Toniq New - Articles + Appearances

From Surviving to Thriving
by Cheryl Swanson

I am not a futurist but rather a brand strategist, which is an important distinction for the "surviving to thriving" story I will explore here. We look at trends over a five- to ten-year time horizon, factoring in the major cultural shifts that will influence lifestyles in the next decade and onwards. Key areas of study include institutional domains like government, religion, healthcare and business, and lifestyle domains like media, architecture, fashion, technology, entertainment, and design, that will enable clients to incorporate trend insights to optimise their brand performance as society evolves.

The "present" doesn't always unfold as intended, in a neat, "linear" progression. And, often, increased knowledge transforms perceptions, breaking old paradigms and ushering in radically new eras. A vivid example of a "present moment" unfolding in a non-linear progression was John F. Kennedy's emboldening message to Congress in 1961 that led to the "space age" of the 1960s, which laid the foundation for one of the more dramatic shifts of the last century and created a foundation for lifestyles during the past decade.

The Fast-Technology Shift

The space race led to a cultural shift we started tracking in 1998. In ten short years, fast technology has radically changed the way we connect with our fellow humans, moving from 3D, "real world" connections to a plethora of 2D, virtual experiences.

Technological progress is out-running our innate ability to adapt, demanding that we learn new skills, develop new coping techniques and establish new ways of being. We've worked very hard to keep up. We have adapted by learning how to hyper-task, to vigorously work our "to-do" lists; even 20-year-olds write things down so they don't forget them five minutes later.

Our brains have literally been overloaded. So quickly and collectively ramping up to live at the speed of technology has had serious repercussions. Some 80% of what we learn about the world enters through our eyes -- and to cope we edit out 85% of incoming stimuli. So if brand messages are not clear, symbolic and compelling, they will be edited out for the sake of survival.

We've given up sleep in our drive to keep up with daily demands. Two-thirds of us have serious sleep issues: no surprise that one of the top-selling drug categories is sleep aids like Ambien and Lumestra. Sleep has become the new luxury, as three out of four Americans believe it is more important than exercise and a good pillow is nine times more important than a sleep partner.

Crunch Fitness offers guided meditation classes that teach how to fall asleep with ultimate relaxation, and sells appropriate gear: mats, pillows, and blankets. Mid- to high-end hotels have a bed obsession; the sleep concierge at the Benjamin, in NYC, offers a choice of 12 pillows, 400-thread-count sheets and a bed with a money-back guarantee if you don't sleep as well as you do at home.

The Quest for Happiness

As we live at an increasingly fast pace, feeling like work automatons at the end of each day, we yearn for happiness. Nigel French, the well-known fashion forecaster from the 1980s and 1990s, said trends often arise from voids in the culture. Things that we perceive may become extinct are what we yearn for, so we celebrate penguins, polar bears, bees and, now, happiness. The most popular course last year at Harvard was the "Happiness Class", about the psychology of wellbeing; and the University of Erasmus (Rotterdam) publishes the Journal of Happiness Studies. A yearning for happiness has also accelerated the growth of anti-depression medications like Prozac.

In 100 years everything has changed. Then, 80% of our jobs were outside, in the fields. Today, 80% of our jobs are inside. Just 50 years ago, one in five Americans lived on farms; today it's one in 100. The agrarian to industrial to information revolutions have happened so fast that @ has become the symbol of early 21st century technology. We have survived and succeeded in the information age, but we've spent most of our time trying to catch up. Now we need to find ways to reconnect to our humanity as we usher in the "Imaginational Era".

Imagination liberates our minds, our creativity, our optimism, and differentiates us from all other species. And it's re-emerging after a fast, tumultuous and transitional era marked by a limited collective vision and leaders who no longer embolden us to "go beyond".

Despite the legislated disregard for the arts and sciences demonstrated by cutbacks to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), our imaginations are fueled by new visionaries in the arts and sciences. Our fast lives are forcing us to redefine our personal and collective tempos, as we embrace spontaneity, creativity and daydreaming, as an antidote to technology. In short, fantasy is our new creative fuel.

By managing the technology that ruled the past ten years, we are beginning to allow our imaginations to fuel the next ten. My teen niece, a paragon of onehanded, no-looking texting in 2006, was not texting in the summer of 2007 because now she'd rather talk to her friends or actually see them in person.

Technology is not going away, but we are starting to assert control over it to begin to thrive. We see signs in books like Tim Ferris's "The 4-Hour Workweek," whose thesis is, delegate "informational" tasks and control technology usage in order not to be overrun by work, so you can devote more time to what you imagine.

Published by AdMap
World Advertising Research Center 2008

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