Trend Forecasts

I would like to take a look, albeit with some trepidation, at Trend Forecasts.

How is our world changing? Which new risks are introduced? Which new opportunities are emerging?

As recently as 2003 the forecast was that big business and the public sector would become net job destroyers. This trend is clearly manifesting itself. Not yet everywhere, but the trend is gaining momentum.

Well known trend forecaster Faith Popcorn, who coined "cocooning" two decades ago, says that behaviour has metamorphosed into something more: The Sanctuary.

As a young Jewish girl in New York City, she started her career as an advertisement copywriter. The story goes that one of her mentors couldn’t pronounce her surname, Plotkin, and called her Faith Popcorn. (This is not uncommon. I knew many non-Americans who had to adopt a pronounceable name, surname, or both. American colleagues just could not pronounce foreign sounding names. I was lucky. On the East Coast they knew the Boston Bruins and in California the UCLA Bruins. So, to many colleagues in America I became Philip the Bruin!)

As a savvy advertising professional, Faith Plotkin quickly realised the value of this very American Icon as a surname. It surely contributed to the success and popularity of her company, BrainReserve.

Sanctuary involves finding a safe place, Popcorn says. To live, work, and relax.

The new cocooning growth is possible in part because technology allows the home to offer space, relaxation and safety. One can now have work, entertainment, and even rapid communication with the outside world right at home.

Home offices are sanctuaries for businesses people.  These home offices provide safety from invasions, whether by computer viruses, criminals, or terrorists. Home entertainment is a sanctuary that keeps kids and family safe.

But at the same time, Popcorn’s BrainReserve Company is convinced consumers want spiritual roots -- a trend she calls "Anchoring."

The future will be so radically different from anything we've known before, that having a spiritual connection will become more profoundly important," claims Popcorn, answering questions on her Web site. "Spirituality and religion, however, will become much more self-defined. In essence, people will mix and pour their own religious cocktails.

There will be a morphing of traditional religious practices and denominations. ... We'll see some people at the centre of organized religions react to this by becoming more and more fundamentalist.

Clem Sunter is Southern Africa's leading futurologist and scenario planner. Let me quote from The Mind of a Fox by Chantell Ilbury and Clem Sunter, published by Human & Rousseau Tafelberg:

One thing is for sure: the nature of work and jobs is undergoing a metamorphosis which is not going to reverse itself. The two great engines of job creation for most of the last century – the public sector and big business – have shut down. In fact, globalisation has converted both of them into net job destroyers as they seek to be leaner and meaner than their next-door neighbours. That leaves medium-sized, small and micro enterprise as the area of most potential for future employment.

Also Gary A Scott advises:

Be self-fulfilled. The days of finding job satisfaction at the corporate levels are just about gone. So is the time when jobs were secure, and your employer cared. Times when you can trust your investments or business to one country, Economy, currency or government are over! Profit from this change.

Turn your passion into profit as you live and earn where you choose.

Yahoo recently launched their Local Search in the large North American metropolitan areas. This is roughly the equivalent of the almost defunct Yellow Pages. This means there is a big demand for community based services with a presence on the Internet.

We see here a trend that calls for a massive mind shift.

Anything that helps people slow down and stay at home may be good; such as home delivery of anything, games, movies; any entertainment in the home may be a big winner.  Self improvement courses and programmes. Any product or service that makes the home appear more spacious, luxurious, and comfortable may be in big demand.

Many futurists now advise that children should be trained and prepared to be entrepreneurs rather than employees as there probably won’t be jobs available when they want to join the labour force. Here might be a huge opportunity in counselling and mentoring.

But please re-read the quote above from Gary A Scott carefully. Too many people miss the message to internationalise! Perhaps because we often regard our "turf" as the Centre of the Universe. I know some South African readers get very emotional when I suggest that you should move your business and yourself to a Jurisdiction of Choice, but make it part of your mind shift. If you follow through you’ll find that you can return to your "turf" for as long and as often as you like, while you enjoy entrepreneurial freedom.

Governments, under the guise of protecting us, have intruded into every area of life, taking the largest part of our earnings in taxes and then rewarding us with little aside from restrictions and harassment. All modern governments these days have virtually eliminated individual privacy. They have limited freedom of choice in many areas of human activity. They use some very sincere sounding reasons in doing this. The Patriot Act of the US and the Financial Intelligence Centre Act 38 of 2001 (FICA) in South Africa come to mind. But your present government is no longer interested in you if they think you have left their jurisdiction legally. I'm not saying this because I think it is so. I know it is so. I have been through the process!

For more ideas regarding international home businesses, please click here.

Kind regards.

Philip de Bruin