MicroCultural

The most important thing that not enough people are talking about…

Trends seem to dominate our life: Trendy clothes, trendy restaurants, stock market trends. It’s the default justification for decision making. Businesses create strategies around trends. People build careers out of trends. Trends takeover shopping malls. Trends consume generations of designers and artists.  And they’re not always easy to find. Real trends are hidden in data. Wannabe trends are thrown at us in every direction in the form of advertising, marketing and public relation efforts.

I’ve been thinking a lot about trends and how they affect my life. I’ve decided that two major trends, population and technology, and one governing fact, uncertainty, will be the primary influences on my life. The more I learn, the more I think that these three factors are drastically underrated.  Population, in particular, seems to be severely misunderstood and underestimated by the majority of the world. The exponential growth (and subsequent decline) of people carries serious and increasing importance for the future of my (and your) life. 

For a long time, I knew about population growth. I knew that there were 5 billion, then 6 billion, then who knows how many people in the world. I didn’t see it around me. As a kid, there are always a growing amount of people in your world. At first you know your family, then the neighborhood kids, then the school teachers and kids, etc. The world keeps getting bigger, until it doesn’t. One day you realize that the city or town you thought you knew is busier than before: more houses, more traffic, more Wal-Mart parking lots. Still, you know the number of people is growing. You know about over a billion people in China, and you know about India, you may even know about the aging population of Europe. Regardless if you are noticing more people in your town or you are writing your thesis on population growth, the evidence of increasing population is everywhere. It’s a big deal. And it’s becoming a bigger deal.

Because I’m not an expert, I’m sticking with the cold hard facts, the easy facts. Unfortunately, that’s all that’s needed. As I’m writing this the world population is 6.76 billion (check out the population clock for a recent update.)  The U.S. adds over 200,000 people to it’s population every month. That means that the U.S. economy has to add 200,000 jobs every month for unemployment not to rise. Sustaining the growth is a HUGE challenge. Unfortunately, it’s not the biggest challenge. The real questions revolve around figuring out a way to control the impact of all those people on already overstretched resources. It doesn’t pencil out, something has to give. Equally worrisome is thinking about a shrinking populations and the economic and social consequences. The entire global economic and welfare system is built around growth. Shrinking (and aging) populations is a big problem for countries like Japan, Russia and most of Western Europe as well as many others.

Experts are predicting a world population peak of somewhere between 8-10 billion between the years 2025-2050. That’s a pretty big range, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that almost everyone agrees on the increase and eventual peak.

I’m 24. That population peak is within my lifetime. This is a trend that will have an important impact on my life and career. For me, it implies finding greater value in a smaller life. Ignoring the situation won’t make it go away, but embracing it will make it manageable.

MicroScope on… Microbrands

Hugh Macleod is the man. If you don’t know who he is, check out his website. Actually, just go ahead and buy his book. I read the whole thing an hour after I got it, gave it to a friend and went and bought another copy. It kicks ass.

More importantly though, Hugh is working on his next book Evil Plans. I’m confident the book will be great, but I’m really excited about his ideas on microbrands. His technical term is Global Microbrand. Hugh defines it as:

A small, tiny brand, that “sells” all over the world.

The Global Microbrand is nothing new; they’ve existed for a while, long before the internet was invented. Imagine a well-known author or painter, selling his work all over the world. Or a small whisky distillery in Scotland. Or a small cheese maker in rural France, whose produce is exported to Paris, London, Tokyo etc. Ditto with a violin maker in Italy. A classical guitar maker in Spain. Or a small English firm making $50,000 shotguns.

Hugh isn’t the only guy talking about this. Every marketing dude on the planet is talking about some version of the “Long Tail.” I guess that’s sort of what MicroCultural is about… sort of. I think it’s bigger than having just enough hacks around the world find what you do valuable. I think it’s about you finding what you do valuable and not caring how big your microbrand gets. I like Hugh’s style, though. Here’s one of his latest tweets that reaffirms his sweetness:

I don’t want to “build my brand online”. I want to do it via drawing cartoons and writing books.