In her thought-provoking talk, Pavlína offers a glimpse into the art and science of forecasting future trends, particularly in technology and society. Drawing from her extensive experience, Pavlína shares insights on navigating the fast-paced world of innovation, emphasizing the power of trendspotting to shape and anticipate the future. Her talk is a guide to understanding the currents of change and how to position oneself to not just anticipate but also influence the future. Pavlína is a Consultant focused on trends in technology and society. She's a Lead Mentor in Google for Startups for Europe and Africa, as well as in various other accelerators. She founded #HolkyzMarketingu, a female empowerment community that currently unites 40 000+ people. She is a Google Certified Trainer for Design Thinking and Entrepreneurship. Alumni to Aspen Institute Young Leaders Program, YTILI, On Deck and CGYPP fellowships. She was listed among 20 people who shaped 2020 by Hospodářské noviny. She created Trendspotterky.com, a consulting platform focused on trendspotting. She regularly sends a newsletter on society and technology pavlinaspeaks.com to 5000+ subscribers. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
Transcriber: grime elephant
Reviewer: Mahmoud Mohamed Ahmed Raise your hand if you take your coffee
with alternative milk like oat milk, coconut milk or almond milk. Great. Raise your hand again if you took your
coffee with alternative milk ten years ago I see only Mark almost still. In 2014, the trend forecasting agency WGSN
predicted that plant based milks will take over the world. And in 2017, they added a report that
Oatly is that one brand to watch. And they were 100% right.
Between the
years 2018 and 2022, sales of plant based milks went
up 25 times, and Oatly, they made $195 million
just last year. No wonder that in that 2014 report, WGSN claimed that they
are able to predict the future up to seven years
ahead with 95% certainty. Around a time of 2014-2016. They released reports that by now we
will all be in love with yoga. Check. That we will ditch heels
for sneakers. Check That we will start listening to K-pop.
Check. That we will fill our
houses with plants. Check. And t
hat for a moment we will consider
having AI instead of a boyfriend. Check. When I first discovered the world of trend
forecasting agencies about ten years ago, I remember
how I called my younger brother. And I was blabbering into the phone.
I was like, oh, there are people and do you know what you will love
and what you will eat? You know, it was as if I discovered
unicorns exist and I somehow did. There were people who could see something
none of us could see. They could see the future.
So
let me tell you a story. How it’s possible that
somebody can see the future. What was the first thing you did
when you entered this room? You looked around. You looked at
the people, their clothes, their facial expressions,
their body language. You overheard their conversations. You maybe peeked into their iPhone
screens, into their bags. You smelled their perfume or the like of
it. Yeah. Or what they had for lunch. Essentially what you were doing
is called Kuki wo Yomu. It's a Japanese terms f
or
reading the room. It’s exactly what we as trend
forecasters do. We are constantly reading the room.
We're picking up signals. We are searching for patterns. We see the world as one global room, and we are looking at social
media listening and Google Trends and IPO filings and
stock prices and whatever else. We are constantly looking
for patterns because on those patterns we are able
to build forecasts. Every time I talk about trend forecasting,
I always say it's a bit like surfing. Kuki wo Yo
mu gives you the ability
to spot the waves, to see the waves which are coming, and it also gives you the ability to
understand when you should stand on that board and start surfing. The best companies in the world
are the best surfers. Take Netflix for an example. A few years ago, they saw that the gaming industry is eight times
bigger than Hollywood. In fact, it's bigger than music
and movies combined. 3.5 billion people in the
world are gamers. An average gamer is 35 years old
and he has a dec
ent income and I should say she because 48%
of gamers are women. Netflix saw that and Witcher Was Born, a TV series based on a video game
and fantasy book series, became one of the most successful TV
series Netflix has ever produced. In the first month after the release, 76 million people in the world
watched at least part of it. For a long time. It was a perfect world. Trend forecasting agencies
were releasing reports. Companies were buying those reports
for very big money. They were building t
he campaigns
and products around them. And we as consumers, we were falling
in love with the products. It was a perfect world until it wasn't. Even though we have the most advanced
tools we've ever had, it has become almost impossible to read
the global Room. Why is that? Because we produce more content
than ever before. In her time, Audrey Hepburn
made two movies a year, and each of them lasted two hours. Nowadays, a TikTok star, Victoria Paris,
makes 22,000 videos a year, and each of them last
s 32 seconds. We have so much content and we
consume so much content. In fact, we consume so much content as
if you read one Tolkiens Lord of the rings book a day. No wonder that we
need to be connected to our screens 11 hours a day. And talking about the
screens. When I was growing up, We had one screen in our house, you know,
the TV, you would sit in front of it, 8 p.m. watch whatever was there. Nowadays, an average household
has 11 connected devices. All this means we have lost the global
ro
om. We don't live together anymore. We live in millions of separate rooms that
are changing at a very fast pace. The fact that we lost the one big room
means we have lost the patterns. And if we have lost the patterns, we have
lost trends, we have lost shared trends. And if we don't share trends, we don't
share culture. Ever heard of Bad Bunny? He’s the most listened to artist on
Spotify. Three years in a row. Beyonce? She barely makes it to top ten. Ever heard of Shein this Chinese fast
fashion
retailer is the most searched for fashion brand in 113 countries in
the world. Nike in ten of them. How come something can be so popular
and still so unknown to us? Because algorithms locked us in our
rooms and they threw away the key. Generation Z. Our teenagers are the last
generation that we can describe. It's the last generation that
shares pieces of culture, that shares pieces of certain language
that shares idols. All the generations after them,
the alpha and the beta. We will not be able
to describe them
because they will not share anything. They will not have a shared culture. They
will not have a shared experience. Talking about growing up.
I grew up in the 90s. You know, everybody back then
loved Britney Spears. Low rise jeans and Leonardo DiCaprio
in Titanic. Everybody except for me. You know, I was this nerdy girl with
the glasses. I played video games. I quoted German philosophers. And
you don't get popular by that. And I spent my days in the forest. I
felt I didn't conne
ct with anybody. I felt I didn't share their language. I felt like I didn't share what
they are sharing together. And I felt really lonely. Last week I met a young girl and she
really reminded me of myself and we started talking together and
at some point I took the courage and asked her very carefully, like.
Do you have any friends? She smiled and replied, tons of them. And she started showing me all those
discord servers and WhatsApp groups and messages where she was discussing
Dungeons and Dr
agons and BTS and Roblox and Final Fantasy and whatever it is. And I realized one thing that even though
we might have lost this global room, we don't live together anymore. We, in
fact, live in this panelak together. We might live in those separate rooms,
but you know, if you ever lived in Panelak, you know
you are never alone. Internet, It gave us access to hallways,
to elevators, to the parks. The fact that mass market
trends disappeared is the best thing that could
have happened to us, becau
se that means each of us is allowed
to find their favorite place in the house. Find their favorite people, and talk about
what they are really interested in, like strength training,
for example. And it also created the best brief
possible for us as trend forecasters. It made us ask a question, how
do we predict the future? That's not just for the cool kids.
How do we predict the future? That's for everyone. The answer is simple. Kuki wo Yomu
gives you the ability to read the room, to see the peo
ple, to see their facial
expression, to see their clothes, to smell their perfumes, to overhear
their conversations. But that's not enough for today's world. In order to understand the hallways
and the parks and the elevators. We need to enter them. We need to
start talking to those people. We need to gain them trust and
invite them to our rooms and visit their own rooms in order to
understand what's happening in them. And I think very soon, if you do that, you will find out there's much
more th
an meets the eye. And I'm sure you will find
out another thing. That there are 10 million ways
how to drink your coffee, and that some people, they drink tea.
And I think that’s beautiful. Thank you.
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