Trends, Networks, and Critical Thinking in the 21st Century

• Trend is a continuous pattern of change that occurs in either a condition, process, or output.
• Trends that show condition - wearing facemasks during pandemic
• Trends that show process - preserving food
• Trends that show output - organic soap
• There are 5 characteristics of trends: duration of time, acceptability, cultural roots, transitory increase/decrease, and versatility.
• Duration of time - prevails for a considerable period of time; not short-lived.
• Acceptability - accepted and embraced by a number of people
• Cultural Roots - based on traditions, systems of belief, and accepted values
• Transitory increase/decrease - may experience a rise/decline in popularity and acceptance
• Versatility - flexible or open to changes and adjustments
• There are 3 elements of a trend: basic need, driver of change, and innovation.
• Basic need - fulfills essential human need
• Driver of change - the way emerging trend bends, modifies, and replace existing ones
• Innovation - geared towards the improvement of an old trend
• There are 3 types of trends: megatrends, macrotrends, and microtrends
• Megatrends - originated a long time ago but continue to exist and influence people. Example is climate change.
• Macrotrends - focused on specific components or part of a megatrend. Example is e-sports.
• Microtrends - limited to specific people, location, or conditions. Example is when Facebook was only intended to be used inside the university where it was founded.
• Trend Spotting - deliberate efforts involving the identification, analysis, and interpretation of shifts in society that is commonly applied in business setting. Example is migration of OFWs, business, and social life (elections).
• There are 2 trend spotting methodologies: qualitative and quantitative
• Qualitative - tracing paradigm shifts and gathering in-depth stories and accounts of everyday life.
• Quantitative - searching for regularities and irregularities with analysis of time series graphs'
• Trend and fads are commonly used interchangeably but are 2 different concepts in social sciences.
• A fad as a collective behavior: unstructured, popular, and performed without other's compulsion.
• There are 3 kinds of fads: useful product (jelly shoes), novelty product (bobbleheads), and activity fad (ice bucket challenge).
• A fad is an intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, especially one that is short-lived and without basis in the object's qualities; a rage or craze.
• There are 3 elements of a fad: appeal, purpose, and impact.
• Appeal - captures the attention of people
• Purpose -fads are not necessarily useless
• Impact - has effects at the individual, group, and societal levels.
• There are 4 characteristics of a fad: perceived novelty, short life span, limited scope, and heterogeneity.
• Perceived novelty - people tend to be attracted to new or strange products and experiences
• Short life span - the popularity decreases after the saturated point has been reached
• Limited scope - influential only to a segment of a population.
• Heterogeneity - people and organizations adopt in different ways
• Trendsetter - something/someone who starts or causes a trend
• Trendspotting refers to the study of trends and the way they develop and affect society.
• Part of a whole - a trend is as an elaborate thing that makes the whole idea of the trend working and producing an emerging pattern.
• Emerging Patterns - are items in which frequency are changing overtime that are important indicators that set the progressive movement of data to understand the distinctive direction to where the trend is heading.
• Data Patterns of trends can be classified into 3: linear, exponential, and damped.