Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You’re only a stranger once.

June 5, 2006

7 Steps & the Key to Spotting Trends

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 8:05 am

Getting the People Data

Trendspotters 101 logo

It’s easy to get the people data. Just become obsessive. No, I don’t mean get clinical. Don’t be grabbing people off the street and pulling them in under interrogation lights. I mean get steeped in the culture, become a saturation learner. You can see it in trendspotters — Seth Godin, Tom Peters, Prince Campbell – that they live people. breathe what people think. People aren’t just information on paper to them. People are what trendspotters think about, talk about, even when you’re not around.

They do it so much their significant others say, “Honey, don’t make me live it.”

You Gotta Live It

Living it is exactly what trendspotters do. Minds are amazing things. We can take on — “live” — the experiences, hopes, and needs of customers by talking with them, watching them, and actively listening to their expressed and unxpressed needs. Here’s are a few hints to “live it” as a trendspotter would.

All it takes is imagination, curiosity, and willingness to let go of your ego. You don’t actually have to be the Prince who dressed a pauper. Just take the lesson he learned and use it as a business rule.

Know the real people. Know how they think, what they do, what they worry about, what they dream.

That’s the trendspotters’ key. A decision based on any other data is, well, just guessing.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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See the rest of Trendspotting 101 on the SUCCESSFUL SERIES PAGE





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1 Comment to “7 Steps & the Key to Spotting Trends”

  1. July 13th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
    What Makes Your Heart Sing? - Liz Strauss at Successful Blog - Thinking, writing, business ideas . . . You’re only a stranger once. said

    [...] I’ve been teaching since I was ten. Put that together with love of relationships — connections in information and connections between people and you’re getting close to who I [...]

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