15 Minute Foreplay™ Conversation with Dion Chang

In this conversation Bronwyn Williams and Tumelo Mojapelo talk to Dion Chang about how keeping track of trends can help business leaders stay ahead of the curve.

Bronwyn Williams: Hi, I’m Bronwyn Williams and this is my colleague, Tumelo Mojapelo, and we are back with our 15 Miinute Foreplay™ Conversations where we are talking to some of the most important and most interesting and most influential thought leaders around topics of the future and foresight in general.  

And today our topic is the idea of a trend. Many of us think of trends as being something that comes up on the news or on the economic indicators, things like unemployment or the price of eggs, but a trend can be much more than that. Certainly the way I describe it is a trend is something, really anything, that has an instance across both space and across time. This means trends can be both quantitative and qualitative. 

And to challenge me on that thinking, maybe add a few more thoughts to the conversation, today we are joined by Dion Chang, the founder of Flux Trends. So Dion, over to you. How would you describe what a trend really is when it comes to the way you approach working with your own business and other people’s businesses? 

Dion Chang: Hi Bronwyn and Hi Tumi. And yes! I think the Flux mantra “Trends is Business Strategy”. So I’ve never wanted to look at trends as a passing fad, but something that really, I think very specifically would alter a business model or disrupt a sector really, really dramatically. 

So for example, when I first founded Flux, it was just the start of e-hailing Uber. We had just got acclimatised to social media. So everything was changing very, very rapidly. So when you started tracking not only the technological trends, but what the ripple effect is on one sector or ancillary sectors or partners that would work within for that company, then the impact of those trends became very, very apparent and are far reaching as well. 

Tumelo Mojapelo: So you just mentioned the impact of trends and how they are far reaching. Why do you believe that leaders should actually keep track of them? Because, I mean, like Bronwyn said, the trend, I mean, it goes across space and time. What is the importance as a business leader of keeping track of this development over time? As sometimes they, like you say, cross into other industries, why would a leader need to be cognisant or aware of these trends? 

Dion Chang: I think two things. I think firstly, we are going through really, really difficult times. I think from crossing into the 2020s from the pandemic onwards, you’ve just kind of heard this keeping up with the velocity of change. And people know that that change has become sort of exponentially faster. So to be able to do that is really, really difficult. 

Secondly is, I think because change becomes so difficult, a lot of companies or leaders just look very, very inwardly. And you need to, and I completely understand that you’ve got to keep the ship afloat, you’ve got to steer the ship, you’ve got to keep your operational things going through. But because it changes so quickly, you have to put your head up every now and again and scan that horizon and see what is changing. Because you might have a strategy that you think is going to be, well, I think, you know, 10-year strategy is already out the window. So I mean, like a two- or a five-year strategy. But if you make a, or if there’s a slight change within your business, and that strategy is just say two degrees off in three to five years’ time, that is going to be 25 degrees off from where you want it to be. And that could be very, very disastrous for your business. And because things change so quickly, then those undercurrents can also sweep you away totally. 

Tumelo Mojapelo: Thank you for that, Dion. You talked about how if you don’t look upright, even though right now you are like two degrees off in a few years time, you’re 25 degrees off, how can business leaders, whilst keeping track of trends, be able to maybe adjust or tweak or even pivot to ensure that they are maybe not harnessing the potential of the trend or maybe offsetting the impact the trend can have on either their business or their business models? 

Dion Chang: I think one of the important things about trends, and I think about what we also do with Flux, is we join the dots. So things that are seemingly not connected or disconnected actually are. And also what that ripple effect really, really is. So I think what is important for business owners is to look not just where the trends are going or what the trends are, but what the blind spots in your company or your strategy really, really is. And I think that’s a lot of what a lot of people don’t do. You formulate a strategy, you say, okay, this is what’s going to happen, but you don’t consider the unintended consequences of what you think is a great innovation strategy. Or otherwise, you miss the blind spots that could just take your business out. And I think those little blind spots and those undercurrents are becoming a lot more apparent and a lot more dangerous for companies to ignore.

Tumelo Mojapelo: Like what you’re saying about them becoming a bit more dangerous and about looking for blind spots and unintended consequences. I’m just a simple business owner. I’ve just bumped into this podcast video and I’m, like, how do I then firstly apply this anticipatory thinking to my organisation or my life? So where do I start? Where do I start tracking trends? Do I do it as an individual? Do I follow an organisation like Flux Trends? Or do I just hope for the best and maybe I’ll stumble into a trend? Like what is like the step by step process as in now I’m literally coming across this and this is news for me. And I’d also like to either a) stay ahead of the curve or b) use the opportunities or c) look at and or explore unintended consequences of blind spots. What would be the steps I follow? Obviously, simple steps that I follow so that I can do this every day as a practice, something that’s built into my daily habits. 

Dion Chang: So we really boiled the mantra down to two simple things. Number one, understand the world and number two, so that you can change the world. If you don’t understand the world or you don’t understand the context of the world, then you’re not going to be able to change. You might not be able to change the world, but you can change the trajectory of your business to be able to do that. So debates, the kind of what’s going on with climate change and sustainability. So there’s surface things about ESG and sustainability and that they’re going on. 

What we do at Flux, and this is what I hope the business owners will take through, is you’re starting to see how that is going to not only affect your logistics, so in extreme weather, where the extreme heat starts melting the tar your roads, you can’t actually transport goods or pipes start freezing up so you can’t get dairy farmers, can’t get milk to a pasteurisation plant, those kind of things start happening. And then you start looking at what we track are kind of very, very early signals, but they’re coming. So where we are at the moment is we are now starting to breed heat resistant cows and heat resistant apples. So we are starting to mess with the DNA of nature in order to try and protect what’s happening, not really kind of solving the problem, but those are the things that will start affecting your business. 

So if you’re a farmer, that is absolutely, you know, a cost to you. There’s the farmers that are putting in misting kind of mechanisms in their livestock to keep them cooler, your price goes up, your labor force that comes to harvest, which is seasonal, maybe can only work in the evenings. It changes so many things down to, for example, grape farmers, the sugar content of a grape, so your cultivar of what your wine really is, is not what you promise to the customer. So there’s so many different, but very dramatic, ripple effects that will affect you as a business, no matter what sector you’re in.

Tumelo Mojapelo: So you’ve mentioned we have to understand the world and we also have to change the world. What method do you use to understand the world? So is there like a methodology that you use in your business, or do you use the existing methodology to actually understand and scan what’s going on in the world? 

Dion Chang: So when I started this company, gosh, 18 years ago, we just, I thought, let’s just use trends and that has worked out very well for us. So the acronym T.R.E.N.D.S  stands for technology, the state of retail, the state of the economy, the natural world, diplomacy, and social and cultural trends. So if the main trend briefing, that’s one of the most popular ones, the state we’re in uses that acronym. But if you start putting all of the trends and applying those to your business, you will see that you can join the dots between the six pillars, and it gives you an executive snapshot of where the world is going and where it is. So you get a very good idea from a social, cultural influence, like your Gen Z, to what’s happening in the economy and the geopolitical impact on your company. So it’s a well-rounded acronym that’s going to help you steer into the future.

Tumelo Mojapelo: And then with changing the world, because you’ve explained understanding the world and classifying the signals and the trends that you pick up, how would you then advise anyone who’s watching this, like, how would they start on an individual and maybe they’re rising up to an organisational level, how they would actually be able to change the world, and where would they begin? 

Dion Chang: So for example, I think the biggest conflict that we’re seeing at the moment, and this is just to give you an idea of how long we study trends, and it’s not just a quick fad that happens within a year or so. 

So we’ve been tracking Generation Z for gosh, near on 15 years, only when they were first just getting into their teens, we knew that this generation, the first digital natives of humanity, were going to be very, very different. The thought processes, the learning, all of that thing was going to be very different. Now that they’re fully into the workforce, we’re seeing this huge generational conflict that happens in work. So the trends aren’t just technological or the external trends that come into your company, but they are also internal trends as well that will affect the culture and the workforce of that. 

So that said, now that we’ve got 15 years of Gen Z research under our belts, and we kind of know them as consumers as well as a workforce, we’ve already started on Generation Alpha, which are the children of the millennials, and they’re only, the oldest ones are only now getting into their teens. And so like Gen Z, we started that very, very early, and that is the way you can change the world. 

So in terms of generational conflict in the workplace, you’re starting to see an older workforce or older leadership dig their heels in and say, but this is how things have been done all the time, and you’ve got to fit into that. Whereas you’ve got this huge, huge workforce, and specifically for the African continent, it’s a very, very large Gen Z continent on Africa, that is going to come and change. And if they are already turning 30, they are going to be the managers within your organisation, they are going to change it whether you like it or not. So it’s to meet them halfway to bridge, to build those bridges, and you are able to change that culture and then change the trajectory and then change the world according to your company. 

Tumelo Mojapelo: So basically, if I understand it correctly, you, so, understanding the world, you need to classify it or whatever. The change in the world is to understand that change doesn’t only impact, it’s not created or it is made to impact people by using technology or innovation or disruption. It can also come from the human side of things. So it’s also tracking how human beings interact, what generations we’re living, because it seems like it’s not something that you do in two seconds, just tracking how a generation grows over time to see where they end up. Am I correct in saying that? 

Dion Chang: Yah, for example, so I’m busy tracking, and I’ve been doing it for 18 months now, is looking at demographic change around the world. So this is not only social contracts that

have changed. So within a family, what is a nuclear family, but what is the social contract,

the impact on a working environment, on culture? What does that mean for families, for relationships, aging populations around the world? There are so many impacts in terms of research, in terms of healthcare, in terms of workforces. So it’s a really, really big kind of body that you’re studying. 

And I think what Flux does is we distill that information. That was my original plan to be able to do this in terms of trends, to distill that information so that it becomes a lot more understandable. But it also allows different companies in different sectors to join those dots. And we help them to join the dots and understand that world. So, yes, you can make changes or you can avoid going down a very, very wrong path.

Tumelo Mojapelo: Thank you so much, Dion, for your time in just sharing what trends are and how they’ve actually had an impact on not only the world as we know it, as we see it external, but our internal world, so as in our organisations, our families, because that’s what I’m picking up from this discussion today, that you’ve just, you’ve been tracking technology, but technology has had an impact on this young generation and it’s created this kind of ripple effect. 

And it’s not something so if you have a person who needs to, like, scan or look for trends, you must start now, because it takes time to see how trends build momentum and actually become useful, not only for your personal application, but for your organisation as well, right Because you just mentioned the Gen Z and also so, I mean, you’re also following Gen Alpha as well. Do you feel like with Gen Alpha, just a quick question, they will most probably have an impact on the world sooner, so at a younger age than Gen Z? 

Dion Chang: Quite strongly already and they haven’t even entered their teen years, you can sort of see this kind of behavioural pattern that’s coming out, that’s only going to get enhanced. But also just a final point is also when you’re tracking trends as well, I think people get very, very emotionally connected to something and they put their kind of personal lens on to it. And I think what we’ve learned over the years, if you’re going to track the trends, you really, really have to step aside. You’ve got to be a lot more objective, not subjective, and it’s happening. 

So you can’t take a trend personally, but you’ve got to be able to see it for what it is, whether you like it or not. And then in a very, very kind of, a sort of, make sense of something and say, okay, how is this going to affect that? I might not like the way Gen Z works, I might not like where Gen Alpha is coming through, but it is going to impact my life and my business. So how do I do that? 

And I think it’s to take that kind of personal lens away from it and then just put it through a very clear business and future lens and say, how do we adapt to this? 

Tumelo Mojapelo: Thank you so much, Dion, for your time. For those who are watching, please continue to subscribe, like, and share these videos. We have so many other videos of 15-minute conversations with that, with other trend experts. Please continue to stay tuned and learn from our experts. Thank you so much, Dion.

By Flux Trends 

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