The level of success for any innovation depends on identifying emerging trends three to five years before they emerge. Too often the process of finding emerging trends is hit or miss. How do you know that the trend will emerge? Better yet, how do you find the trend to begin with? If you haven’t already done so, check out the value of emerging trends and then come back to this post.

Before you begin to identify an emerging trend you must know that this process is extremely subjective. You will not find a sign that says in five years this will change. Instead you will find many little hints pointing towards a trend. Sometimes the possibility of the trend emerging is small, other times it seems imminent. If the possibility is small you need to access the risk involved. Sometimes it is better to know what too look for and be prepared for the change. Other times you will be able to innovate in advance of the trend with little risk. Nonetheless, if you can identify a trend three to five years in advance of it going big, the payoff is enormous.

In this post I will give you some tools to help you identify emerging trends. In my next post, how to identify emerging trends part two, I will give you some resources on emerging trends.

Step One: Check the Current Trends

You need to know where things are now before you can know where they are going. Assess current trends on a large scale. Ask yourself these questions:

1. What changes are occurring in the economy?
2. What changes are occurring in the political landscape?
3. What are current “hot button” issues?
4. What technologies are being developed or are in their infancy stages?
5. What is popular in mainstream culture?
6. What changes are occurring in various industries? As an example, the marketing industry has seen a new emphasis on product placement. Also, the music industry has been turned upside down by music downloads.
7. What trends have recently emerged or are emerging?

Now that you have answered those questions, ask yourself what will each of current trends affect and change? Then try to determine if that change will in turn become a new emerging trend.

Step Two: Immerse in Culture

You next need to go deep into culture, past mainstream and into subcultures. If you are not connected this is difficult to do. You must assess current cultural trends at a small scale. Here are some questions to get you started in identifying emerging cultural trends:

1. What is popular in the underground music scene?
2. What is popular with the DYI (do-it-yourself) crowd? This will probably help you identify currently emerging trends.
3. What is happening in various subcultures? The more you know the better. Go out and find people who are culturally involved and talk to them. See what they think is up and coming. Many companies actually pay young people who provide tips on emerging trends.
4. What has happened in the past that is being readopted by a subculture? This is probably more a fad then a trend so watch out for these.

Step Three: Put the Pieces Together

Next, look at what you know from the current trends and from subcultural trends and see if you can find any parallels. Look for something in the subcultures that could be carried by a current trend to create a new trend. Now ask yourself if that subcultural trend became mainstream, what would change? Answer that and you have identified and emerging trend!

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 23rd, 2007 at 2:44 am and is filed under Innovation Tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.