Thanks to Mari Smith, I am linked into a live teleconference with Richard Laermer, the author of 2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade. Here's what I am gathering from Richard:
We live in an era of mediocrity, an unnamed decade, one without any real meaning. This pause that we're in right now is a great opportunity to find all that's new. One big change... the consumer rules now. It's time to embrace a whole new attitude, or get left in the dust. Companies like Sprint that are just after more and more numbers, while they fail to service their existing customers, are doomed.
"If you can't communicate and you can't write, how will people know you're smart?"
It’s more important now to be interesting, to be able to share knowledge and to be able to learn a little bit about everything, by listening. Richard confesses to being an intellectual voyeur.
The work place is changing so drastically. Whining is over. Stop your bitching, No one cares and the air's polluted enough with negative energy. So become a mensch! It's about finding ways to bring our real selves to work... to develop a Work-Life personality balance. Be your real self all of the time instead of having a separate work-self.
Flexibility is the saving grace of the world. Gumbitude (from Gumby) is this idea that we're not necessarily about other people helping us find a solution... it's about finding the way yourself, one way or another. Decide that you will always get it done.
Slow down and sleep more... naps are better for productivity. People who sleep less eat more. In the next couple of years people are going to be learning how to sleep better and become more productive, more insightfiul and more creative. The run, run, lifestyle is not working.
“I can’t tell whether you're careless or stupid…”
Everything you are putting out there needs to be so focussed. Pandering to people on social networks does not work. Have something to say that is so focussed and so alert that people will "get it" and then begin to talk about it. Be a responsible communicator.
In his latest book, Laermer divides the forecasting secrets of top professional trendspotters into the following nine categories:
- Read the signs
- Influence the trends
- Embrace new and reject stodgy
- Anticipate change
- Ask experts the right questions
- Seek out visionaries and snub fakers
- Separate the trends from fads
- Use technology-for everything
- Cash in on being ahead of the competition!
RLMpr.com
Laermer.com
The Bad Pitch Blog An award-winning public relations resource from Richard Laermer and Kevin Dugan, since January 2006. Read our Wrath.
PunkMarketing.com
twitter.com/laermer
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment