Welcome to The
Non-Obvious^TM
Trend Collection

Every year our team curates the most interesting and impactful trends shaping culture and business. On this site, you can browse all of the trends from the past nine years by category, industry or year.

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Preserved Past

Technology is offering new ways to preserve history, changing the way we learn from, experience, and remember the past in the process.

Automated Adulthood

More people are going through a prolonged period of emerging adulthood, focusing on their career, getting married later, and adopting technology and innovative products that automate “adult” tasks.

Insourced Incubation

Companies are building in-house innovation labs to inspire novel ideas within their four walls instead of seeking outside help.

Design is shaping the way we plan our cities, homes, and futures, and inspiring nuanced, sometimes unexpectedly heroic experiments from architects, urban planners, industrial engineers and tech gurus alike.

Data Overflow

Volumes of both personal and corporate-owned data are increasing at an exponential rate, creating pressure to turn that data into tools that serve as both practical and ethical instead of disconnected data points.

Earned Consumption

Consumers’ increasing desire for authentic experiences means that they are more willing to earn their right to consume, which offers businesses the chance to build more loyalty and engagement

Personality Mapping

Brands and organizations are turning to psychology to better understand the motivations and emotions behind their customers’ decisions and inspire better performance from their employees.

B2Beyond

Brands are embracing their humanity, taking inspiration from other sectors and thinking more broadly about effectively marketing to people first and buyers second.

Optimistic Aging

After years of being told that aging is something we should hide, society is starting to appreciate the upside of getting older: financial freedom, respect, and time that the “third lifetime” can offer.