so much more than the physical and material things we see around us.

Maybe we simply need to see and honor the soul and spirit in ourselves and all other beings and life forms.

All the best wishes for a bright future.

Regards,

About the author Hey, my name is Anders Lindgren. People who know me well, will label me as a B2B services marketing specialist, digital pioneer, PR-veteran and futurist.

I have two decades of experience as a marketing and communication director for large professional services firms, primarily PwC, AT&T and Sopra Steria.

Throughout my career I have been passionate about understanding the world around us, sharing insights and helping people and brands communicate in a way that makes them shine.

© 2016 Anders Lindgren.

The information in this guide is copyrighted. Sharing and copying is permitted only if the information remains unchanged and licensee "Anders Lindgren" is referred to as the source.

The information can not be published in print in any media without the prior consent of the copyright holder.

Text , design and illustrations : Anders Lindgren Photos: © Adobe Stock, © Dreamstime Typefaces : Myriad Pro , Myriad Pro Black and FFAD Matro Contact: Anders Lindgren.

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