This morning I spoke to a very nice reporter from a Brazilian magazine called Veja – which I am told is their equivalent to Time Magazine. The angle for her forthcoming article is that you can do trend spotting by reading blogs. I half agreed with her. Scanning blogs can be a great start but there’s a lot more to trends analysis than that. For PSFK consultancy clients we mix secondary deep scanning (from an international team of scouts) with primary research on the street and with an extensive network of informed opinion makers whom we have met through publishing PSFK.com.
She also asked me to give the name of the top site where her readers can spot trends. That’s when I couldn’t really give an answer. I know what she’s doing as a journalist – trying to find a simple narrative in a complex world but I think she misunderstands the business. When we work with a client, we analyze thousands of data points and with pattern recognition we provide recommendations on themes and trends we see appearing in markets as diverse as children’s healthcare and European digital arts. We nor you can do this from reading our/your favorite cool sites.
It could have been very easy to reel off the ‘big trend’ sites but I think there’s a misconception that blogs tell you the trends. What they tend to do is quickly gather a lot of information about the new in a way we haven’t had before (for free). My advice to the journalist was simple: be very well read. You can’t short cut by reading what Josh likes or Josh likes or Bill likes or Reinier likes or Piers likes. Personally, I scan the headlines of almost 700 websites each morning*. I don’t expect many people to do that – but it’s my job. It’s that dedication to finding change that encourages companies like Apple and Target to hire me and my team. One of the common misconceptions made by ad agency planners and brand managers is that they think they can trend spot themselves. Sure, I believe anyone can do my trend spotting job. But they have to do my job. It’s not about finding time in between making ads or sales charts on a Friday afternoon browsing the top cool blogs with the hope they’ll spot “new” trends.
* Quick note: It’s interesting that this figure hasn’t really changed much since I presented at the APG a few years back. Sources get subscribed to and unsubscribed from but that number seems to be an upper limit.
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The screenshot used in your article – what reader are you using? I use the generic(and very, very bland) google reader, but I love the clean font useage and combination of the sites’ icons…recommendation on where to look, please?
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:22 pm
NewNewsWire – http://www.newsgator.com
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:29 pm
When you scan thousands of headlines each morning, how do you commit the important stuff to memory? Or decide what is and isn’t of value? I read information from a lot of sources myself (although not as many as you), and I find myself having only vague recollections of even stuff that I felt was important, say, a week later. I guess I’m inquiring about the filtration process?
December 3rd, 2008 at 3:15 pm
BTW: Veja is the most read magazine in brazil. But its not equivalent to time in terms of credibility.
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Piers, really great post. I use netnewswire, and the post really opened me up to different methods of data scanning, street research, and expert consulting. But could you elaborate more, on the street team research, Im very intersted. You guys do cold contact surveys?
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Thanks, Piers.
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Jake, You know what – we rewrite each piece of info/data in other private blogs (just like) for each client. Then look through the blog at the end of a period of time.
Rithy, We have a large network of contributors and writers. This grew out of the readership of PSFK.com. They tend to be informed creative professionals – often with existing full time jobs in planning, design, art or technology.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Don’t be fooled by Alex’s portrait of Veja. It is the most read magazine in Brazil and definitely the most credible one in the market. Leftists don’t like it though, probably the reason he said something like that.
The magazine is known for uncovering scams from politics left and right and it was crucial not only on the impeachment of president Collor but in the Mensalão scandal in the current government.
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:32 pm