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Title: Trendspotting: Think Forward, Get Ahead, and Cash in on the Future by Richard Laermer ISBN: 0-399-52749-4 Publisher: Perigee Pub. Date: March, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.06 (16 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Book looks ahead with a brain
Comment: This is a truly useful book. For starters, Laermer doesn't idly speculate in the way of so many futurists. Instead, Laermer's brand of futurism is based on interviewing acknowleged experts, and reporting to readers about what they see on the horizon in their particular field. In Trendspotting, when you get a prognostication about the future of technology, it's courtesy of people such as Jared Headley a tech guru with Cisco. The section on spiritual trends draws on the research of people such as Robert Thurmond, a distinguished professor of religion at Columbia.
It gives Laermer's book so much more credibility than if he'd just pulled all this stuff out of his head. And some of the predictions are fascinating: smells and tastes transferred over the internet, so that you can sample brownies before ordering a batch. Or entire homes powered by small, disherwasher-size hydrogen generators. The book becomes all the more credible when you notice that some of the predictions are already coming true. He quotes an expert as saying that movie studios will hype their products all the more if the economy stays soft. "Hype is more intense in a slowdown," the expert is quoted as saying. "People are more and more intense and, um, vicious." That put me in mind of the fierce whispering campaign rival studios are mounting against the movie A Beautiful Mind to try to keep it from winning Oscars.
I would highly recommend this book. It is fun to read, superbly researched, and you can actually believe that some of the predictions will come true.
Rating: 5
Summary: It's A Most Unusual Tome
Comment: Ok. I was skeptical. But I read it - and found out a lot of really innovative stuff on tech, politics, religion, education, and, well, MY future...I'm a little scared about how my house will work, how we will all communicate, what our entertainment will be like and how much longer this darn planet really has!
I like the fact Laermer exposes truths and is not afraid to say some things we are all thinking..but are too politically correct to actually speak. This book definitely got me past all of the hype and straight to what kind of matters. The world is complicated enuf. Thankfully someone has a sense of humor, writes really well, and has loads of things to tell me that I care about. I am recommending it. Definitely. Oh, and it helped me win a few bets.
Rating: 1
Summary: Does not deliver on it's promise.
Comment: I have read a number of trendspotting books over the years, and this one does not deserve a place in this genre.
There are two major shortfallings:
1. Laermer makes the crucial error of letting his liberal/progressive political bias affect his interpretation of culture. I agree with his politics to a great extent, but introducing it into his research affects his perceptions and make his findings shallow. This is most obvious where he discusses "The Family" and "Spirituality" where he is clearly an outsider.
2. Unlike genuine trendspotting books by Rushkoff, Naisbitt, Toffler and Popcorn, this book does not offer any new thesis in decoding culture. Why is there only one chapter on the "how" of trendspotting?
The book should really be titled "My Trendspotting".
3. The back cover claims "original insights" from various industry insiders. Don't be misled, these guys don't get much input in the book, and they are also hampered by their own interests or bias.
I suggest you use the Amazon browse feature and read a few pages before you make your purchasing decision, and compare it with serious trend spotting books by the authors mentioned above.
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Title: Dictionary of the Future: The Words, Terms and Trends That Define the Way We'll Live, Work and Talk by Adam Hanft, Faith Popcorn ISBN: 0786866578 Publisher: Theia Pub. Date: December, 2001 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Sixty Trends in Sixty Minutes by Sam Hill ISBN: 0471225800 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 15 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Global Trends 2005 : An Owner's Manual for the Next Decade by Michael J. Mazarr, Center for Strategic and International Study ISBN: 0312218990 Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Pub. Date: 12 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Clicking : 17 Trends That Drive Your Business--And Your Life by Faith Popcorn, Lys Marigold ISBN: 0887308570 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 28 January, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Popcorn Report : Faith Popcorn on the Future of Your Company, Your World, Your Life by Faith Popcorn ISBN: 0887305946 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 23 September, 1992 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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