When Do Megatrends Matter?

An interesting part of the trends business is trend identification is easy.  The hard part is figuring out when a trend will have broad impact and matter to businesses. 

iMedia Connection's article 5 Marketing Megatrends You Can't Ignore looks at megatrends that marketers should care about.  The author defines megatrends as:

"What's a megatrend, you ask? It's something big. I'm talking really big. Think of a giant unstoppable tsunami of change transforming society as we know it. Think global warming scale -- then apply it to mass human behavior. Think glaciers carving the grand canyon of consumer sentiment."

So megatrends are really big trends, as opposed to everyday trends like a fashion trend. 

The author lists 5 new megatrends he believes will transform society in the coming years:

• Mass collaboration is powering the new economy
• Constant connectivity in an on-demand world
• Globalization
• Pervasive distrust of big corporations
• A global sense of urgency to mix the problems of the modern world

What's interesting about these "new" megatrends is all have been talked about, at least in the trends community, for many years - even decades.  This does not mean the list is bad or late.  Trends take a long time to reach the point where they matter. 

One of the key indicators that a megatrend is starting to have broad impact is discussion and activity across multiple disiplines.  All of these trends have reached that point - and all of these trends matter or are starting to matter to small businesses. 

Comments

[8gb usb drive]

Megatrends are the great forces in societal development that will very likely affect the future in all areas the next 10-15 years. Many companies and organizations use megatrends in their strategic work. Below, you can gain an overview over the 10 most important megatrends as we head toward 2020.

[mobil bekas]

Robert was right, people know they are not alone in their struggles, and are letting companies know their banding together

[kensington luxury penthouses]

Is this the zeitgeist.

[Adam Kleinberg]

Thanks for the post (I wrote the original "marketing megatrends" article)

These trends definitely matter to small business—ironically, and particularly globalization. I saw Bill Clinton speak at the APEC SME Summit in China a month or two ago and he made the point that the world's greatest hope for sustained economic stability and growth was a mass shift in wealth from a handful of enormous, self-interested and as we've learned, precarious, financial institutions to an army of small and medium enterprises in the world doing business with one another. And he cited the internet and companies like Alibaba.com as the catalysts that could make this happen.

So, yeah. Definitely impacts small business.

[Robert Dempsey]

It's interesting how all 5 of these go together, especially the first four. Communication is now real-time, and people are talking more often to a growing audience. That means more points of view on existing problems and issues. People know they are not alone in their struggles, and are letting companies know their banding together. Thanks for the post.