October 2002
Mining the Future
How to Spot Trends
If you want to see the future coming, 90 percent of what you need to learn, you’ll learn outside of your industry. There is nothing that you can learn from inside your industry that will help you get ready for the future. Literally nothing, because you already know it.
~ Gary Hamel, author Leading the Revolution
Strategies
Four sectors of society tend to capture leading trend behaviour, products and personalities: music, fashion, sports and fitness. (Thomas H. Hicks)
Successful trend spotting will allow you to determine which trends are commercially viable to exploit and to apply those trends to your business—ideally in a flexible store environment that is equipped to handle change.
1. Delphic oracle: Know thyself.
Who are you and what do you stand for? This is your foundation and compass at the individual and organizational level .
2. Once a week, read trade magazines from a different industry.
Find two things in every issue that relate to your business or provoke new thinking. Read consumer magazines, with your customers in mind.
3. Learn to be a better listener.
Find something useful about ideas that annoy you.
4. Volunteer.
Volunteering gives you a chance to expand your network, experiment and exercise your creativity.
5. Read the classics for timeless wisdom to sharpen your thinking.
Aristotle, Shakespeare, Adam Smith.
6. Visit museums, and attend cultural events.
What are the art reflecting back to you. What can art teach you about coping with change, ambiguity and paradox?
7. Visit trade shows outside your industry.
How can you apply new processes or new technology to your business?
8. Star search.
What celebrities do, wear, look like and stand, for influences behaviour and purchasing patterns among the public.
9. Visit the restaurants and shops in the “glamour districts” of cosmopolitan cities.
Marcia Yudkin has this advice for spotting trends:
* Watch early adopters. If you have friends who always buy the latest gizmo or a teenager who leads the pack, observe what they get most excited about.
* Track new laws. Reason your way to new tools and assistance folks will need to comply.
* Listen and ask. What new complaints do you hear in daily conversations?
What weird questions are coming in on your email or to your company receptionist?
* Notice unexpected customers. Are you getting orders from surprising locations or demographic groups? This might indicate the need for an innovative marketing effort.
* Note coincidences. When some particular surprise pops up twice in one week, it often indicates a trend. Stay alert and you may detect more examples of a phenomenon that you can take advantage of. Don't get blindsided by change. Develop your own crystal ball!
Source: Marketing Minute Newsletter
www.yudkin.com/marketing.htm
Cultural Creatives
50 million Americans are Cultural Creatives people whose values embrace a curiosity and concern for the world, its ecosystem, and its peoples; an awareness of and activism for peace and social justice; and an openness to self-actualization through spirituality, psychotherapy, and holistic practices. (Paul Ray)
Spirituality and the search for meaning is increasing in North America.
New Economy
The internet increasingly shifts power to the customer. Use it as a tool to influence and educate your customer.
Watts Wacker
Resident futurist at the Stanford Research Institute
Dominant Physical Structure: Theme Parks
• There are already 500 in the US today, and our desire to opt out of the stress everyday life for a “Truman Show” version of reality will increases exponentially.
Defining Activity: Turning Dreams to Reality
• One example, commercializing space travel
Dominant Resource: Intellectual Property
• Knowledge is becoming more valuable than the product or service.
Dominant Metaphor: Fusion
• We’ve seen it in cuisine. As geographical boundaries collapse, the world itself becomes one massive multicultural melting pot.
Visit these links about futurists and the future:
Hazel Henderson http://www.hazelhenderson.com/
The Futurist http://www.futurist.com/
HotWired: the Future of the Future http://www.wired.com/wired/scenarios/
The World Watch Institute http://www.worldwatch.org/
Edge: http://www.edge.org/
