Welcome to this 67th issue of our newsletter “Weak Signals and other Trends”. Each week, I sift through hundreds of sources of inspiration to track where we’re heading. If you are a new subscriber to this newsletter, take the time to send me a note and introduce yourself, I love to understand who is reading.
As I did last summer, this newsletter will be published bi-monthly during the months of July and August, returning to the weekly schedule in September.
You can subscribe to this weekly newsletter here to get it directly by mail.
This newsletter was written this time from Geneva, Switzerland. This is what I noticed these past couple of weeks, thank you for sharing this newsletter to those who look into the future.
Estelle.
Strategic blindspots
Looking at the familiar with “alien eyes” allows you to unlock new business model opportunities while avoiding risks stemming from strategic blindspots.
An optical illusion that messes with your head. Gen Z actually hates working from home. Turn Your Shipping Box Into A Competitive Advantage (also here) . BMW’s heated seats. American Eagle’s Hottest Business Isn’t Jeans — It’s Logistics. Availability bias: the tendency to use information that easily comes to mind. Apple Inc. published a nearly 60-page report Wednesday outlining all its health features. Ordering feelings.
This quote by Bill Gates:
We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next 10.”
We have scheduled the dates for 2022 for our “Strategic Blindspot course” . Our next course will be offered in Montreal on October 26-27, 2022. Registrations are now open.
Our future
The metaverse in 2040. The 2022 Africa Youth Survey. Turning stem cells,into,bines using soundwaves. Stunning results of the future of mobility competition. Criminals will serve their sentences psychologically. The future is hempcrete. The Ghosting Guide: : Why Job Seekers Disappear. Design trends of 2022. Edits to a cholesterol gene could stop the biggest killer on earth. Everybody is a futurist. Metaverse 2027:
Expectations and Extremes. An Archeology for the Future in Space.
We keep you updated on those trends and more on Twitter.
Weak signals
Weak signals are indicators of a change, a trend or an emerging risk that might become significant for the future. They allow us to run hypothesis, expand our thinking, and challenge assumptions. How will you interpret those in your industry or field of expertise?
Virtual product placement. Eating invasive species. Why people pay thousands for opulent 'experience' foods. The first-ever Aurora Australis flight. The couples taking relationship 'gap years'. 35 under 35. Release of DALL·E 2 – a neural network trained by OpenAI to generate high quality images using only text prompts. Edits to a cholesterol gene. Klarna, the Swedish “buy now, pay later” giant, raised $800m at a $6.7B valuation, down 85% from its valuation. Fake headline images. Turtles are boosting tropical cyclone predictions. Italian government plans to halt digital sales of masterpieces from its major museums.
On our radar
It is that time of the year where we take off, in the middle of a huge transportation bottleneck. This led me to research how we view leisure: To be healthy in the dopamine culture. The fashion, around 1893, to walk through arcades with a turtle on a leash. Time stress. The peak-end rule. The changing concept of leisure and this quote:
Today we’re seeing yet another transition: a lack of leisure time now operates as a powerful status symbol (..) Conspicuous consumption used to be a wayfor people to display their money through scarce luxury goods. Now, they flaunt how they spend their valuable time only on activities that are truly meaningful, productive or spectacular,”
Down the rabbit hole
This section highlights a subject that lead me to many useful threads, or a single site, that opened many doors.
This week, I went down the rabbit hole into the Op-eds for the future by the New York Times.
Hodgepodge discovery
Articles for curious minds and the polymaths
A part-interactive exploration of food-related carbon emissions. Uber, laws broken and kill-switches. Wimbledon uses 55,000 tennis balls every year. Behind the largest art heist in history. Shipping lanes 1700-1850. The man who discovered the T-Rex. How you define complexity. Why knots are important. What CEOs really do. Umwelt, or how animals see themselves:
By thinking about our surroundings through other Umwelten, we gain fresh appreciation not just for our fellow creatures, but also for the world we share with them. Through the nose of an albatross, a flat ocean becomes a rolling odorscape. … To a bee, a plain yellow sunflower has an ultraviolet bull’s-eye at its center. …
Numbers
52% — On average, percentage of Africa’s youth population who want to emigrate.
53.5%—According to LinkedIn data, remote job listings accounted for only 18.4% of paid job postings in May but nevertheless attracted 53.5% of the total applications
Feeling good
Small seasons. The world’s smallest park. A subterranean winery. Anything JWST. World Cat tells you which libraries near you have a particular book. The ancient underground city discovered in Midyat, Türkiye.
Share your favorite issues of the newsletter, or send friends - or random strangers…
And do not miss the next issue:
Revisit: around this time last year, I published issue 21.
Thanks for reading Weak signals and other trends!
Contact me at Competia with your feedback or ideas. Thank you for reading.