2016
Non-Obvious

Building on the success of hitting the Wall Street Journal best seller list in 2015, this all new edition featured plenty of new content – including 15 brand new trends and an updated section with a recap on all trends from the previous year along with a bonus “2016 Update” for each trend. Continuing to offer a transparent look at previous predictions, the book also includes an extensive index that features and rates all 60 trends from the previous four years as well. In this new report, readers were introduced to the ideas of “Strategic Downgrading” (consumers choosing versions of products with less tech baked in because they often just work better), “Optimistic Aging” (the growing sense of hope that people feel as they actively embrace aging and see it as an opportunity rather than an affliction to be managed), and “Virtual Empathy” (the surprising fact that all the investments and excitement about virtual reality may in fact finally offer us a way to truly empathize with one another.