Customer Reviews

Megatrends 2000: Ten New Directions for the 1990's

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book is the 1990 update to the blockbluster, Megatrends, by John Naisbitt from 1982. The date in the title of this book is a reference to the end point of the forecast period.

I had first read the book near the time when it came out. I decided to reread it now because I was interested in examining how accurate the forecasts turned out, and then to study how the correct forecasts had been developed. Content analysis has long been a Naisbitt forte, and I wanted to see another test of its strengths and potential weaknesses.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well the themes had held up. These include:

(1) a global economic boom prompted by the information economy, freer trade, and a government bias towards economic expansion over political ideology.

(2) a rapid growth in participation in the fine and finer arts.

(3) the emergence of free markets in socialist economies. Here the progress has even been more rapid than most would have expected.

(4) increasing similarities in global lifestyles with increased cultural nationalism.

(5) privatization of the welfare state in the western democracies.

(6) economic and cultural influence of Pacific Rim countries and California greatly expand.

(7) women become much more important in leadership roles.

(8) biotechnology makes great progress and raises major ethical issues, while biology becomes a more common metaphor.

(9) religious revival led by fundamentalism and the desire for deep, personal experience.

(10) triumph of the individual in becoming free of institutional constraints to become more in charge of one's own destiny. "The new responsibility of society is to reward the initiatives of the individual."

The conclusion talks about the importance of overcoming the scourges of disease (such as AIDS) and global poverty.

As a result, I would have to give this book five stars for forecasting . . . realizing how chancy that business is by nature.

On the other hand, I found the book to be long and tedious to read. I gave it three stars for the quality and clarity of explanation of the key points. In many cases, examples drone on and on, but relatively few points were made or supported directly. Perhaps it is just my perspective, but the chapter on women in leadership seemed particularly weak from this point of view.

Equally of interest were the things that were not forecast: that communism would fall except in a revised form in China and Cuba; that the United States would become a more dominant economic and political power; that Japan would have a terrible decade; and that government power in the world would be curtailed at such a rapid rate. But few got these factors right, and they used different methods from Naisbitt and Aburdene. I suspect that is because content analysis should be slow to pick up on these kinds of changes, but power analysis works well as demonstrated by James Dale Davidson and Lord Rees-Moog in their excellent books using this method.

Where will we be in 2010? A continuation of these trends is likely, but what will be the new ones? You'll have to think about that for yourself.

After you have finished enjoying this book and thinking about what it means for your future, I suggest that you consider how you can expand your own individual potential. As the Army likes to say, "Be all that you can be."

Use the irresistible trends to your advantage for breakthrough gains!

In contrast to the first Megatrends book that came out in 1984, this book is way off the mark. His economic analysis is always interesting, but this time, for the most part, his trends have not panned out. I found this book to be a much slower read than the first Megatrends. Even so, I still plan to look for Megatrends 2010 when it comes out.

Having been so impressed with the original "Megatrends," I was very much looking forward to this edition. Unfortunately,the authors' crystal ball failed too often this time around to inspire much confidence. One major flaw, I think, is that there is much less content analysis used in tracking these trends and far too much fluff in the way of interviews and anecdotes. Too, in "Megatrends," statistics were used to back up forecasts derived from content analysis. Here statistics and surveys seem to be the sole basis for the forecasts. Perhaps the authors' thought the original work was too dry, or perhaps they were just trying to capitalize on a winner with a quick and dirty follow-up. In any case, this book was not nearly as insightful, or useful

Sounds up to date, and I bought it thinking it new, but tired forecasts from 1990 can easily be beaten by anyone of average thinking from the vantagepoint of 2000. Avoid and think for yourself instead!

I read this book, translated to the portuguese about six years ago.This book really was about 80% correct about the 1990 decade.There was some failures about the future in 1990 decade?Yes, but they were not big.Congratulations to both authors.
The great problem of this book is that we are in 2006,not in 1986.Then, this book is now outdated.About 80% of prophecies in this book became present and then, some of then are now past.
If we were living in 1986, I would give 5 stars for this book.
Well, we are living in 2006, then I'll give just 3 stars for it.

Published at the end of the Senior Bush's administration, this book listed and explained ten trends that would reshape the world by 2000, as forecasted by empirical data collected by the author. When I first read this book in 1996, I was quite impressed by it, and believed that all the trends would come true. Hindisight ten years later shows that the book was actually quite prescient on many points. For example, the book correctly predicts the resurgence of nationalism in various parts of the world as the Cold War ended and the USSR broke up. Another predicted trend is the privatization of many social services in the US and other countries.

Other predictions, like the Asian takeover of the world economy, has not occurred. Specifically, the financial crises of the last half of the 1990s essentially eliminated fifteen years of profit, property price increases, and economic growth in Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. But all in all, still a good book, and a good reference source for economic data for the late 1980s and early 1990s. As futurist books come, this is one of the better ones to come out in the past several decades as the author uses a wealth of statistical information from numerous fields and sources to justify his claims.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with a good many of the reviews written on here about this book. I first read this book in the mid 90's and am in the process of re-reading it today, and to a great degree many of the chapters are indeed still relevant. The strongest chapter in the book has to do with the rise of women in leadership positions. This was very forward looking in 1990 when it was written. At that particular time, there was only one female U.S. senator (Nancy Kassebaum), today there are 13 (including two each in California and Maine).
Admittedly, there are some areas where the authors got it somewhat wrong. For example, the renaissence in the arts has not occurred at the expense of sports to the degree that the authors had thought it would. And the age of Nanotechnology has not been as progressive as they predicted. However, these are trivial points in an otherwise fine collection.

The authors missed the point of the book, which should have been to forecast the future socio-economic trends, and not their personal desire. They barely mentioned the way technology started to shape the new century, and they were so focused on Europe being at peace for almost 50 years that totally forgot there were other countries with enough forces to create worldwire conflict (terrorism, oil interests, territorial struggle, ethnical issues, etc).

My most honest advice is: don't bother, and don't waste your time, unless you simply want to see how much they failed at what they intended to do. The writing is too simplistic and barely factual, and there's no serious authoring or editing effort behind this "book".

Guess what word does not appear in this book? That's right... INTERNET!

Not even once!

So Naisbitt missed the biggest trend of the nineties!

I know, it's a little late to be reading this book in 2003...nostalgia, anyone? One trend missed apparently: the rise of terrorism. This goes hand in hand with the fall of communism, because now there's a new bad kid on the block: move over communism, center stage Jihadists. The reprise of fundamentalism was noted in the book, and the turn to the political right, and the concurrent diminution of the "welfare state." Naisbitt et al. wrote about "no more wars." They should have read Lorenz, "On Aggression," before saying all that. War may be inevitable, if aggression is instinctual, but war doesn't have to be always destructive: extreme sports, war games, ritual matches (presidents playing chess?) could do it. Diximus.