The Planning Lab » Trend

The end of trends pt 2

Leon — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 14:48:03 +0000

This is a followup post to this discussion with Magnus (btw a brilliant guy, hire his services if you can).

I admit that trendblogs should be read, but I stand by my position that their relevance and usefulness is getting rather limited for a planner or marketer in a society of perfect information.

That’s not to say that trend blogs are not interesting. On the contrary, interesting things are in abundance. Planners that constantly have hundreds of unread blog posts from various trend blogs know what I’m talking about.

I do agree that ultimately, it is the brain that should do the added-value work by processing information. But:

creative thinking arises from combinations of different ideas, from conflicting thoughts, so how can we be creative if our background knowledge is the same?

In the end, we are all children of society.

The most pervasive proof of this belief is that, despite all the planner excellence and creative brilliance in the global creative industry, people tend to come up with very similar things (only last week there were two cases in Sweden, and there are even blogs about this). We become unintentional copycats.

The word “original” might be old news in the trend industry, but in the world of advertising it is the holy grail, more than ever. Ideas like the Cadbury ads that break the rules are extremely rare. This shows how hard lateral thinking really is.

Maybe trends have become the mainstream to break out of, instead than being the intended inspiration that’s so much needed?

I don’t think that TED is representative source of the trend industry. The brilliant ideas in this forum are products of “leap-frog” innovation, based on years (or even decades) of cutting-edge dedicated research, thinking or practice. Perhaps their “ideas worth spreading” tagline is a call to action for the trend industry:

not all ideas are worth spreading.

I was wrong: trends are not dead. Their force is stronger than ever, and maybe that’s the real problem?

The end of trends, what’s next?

Leon — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:52:48 +0000

Everything's linked: A visualisation of the blogosphere

The few years has seen a boom in trendspotting, most noticeable in the shape of blogs as they are the ultimate way for trendspotters to reach out with ‘new news’. But have trendspotting finally reached its peak?

The sheer abundance of “source” trend blogs, boosted by other social media, and the demand for trends have turned them into an omnipresent, realtime phenomena. Everyone is a producer and consumer of trends.

In this perfect information society, the trends seize to be trends in the sense that they lose their exclusivity: they are no longer part of the new and the latest, but part of the “now”.

If trends can no longer be seen as predictive or exclusive tools for getting ahead, they’re no longer useful for planners and marketers. If this is the case, maybe it’s time to stop following trends (which aren’t trends anymore) and start being original?

The Recession Lab: roundup

Leon — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 21:45:30 +0000

Here are three good reads on advertising in a recession:

1. The Importance of Customer Experience in a Downturn Economy– Customer Futures/Ogilvy One

2. Communicating in a Downturn – Contagious

3. Advertising on edge – The Economist

Primer: experience design

Leon — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:00:56 +0000

View SlideShare presentation

At last! All those !”#€%&* trend blogs in one place

Leon — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 11:02:24 +0000

If you’re like me and don’t particularly enjoy reading trend blogs but see them as a necessary evil for planning projects, you’ll be delighted to find that most trend blogs can be found here.

There are currently 34 trend blogs bookmarked on my del.icio.us, searchable, fully tagged and categorized. Enjoy!

Trendspotter forsees death of trendspotting

Leon — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:46:55 +0000

Friend and Chief Pattern Recogniser Magnus Lindkvist has noted that trendspotting as a business might be short-lived. Both PSFK and Fortune, two darlings among trendspotters (and planners for that matter) make some interesting points. If there’s reaction for every action, maybe the new trend is one of anti-trendspotting?

No worries Magnus, IF you’re out of a job, you can always swallow your pride and work as a good old account planner. Meat and potatoes never goes out of fashion.

Gizmodo

Thanks Simon for the tip!

2007 Google top search trends: the world is back to normal?

Leon — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:37:18 +0000

Google has announced their top search trends of 2007. Compared to 2001, it seems like the world is a nicer place.

Reuters via Gizmodo

Geekipedia

Leon — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 16:14:56 +0000

For those who aren’t up-to-date with what Fake Steve Jobs, Googleverse, Web 3.0 and Mashups really mean, the last issue of Wired magazine comes with a fantastic blue booklet called Geekipedia.

Inside Facebook, a blog, points out that the two most active apps (defined by highest percentage of total users that are active) on Facebook are games.

So, we can conclude that people are using Facebook at work, and they are playing computer games! it seems not much has happened since the days of Solitaire…