ABSTRACT
The business trends of standardization, personalization, customization and specialization have been ignored for their significance as business strategies but more so design paths. This chapter provides an interdisciplinary overview of industry trends that lay the foundation for the cultural phenomenon of Human Specialization. Using text mining as a methodological approach, a history of these business trends is examined in the popular press to demonstrate business and the public’s consumption of the terms. The industries explored include healthcare, agriculture, other businesses (e.g., insurance, construction, transportation, etc.) and education. The findings reveal specialization as a business and design strategy that is used more often throughout most industries. This has implications for how and what business will design in the future. Specifically, specialization has become an industry standard. This means that industry will create more specialized products and services that directly impact the lives of human beings. This path will be narrow and widely accepted.
