I began thinking about how companies obsess over research and development to ensure their next line of products are innovative. Firms use their best insights to predict what their future customers will demand in the marketplace (Apple predicted that there would be an insatiable demand for digital music players and gave us the iPod).
The common denominator in many innovations is identifying an emerging trend and developing a product/service which will cater to the next big thing. The problem, however, is how do we position ourselves at the right place at the right time to identify these trends before they become too widespread to take advantage of them? One article on trendspotting offers a few suggestions:- Be curious and obsess about everything.
- Ask yourself why new things are happening and leave no answers unquestioned.
- Look for patterns. What are the links between new ideas, attitudes, and behaviors?
- Seek ideas from other industries and apply them to your own.
- Watch out for counter-trends and their opportunities and challenges.
- Remember that the biggest trends are always a confluence of smaller trends. Dont miss the macro because you’re concentrating on the micro.
- Keep it simple. Start out with what’s individually true and then look for the universal.
- Don’t confuse short-lived fads with major trends.
- Use the history of products and markets as a guide to their future.
These suggestions will hopefully lead us to be more cognizant about the world around us and allow us to identify emerging trends. Generation Y increasingly gets their news, current events, and other information from non-traditional media such as blogs. How will businesses be able to take advantage of this new trend as well as any other emerging trends in the future?
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