The signals behind the trends.
Agneta Björnsjö is the Global Research lead for Accenture Song and she shared with us some of the signals that were discovered during the research process but didn’t get a direct spotlight in the report.
There is so much more to the Life Trends than what’s in the already content-rich narrative we just published. For about half a year, we have processed signals coming from both within and outside Accenture Song. It was quite a bit to digest.
The 60+ trends pitches from Accenture’s design studios around the world gave us tons of input, across a wide range of topics.
These stories went into our thought process and are not recognizable in the final trends but they are very telling and insightful.
These are a few examples:
- How recent constraints have pushed people to use and combine their skills in a completely new context, illustrated by Chinese language teachers using their live-streaming classes also to sell food.
- How education is likely to change in the future, when (almost) everything you need to know is explained in a video of max 5 minutes. What will that do to the way we think about expertise?
- The way technology creates a platform for designers outside the main cultural expressions to reach new audiences. Some African designers are good examples of this signal.
- Why the attractiveness of locally produced goods, local stores, and culture is driven by a combination of the need to feel grounded, nostalgia, and of practical housing reasons in Mexico.
- The way European cities need to rethink not only their purpose but their “operating systems” and start adopting some of the characteristics of rural communities.
We expanded our views by listening to the voices of people in Brazil, China, France, India, South Africa, the UK, and the US through our focus groups. This is where we learned that many people — mainly in emerging market countries — actually felt more energized this fall than a year ago.
The tougher the world around us gets, the more we feel that it’s up to us to take action to provide for ourselves, our families, and our communities.
In fact, communities are more important than ever for people in many ways. They offer new resources as well as an opportunity to escape from reality for a while. Those resources are helping out with practical things during difficult times, such as sharing rides, bulk purchasing to cut costs, or advice on how to fix the car. And we learned about the variety of communities that so many people have joined to share and discuss their passions, be it coffee, handicraft, financial independence, charity, diamond painting, cooking, or trout fishing.
We continue our research for the trends, right now with a survey running in 20 countries. So do expect more insights coming as the trends — and the world — keep developing.
Follow Agneta on Linkedin and read the report.
