TrendReport for 2021: Top Trends for This Year

For the 19th year, here are our predictions for the upcoming year.

As always, we will be rolling out other key trends over a series of blog posts but here are our top 7 predictions for 2021:


1. We will all become more aware of supply chains. While supply chain and logistics are vital, they rarely get mentioned in the mainstream media because they’re typically invisible to consumers. Because the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines encountered significant challenges and there were shortages of key consumer goods and appliances, we will all become more aware of supply chains issues this year. We expect more coverage if key shortages arise.
2. The workplace of the future will be your home. Experts predict that a significant percentage of employees will choose to continue to work from home – which has propelled some to move to cheaper, less dense neighborhoods. Companies will have to rethink HR, recruiting and team building as well as reconfigure workflow, collaboration, and customer support to address the realities of the new workplace. For grocery stores, restaurants and retail locations, expect short-term changes like plexiglass dividers, asking people to socially distance, etc. to likely remain into 2022.
3. Cities will need to reimagine downtown business districts. Office buildings will be emptier in 2021 as many businesses re-evaluate office needs and try to get out of leases. Local hospitality businesses and retailers need to focus on delivering customer experience, not just commodity service. To overcome stories about closures and stagnation, stimulate the local economy and give people a reason to visit, cities will need to revitalize downtown areas by expanding cultural activities.
4. Telepresence, industrial robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) will get more attention. Companies will experiment with deploying telepresence and robotic solutions and integrating AI to be better able to weather the next pandemic. This is an opportunity for industries like manufacturing that require onsite employees but haven’t updated processes. There will also be articles noting concerns about the impact of robots in the workplace on jobs as well as advances in AI.
5. Telehealth becomes a preferred option, not an alternative. Telehealth will become the preferred option, particularly for therapy or appointments that don’t require hands-on treatment. We expect to see stories on the delivery of healthcare to those who don’t have access to telehealth and whether patients will get the same level of care and attention via virtual sessions as they do with in-person visits.
6. Big Tech’s role will be scrutinized. With antitrust suits against Facebook and concerns about Section 230 – the FCC rule that protects social media companies from being sued for the content posted onto their sites – 2021 will be a tough year for Big Tech. Forcing Facebook to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp won’t solve the real problem: the polarizing nature of social media and the impact of disinformation in the public square. But everyone has an opinion, and we expect to see think numerous stories exploring the topic this year.
7. The streaming wars will continue with no real losers. With the exception of Qubi, a standalone service that closed in six months, most of the new streaming services were launched by networks trying to optimize their content. The currently expanding number of streaming services have benefited from people staying home, but there are too many different providers to be sustainable. Contraction of non-network-based services (Crackle and Tubi, for example) won’t happen this year but could happen within 24 months.


As always, let us know if you agree or disagree with these. 

New York Times Validates Our Predictation About The Sharing Economy

One of our predictions of a topic that would generate media coverage in 2020 was the sharing economy, principally:  "Streaming — but not owning — content increasingly means you might be able to access the version you want."

At the time we wrote that, we were a little uncertain. After all, the sharing economy had been around for a couple of years, and we had not seen much written about the downsides of not owning your content. But we felt that this would change this year in part due to the so-called streaming wars. There's been a lot of attention to programs like "Friends" and "The Office" that will be leaving Netflix for NBC Peacock service, and we thought -- correctly, as it seems -- that that would spark more coverage of the issues of renting content but not owning it.

Brian X. Chen, lead consumer tech writer for the New York Times, has written two articles about how to navigate and control content. 

In "We’re Living in a Subscriptions World. Here’s How to Navigate It," Chen writes, "Subscription services like Netflix and Google Drive are convenient, but we can lose control of our content and data."

In the article, Chen says, "Here are some approaches to taking control of our media while enjoying the benefits of subscription services. Those steps range from the obvious, like creating local copies of your data, to more advanced methods, like making a personal cloud using an internet-connected storage device that acts like a miniature server."

The Times also published another article on the topic: "We Should Have Bought the DVDs It’s 2022. I don’t know if I’ll ever own a house, but I can own my favorite television shows in their entirety." The op-ed, clearly written in 2020 (not 2022) is part of a Times initiative called "Op-Eds From the Future," which asks science fiction autors, futuriss, philosophers and scientists to write "the Op-Eds that they imagine we might read two, 10, 50 or even 200 years from now."

So, okay, you might say we're right that this feature of the sharing economy will get written about in 2020 or that we saw even further into the future, 2022. But we think this is really a 2020 conversation; by 2022, the sharing economy will be so prevalent, people won't really remember an age in which we actually owned content.

Let us know if you think we're wrong or if you have any insights that you, um, want to share.