TRENDS

• Trend: a new item or practice that stabilizes and transforms into a habit, lifestyle, or an enduring product
• Direct movement or behavior seeking to innovate lifestyles and find practical ways to solve social issues and improve well-being
• Sequential pattern of change in recorded data evidenced by a rise or fall of variables when measured between at least two points over time
• Five elements of a trend:

  • Number of participants: starts with an individual and increases over time
  • Pattern of behavior: repetitive actions of people
  • Length of time: a long-time frame
  • Cause: starting point of an idea, technology, event, or a person
  • Consequence: makes considerable influence or impact
• Factors shaping a trend:

  • Human needs: desire to build a better world and improve the quality of life
  • Historical forces: responses to achieve equilibrium until the next disruptive event
  • Globalization: global exchange of goods and services and erasure of barriers
  • Digital connectivity: connections between all objects, systems, and applications
• Trend as a "Pattern of Change":

  • Megatrends coined by John Naisbitt in 1984
  • Large social, economic, or political changes with lasting influence
  • Six categories of Megatrends:

  1. Shifts in human densities and movements

  2. Change in economic systems

  3. Changes in political structures and the rise of social movements

  4. Advancement in science and technology

  5. Development in the socio-cultural landscape

  6. Changes in the earth's geology and ecosystem
• Macrotrends:

  • A large-scale sustained shift
  • Pervasive and persistent shift in the direction of some phenomenon on a global level
  • Involves large populations
  • Lasts for a long period of time and creates smaller trends
• Microtrends:

  • Emerging small forces behind tomorrow's big changes
  • Attributed to the power of individual choice over trends
  • Advocates localization over globalization
• Fad:

  • Transitory and very limited; spreads quickly but disappears equally quickly
  • Affects only a particular group and has no long-term implications
  • An intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, especially one that is short-lived
• Trendspotting:

  • The act of identifying a trend and predicting the future through it
  • Begins with environmental scanning or the process of gathering information
  • Main source of data is immersion to people, places, and events where trends take place
• Projecting Trends:

  • Trend-based projecting is the main business of forecasting
  • Assumes that the future will be a logical extension of the past
  • Recognizes the movement of the trend into the future and neglects the cause of these events
• 4s Trendspotting Model developed by Rehn and Lindkvist in 2013:

  1. Setup: questions in grasping the general trend in the global community

  2. Surveying: group's observations of the world and its different cultures to grasp what is happening

  3. Scenarios: imagine situations that can shed light on the changes observed to help understand the implications of a trend

  4. Scrutiny: analyze the past sections to identify a trend or shift
• Drivers, Enablers, Friction, and Blockers:

  • Forces that promote or retard trends and allow a more sophisticated view of where a trend will go in the future
  • Drivers: forces of change behind a trend
  • Enabler: a catalyst that enhances a driver
  • Friction: resistance to change due to learned habits
  • Blockers: forces that attempt to stop a change or delay
• Forces and Blockers:

  • Technology: provides a powerful force of change and becomes a blocker once limits are reached
  • Powerful individuals and organizations: popular figures who radically change the future
  • Ideas and ideologies: dominate the social, political, economic, and technological spheres
  • Social and moral values: values change slowly and enable laws
• The rise and fall of trends mirror social reality, reflecting the wants, needs, aspirations, and values present in society