Non Obvious Megatrends: How to See What Others Miss and Predict the Future (Non-Obvious Trends, 10)

Separating signal from noise is a challenge we all live with. What matters. What can we safely ignore. It’s always valuable to find explorers who can share their tales in understandable ways. Bhargava has been out exploring the terrain where consumers confront the market of goods and services vying for our attention and wallets. He’s diligent and systematic in his explorations. More importantly, he’s adept at stitching together his observations and framing them in ways that encourage you to interact with his analysis rather than simply absorb and accept it.Personally, I’d take some of his advice about his process with more than a grain of salt. You risk being distracted by surface details that aren’t terribly relevant and miss the underlying process that is. The value of this book is twofold. First, to interact with the thinking of someone who has dug deeply into the noise and brought back some signals you ought to think about yourself. Second, as a case example of how to pay better attention to the marketplaces you swim in and find some signal of your own.

I've had a strong interest in the future for many years. I've read many books on the subject and they've given me the ability to see around corners. In my reading on the subject, I had never heard of Rohit Bhargava. But in 2018, I stumbled across Non-Obvious 2018 Trends. I bought the book and devoured it. Later in the year, I pre-ordered Non-Obvious 2019 and devoured it as well. And on August 19, 2019, I pre-ordered Non-Obvious Megatrends. I couldn't wait for the arrival of Rohit's latest book. A few weeks ago, I was invited to join the launch team for this new book. I signed up immediately, and received a digital draft version. Immediately I started reading my new treasure and I have found Non-Obvious Megatrends to be absolutely terrific! Rohit and his team have done a great job with this latest book. In this book, you'll learn: • How Rohit and his team identify non-Obvious Trends • The nine Non-Obvious Trends Rohit and his team identified and describe in this book • How you can apply these techniques to your work • The Non-Obvious Trends from 2011 to the presentMy one disappointment is that this is scheduled to be the last book in the series. But I am not worried. I am confident that a new series will be announced soon and there will be a non-obvious but amazing sequel to this outstanding series. Until then, get and READ Non-obvious Megatrends, and if you are so moved, get copies of Non-Obvious 2018 Trends and Non-Obvious 2019 trends and READ them, as well. You will not be disappointed.

What struck me as I read this book was the importance of trends – not just to know the trends – but to truly understand both the positive and negative impact as well as the opportunities presented by those trends. As an earlier reader of “Non Obvious Megatrends,” (and a reader of earlier versions of the trend report series), I found it very enlightening to read this latest version. The description and analysis of the trends clarify what I’ve seen or experienced but didn’t realize was part of a societal change until reading this book. That would be reason enough for anyone doing strategic business planning to have this book as a part of their research. But this book goes beyond just analyzing trends by providing a step-by-step guide for the reader to analyze their specific industry for trends. Such trend analysis can be a critical advantage for a business as it strives to remain relevant. Another part of the book is the grading of past trend reports. This wasn’t as beneficial to me as the other parts of the book, but it was something I found interesting – interesting to see some of the past trend reports and compare it actual events as well as to determine the accuracy of the author’s methods. Overall, I recommend this book to anyone trying to make sense of what is happening in our world and what is impacting our culture and our businesses.

Most of us wish we invested in Bitcoin when it was still trading under a dollar. Most of us are kicking ourselves for not investing in Apple or Amazon years ago before they boomed. With hindsight, it’s easy to understand the implication of these missed financial opportunities — less money in our bank accounts and feelings of regret. Oh well. We couldn’t predict the future, right? Of course not.But even though we can’t literally gaze into the future, we can estimate it. That’s what Bhargava does so well in this book - he’s masterfully curated the most important trends will inform our behaviors, beliefs, and society in the 2020s, and gives us the tools to make well-informed predictions of our own.The value of this information is hard to put in words. If we know what the most significant trends are, we can maximize the impact of our personal and organizational contributions to culture, business, relationships, and humanity.While we can’t predict the future, we can make strongly educated predictions. I say this with 100% certainty: there’s a strong possibility this book will help you make better decisions and predictions both in your business, and in your life at large.

You know the feeling of "if-I-only-knew-then", usually frustrating. Rohit's Non-Obvious series brings a "I-know-now" feeling, the trends he spots seems obvious after you know about it. He is also very kind to share his methodology, so you can apply by your own and find the trends in your own world. A must read every begining of the year.

Very well structured, interesting and very useful! Essential for entrepreneurs, marketing professionals and CEOs.

Imperdível para quem gosta de pensar no futuro

What started out as a fifteen point list by end of 2010 became five years later an e-book which us now available as 2021 edition with a review and ranking of the past years trend reports. Mr. Bhargava uses basically known techniques (which are, by the way, nicely described) to collect ideas throughout the year to compile an interesting collection of trends to come. By checking „out of the box“ (e.g. going away from the businesses / industries the reader is well aware off) as well as trying to summarize certain (main)stream topics in different media (on- and offline), this may lead to certain discoveries before „breaking news“ announcements are done by (less) trustful (or even dubious) media.In the next step, the reader has to check what to do with these discoveries, if these can be used for making business or to improve existing business or could be used in an employees life (which is hopefully the case for me).I especially liked the structuring of the book, separating the book in three sections, the first covering the „technical“ part describing one (of certainly several possible) way/s to become a non obvious thinking person, the second one being true to the origins describing ten possible mega trends, closing with a review of the past megatrends described, together with a rating of how much potential there is now for the topics described. The chapters itself are always with a short definition on what the megatrend is supposed to be, followed with an in-depth description and effects on society. Chapters are closing with a short summary. The notes section contains not only the sources described for the megatrend, but also invite for a further read, as does the „further reading“ section, which I especially liked (and which contained some of the books which I read in the past months or years – feel free to check my reviews section).After all, I can recommend this book to all how are interested on the short to midterm development of possible trends in the future, but this is for sure not a guideline how to get rich in a few months on these trends.

I've been reading Non-Obvious each year for about 5 years now and Non-Obvious trends is the Obvious (forgive me!) next step in the evolution of Rohit Bhargava's approach to exploring the trends that impact on us. The book contains 3 sections as usual: explanation of Rohit's method of unearthing trend insights; the trends themselves and an analysis of how accurate previous years' trends have been. It's unusual that you would get someone offering all this and I think the transparency reflects an honesty and authenticity that gives the trends more authority. This year the trends section focuses on Mega-Trends - or longer term and slower moving trends that will impact us for years rather than just in the coming year. The logic for describing each trend comes from the previous 7 years of trends. Each one introduced with a summarising sentence, is accompanied by examples of how it's been playing out im different industries and countries and with recommendations of how you can apply this to your own work and thinking. Clearly I find Non-Obvious valueable otherwise I wouldn't have kept reading them. This year's mega trends feel to me to reflect genuine large scale movements in global concerns and attitudes that will prove valueable to anyone in marketing, communications, product development or policy making. It's not deeply scientific, but it is deeply observational, well-written and food for thought.