Happy holidays and New Year to you all! I am incredibly grateful for all my wonderful clients and readers. Wishing for peace and joy in 2024. Please enjoy the 2023 roundup and a glimpse of what’s next.
2023 Roundup
Favorite Fiction:
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
The book came out in 2022 but I read it this year and it remains one of the best books I’ve read, possibly ever. Kingsolver reimagines Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. Set in the late 1990s in Appalachia, the story follows Demon’s tragic, but ultimately redemptive, story from boyhood to manhood in an increasingly abandoned small town. The book won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for 2023.
Favorite Non-fiction:
Heather Cox Richardson, Adam Grant, and Greg Lukianoff all released great new books this year.
Surprisingly, most of my non-fiction reading this year happened on Substack. I think this is because many pressing topics such as AI, war, and free speech, are constantly evolving so a static book wouldn’t work.
by Jon Haidt by Rex Woodbury by Rob Henderson by Freya India by Jesus Rodriguez and Ksenia SeMy favorite Substacks of the year are:
by Becky Malinsky by Caroline ChambersJust for fun topics:
Favorite restaurants:
Joe’s Shanghai in New York City
Kim’s in Minneapolis
Monteverde in Chicago
Sarkis Pastry in Los Angeles
Favorite TikToks:
TikTok made a video compilation of their most viral trends that you can watch here. My favorites were Girl Dinner, Roman Empire, and Taylor Swift putting Travis Kelce “on the map.” All hilarious.
2024 Emerging Trends
Gen Z’s “Treat Yourself” Spending
Concert ticket prices and airfare rose to record levels in 2023 but that did not deter Gen Z from making those purchases. This year also marked Gen Z’s huge entrance into the aesthetics industry (luxury skincare, Botox, hydra facials, etc.) where we saw major spending. All of this is projected to accelerate in 2024. Beyond marketplace implications, this “treat yourself” spending dictates key drivers of aspirational employment. A recent study found that Gen Zers say that salary is the most important factor to consider when choosing a place to work. Interestingly, the least important factor was a company’s stance on social issues. Big spending requires big paychecks. We’ll follow where that leads in 2024.
Higher Education’s Transformation
College enrollment has been steadily declining since 2012 with the steepest drops happening during the pandemic. A lot of this has to do with skyrocketing tuitions. Between 1994 and 2018, the inflation-adjusted tuition price for a public college education nearly doubled and now children born in the bottom income quartile in the US have just a 9% chance of getting a college degree by age 25.
2024 could see more growth in trade schools as students focus on affordable degrees and human skills not likely to be taken by AI.
On top of growing fees, the recent congressional hearing with a few university presidents have raised questions on many issues ranging from the rapid growth of university administrators (Yale currently has more employees than students) to growing ideological homogeneity on elite campuses (there are currently zero registered Republicans in communications and anthropology in a study of 150 elite liberal arts schools).
Change is brewing. Hundreds of University of Pennsylvania faculty have signed on to “A Vision for a New Future” and 2024 will mark the inaugural freshman class at The University of Austin.
Adoption of Useful AI
AI Co-pilots will probably become widely adopted in 2024 and eliminate tedious work. Things like Class Companion for teachers, SketchPro for architects, and Harvey for lawyers could ramp up productivity quickly. Trainings on AI tools will be created to ensure that this technology can be leveraged across generational lines.
Leaders will once again be forced to focus more on what gets done and obsess less on how it gets done because the human energy required to reach deliverables will continue to decrease. In other potentially useful (but maybe apocalyptic :) AI trends, I’m closely following the mainstream-ish adoption of AI companions but so far, they all seem kind of creepy.
The Election
This is my fourth presidential election since I began studying generations and let me tell you…each cycle is wild, and I have a feeling 2024 will be no exception. Polls this far out are historically inaccurate but that hasn’t stopped us from obsessing. A recent poll from Tufts found that 37% of young voters say they’ll vote for a Democrat, 25% a Republican, and 31% are undecided. Interestingly in this poll, more 18-24-year-olds identify as Republican (28%) than those in the 25-34 bracket (24%).
Work
I wrapped up 62 speeches, custom research, year 3 interviews with my Gen Z cohort, and many interesting collaborations. I am so grateful for everyone I’ve been able to work with, the research that has been conducted, and the stories that have been shared.
/Life
My oldest daughter is loving kindergarten and my little one thinks preschool is “okay” which I take as a win. My husband and I will be celebrating his 40th this February in Mexico with a group of our closest friends. I’m spending the holidays home in Minneapolis with my big, loud, loving family and I feel very fortunate for that.
A tweet went viral earlier this year saying, “If you’re able to tuck in a healthy, peacefully sleeping child into a warm bed in a safe home, you’ve won the lottery of life.” Perhaps more than other years, this really hit home with me now.
Wishing you all a year of your own lottery wins.