Decoding Next: Five trends you need to know including the new resumé, dronvasion and why boring is the new meditation

Never one to miss a trick, Google is revolutionizing the recruitment process through using data divinity to find talented candidates by flagging users who search for advanced programmer terms and then inviting them to interview. Meanwhile Nissan – partnering with Sony – has been sourcing potential drivers for its real world racing cars with the help of racing video games.

All of these examples highlight how skills and activities previously seen as slacker or outlier are increasingly become sought after. Good news for gamers and hackers everywhere…

2. Dronvasion

As drones continue to permeate mainstream culture, culture in turn adapts to accommodate their omnipotent presence. In all aspects of life we’re making the most of the advantages these digital spectators have over their terrestrial equivalent. Take this building site in California, where drones are appropriating the role of ‘boss’ and capturing footage of workers to monitor their progress, flagging up any slackers deemed to be falling behind.

A new app released by the Federal Aviation Association tells users where they can and can’t legally fly drones. There is now a new international competition dedicated solely to footage shot by drones. The Flying Robot International Film Festival (FRIFF) hopes the competition will celebrate the art of drone video and showcase the finest footage out there. The entertainment industry continues to jump on the drone train with Jay Z planning to live stream drone footage in his upcoming Made In America concert.

While there is no doubt that drones will continue to capture our imagination and play a part the evolution of the cultural aesthetic, we await the inevitable backlash. Expect injury suits and invasion of privacy complaints to rise over the next year.

3. New intelligent energy

It’s crunch time, environmentally speaking; if something doesn’t change soon the game is up (or so we’re told) and this pressure is driving individuals and businesses to think of ever more innovative ways to source and maximize their energy.

While renewable energy is a no longer a new story, companies like ACME-Nuevo are making it cheap and easy to save energy by creating ingenious devices like the Power Forager, which roams the streets to find ebb zone (aka low charge) power stations where it charges then returns home to power your devices. Other household hacks help you make the most of unlimited energy sources like the brilliantly simple Solar Mirror, which redirects sunlight into dark areas of the home. Or how about a lamp that generates light from glowing green algae?

The sun’s limitless supply of energy works at a larger scale too: Dutch engineers have found resounding success with their solar road, which produced 3,000kwh of energy (enough to power your home for a year) in the first six months.

4. The heat is on

In the US, the Hot Sauce revolution has taken hold. Tabasco, the most traditional of American hot sauces, is beginning to be overtaken by international varieties: Sriracha, Cholula, and Gochujang. Hot sauce is not only booming but on it’s way to becoming a billion-dollar industry.

The evolution of the hot sauce category says much about changing demographics, evolving tastes and the psychology behind eating. In the age of the 'foodie', eating is an elevated act that supersedes necessity and nourishment. Commonplace sauces and spices are not nearly as Instagrammable as labels in languages that cannot be deciphered. Social media has widened the scope of everyday life, providing seamless access into, as well as a strong affinity to, foreign cultures and tastes.

As taste thresholds expand, it fuels a desire ever more extreme, varied, and novel. Not only is spicy food addictive, but also reported to increase metabolism and promote longevity.

Cue Brooklyn’s own hot sauce trade show. The expo is equipped with its very own hot sauce sommelier, who will act as the guide through the world of hot sauce. No longer not just a hipster craze (even though the show is in Brooklyn), it offers a gateway to explore cultures and transform a home cooked meal into a cultural, even enlightening, dining experience.

5. Boring is the new meditation

In an era of virtual reality and fast paced multi-player eSports it seems that not everyone is looking for the same level of intensity and immersion. Welcome to world of Viridi. A game where there is no player interaction, no real strategy and there would appear not much going on all really, except keeping a succulent plant alive. The calming nature of this kind of tedious content represents an intriguing new trend.

The concept of tedious content may seem pointless, taking up valuable time. However, there is mounting evidence that people are happy to spend time watching a time-lapse of barge sail through the ocean for several minutes (see above), even though nothing happens. The world seems to agree, as a recent clip of a machine simply icing cakes has been viewed over 600,000 times.

In many ways people are turning to technology to save them from technology. Tedious content transforms slow repetitive or boring process into entertainment creating a virtual avalanche of as one piece of tedious content sets off another, like the Rude Goldberg machine, that gets thousands, even millions, of views. The theory is ridiculous, but the results are tangible: likes and views.

Zoe Lazarus is head of cultural strategy at sparks & honey