Trends. You see them in the news and every where. It’s exciting in a way. It is part of the reason I began this blog. Trends show where things are going and what they’ve been. We can project and forecast the future. Or, discover interesting trends that answer our toughest questions (See ‘Merry Christmas v. Happy Holidays’).
I suppose my job influenced this. I work at a public relations firm that works with clients to create influence through digital channels such as message boards, social networks, and blogs. Part of my job is to do initial research, look for trends in the client’s industry, find any chatter about the company or competitors. It’s interesting because we track trends and look at graphs showing blog mentions of particular terms. After all the research we have to compile it into a report of findings.
A Few of My Favorite Things:
- APM’s Marketplace - If you haven’t listened to them yet, do so. Their reports are about anything having to do with money, and they present stories you wouldn’t expect in a normal business program. Even better, they often report on financial and economic trends that are important to us. Did you know the cost of natural gas went up 38% this winter?
- Google Zeitgeist – Each week, Google publishes the week’s and month’s search trends. Top queries in all sorts of categories. They’ve also just published the Year-End Zeitgeist which shows some pretty fascinating graphs of popular search trends on queue with the year’s news (hurricanes, Pope’s death, London bombings).
- Google Personalized Search – This has always been great since it keeps track of your search history. But I’ve never really gone back through mine until now. They’ve introduced a Trends feature which charts your search usage. Pretty neat.
So there you have it. Check back for more “trendy” articles, analyses, and commentary on things. And, always feel free to comment.
