July 21, 2007 at 04:37Trend Center: Do not judge the world, but carefully consider
- Transfer
So what is a trend?
How about this definition: "Significant statistical changes in the measured data that cannot be explained by random process variations."
It sounds somehow not very inspiring. We’ll try to offer our own interpretation, which appeared here several years ago, and we still consider it relevant:
“Manifestation of a certain“ erogenous zone ”or a new way to serve existing (and practically unchanging) consumer needs, desires or values.”
Example? One of the basic human needs is to control the situation or at least have the illusion of such control. Without a doubt, this is implemented in a virtual environment (new technology), where a person is at the helm of all events, and this is very addictive. We called this phenomenon ONLINE OXYGEN , and as the Network continues to provide the consumer with more and more control levers, we catch new sub-trends every day.
This is much more than ...
Keeping track of trends is more than just observing which color, fabric, or designer comes into fashion. Without a doubt, black color can again become popular and miniskirts can again take over the shelves in 2008, however, with the consumer arena, everything is much more complicated. Yes, and of course, trend monitoring does not have as much direct relation to futuristic forecasts as it might seem. Let us leave the crystal balls and predictions for the next 15-20 years to the futurists and employees of the planning departments. Keeping track of trends means observing and trying to understand what is already happening, both on a large and a small scale, and in the center and on the periphery .
When you fully understand the essence of the driving force behind trends, why some become popular and others disappear without a trace, then you are ready to think about which ones could affect your business and determine what those that already have exist. What's next? Determine how to avoid potential pitfalls and capitalize on potential opportunities. Quoting one of our trend observers, Mitchell Chong: “Catch the next wave before it catches you.”
Challenges
Last year, we held many informal, but at the same time demonstrative, conferences and meetings dedicated to the problems faced by those professionals who want trend monitoring to become an integral part of their corporate activities.
It turned out that there are three main problems: If you are confronted with any of these problems (or even with all three), you know how difficult it can be to overcome all obstacles and implement trend tracking in your company's work plan. Fortunately, all this is surmountable and you already have everything you need.
Some of the answers received in the course of our research resemble the cries of drowning people. The board of directors thinks in terms of the 50s. Everyone is interested only in what shareholders think, instead of what is important for modern consumers. Managers neglect every new trend, every new business concept, saying: "they will never use it." Nobody is interested in the latest innovations. And in the same vein. So, if your trend project is forced to break through the resistance of those who should be its main allies, try looking at the following recommendations:
What can be used as a source of new trends? We use any media resources: newspapers, websites, blogs, news, mailing lists (online and offline); more about this in the article on VIRTUAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Let the information flow into your hands
It’s not at all necessary to endlessly jump from site to site: today, each trend observer has his own RSS feed (we prefer Bloglines ). Among other ways to catch information that itself comes into your hands, you can call Google Alerts and Technorati Mini. Enter a search phrase such as 'consumer trends' or 'world first' or the name of a specific trend. If you select the phrase successfully, the trend flow will flow, as if from a cornucopia.
And a little more about the good.
Do you still feel overloaded? You can be glad that many (new) companies and blogs that work with trends do all the work for you, and often even for free (well, to some extent, because everyone wants to eat ;-).
Spend a few days on sites like PFSK , Iconoculture , Influx Insights , Agenda Inc and, of course, trendwatching.com, try to figure out as many consumer trends with insiders as possible and you will already have good material to start building your own “system” (more on this below). One more hint: you will find in our database not only a lot of trends, but we also collect articles on this topic that are published in publications such as Guardian and Time Magazine.
State of mind
when you prepare a compilation of web resources will be the second, no less important part of the work: set your trendoiskatel. The trick here is to maintain openness and curiosity. Do not judge the world, but carefully consider; if you find something new, ask yourself “why?” rather than try to find errors in it. Remember that you may not be among your own clients: your professional interests should be wider than your personal ones. In other words, think and act like a journalist heading entrepreneurship . How? Try to think globally. Outside the scope of a specific industry, concrete society, concrete class.
Recommendations? Launch your own corporateTrend center. You can start today. Even if only you personally will be this Trend Center. The trend center will not require any millions of investments. For this, you also do not need to hire a separate staff of a couple of employees (although this would not be so bad). It is more a mindset. This can take on a low budget, informal, and voluntary form.
So, do not wait for a special invitation, but try to set aside a few hours a week and start building your own Network, even if it consists of only well-structured links to the corporate wiki. This will solve, at least for the first time, issues with resources / finances. Then try to hone your point of view by inviting like-minded colleagues to brainstorm on how to apply your first finds to your brand and internal organization of the company. Without a doubt, within a week, your Trend Center will become an assembly point for trend-thinking colleagues and other associates.
Network
Every self-respecting Trend Center, of course, wants to spread its network of observers around the world; have your eyes and ears on the streets of Tokyo, London boulevards, Amsterdam avenues, New York avenues and other Paris. Too expensive? Well, if even we could afford it, then any small or medium company will be able to. Take a look at our Springspotter Network observer network , where informants are rewarded with points that can be converted into gifts. On the site you will find a brief but accurate description of why we need such a network and how we created it.
Try to use a collective mind by attracting your colleagues, friends, relatives, your fans and advanced users, your ordinary consumers, your suppliers and thank them with your goods or services or anything else that will be pleasant to them.
Announce and promote your network through your website and your stores. And do not complain about the difficulties involved if you have a multinational company: if you really have offices and employees around the world, this means that you already have the right network, you just do not use it effectively enough. Note: details on how best to use your network of informants, what questions to ask and what steps to take will be described in the article on Trend Center 2.0
Permanent event
It is obvious that the Trend Center is a permanent event. First of all, you will need:
To further promote your Trend Center, launch a semi-official website or page where information will be laid out about which trends you are following and what possible consequences and applications for your company you see in them. To invite people to participate in the work, you can use the corporate wiki . To get
to the bottom of the trend
To get to the bottom of the trend, to understand its impact and contexts, we use a system of trends , which is just another name for a large list of all business and consumer trends that we are researching. Now, we are talking only about consumer trends, but at the same time two more trend categories remain unreached. In general, there are three levels of trends :
With otsialnye
T Tehnological
E conomic
E NVIRONMENTAL
P oliticheskie
The easiest way to create your own trends in the system is to simply copy the trends of the base which a trend browsers (for example, our trends can be found here: www.trendwatching. com / trends), and then add your own finds to them. Your system will grow rapidly, in the sense that each time your new finds will become more and more predictable. Over time, you will find that most of your new discoveries fit into one of the big trends you already know (and this is quite normal). Those findings, which cannot be explained in any way within the framework of the existing trends of your system, may become new trends or just turn out to be a fleeting fantasy.
English translation for:
blog.worldwebstudio.com
How about this definition: "Significant statistical changes in the measured data that cannot be explained by random process variations."
It sounds somehow not very inspiring. We’ll try to offer our own interpretation, which appeared here several years ago, and we still consider it relevant:
“Manifestation of a certain“ erogenous zone ”or a new way to serve existing (and practically unchanging) consumer needs, desires or values.”
Example? One of the basic human needs is to control the situation or at least have the illusion of such control. Without a doubt, this is implemented in a virtual environment (new technology), where a person is at the helm of all events, and this is very addictive. We called this phenomenon ONLINE OXYGEN , and as the Network continues to provide the consumer with more and more control levers, we catch new sub-trends every day.
This is much more than ...
Keeping track of trends is more than just observing which color, fabric, or designer comes into fashion. Without a doubt, black color can again become popular and miniskirts can again take over the shelves in 2008, however, with the consumer arena, everything is much more complicated. Yes, and of course, trend monitoring does not have as much direct relation to futuristic forecasts as it might seem. Let us leave the crystal balls and predictions for the next 15-20 years to the futurists and employees of the planning departments. Keeping track of trends means observing and trying to understand what is already happening, both on a large and a small scale, and in the center and on the periphery .
When you fully understand the essence of the driving force behind trends, why some become popular and others disappear without a trace, then you are ready to think about which ones could affect your business and determine what those that already have exist. What's next? Determine how to avoid potential pitfalls and capitalize on potential opportunities. Quoting one of our trend observers, Mitchell Chong: “Catch the next wave before it catches you.”
Challenges
Last year, we held many informal, but at the same time demonstrative, conferences and meetings dedicated to the problems faced by those professionals who want trend monitoring to become an integral part of their corporate activities.
It turned out that there are three main problems: If you are confronted with any of these problems (or even with all three), you know how difficult it can be to overcome all obstacles and implement trend tracking in your company's work plan. Fortunately, all this is surmountable and you already have everything you need.
Some of the answers received in the course of our research resemble the cries of drowning people. The board of directors thinks in terms of the 50s. Everyone is interested only in what shareholders think, instead of what is important for modern consumers. Managers neglect every new trend, every new business concept, saying: "they will never use it." Nobody is interested in the latest innovations. And in the same vein. So, if your trend project is forced to break through the resistance of those who should be its main allies, try looking at the following recommendations:
- Sometimes this is a language / perception problem. Someone may associate the word “trend” with some fashion designers cherishing exquisite fabrics or crazy teenagers from Japanese parks dressed up in fashion of the times of Louis XIV. Better try to talk about the Future of Business . Or about the Future of Consumerism . Or the Reasons for Change . Or about Currents ( Take the example of Ian David of McKinsey & Company: “Companies that manage to catch the jet are successful; those who try to go with the stream usually have difficulty. It is important to correctly identify these currents and development strategies so that manage them. ").
- Make sure that the trends you are trying to present do not look like your personal ideas and scenarios. Let this not look like a one-man show. Be an impartial reporter who delivers some important message. Show specific examples of how other firms have already made money on these trends. Give an example of the most famous brands and, of course, as many direct competitors as possible. Let it never look like YOUR personal fantasies!
- Numbers should not be named, but keep them handy at all times.
- More visual info. Pictures. Video. Or, best of all: let the people try it themselves. Have a live demo!
- It is also important to secure the support of one of the authorities. Without the support of at least one of the leaders of the management team, all this will be EXTREMELY difficult to implement.
What can be used as a source of new trends? We use any media resources: newspapers, websites, blogs, news, mailing lists (online and offline); more about this in the article on VIRTUAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Let the information flow into your hands
It’s not at all necessary to endlessly jump from site to site: today, each trend observer has his own RSS feed (we prefer Bloglines ). Among other ways to catch information that itself comes into your hands, you can call Google Alerts and Technorati Mini. Enter a search phrase such as 'consumer trends' or 'world first' or the name of a specific trend. If you select the phrase successfully, the trend flow will flow, as if from a cornucopia.
And a little more about the good.
Do you still feel overloaded? You can be glad that many (new) companies and blogs that work with trends do all the work for you, and often even for free (well, to some extent, because everyone wants to eat ;-).
Spend a few days on sites like PFSK , Iconoculture , Influx Insights , Agenda Inc and, of course, trendwatching.com, try to figure out as many consumer trends with insiders as possible and you will already have good material to start building your own “system” (more on this below). One more hint: you will find in our database not only a lot of trends, but we also collect articles on this topic that are published in publications such as Guardian and Time Magazine.
State of mind
when you prepare a compilation of web resources will be the second, no less important part of the work: set your trendoiskatel. The trick here is to maintain openness and curiosity. Do not judge the world, but carefully consider; if you find something new, ask yourself “why?” rather than try to find errors in it. Remember that you may not be among your own clients: your professional interests should be wider than your personal ones. In other words, think and act like a journalist heading entrepreneurship . How? Try to think globally. Outside the scope of a specific industry, concrete society, concrete class.
Recommendations? Launch your own corporateTrend center. You can start today. Even if only you personally will be this Trend Center. The trend center will not require any millions of investments. For this, you also do not need to hire a separate staff of a couple of employees (although this would not be so bad). It is more a mindset. This can take on a low budget, informal, and voluntary form.
So, do not wait for a special invitation, but try to set aside a few hours a week and start building your own Network, even if it consists of only well-structured links to the corporate wiki. This will solve, at least for the first time, issues with resources / finances. Then try to hone your point of view by inviting like-minded colleagues to brainstorm on how to apply your first finds to your brand and internal organization of the company. Without a doubt, within a week, your Trend Center will become an assembly point for trend-thinking colleagues and other associates.
Network
Every self-respecting Trend Center, of course, wants to spread its network of observers around the world; have your eyes and ears on the streets of Tokyo, London boulevards, Amsterdam avenues, New York avenues and other Paris. Too expensive? Well, if even we could afford it, then any small or medium company will be able to. Take a look at our Springspotter Network observer network , where informants are rewarded with points that can be converted into gifts. On the site you will find a brief but accurate description of why we need such a network and how we created it.
Try to use a collective mind by attracting your colleagues, friends, relatives, your fans and advanced users, your ordinary consumers, your suppliers and thank them with your goods or services or anything else that will be pleasant to them.
Announce and promote your network through your website and your stores. And do not complain about the difficulties involved if you have a multinational company: if you really have offices and employees around the world, this means that you already have the right network, you just do not use it effectively enough. Note: details on how best to use your network of informants, what questions to ask and what steps to take will be described in the article on Trend Center 2.0
Permanent event
It is obvious that the Trend Center is a permanent event. First of all, you will need:
- Create your own selection of web resources
- Create your own trend system (see below)
- Set up weekly or monthly meetings
To further promote your Trend Center, launch a semi-official website or page where information will be laid out about which trends you are following and what possible consequences and applications for your company you see in them. To invite people to participate in the work, you can use the corporate wiki . To get
to the bottom of the trend
To get to the bottom of the trend, to understand its impact and contexts, we use a system of trends , which is just another name for a large list of all business and consumer trends that we are researching. Now, we are talking only about consumer trends, but at the same time two more trend categories remain unreached. In general, there are three levels of trends :
- Macro trends (the following STEEP type approach can be a good start to categorize macro trends)
- Consumer trends
- Business trends
With otsialnye
T Tehnological
E conomic
E NVIRONMENTAL
P oliticheskie
The easiest way to create your own trends in the system is to simply copy the trends of the base which a trend browsers (for example, our trends can be found here: www.trendwatching. com / trends), and then add your own finds to them. Your system will grow rapidly, in the sense that each time your new finds will become more and more predictable. Over time, you will find that most of your new discoveries fit into one of the big trends you already know (and this is quite normal). Those findings, which cannot be explained in any way within the framework of the existing trends of your system, may become new trends or just turn out to be a fleeting fantasy.
English translation for:
blog.worldwebstudio.com