What are megatrends?
When you see a news story about a new app sweeping the world, when the changing weather alters your insurance risk, or when you use your phone to do business in Southeast Asia – you are experiencing the impact of this century’s megatrends.
Megatrends are large, transformative processes with global reach, broad scope, and dramatic impact.
Companies, governments, and individuals use megatrends for long term planning, policy development, and even for making personal decisions.
The term megatrends was popularised by John Naisbitt, who in 1982 identified forces that were transitioning the world from an industrial society to an information society.
These are our six megatrends for the 21st Century:
- Impactful technology
- Accelerating individualisation
- Demographic change
- Rapid urbanisation
- Climate and resource security
- Economic power shift
Short-lived shocks like a pandemic or regional conflicts, while dramatic in nature, are not megatrends. Things like the metaverse, the gender pay gap, or even smart cities are not megatrends – although they may be part of a wider megatrend.
Nor are megatrends aspirational targets, like the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. However, understanding the six megatrends is necessary to achieve the SDGs.
Megatrends are the fundamental forces shaping our world.
Understanding them can also inform long term strategic thinking, helping us to make better decisions for the future, today.
As individuals, megatrends can also help us to make better personal choices about where to live, how to invest, or even what career to pursue.
The six megatrends of the 21st Century are already underway.
Megatrends watch
Archive



Is technology making it harder for individuals to act morally?
When social media companies employ opaque algorithms to capture and keep our attention, what power does the individual have to resist?





Unlearn music on The Future, This Week
This week: we’re on a break but we have something interesting in store for you, we discuss how the way we engage with music is fundamentally changing — from something we listen to, to something we create with.


Musk and the freedom to tweet (absolutely anything)
As a vehement Twitter critic and free speech absolutist, what does Elon Musk want to do as Twitter's largest shareholder?





Elon Musk buys Twitter… well, sort of
This week: it really is a Musk when Elon becomes Twitter’s largest shareholder and gets a seat on the board.





Neon and chip shortages
This week: the world’s leading suppliers of neon are in Ukraine, and that threatens to make the ongoing microchip shortage even worse.


Agricultural productivity, sex education and gender equity: 5 times soap operas enabled social change
Soap operas, with their long and involved storytelling and large audience reach, can be uniquely positioned to enable narrative transportation.


Encanto, TikTok and the art of social storytelling: why music is not just for listening anymore
TikTok trends and challenges rely on music to help tell a social story, collectively told across many videos - which in turn is helping songs go viral.





New York Times gets Wordle
This week: we discuss the economics and business behind the New York Times’ decision to buy popular internet game Wordle.