The Second Major Consumer Economic Trend

In a recent column here I wrote about Conscious Capitalism one of the three new dominant trends of consumer behavior for the Transformation Decade 20102020 Conscious capitalism is when a company takes on an altruistic cause charity or practice and applies revenue to that endeavor In that column I profiled two companies Tomamp8217s Shoes and Panera Cares that are practicing new forms of conscious capitalismIn addition I highlighted two of the largest drivers of this trend as being global and generational Global in the sense that climate change is dramatically increasing our amp8220Spaceship Earthamp8221 mentality amp8211 that sense of the fragile preciousness of this lone planet of ours Generational in the sense that the Millennial generation sees conscious capitalism as one of the first influencers of what and where they buyBoth of these forces affect the second major consumer economic trendLess is MoreIn a column that I wrote for Oprahcom three years ago I called the recession a amp8220too much stuff recessionamp8221 When the recession hit we all stopped spending immediately and reactively We then looked around at our lives and realized we had too much stuff Stuff we hadnamp8217t worn watched listened to or read We decided that we didnamp8217t need to buy anything new because we already had enough The debtfueled consumption spree was overThe next thing we did was to get rid of stuff we realized we were never going to wear watch listen to or read We downsized We donated to charities We traded stuff in for other used things at recycled clothing stores used bookstores and used music storesWe also moved much of the last vestiges of analog in our lives to digital In 2007 I probably had 300 LPs a similar number of CDs and perhaps 50 DVDs The LPs and CDs are now MP3 files and I have kept only the DVDs that I want to revisit and those will ultimately get transferred to an external hard drive that will get connected to the TV As for books those were a bit harder to get rid of but hundreds have been donated or given away and most if not all the new books I buy are for my Kindle and Kindle app on my phone So this freed up about 3040 feet of shelf space of content storage and much of that content I now carry in two pocketsSo we spent less on stuff We bartered or traded rather than purchased Our buying habits changed We digitized much of our content so our homes became much less full of physical content Our buying of stuff was reigned in and our content became digital The third major force of this Less is More trend is generational as much of the Shift Age isBaby boomers are downsizing Empty nesters are moving to smaller often urban residences This entails getting rid of stuff This downsizing results in separating the stuff that has sentimental meaning for us from all the other stuff we have accumulated This results in a keener focus on what stuff to acquire in the years aheadThe Millennials are not nearly as into the acquisition of stuff as their boomer parents were when they were that age The Millennials are more interested in technology that keeps them connected than in other stuff If they seek status it is largely with new smart phones tablets or laptops certainly not fancy furniture or even cars There have been many articles recently about the Millennials not learning to drive not wanting cars and of course living at home If you graduated from college in the years 20092012 you entered the worst economic landscape in 70 years amp8211 and often with student loan debt These two realities have obviously put a huge crimp in any acquisition of stuff except essentials and connectivity In addition the Millennials are fine with buying used stuff as it is both cheaper and more environmentally acceptable This last fact points to the larger reality and way to think about personal stuffOne of the Five Contexts of the Shift Age that I delineated in amp8220Entering the Shift Ageamp8221 is the Earth Century This is the century where increasingly how we manage resources on Earth will become ever more a part of our thinking and our lives We live on this unique splendid place called Spaceship Earth We have accepted the concept of recycling as part of 21st Century life This now comes to the category of stuff There are already billions of cars couches chairs pieces of clothing and just about anything else Why not reuse them recycle them and reduce the manufacture of any more of them than necessary Environmentalists understand this Millennials embrace this and we are all increasingly using such things as eBay and Craigslist to act upon this visionNow and in the years ahead starting with the developed countries of the world we will all have less stuff in our lives across the boardamp160David Houle is a futurist strategist and speaker He has always been slightly ahead of the curve Houle spent more than 20 years in media and entertainment Most recently David is a featured contributor to Oprahcom Check is out here wwwoprahcomdavidhoule David can be contacted at DavidDavidHoulecomRead all Davidamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Evolution ShiftCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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The Second Major Consumer Economic Trend

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David Houle

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 10: Political Spending) - By Carl Mayer

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The Second Major Consumer Economic Trend

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