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| John Naisbitt | |
John Naisbitt, the business guru and author of the megabestseller Megatrends and other futurist titles, died on April 8 at age 92.
In Megatrends, published in 1982, Naisbitt focused, the Washington Post wrote, "on 10 major trends he believed were reshaping American commerce and society. His first observation, long before personal computers had become commonplace, was that the country was moving from an industrial and manufacturing society to an information society."
He also predicted that technology companies would "foster a new industrial model, with ideas rising up from workers rather than being imposed by executives at the top of the corporate ladder," the Post continued. "As jobs flowed to the Sun Belt, Mr. Naisbitt said technology workers would become hungry for a social connection with other people--a phenomenon he called 'high tech/high touch' and used as the title of a later book." In Megatrends, Naisbitt wrote, "We must learn to balance the material wonders of technology with the spiritual demands of our human nature."
The Post noted that some of the ideas in Megatrends "didn't quite hit the mark, including the suggestion that businesses and individuals would come to value long-term planning over short-term gain. Still, the cheery optimism of Megatrends, in which technology would benignly break down social and financial barriers, had such widespread appeal that the book sold more than 8 million copies around the world and stayed on bestseller lists for years."
Naisbitt built up a major consulting business and gave many speeches. For his work, he used content analysis, "derived from his reading of Bruce Catton's Civil War histories, which relied heavily on reports from contemporary newspapers. Allied intelligence organizations also studied local newspapers during World War II to gauge public behavior and moods."
He became known for pithy observations such as "Trends, like horses, are easier to ride in the direction they are already going" and "We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge."
His other books include Re-inventing the Corporation, co-written with his then-wife Patricia Aburdene (1985); Megatrends 2000: Ten New Directions for the 1990s (1990); High Tech/High Touch, co-written with his daughter Nana Naisbitt and Doug Phillips (1999); and most recently, Mastering Megatrends, co-written with his wife, Doris Naisbitt (2019).