A Resource for Analyzing Trends Impacting Health and Healthy Lifestyle Brands

From Parsons the New School for Design, an insightful and useful presentation (actually a lecture) that can serve as a resource for analyzing trends impacting health and healthy lifestyle brands.

Key takeaways:

1. Think of trends as stories (big ones, e.g. future of healthcare, and small ones, e.g. botox) about what's moving, where it's moving and by what force
2. Study them to understand consumer insight (how culture shapes behavior), to develop ideas and to develop products
3. Trends take on life much the way germs spread (passed from one person/community to another)
3. Involves understanding currency (defined in terms of value and social)
4. To understand the structure of trends - identify the forces at work (economics, technology, society), which lead to perceptions that result in behavior (work, play, create/consumer) which lead to micro (personal) trends, e.g. recycling, plant-based skin care products
5. Realize (and learn from the fact) that there are always (us vs. them) counter-forces and behaviors at play (e.g. mini-advocates vs. hummer-advocates) and (then vs. now) historical perspectives, (e.g. skin deep beauty vs. real beauty)

View The Structure of Trends presentation

Prediction: Mobile Solutions Will Impact Healthcare

Two different sources, one point of view -- that mobile is going to continue to play a larger role in our lives (including our healthcare).

First, from the Pew Internet & American Life Project report. Among expert respondents, 77% mostly agreed that in 2020, the phone (with significantly enhanced computer power) is expected to become the primary connection tool to the internet.

Second, from a health industry conference on the role of mobility and mobile solutions in the health industry. All speakers agreed that as it relates to the cell phone, we are only now beginning to uncover its full potential:

• in the management of chronic diseases
• as a tool for accessing timely information
• as an essential device for capturing information
• as a way to collaborate across time and distance
• as a means to interact in new ways with patients
• and as a platform for education and entertainment.

Yet all acknowledged that we have barely scratched the surface on the ways these devices and mobile solutions will play out in the future.

Inspiration for Healthcare, Healthy and Energy Brands

A Simply Better Way is a great talk from Saul Kaplan at the Business Innovation Factory. "My dream for the future is that we can come together as a connected community with a shared purpose for a simply better way" are the words he uses to introduce his talk. He focuses primarily on healthcare, education and energy, but if you are not in one of those sectors you will still find inspiration. 

First, you can connect it back to my last post. You can either wallow in the mud of the current situation, or consider his metaphor of "a simply better way" so that you're the one consumers turn to when we turn the corner.

But  On the idea of "connected community" with a shared purpose to achieve a better way. He states that it "has become easier to connect via the internet with someone on the other side of the world then it is to connect with the rich diversity of citizens and institutions in our own backyard. Despite all of the networking technology, we have become surprisingly disconnected from our own neighbors."

So much of our focus has turned to social networks. Creating connected and collaborative virtual communities of people with shared interests. But his point is that we've missed something important along the way. We need to mobilize. We need to collaborate, not in Second Life, but in real life, to make change happen. As he states, "we need to reconnect the dots into purposeful networks focused on healthcare, education, and energy independence as the path towards prosperity and a simply better way." Because communities really do matter.

The brands we buy and how they define us

Imagine the impact of each of us switching out just one brand per week (one of the "things" we use, throw away and waste), to help build a more sustainable, livable, prosperous future. Doesn't take much to make a difference.

“Our things define us."

What we buy, what we use, what we keep and throw away, what we waste, and what we save: the stuff that surrounds us and flows through our lives is a key indicator of the kinds of lives we're living. To be an affluent twenty-first-century person is to float on a sea of material objects - each with its own history and future.

They may be hidden from our eyes, but in practical global terms, those histories and futures tend to be the most important aspects of the stuff we own.”

This is from one of the chapters of a new book called Worldchanging: A Users Guide for the 21st Century - a compilation of innovative solutions, ideas and inventions for building a sustainable, livable, prosperous future. It's written by WorldChanging, a nonprofit media organization founded on the idea that real solutions already exist for building the future we want.

Top 10 trends of the extreme future impacting health and healthy lifestyle brands

Keeping an eye on the trends that will impact health and healthy lifestyle brands.

Dr. Canton's compelling and thought-provoking view of the trends that will reshape the world over the course of the next 20 years. About The Extreme Future

Getting a handle on a changing world

Like a 40 mile an hour wind at our backs, the world is constantly changing. How can you get a handle on all these changes, and how do you discern which ones are important and which are just passing fads. Consider an in-house futurist.

As the New York Times recently advertised on their website for a Futurist for its R&D group, the ideal candidate:

• is highly imaginative and well informed about the social and technology trends affecting creation, distribution and consumption of all forms of media now and in the future

• has an innate curiosity and a passion for ideas; with a facility for market research data and who can use it to vividly paint a picture of how the world around us is evolving

Every day, we get sucked into busy-ness - putting out fires, creating reports, attending meetings, answering emails. Which doesn't leave much time for thinking about what really matters - navigating the future. Someone needs to be able to look hard into the distance while others are watching for what's coming around the next corner.

Beyond the traits mentioned by the NY Times, your futurist:

• should voraciously read not just industry and trade pubs, but also general business news - because big insights and ideas typically come from outside your industry

• must listen for "the buzz", and keep abreast of influential thinkers, bloggers and publications

• must understand and empathize with end-users - their feelings, concerns, motivations and practices

• should be empowered to serve as company protagonist - challenging conventional wisdom and practices, pushing you to think beyond the usual to reach for the extraordinary. 

Last but not least, your futurist will help you provide a critical and differentiating "right-brain" perspective in a left-brain dominant world.