Whenever I receive an email from the trend-watching organization called Shaping Tomorrow I get excited! Yesterday’s content was particularly insightful and I wanted to share some of the highlights with you in today’s post! I trust you will enjoy them as much as I did.
- More change will result from advances in technology in the next five years (by 2021) than has occurred over the past 50 years.
- Electricity generation will become a new small business.
- By 2030 the world is projected to have 41 mega-cities with more than 10 million inhabitants each (there are currently 30).
- By 2025, more than 70% of Africa’s population is expected to be living in cities.
- Facebook’s aggressive move into publishing will disrupt many marketing plans and jeopardize the traditional inbound marketing model (inbound marketing produces interesting content that draws customers to your business – like this blog!).
- Human-induced climate change will increase storm intensity by between 2 percent and 11 percent by the end of the century.
- By 2022, one in every 10 people will be wearing clothes connected to the internet.
- Drones will increasingly do many delivery, security and measurement jobs.
- Hydro, wind and geothermal energy could see Africa leapfrogging other continents by developing thousands of small-scale “virtual power stations” that distribute electricity via mini-grids and would not require transmission lines.
- Mankind will need to get much better at recycling agricultural inputs (like animal feeds and fertilizers) and growing food more efficiently.
- Three concepts of urbanization will emerge: megacities, mega regions and mega corridors. [Note: A megaregion is a large network of metropolitan regions that share several of the following: Environmental systems, topography, infrastructure and economic links. A megacorridor is transportation links between large cities, megacities or megaregions].
- Greater information flows will enable more people to become aware of opportunities for work both nearby and in distant places.
- Some of today’s large global managers will become mega-managers. A mega manager has the capacity to manage a much high level of complexity than traditional managers.
- The global production of battery EVs (electric vehicles) will grow from 273,000 in 2015 to 1.3 million in 2022.
- By 2050, the world’s urban population will have increased by some 72%.
- By 2020, 40% of existing jobs worldwide will be lost but many new ones will be created in the high-growth industries.
What megatrends would you add to this list?
Jeff Suderman is a futurist, professor, consultant and pracademic who works in the field of organizational development. He works with clients to improve leadership, teamwork, organizational alignment, strategy and organizational Future-Readiness. He resides in Palm Desert, California. Twitter: @jlsuderman. Email: jeff@jeffsuderman.com
Sources:
Michael Jackson (March 24, 2016). Megatrends report. Shaping Tomorrow.
Image Credit: Jarling-art