Nothing has been a bigger boon to tracking industry trends than flickr.com. Its thousands of members openly post their photos online, making it a trend seeker’s treasure trove. (more…)

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I ran across this post from Dion Hughes at Persuasion Arts and Sciences, a marketing communications firm. Using the iPhone as an example, he makes a simple, practical case for usefulness. According to Hughes, it’s no longer enough to be cutting edge or technologically smart or totally socially networked. In order to really get the marketing to work, you’ve got to be USEFUL.

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As the new year begins, we can look forward to the many lists that will recap the biggest events of 2008. In the design world, it’s a time to review the best and worst designs of the year. It’s also a great time to take a look at the trends that developed and consider what trends are likely to develop in the future. (more…)

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The holidays are over. Must be home/office organization season—you know, the one retailers made up to fill the floor space that Christmas occupied and that Lawn and Garden will soon move into.

I love to organize, but this season I’m going to skip the hall linen closet and head right to my office at work. To make some space, I’m recycling my boring white paperboard magazine holders and gifting my black Nappa leather planner to the guy in accounting. Gift Shop magazine’s “Trends in Home Office and Desk Accessories” for 2009 is helping me get started on the rest.

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Trends. Fads. Styles. Innovations. Each brings new ideas, fresh thinking and novel motivations into the marketplace. Consumers track them for new “things” and new modes of self expression. Marketers track them for new ways to communicate with and meet the needs of consumers.

In order to follow trends without sabotaging your brand, you have to monitor their impact, success or failure, and apply that information to your own products and consumers — carefully.

If you can do that successfully, you’ll gain a competitive advantage: connecting with your consumer in a meaningful way.

Here are a few ground rules to keep in mind:

1. Focus on trends rather than fads: Fads are short-lived, while trends take longer to build up momentum and tend to last longer — sometimes years or even decades.
2. Understand that there are different kinds of trends and they should weigh in on your brand decisions differently. Macro, consumer and industry trends each bring unique influences that can not be handled the same.
3. Use trends to help shape and inform new new business concepts, products and services.
4. Use trends to inform the way you sell your goods and services and build better communication with your consumer.
5. Do not use trends to  shape your company’s core.

Making business decisions based on savvy trend watching does not need to be scary. Just think of it as a way to keep your brand fresh and evaluate the way you communicate with your target audiences.

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These days, seems like all you hear is royalty-free, royalty-free, royalty-free.

Budgets are tight, so the trend is toward cheap, and more and more people are searching for royalty-free images.

The only problem there is that all of us are searching the same sites and searching for the best, most current images out there. Hence, an image used on our client’s work has a very good chance of showing up on another company’s work — often times a direct competitor, such as in the Dell and Gateway campaigns above.

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Trends are shaped by the desires and values of an ever-changing culture. The newest “thing” doesn’t just “tickle” us, it actually helps us to express ourselves.

When times are good, trends follow paths of luxury, pleasure, pampering and rewards. During such times, individuals do not hesitate to impulse shop.

But times are changing.

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There is no doubt that the economic downturn has put many in a place of despair and difficulty. I certainly do not mean to make light of anyone’s personal struggle through this time in America and the world. I am quite aware of the loss of income, heavy debt, increase in cost of food, gas and basic necessities — I’m experiencing them, too.

But you have to admit there is a pause in America to reflect on what we have been doing over the last decade or so and to realize that, sooner or later,  the ever-escalating trends of spending and short-term vision had to come to an end. Just look at the housing market: I purchased a townhouse in 1998 that increased in value almost $50,000 in a little over two years. With that surge, building and home sales skyrocketed. That had to end at some point.

Now, I am certainly not going to try to pretend to be an economist or financial guru, so let me get back to my point.

I am excited about the following trends that are emerging as America and the world wrestle with the current economic crisis:

1.    Unity. The focus is moving from “me” to “we” — as individuals we can not solve the current economic crisis, but collaboratively, we have hope. Times like these put most of us in the “same boat.” The common “enemy” brings unity.
2.    Core values. Where once we spent almost without thinking, now we all have to make choices about what is most important.
3.    Thankfulness. When things become unstable, we reflect on what we could lose, and that process shifts our thoughts to what we have, rather than what we want. Health, home, family and friends become more valuable than entertainment, luxury and the latest fad.
4.    Less waste. Fix it or replace it. Careless or careful. Cash or credit. Need or want. The challenge we are living through gives us an opportunity to positively impact our lives for the better.
5.    Better ideas. When the going gets tough, the tough come up with great ideas. That means ideas for life and business, including better business products and more efficient business management.
6.    Focus on the future. When times are good, one does not worry about what might happen tomorrow. But when things get rough, we build plans and move with purpose.

Finding the sunny side of a desperate situation gives us all something to build on rather than to dwell on.

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