You could be in email marketing, recruitment, niche manufacturing, wealth management, cloud services or a million other SIC code sectors. So what big trend will transform your industry over the next 5 years? I’ve gathered together some ideas from smart thinkers for you to consider: 

  1. Biotechnology – Craig Venter decoder of the human genome just published that he increased the efficiency of photosynthesis 300%. Peter Diamandis CEO X Prize, asks What’s that going to do for food production?
  2. Computational Systems and the renting of computer power. It’s the ability to model anything that Peter Diamandis is asking us to consider. What problem would you like to solve through modeling?
  3. Medicine – It’s becoming an information technology says Peter. Hand held mobile technology that allows local, instant diagnosis.
  4. Daniel Pink believes most CEOs have being ignoring the research for decades on what motivates us at work but it will change. As the war on talent intensifies we need to understand the top three motivators. Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose. (see previous blog post)
  5. Every 13 minutes, 100 baby boomers turn 60 in America! Can you take advantage of that tsunami of talent? (noted by Daniel Pink in Drive)
  6. We have moved from the Industrial Complex society to the Connection Economy. Seth Godin points out in his latest book The Icarus Deception – In the connection economy it’s the person who doesn’t enter the arena who is punished. In the connection economy, the fearful are disconnected. They are the ones who are punished, not by sinking but by being isolated.
  7. Everyone is creating marketing content and the deluge is growing rapidly. But most content is really weak. Velocity Partners, UK based agency, suggest 6 ideas to consider to build great content in the future –
  • Be the buyer – Everything starts with their challenges, needs, prejudices and concerns
  • Be authoritative – Stay in your sweet spot, where the things you understand better than anyone else intersect with the things your prospects really care about.
  • Be strategic – One-off content islands don’t add up to a content strategy
  • Be prolific – Content marketing is a marathon not a shot put
  • Be passionate – If you don’t care about this stuff, why should anybody else?
  • Be tough on yourself – You’ll know if you’re being lazy. Don’t be lazy.

As Seth Godin puts it so well. You need to learn how to see to do your best work. Really see what is happening around you. Not your version of the world. Don’t ignore the facts because they don’t fit in. Ship building, publishing, the record industry, PC industry to name but a few tried that, and well change can be tough.