We are living in a golden age of trends. 
Teased from hard data and cold observation, they are presented to us and dissected by data scientists, journalists, and experts such as myself as a way of helping us make sense of our world. We are awash in consumer trends, technology trends, and social trends related to the way we all live, work, and play. Yet, there is one supertrend transcending all others. It affects every industry and is reforming every business. And it now permeates all of our lives.
This trend is the Hyper-Acceleration of Change. It refers not just to the sheer speed in which the world is shifting, but to the fact that change itself is happening faster and faster. This powerful supertrend, alone, is creating winners and losers every day, and the way you respond to it in your business and life will determine which one you will be.
In my keynote presentations to associations and my work with top executives—in industries as diverse as food, finance, automobiles, tourism, and wellness—I see firsthand how this trend is transforming consumerism, the future of work, and even the nature of family and relationships.
As a trends expert, I am a “near-futurist” who uses research and interpretive tools to see around corners to the next few years. My goal is to help businesspeople profit from the hyper-acceleration of change and other trends by finding creative ways to embrace and exploit them. While the quickening of change is hardly a new concept, its importance cannot be overestimated. A flash-in-the-pan fad would have faded long ago. And while this is a trend that can mean life or death for a business, it is also one that can be profitably capitalized on, more about which I will explain below.
In Future Shock, Alvin Toffler wrote that the rate of change has implications quite apart from, and perhaps more important than, the directions of change. And those implications, he argued, are dangerous. Future shock is the name Toffler gave to a disease: the disease of cultural change that is happening too quickly for human adaptation.
Yet, 50 years on we have somehow been able to survive, thank you very much. Society doesn’t seem to have suffered from the “mass disorientation” that Toffler warned of. In fact, what is striking is how malleable and resilient humans have proved to be. This is especially true considering the blitzkrieg of change has happened faster than even Toffler had imagined. Exponentially faster.
In 1970 Toffler was particularly enchanted by the arrival of automation as the main agent of transformation. He found validation in the sentiments of the British computer manufacturer Sir Leon Bagrit, who called it “the greatest change in the whole history of mankind.” But that was then.
Today, just a half-century later, we have already lived for years with the internet, mobile computing, and connected homes, and are now on the cusp of whiplashing revolutions in artificial intelligence, robotics, personalized medicine, and space exploration. From this vantage point, Toffler’s 1970s-era awe at the speed of change seems almost… quaint.
Like Moore’s Law, which states that the number of transistors on a computer chip doubles every 18 months, and thus yields exponential increases in computing power, the rate of social change also appears to grow exponentially. That’s because technology feeds on itself. Technology propagates technology. A graph representing social change derives its steep incline from technological changes profoundly affecting every aspect of human life.
The storage of human knowledge offers a clear example of hyper-accelerated change. The invention of movable type in the 15th century made a marked difference in the amount of information it was possible to preserve. As Toffler himself noted, prior to 1500 Europe was producing about 1,000 book titles a year. By 1950, the rate had accelerated to about 120,000 titles a year, so what once took a century to create required only 10 months. Today, it is hardly possible to keep count, as thousands of titles, many of which are not even written by humans, but by artificial intelligence bots, are launched daily on digital platforms.
The same pattern can be seen in almost every industry and every aspect of human relationships. News cycles now move at warp speed, extending even to entertainment cycles. To paraphrase a famous truism, it used to take years to become an overnight success. Now, thanks to social media, “overnight” is literal.
Keeping track of the latest advances in artificial intelligence, blockchain finance, or massive multiplayer gaming can overwhelm many of us who came of age in the pre-internet era (I’m looking at you, Dad!). But, to our children, this is the only world they know and it seems perfectly normal. But whether or not one is consciously aware of the rising complexity of culture, it is undeniable that life in the developed world moves faster than ever.
It is ironic that we are all so very busy, because the promise of technology was supposed to be that it would set us all free (I’m looking at you, PC!). Yet, the exact opposite has happened. Inside the workplace and out, technology has compelled us to squeeze more productivity into the same amount of time. In many of my keynotes, in rooms of more than a thousand attendees, I have asked members of the audience to raise their hands if they feel they have enough hours in the day to accomplish everything they need to. Unsurprisingly, only one or two hands go up. Usually one of those is raised as a joke. Many economists point out that until the mid-1970s, real wages and productivity in the United States rose in tandem. But from that point until today the two have diverged, such that productivity has continued to rise while real wages have remained flat. Time no longer equals money; we are being more productive for the same pay.
Like most trends, this one opens a clear opportunity for businesses that are creative enough to capitalize on it. One profitable response to this Age of Hyper-Acceleration lies in solving customers’ problems of being overly time-pressed—in short, by having the smoothest user experience and being as easy to work with as possible. That is what Apple did in creating the simplest smartphone on the market. Google offered the simplest, fastest, and cleanest search engine. Amazon provided 1-click ordering and the best customer service in the business. McDonald’s is rolling out self-serve kiosks.
When it comes to trends, business innovation is not only about creating a method, idea, or product that the world has never seen. It is also about creatively solving a problem in your own industry using inspiration from an unrelated field. It is about identifying relevant consumer trends, then creating “responses” that you know have high probabilities of success because something similar is already attracting the same customers in another industry.
Consumer trends are not siloed by business type. Trends reflect what people are thinking and feeling, and each of us to some degree responds to trends affecting every aspect of our consumer lives, from the cars we buy and the clothes we wear to the trips we take, the financial choices we make, and the time-challenged decisions we take.
When taking questions at the end of my presentations, I am most often asked “Where will that trend be in five years?” No matter the trend, the answer is almost always the same: It will likely be stronger and more intense than it is today. Why? Because trends tend to have a lot of inertia, and once they get going, they are like snowballs barreling downhill, gathering mass and strength as they roll. Today, in an age of intensifying activity, we can be fairly confident this trend will continue to grow, perhaps indefinitely.
While there are clearly overlaps between being a trends expert and a futurist, Alvin Toffler was at his most comfortable talking about “what is,” as opposed to “what might be.” “No serious futurist deals in ‘predictions’,” he wrote. Toffler’s way, as is mine, was to explain the present as it is, then use that information to extrapolate what soon will be. It is entirely possible that his forecast that we will all become overwhelmed by accelerating cultural shifts was right, but just a few years too early. But how much more acceleration can we humans take?
Daniel Levine (DanielLevine.com) is one of the world’s best-known trends experts. Named “the ultimate guru of cool” by CNN and a frequent guest on TV and radio, Daniel is the director of the Avant-Guide Institute, a New York-based consultancy that helps businesspeople profit from trends via live keynote presentations, hands-on “playshops,” and multi-channel media offerings. As the editor of WikiTrend.org, Daniel leads a team of trend-spotters who track the latest ideas and experiences around the globe. From General Motors, American Express, and Microsoft to South African Tourism and the UNWTO, Daniel works with businesses and governments to help them be more relevant, innovative, and profitable.