Charting the Course: Guessing the Future Path of Your Industry

You can’t predict the exact future of your industry, but you can see the direction of its development.

In 1895 the 'father of science fiction', the writer Jules Verne predicted that shoppers in the future would view pictures of retail products on personal video screens and place written orders on a 'teleautograph' to be transmitted internationally via submarine cables.

He also predicted the appearance of such things as;

1. Electric submarine 

2. Helicopter

3. Holograms

4. Newscasts

5. Video conferences 

6. Solar sails

7. Space travel

How could a person who died in 1905 envision things, some of which appeared almost 100 years after his death? Can we also develop such a skill?

Yes, we can - to an extent. And we don't need to be geniuses to do so. 

Picture by francescoch on iStock

Basic needs

I have already written about 16 basic needs that all the people on the planet share (you can read more here). This theory was developed by American psychologist Steven Reiss at the beginning of the XXI century. 

Here is the list of these needs:

1. Power, the need for control of will

2. Independence, the need to be distinct and self-reliant

3. Curiosity, the need to gain knowledge

4. Acceptance - the need to be appreciated

5. Order, the need for prepared, established, and conventional environments

6. Saving, the need to accumulate something

7. Honor, the need to be faithful to the customary values of an individual's ethnic group, family, or clan

8. Idealism, the need for social justice and a "better world" 

9. Social contact, the need for relationships with others

10. Family, the need to take care of one's offspring and loved ones

11. Social status, the need for social significance

12. Vengeance, the need to strike back against another person

13. Romance, the need for mating or sex

14. Eating, the need for food

15. Physical activity, the need for work out of the body

16. Tranquility, the need to be secure and protected

We all share the same set of needs, but we all prioritize them differently – and it makes us unlike. 

These basic human needs define our desires, dreams, and fears. They determine our course of action. But they also define the course of what we call "progress."

Progress and basic needs

In 1891, William Morrison built what we today would recognize as an electric car. It carried six passengers at a top speed of 14 miles per hour.

As you know, even 100 years later, nobody thought seriously about massively manufacturing EVs, not only because it was technically impossible. Elon Musk's Tesla became a worldwide known brand not only because his cars looked nice. The "green" movements that gained strength in the turn of the century also played a significant role.

Had Elon Musk launched his vehicles in the 1970s, they would have gone unnoticed. Nobody cared about fuel economy and greenhouse gases at the time. 

So, much more people started prioritizing basic need #8, Idealism, and the market reacted immediately.

It only seems to us that inventors and visionaries lead us to the future by creating new technologies. According to Forbes, "of today's 2.1 million active patents, 95 percent fail to be licensed or commercialized." Therefore, visionaries invent many different things, and few find their way to the market. 

But who makes the final decisions? Customers do.

If a gadget, technology, or scientific discovery meets a basic human need or, in other words, makes people's lives better, easier, and more comfortable, it may become a market hit. If it doesn't, it disappear for good, or, at least, until the human expectations from the world will change. 

Social media, mobile phones, military missiles, satellites, car sharing, and many other things entered our lives only because we wanted it – even if we hadn't known about that before.

How to become a prophet?

You can't become a prophet, of course, it was a joke.

But you can find a direction in which your industry will move. 

Ask yourself several questions:

1. What current trends do you see? What new things or notions can become new game-changers? 

2. What basic human needs do they satisfy? Do they fulfill these needs better than previous solutions?

3. Will these human needs become more substantial for people in the future? 

4. What basic needs are not satisfied by the current solution on your market? What human needs can be satisfied better?

For instance, people don't want to waste energy (need #6) – that's why we like delivery services. So, if a product or solution can help people get more by doing less, it will definitely attract customers’ attention.

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