Customer Reviews

2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After reading Punk Marketing and finding it not only enjoyable, but quite accurate and useful, I was hopeful that '2011 Trendspotting' would be at least equal to Punk Marketing.......well, it's BETTER. The author seems to have an uncanny insight into people's buying motivations, trends, and media choices. Besides what one can "learn" to watch for, there's some very humerous passages about the current and past mind-set & fads of society.

Richard Laermer's 12th book* is, to quote Nettie Hartsock, "a decadent read."

Serialization of Content
One of the trends Laermer details in this 300-page, fast read is serialization. Technology like iTunes and TiVo are making content more fluid to keep up with our time-starved attention spans.

Even his book reads more like a blog with 77 chapters and plenty of sidebars. You can dive in and out based in your interests.

One of the reasons I most enjoyed 2011 is that I did not agree with everything Laermer suggests in his book.

That said he does provide insight into how society, religion, media, technology and even language/communication skills are all changing. More than just trends, Laermer gets the reader to think about what it all means. 2011 looks towards a bigger, more important picture. You may see it differently, but this book helps you expand your focus.

Bottom Line?
As my cover shot shows, 2011 is a good summer read. You should check it out...and not just because it's free.

Yo, check it. Laermer's style is the dopest, phattest, wiggity-wiggiest.
And that is a direct quote from my grandmother!
In all seriousness, there are few people today who can pull together thoughts
like the ones you will find in 2011. Thought-provoking and stimulating and definitely a worthwhile read if you are at all interested in staying ahead of the curve and drilling down to truly original, "real" ways of doing business. Highly recommended.

Okay, I was going to do a video review but my hair's a mess, so here's the bottom line: This book is really good. Just enough tongue in cheek to make the hard-boiled trend prognostication go down.

Laermer is a well known marketing and branding provocateur and PR guru who, from what I can tell, is an absolute sponge for what's next.

One of the points that Richard makes so brilliantly is that the future of trend predicting is knowing how to predict them yourself - for your own benefit. For this reason he offers up not only things to look for but ways to look for things to look for, if that makes sense.

That makes this a toolkit worth reading. And stray comments about Jennifer Lopez don't hurt either.

I had to read this book for my graduate program in management and its the first one that didn't bore me to tears. Richard Laermer has written an entertaining and fast-paced critique of western culture yet the reader is still required to think. Remember the goal is to learn how to spot trends. Keep that in your head while he throws topic after topic at you destroying conventional wisdom in the process.

2011 is easy to read, entertaining, and replete with useful information. The format a welcome change from standard "textbook" business books. Regardless of industry, you will find useful and specific information here, and most of are things you probably have not yet considered!

What's the difference between a trend and a fad? It's Richard Laermer's job to know in "2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade". Looking at the commercial industry of thinking of things before uttering the line "I Wish I Thought of That", he gives advice on how to look at the world like a marketer and spot trends before they come up so one can be on the bandwagon before everyone else. A seminal and scholarly look at the ways of marketing, "2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade" is a top pick for community library business collections.

This is a very funny, readable and useful book. Laermer never takes himself too seriously, yet what he is talking about is important. He wrote Trendspotting 2002 and more recently Punk Marketing. Each chapter is short and pithy with ideas rattled off in a very pragmatic writing style. Good cross country airplane read, if you like to think. I loved his line that the last decade has been just boring wrto breakthrough trends.

Richard Laermer takes on the future in an irreverant and brilliant way. He uncovers some of the best ideas of this decade and exposes you to some of the technologies that will change your life like Fnords.

Fnords you say? Yes, read the book and find out why they are important or just click on one of the fnord tags on this page to find more of them. This is the first legit business book I've seen that dared explore such a revolutionary subject.

But that isn't all, Richard slays sacred cows with intentional abandon and opens your mind to what may be, what can be and what is.

But most importantly, he gives you the tools, skills and techniques to not only see but profitably predict the future for yourself and your business.

The other reason to read this book has nothing at all to do with Trendspotting, it is the reason you should read every one of Richard's books, he has a command of naming ideas, books, things, and experiences that is a skill every business owner should model. He knows how to get attention and create the words that will cause people to spread ideas quickly because they can't forget what he called the idea.

Definately a great read for business owners, salespeople, marketers, and trend watchers.

If you've read any of Richard Laermer's stuff before, you know you're in for a highly irreverent look at whatever the subject at hand happens to be. In 2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade, he takes a shot at identifying the important trends coming down the road, and more important, how to figure them out for yourself.

Contents:
Part 1 - Trendspotting for the Novice: The Next Few Years are All Wondrous; Mediocrity; Gumby - The Mascot of 2011; The New Way to Say Shove It!
Part 2 - The Caboodle - Advanced Trendspotting: Dive into Trends... And Believe In Them; Fad, Faddy, and Fattening Trends; The Bolts from Blue; The Decade Is Starting Anew (and Maybe The World Is Too!); Stay Informed by Depersonalizing
Part 3 - Business Of Selling, As Opposed to Shilling: Treat Me Right, or You Won't Get My Money; The Biggest Picture - Customer Is a Hyper-Aware King; Can An Athlete Really Be Trusted To Make Money For Us?; Lying - That Your Final Answer?; We Fib; Why Smart Sellers Can Spell Fnord And Why It Really Matters; Yes - Sadly - Sprint Was Correct; Frito-Lay's Cholesterol Story; How To Major In Napping; Welcome to BAS - I'm Talking To You; Greet This - How A City Civility Campaign Ruined Friendliness; "46" - The Middle Ages; The New Low In Business Etiquette - Stealing Without Aplomb; Victoria's Secret's Mentality - How Cities Got Overtaken By Lingerie; Fred Trump & That Other Guy; Machiavellian Skin; The 1-Word Chapter - What's The Mission Of Every Company?; Sex, and Snakes & Couch Jumping - How To Be Sure You're Not Selling To People Who Don't Buy During This Era of Attention-To-Noise Surplus Ratio, Otherwise Known As "What's This? A Laermer Blog Post?"; What Happens On TV (Stays On TV) - Building A Brand From Personal Experience
Part 4 - Techno Centric: What's DAT Exactly? Another Fabulous Analogy About Unnecessary Technology; Bacn & The Art of Communicating Later; Ah My Identity - Take It At Your Own Risk; Give Me Some Couch Love, Babe, Yeah, Give It To Me; Battery Management Corp - One Further Step In Our Quest For Power; Computer Is Gone - Is Life?; Heads In Air - The New toy Won't Replace Our First Love; And Finally, EID, Email Is Death (Long Live New Mass Communication); Sport Mail; Hi-Tech - The New New & Improved; Blog Anonymously & Lose Your Self - errr, Your Cell; The End Of The Beta - You Just Got To Stop This Affair
Part 5 - Entertain Your Diversions: Just Being Nominated Is Enough - Ah, Award Show Overload; The Game of Famous - A Case Study That Is Far From Hollywood; And They All Lived Hollywood Ever After; Serial Lifer; Jennifer Lopez's Antics - The J Down Lo
Part 6 - Make Media Your Friend (Then Make Bank): Watch and Learn; The Black Eye of Memory - Media and Big Stories; The Media Next Decade
Part 7 - The Language of Life: One Potato, Two Potatoes Later; Where Are Phrases To Catch Us? Revival of "Fun Speak"; Taking Responsibility For Your Words Is Not Just Good Psychology; Living with Ed
Part 8 - Society with a Small s: New Rule - You're Not Freaking Cool Just Because You Say So; How To Keep Nascent Trends From Dying On The Vine; Say You're Gay and Induce A Yawn (or "Gay for Play" Has Its Day); Faith, Politics, and the Death of a President; 609.72 Minnesota Statues 2006 - The Oddest of Current Laws; Demeaning The Presidency Has Brought Us Down; Planned Layovers In America - An Article That Did Good; Savvy Muscular Old People; Teens Shall Remain Narcissistic (This Surprises You?); Generation Zero - NCD35 (Part One); Gap of Mentoring (Part Two, Generation Zero); Truth About "Kidlessness" and the Future of Pals With A Kid Between Them; Ah, To Be Nice, Perchance To Dream
Part 9 - Epilogue And Other Chapters I Couldn't Fit Anywhere Else So Stuck Them Here: Terms I Made Up + Newfangled Future Speak; Self Something Or Other; Good Morning, Today Is January 21, 2011; To p7 Mistakes Small Businesses Make - A Guide To Saying "WTF"; The Epilogue - Last Words, First Words, Wordiness...

As you might be able to tell, Laermer has his own style... :) Each of the chapters are only two to five pages long, and each starts out with a particular trend. For instance, the chapter The Media Next Decade has the trend of "The press will stop being meaningful because, well, we know more than they." When you look at the current wave of blogging, personal reporting, etc., you see that it's not far off where bloggers and journalists become in many cases one and the same (and some would rightfully argue that it's already here). Another "f'instance" is Serial Lifer, in which he sees even more serialization or "chapter-ization" of books, TV, and every other form of entertainment out there. We don't sit still long enough to take things in one sitting, so we're tending to move towards smaller bits of info fed to us over time.

Rather than give you an academic argument for what exactly will happen by what date, Laermer tends to go more towards feelings and observations, giving trends that he sees happening, while also giving you room to interpret his views with your own slant or spin. Even if you don't necessarily agree with his trend or observation, you will have to admit you had a good time reading about it. And you *will* be forced to think things through to their logical conclusion based on current events and prevalent trends. That's why I think this is different than most "futurist" books. He's got his own ideas as to where things will go, but he's also willing to listen to other views and ideas as to how things will play out.

It'll be fun to go back in 2011 and see exactly where things ended up at, and to see what transpired and what didn't...