trendwatching.com

I was lucky enough to attend the London seminar of Trendwatching.com.  I’ve been a big fan of their work since I attended last years gig which was my entry into the world of trendwatching.  It was again great to be in a room full of people wanting to know what all the fuss was about this ‘trend’ business.

The three-part seminar held at the RSA was crammed into an afternoon full of fantastic insights and exploration points/links presented by trend guru and allround nice guy, Reinier Evers, CEO of trendwatching.com.

A whole afternoon discussing and demonstrating how trends are all around us and more importanly, how to monitor and spot them!

The session began with challenging the attendees to judge between four ‘emerging trends’, whether they will succeed and
what areas are the operating in?  This then expanded into many other areas but here’s just a taster of what was covered:

• demonstration of the vast online aggregating that is evident in many of the trend sites (psfk.com was included);
• changing face of the media (how consumers are becoming more empowered and connected);
• power of the virtual (’global brain’, avatars and gaming);
• where/how to find/define trends on and off-line;
• how to profit from trends (the barriers to application of trends in work);
• promotion of creating internal ‘trend units’ in your organisations (even if it’s just you);

Reinier also discussed in detail the two most popular trends which are requested by his clients: Baby Boomers and Eco-trends.  He also gave us a taste of the next ‘trend’: Virtual Anthropology – if you want to get the lowdoan go and sign up to their free newsletter here.

For anyone who is flirting with the whole ‘trendwatching’
business/movement or is wondering how it relates to their work/industry, these
seminars are perfect.

See you next year Reinier.