ConsumerShift: How Changing Values Are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape [Hardcover]

Andy Hines (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 25, 2011

ConsumerShift presents a New Dimensions of Consumer Life Model for making sense of how consumers are changing along two primary dimensions: inner dimension changes being driven by predictable long-term shifts in values, and outer dimension changes in society, technology, the economy, etc. This New Dimensions model thus provides a framework for understanding how consumers are changing.

 

These inner and outer dimension changes are forecast to come together into seven clusters of consumer need states. These need states in turn are brought to life in the form of a representative future personas. Finally, a customization kit is provided for readers and their organizations--whether in business, government, non-profits, or education--to customize the personas to the specific needs of their organizations.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Andy Hines is Lecturer and Executive-in-Residence at the University of Houston’s Graduate Program in Futures Studies, with more than twenty years of experience as an organizational, consulting, and academic futurist. He also speaks, workshops, and consults through his firm Hinesight. Hines enjoyed earlier careers as a consulting futurist with Coates & Jarratt, Inc. and as an organizational futurist with The Kellogg Company and The Dow Chemical Company.

 

Hines is motivated by a professional hunger to make foresight practical and useful, and he believes that foresight can help deliver the insight that is so needed in today’s organizations and the world. His goal is to infect as many change agents as possible with this message. In the past year, he has appeared on several radio and television programs, including KRIV-26 News and the CBS “Early Show.”

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: No Limit Publishing (November 25, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1614660034
• ISBN-13: 978-1614660033
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #976,556 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Andy Hines is Lecturer and Executive-in-Residence at the University of Houston's Graduate Program in Futures Studies, bringing together the experience he earned as an organizational, consulting, and academic futurist. He is also speaking, workshopping, and consulting through his new firm Hinesight (www.andyhinesight.com). He recently completed his dissertation: "The Role of an Organizational Futurist in Integrating Foresight into Organizations."

Before that, he was Managing Director of Social Technologies (now Innovaro), and served as an Adjunct Professor with the university for five years. Hines enjoyed earlier careers as a consulting and organizational futurist. He was a partner with Coates & Jarratt, Inc., a think tank and consulting firm that specialized in the study of the future. He was also Futurist & Senior Ideation Leader at Dow Chemical with a mission of using futures tools and knowledge to turn ideas into new business opportunities. Before that, Hines established and ran the Global Trends Program for the Kellogg Company.

Hines is motivated by a professional hunger to make foresight practical and useful, and he believes that foresight can help deliver the insight that is so needed in today's organizations and the world. His goal, he says, is to infect as many change agents as possible with this message. Thus, he has honed a skill set designed to make foresight more actionable in organizations.

In this pursuit, he co-founded and is currently on the Board of the Association of Professional Futurists, and has co-authored three books -- Thinking About the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight (Social Technologies, 2007)," 2025: Science and Technology Reshapes US and Global Society (Oak Hill, 1997) and Managing Your Future as an Association (ASAE, 1994). He has also authored dozens of articles, speeches, and workshops, including the 2003 Emerald Literati Awards' Outstanding Paper accolade for best article published in Foresight for "An Audit for Organizational Futurists" and the 2008 award for "Scenarios: The State of the Art." In the last year, he has appeared on several radio and television programs, including KRIV-26 News talking about the future of libraries and the CBS "Early Show," to talk about a study MTV commissioned his team at Social Technologies to investigate: "The Future of the Youth Happiness."

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Marketer's "Must-Have" January 15, 2012

By Regina Lewis

Format:Hardcover

ConsumerShift illuminates the complexity of human decision-making, yet
explains this complexity using straight-forward terms and organization.
Especially powerful are the values outlined in Chapter 6, as they
highlight amazing opportunities for marketers to better serve consumers in
our world fraught with change. The food for thought presented is wonderful,
and can be communicated clearly to or by managers at any level.
All in all, this is a game-changing piece of work.

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this Book! September 24, 2012

By Lisa Bodell

Format:Hardcover

Consumer Shift was a thought-provoking read. Hines' straightforward approach to change is refreshing, and offers many methods to helping make change happen in realistic ways. What I found most helpful was the information on how to systematically deal with change, how to develop scenarios that describe alternative futures and how to develop plans for making those futures possible. Hines is a futurist with long-term vision, and his large company experience grounds his approach in a reality to make change possible.

5.0 out of 5 stars Here's a GPS for those who now explore the consumer landscape March 21, 2012

By Robert Morris HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I agree with Andy Hines that "changing values are reshaping the consumer landscape" and that process has been underway since the first marketplaces were established in ancient Greek city-states (the Agora) and later in Italy (the Forvm Romanvm). Obviously, there are many influences on consumers' values, notably those that are social and economic. That is, what is in style and affordable.

What Hines shares in this volume is based on proceedings and revelations at a "New Dimensions of Consumer Life" Futures Consortium meeting held on November 10, 2009, at the Willard Hotel in Washington (DC). The focus of the research and analysis is limited to an approximate timeframe that extends from "the seeds of the rethink [i.e. significant, disruptive changes] planted in the social fringes of the late 1960s and 1970s and are finally bearing fruit with the main stream today." Hines estimates that by 2020, "the changes will be in full force."

According to Hines, "At the core of the rethink are shifts [I view as paradigm shifts] toward postmodern values, and behind these are integral values reinforced by the Great Recession" now underway. He suggests that five key themes form the core of various significant, disruptive changes, "making a case for the consumer shift (note the acronym `ACASE')." They are Authenticity, Connection, Anti-consumerism, Self-expression, and Enoughness. Hines rigorously explores each of them. People will continue to consume goods and services, he acknowledges, but will not only prefer but in fact demand a new relationship with those who provide them.

For me, some of the most interesting (and most valuable) material in the book focuses on what Hines characterizes as "The New Dimensions of Consumer Life" conceptual model. The details are best revealed within the narrative, in context, but I will point out that the model is based on a mindset that accommodates the five aforementioned, separate but interdependent themes, and, can guide and inform leaders in almost any organization (whatever its size or nature may be) when formulating and then implementing a game plan that is most appropriate to the given company's (a) core business, (b) strategic goals and resources, and (c) its competitive marketplaces.

Hines provides a wealth of information, insights, and advice that have immediate and practical with regard to challenges, opportunities, and issues such as these:

o Why the consumer landscape is changing
o What's going on [deep] inside consumers
o What's being said to consummers
o How changing values are the single biggest influence on consumers
o How catalysts of change are shaping and being shaped by con summers
o What the changing consumer landscape will [soon] look like
o How to identify emerging need states (i.e. "consumer sweet spots"
o How to "bring the future to life" (i.e. "future personas")
o Customizing the personas: the Persona Construction
o Customizing the personas: the Persona Construction Kit

Andy Hines would be the first to point out that it would be a fool's errand for any reader to attempt adopt and apply everything provided in this book. Hence the importance of working with a comprehensive, cohesive, and cost-effective framework such as the one Andy Hines proposes, "The New Dimensions of Consumer Life" conceptual model. He achieves his stated purposes: to explain how changing values are reshaping the consumer landscape, and, suggesting how best to respond effectively to changes that are occurring or will soon occur in a global business world in which change really is the only constant.