Baker's Dozen of 2019 Trends

Looking ahead to 2019, notions of character and decency are quickly becoming relics in today’s brash new world. Among the forecasts, which look forward but are based on “looking back,” are the wrath of Mother Nature, the at-odds rules of leadership, ageism and the rise of A.I.

For the next 10 days, I’ll give you a snapshot of what’s coming in 2019 starting with…

The end of “C.”

Four big ones—civility, compromise, constraint and conversation—are fading fast. From politics to business leaders, the notions of character and decency are becoming relics. Today, a conversation is often reduced to a quick text, an urgent command (another C word—but one that’s growing) or an emotion conveyed with an emoticon. And make no mistake, there are emoticons for everything now. There’s even World Emoji Day, and alternatives have popped up like GIFs and musical mentions to insert easily—check out the new app GIFNote—to humanize or soften the message. In recent months, Americans have mourned the deaths of two great statesmen, Senator John McCain and President George H. W. Bush (“41”), both lauded for their decency—read civility. In farewell messages to these men, political adversaries celebrated their civic contributions but especially their civilized ways: fairness, honesty and the ability to listen. The loss of these good men—i.e., civilized conversationalists—hurts more because what we are missing is their artful and civil mode of talking with us versus at us...

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