TNCT

• • Trends are manifested in the form of patterns of sustained and increasing numbers for a longer period
• Definition of Trend:

  • A trend is a "look [that] has the appeal of 'newness' because it has been missing or scarce in the marketplace"
  • It occurs when there is a building of awareness on this new idea and its presence produces an increasing demand or need for that new idea among consumers
  • A trend is basically a pattern or a conceptualized idea that has the prospect of providing or having a continuing influence for a longer period due to its increasing and sustained presence and effort or even demand among its consumers in the case of a product
• Examples of Trends:

  • Increasing population growth of Filipinos
  • Rising number of HIV-AIDS victims in the Philippines
  • Product-use/consumption trend (smartphones and laptops)
• Definition of Fad:

  • A fad is a short-lived idea or temporary event that is usually called a "flash in the pan" because the popularity and reception of consumers for this idea fades away easily over a short period of time
  • Its appeal among consumers is relatively small
  • A fad has a shorter staying power in the market
  • It has a particular beginning and a fixed end of influence
• Characteristics of a Fad:

  • Fad is confined to segments in society
  • Fad is trivial because of its short life expectancy and is prone to being outmoded
  • Fad is not created but just revived from a style that existed all along in the lives of some subgroup
• Process of Identifying a Trend:

  • Trends have longer staying power and enjoy a longer period of popularity compared to fads
  • Trends are popularly accepted by many industries and people
  • A trend is rooted in the people's cultural traditions, beliefs, and values
  • A trend shows a transitory increase or decrease of a particular idea, event, or phenomenon
• Differences of Trends and Fads:

  • Fad products enjoy a few months of unexpected popularity but disappear quickly
  • Trends can remain popular for decades if a fad item becomes a trend
  • A fad often appears in a single industry and rarely crosses over into others
  • Trends have greater consumer adoption due to their effectiveness
• What is Trendspotting?

  • Trendspotting is looking at the future through the lens of the present moment
  • Trend spotters gather information by engaging directly with people, places, and events where significant moments may be happening
  • Trend spotters analyze and contextualize gathered information for trend significance
• Steps to Master Trendspotting:

  • Assess the impact of the trend across industries and geographies
  • Evaluate trend maturity to separate hype from reality
  • Determine market dynamics including investment levels and market interest
  • Make a choice based on what the trends mean for the organization and its business model
• Critical thinking is a necessary part of reasoning to determine the truth or falsity of data or content
• Critical thinking is important in everyday decision-making, whether on simple or complicated matters, practical or theoretical levels, subjective or objective issues
• Effective decision-making requires the right thinking skills, best developed through the formal study of critical thinking skills
• Strategic analysis is the process of examining an organization's surroundings and resources to formulate a strategy to meet desired objectives and improve performance
• Strategic analysis involves understanding an organization's external and internal environments, as well as creating and better utilizing resources to pursue objectives and priorities
• Strategic analysis can be used by organizations to analyze losing performance, both internally and externally
• Intuitive thinking is making choices and decisions based on hunches and gut feelings without using rational processes like reading facts and instructions
• Good intuition comes from years of knowledge and experience, enabling understanding of how people think, act, react, perceive, and interact
• Strategic thinking involves elements like anticipating, challenging, deciding, interpreting, learning, and aligning
• Anticipating involves focusing on the current situation and looking at the future to prepare for possible threats and opportunities
• Challenging involves raising questions to trace root causes of problems, challenge beliefs, and find biases
• Interpreting is testing hypotheses and comparing data before making decisions
• Deciding involves making a stand with courage and conviction despite incomplete information
• Aligning involves having different viewpoints to attain common goals and pursue mutual interests
• Strategic analysis can help individuals like students assess their strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities to improve skills and confidence
• Intuitive thinking involves a spontaneous, instinctive, and unplanned process of solving problems based on hunches and gut feelings
• Heuristics are mental shortcuts that enable quick judgments or decisions, sometimes leading to cognitive biases
• Some heuristics include satisficing, risk-aversion, loss-aversion, availability, affect, association, simulation, similarity, and anchoring-and-adjustment
• Network


  A set of units like nerves, species, individuals, institutions or states, and a rule that determines the "magnitude, and/or direction of ties" that exist between any two social identities or nodes
• Network


  • Shows the relations that exist between nodes
  • In most cases, the same nodes can be simultaneously related to multiple networks with each network defined by a particular set of rules
  • A set of networks that is made up of the same set of nodes, known as a hypernetwork or a multiplex
• Types of Networks


  • Relational networks
  • Affiliational networks
• Relational networks


  One-mode networks characterized by rules that determine the presence, direction, and extent of a relationships between any two units
• Relational networks


  • Neighborhood
  • Friendship
  • Alliance
  • Trade networks
• Affiliational networks


  Examples include membership in a professional organization, national membership in international organizations, or the distribution of the different provincial population based on their religion or ethnic affiliation
• Social units


  Actors - discrete individual or collective social units
• Connections


  Ties that link actors to one another, illustrating what links unit A to unit B
• Examples of connections


  • Behavioral connections
  • Physical connections
  • Association or affiliation
  • Evaluation of one person by another person
  • Formal relations
• Relationships


  The collection of ties among the actors, a collection of ties of a specific kind measured on pairs of actors from a particular group of social entities
• Social networks


  A "subset of nodes that are organized through their ties with each other", a set of relations "made up of who knows whom, who is a friend of who, or who talks with whom", a set of relations that apply to a set of actors, as well as any additional information on those actors and relations
• Elements of social networks

  • Set of actors
  • Every actor has a set of individual attributes
  • Set of ties or connections that define at least one relation among actors
• Social network analysis


  The measurement of the characteristics of linkages between units, whether individuals, groups or organizations that form a defined population, providing an increase understanding of the morphological patterns within networks and centering on questions that explain why clusters and connections form within social life, and analyzing network complexities and directional asymmetries in network links