Trends for 2015

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It’s time to blow your mind with the amazing things going on around the world.

Each year, I try to create a bird’s-eye view of key trends.   It’s a mash up of all the changes in technology, consumerism, and ideas that seem to be taking off.

Here are my trends for 2015:

Trends for 2015:  The Year of Digital Transformation

I call it the year of Digital Transformation because of the encroachment of technology into all things business, work, and life.

Technology is everywhere (and it’s on more wrists than I’ve ever seen before.)

What’s different now is how the combination of Cloud + Mobile + Social + Big Data + Internet-of-Things are really changing how business gets done.  Businesses around the world are using Cloud, Mobile, Social, Big Data, and Internet-of-Things to leap frog ahead of their competitors and to differentiate in new and exciting ways.

Businesses around the world are using technology to gains insights and to shape their customer experience, transform their workforce, and streamline their back-office operations.

It’s a new race for leadership positions in the Digital Economy.   With infinite compute and capacity, along with new ways to connect around the world, business leaders and IT leaders are re-imagining the art of the possible for their businesses.

While Cloud, Mobile, Social, Big Data, and Internet-of-Things might be the backbone of the changes all around us, it’s business model innovation that is bringing these changes to the market and helping them take hold.

Here is a preview of 10 key trends from Trends for 2015:  The Year of Digital Transformation:

  1. The Age of Instant Gratification.
  2. It’s a Mobile Everything World.
  3. Businesses Look to the Cloud.
  4. Internet of Things (IoT)
  5. Design is everywhere.
  6. Economy Re-Imagined (“The Circular Economy”)
  7. Culture of Health.
  8. Money is Reimagined (“The Future of Payments and Currency”)
  9. Digital Personal Assistants are Everywhere.
  10. Renegades and Rebels Rule the World

As a tip, when you read the post, try to scan it first, all the way down, so you can see the full collection of ideas.  Then circle back and slow down to really absorb the full insight.   You’ll find that you’ll start to see more patterns across the trends, and you’ll start to connect more dots.

I designed the post to make it easy to scan, as well as to read it end-to-end in depth.  I think it’s more valuable to be able to quickly take the balcony view, before diving in.   This way, you get more of a full picture view of what’s happening around the world.  Even if you don’t master all the trends, a little bit of awareness can actually go a long way. 

In fact, you might surprise yourself as some of the trends pop into your mind, while you’re working on something completely different.   By having the trends at my fingertips, I’m finding myself seeing new patterns in business, along with new ways that technology can enhance our work and life.

Trends actually become a vocabulary for generating and shaping new ideas.   There are so many ways to arrange and re-arrange the constellation of ideas.  You’ll find that I paid a lot of attention to the naming of each trend.  I tried to share what was already pervasive and sticky, or if it was complicated, I tried to turn it into something more memorable.

Use the trends as fodder and insight as you pave your way through your own Digital Transformation.