TREND WATCHING TIPS-
Even though we're happy to provide you with more trends than you swing a stick at, it's equally important to hone your own trend watching skills. So let us share 1 of some tips and tricks with you; find out about the 'why' of trend spotting, the mindset required, the resources you need, the process of embedding them into your organization, and how to actually apply these trends. Good luck!
Know why you’re tracking trends……
Trend spotting can be fun. Makes you feel in the now and in the know. But that alone is not necessarily going to make you or your company more money. The way we see it, in a nutshell, is that tracking consumer trends is one way (and there are many ways!) to gain inspiration, helping you dream up profitable new goods, services and experiences for (and with) your customers. So trend watching should ultimately lead to profitable innovation.
Trend spotting as a profession has radically changed over the last five years or so. In a world that's now fully connected, where thousands of smart professionals and amateurs are not only spotting, observing, thinking and innovating, but also putting their findings online for all to see, deliciously valuable resources are up for grabs.
Sure, this avalanche of trends, insights and new business ideas may cause information overload, but there is definitely an exciting innovation overload, too. The only thing that separates YOU— passionate CEO, marketer, entrepreneur—from being in the know is the time devoted to absorbing these sources, if not adding to them yourself. The world truly is your oyster. And yet, when we ask professionals if and how they spot trends and, more importantly, how they apply those trends to their own brands, we're told they're still having a hard time getting a handle on the basics.
So let's quickly look at some definitions, misconceptions and practicalities before moving on to other tips:
WHAT IS A TRENd........?

How about: “A statistically significant change in performance of measured data which is unlikely to be due to a random variation in the process.” That won't get the creative juices going. So consider the following definition, which we came up with years ago and which still holds pretty well: A manifestation of something that has unlocked or newly serviced an existing (and hardly ever changing) consumer need,* desire, want, or value.
At the core of this statement is the assumption that human beings, and thus consumers, don't change that much. Their deep needs remain the same, yet can be unlocked or newly serviced. The 'unlockers' can be anything from changes in societal norms and values, to a breakthrough in technology, to a rise in prosperity.
Example? One of the core human needs is to be in control, or at least to have the illusion of being in control. No wonder then, that the online world is so addictive. After all, it firmly puts the individual in the driver's seat.
Just give it a try: apply the above definition to your daily spottings and observations of how consumers behave, and how that behaviour is forever changing, and you will find that many seemingly unconnected business success stories will start to make sense. Successful innovations often satisfy existing, dormant needs in new and attractive ways.

COMMON MISPERCEPTIONS :

It's hard to find two people who share the same language when it comes to trend watching. Here are a few common misperceptions. Not complete by far, so add your own:
Predicting next year's colours. Trend watching is about more than spotting the next colour, fabric or hot designer. Sure, black may be back, and miniskirts may re-conquer the catwalks in 2009, but the consumer arena is infinitely more complicated than that. In other words, fashion in all its variety, excitement, and pioneering business models is just another part of the world of consumer trends. In no way does it define consumer trends.
Gazing into a crystal ball. Trend watching isn't about 'hard-core' futurism, either. Better leave gazing into a crystal ball, predicting what's going to happen 15 to 20 years from now, to futurists and scenario planning departments. Trend watching is about observing and understanding what's already happening, the major and the minor, the mainstream and the fringe. In our case in the consumer and business arena.
Declaring the pizza cone an emerging consumer trend. We still get asked a million times about how to distinguish between trends and fads. A pizza cone is a fun product, but it won't dramatically change the consumer arena. At most, it's yet another manifestation that consumers want convenience no matter what. The latter is the trend. The product isn't.

Applying all trends to all people: Don't fall for this one. One massive mistake both trend spotters and brands make all the time, is to assume or pretend that a certain consumer trend will affect or be embraced by ALL consumers. No. Remember, in life and in trends: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The above HSBC ad illustrates it well. Whatever catches your fancy while spotting and tracking trends, please remember that not everything applies to everyone, and that virtually every trend has its anti-trend.
Furthermore, the new doesn't always kill the old. E-commerce may be booming, but real world retail is far from dead. Has the latter changed? Sure. But take one look at excited shoppers and TRYSUMES spending hours in Apple's flagship store in New York and it becomes clear that both online and offline retail have many years of innovation and opportunity ahead of them. In trends, always try to figure out what the 'AND' is, not just the 'OR', and your trend (and opportunity) spotting skills will improve immensely.
Those who watch trends have to possess some rare kind of intuition. Not true. This isn't brain surgery, nor is it rocket science. Observing the world around you, with an open mind, is something many professionals have unlearned, but not something they aren't born with. If you want to spot trends, you can.

What's the future of marketing? How will we be advertising to consumers in five years or more?

Some of the marketing analysts response to this type of inquiry is to consider the effect digital technology is having on the growing proportion of consumers who adopt it, particularly regarding their media consumption and how this may affect marketing in specific industry sectors. By analyzing and assessing digital consumer trends, one can identify potential marketing opportunities and threats these present to different business arenas. Doing this helps reduce clients' anxieties. They can then begin to formulate strategies to embrace the opportunities and mitigate the threats.
In this column, I’ll outline that, which is researched by the analysts about some key digital technology effects on consumers all marketers should be aware of.
At Jupiter Research, some marketing analysts have identified seven emerging trends:

Individuals' interconnectivity is increasing:
The adoption of networked digital technology enables consumers to more easily and rapidly connect with each other, wherever and whenever, whether through email, IM, mobile messaging, or platforms such as eBay, Friends Reunited, and LinkedIn. Consumers increasingly connect, reconnect, trade, and share with likeminded people across time zones and geography. And they're doing so more quickly, more widely, more frequently, and in more volume than ever before. The spread of peer-to-peer communications and content extends and reinforces social networks and builds new virtual "communities."
· The information playing field is being leveled. Digital technology increases the ease and speed of content creation, access, and consumption. As a result, consumers are better informed and information is democratized. A growing percentage of consumers now instantly access a wider breadth and depth of news, opinion, and competitive company information. They conduct unbiased research to compare and contrast products and services. With more information comes more knowledge, and with more knowledge comes more power to the consumer.

Relevance filtering is growing. Digital content's fecundity and its growing abundance create a growing need for information management and relevance filtering as consumer struggle to find exactly what they want, when they want it. Consumers are spending more time searching for relevant information (a boon to search providers) and increasingly seek to have information aggregated and delivered (whether via email or RSS feeds). They block out irrelevant information with personalization, and unwanted or unsolicited commercial messages with ad- and email-blocking technology. Consumers need help managing digital information to avoid digital obesity.
· Niche aggregation is growing. Online content's abundance and diversity enables consumers to more easily participate and indulge in specialist interests and hobbies. They gather in niche communities of likeminded individuals, which results in homogeneous mass consumers fragmenting into an increasingly complex individuality. You need only to look at the Group areas of eBay's Community section for evidence.

Micropublished self-expression is blossoming. Digital media's open-source, interactive, interconnected nature enables consumers to increasingly express themselves in writing and create their own content, whether through discussion forums, message boards, feedback forms, voting platforms, personal photo galleries, or blogs. Growth of consumer-generated media allows consumers to look to their social networks for opinion, which leads to a personalization of authority. How often do we check an online consumer review before booking a table at an unknown restaurant?

The "prosumer" is rising. Online media's unique characteristics enable consumers to become increasingly involved in the creation of the products and services they purchase, shifting the balance of power from producer to consumer. Individuals are more involved in specifying, creating, and customizing their purchases to their requirements, as well as shaping their experiences and the communications they receive. Traditional mass-production and mass-marketing concepts are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

It's on-demand everything, everywhere. Growing digital technology ubiquity and the corresponding acceleration of business practices allow consumers to satisfy their needs faster, more easily, and with fewer barriers. Before, consumer purchases were restricted by time, geography, location, and physical store space. In the digital economy, buying is unlimited by these constrictions. Delivery trading allows near-instant gratification.Digital and online technology play an ever-greater, more central role in modern consumers' lives. Businesses can't afford to ignore these developments. In part two, I'll look at how marketers must address increasingly empowered, in-control digital consumers in the future.

Video Game's GAME..

Video games+Staff productivity+Motivation???... wt abt this?

Using video games to improve staff productivity and motivation...
During the current economic downturn using video games can be a good way to reward employees for reaching their goals or increasing their productivity, says a company that specializes in technology-based employee incentives. The gaming-at-work approach, it says, boosts motivation and productivity as workers compete to earn tokens and prizes.
In many offices, approved gaming in the workplace is limited to the receptionist's engagement in rounds of Minesweeper or Solitaire when the phone isn't ringing.
Admins may sneak off to Pogo during lunch, and the IT guys may stick around after hours for a game of Counter-Strike, but by and large video games have been no more a part of the typical company's culture than pinochle.
Things are slowly changing, however. A number of companies have found that using video games as a way to reward employees for reaching their goals or increasing their productivity can improve office productivity and morale. During the current economic downturn, rewards for overworked employees can be especially welcome.
Another practice whose popularity is growing is the use of video games as training tools. Numerous public safety and military organizations use video games to simulate field conditions. (For example, the battle simulator America's Army, developed by the U.S. Army, has become an enormously successful recruiting tool for the military.)
But you don't have to shoot Nazis to find value for games in the workplace: A company called Executive Command uses the strategy game Empire Earth II to teach managers how to improve their strategic thinking and work as part of a team.
At Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield in Portland, Oregon, IT department members earn virtual "tokens" for performing certain activities: Resetting a user's password is worth 2 tokens. Implementing a cost-saving idea earns 30 tokens.
Employees can then "spend" these tokens to play quick, chance-based video games. The games are more akin to slot machines: Tokens are converted into points, which can be redeemed for prizes, including cash.