6 things to read this week (28.08.17)

Rewind my week to fast forward yours #36

Henry Mason
Aug 28, 2017 · 3 min read

A bit of a focus on macro trends this week: how companies should think about trends, a wide-ranging look at technology, reflections on Gartner’s technology Hype Cycle, a call for better application of technology. Oh, and why plus size fashion and Asian tourists are the future. Enjoy!


🌏 First up: a reminder from McKinsey that even in an age of hyper-specialisation, the pace of change means that successful innovators are those who are able to look outside their industries and ride the bigger macro-trends that shape all of our personal & professional lives. The original article, which looks at the trends themselves, is also well worth reading)

🔮 The Exponential View, by Azeem Azhar, is one of the best newsletters looking expansively at new technologies & their impacts on society (and the inspiration for the emojis introducing each post here!). Here’s a transcript of a talk he gave recently that adds context to why technology is the biggest driver of social & economic change today.

🎯 Last week I shared Gartner’s newly published Hype Cycle. This week, I was interested to see a look back at the past 20 years of Hype Cycles to see what lessons we can learn. The answer (perhaps predictably): “we are simply not very good at predicting the future”. Other takeaways? Most technologies are ‘flashes in the pan’…technologies die…implementation is as important as the underlying insight…technologies often take decades to mature…some never seem to quite arrive…while others seem to suddenly leap forward ‘unexpectedly’. Great analysis.

💯 More tech analysis next, but this time with a very different spin. Tim O’Reilly is one of the most important figures in the modern Internet, which makes his clarion call for a more purposeful and humane application of technology all the more interesting. For all our sakes, let’s hope businesses and governments listen.

👗 A very different article next: on the potentially bright future of plus-size fashion, if only the fashion industry could learn to embrace it. Will demographics, the rise of peer influencers and quite simply the sheer amount of money at stake win them over?

✈️ Finally, a fascinating look at the changing dynamics of the tourism industry. Westerners have seen the benefits of globalisation in cheaper goods, now it’ll be interesting to see how middle class and wealthier Americans and Europeans react to being second-class citizens when traveling. (NB/ our RED CARPET trend back in 2012 was always one of my favourite trends :)

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Henry Mason

Written by

Managing Director @ TrendWatching

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