Trends to consider
From PLN
Trends to consider
|
This page includes notes on trends (whether trendiness or true societal trends) in general, not specific library trends (covered in various articles) or Technology trends, covered here.
Trendwatching
Trendwatching.com claims to have more than 8,000 trendspotters who "scan the globe for emerging consumer trends." The operation is all about consumers and trendiness; don't take the findings as gospel, but use them as one source for considering future possibilities for your library.
You can subscribe to a free monthly Trend Briefing. Notes below are on recent Trend Briefings.
The expectation economy (February 2008)
Here's the highlighted quote from the briefing:
- The EXPECTATION ECONOMY is an economy inhabited by experienced, well-informed consumers from Canada to South Korea who have a long list of high expectations that they apply to each and every good, service and experience on offer.
- Their expectations are based on years of self-training in hyperconsumption, and on the biblical flood of new-style, readily available information sources, curators and BS filters. Which all help them track down and expect not just basic standards of quality, but the 'best of the best'
Consider the long list of sites for "hyperconsumers" (how many of them have you heard of? Would they matter to your community?) and such subtrends as "consumer info as entertainment," where people--or, rather, consumers discuss the "best of the best without feeling the urgent need to actually purchase anything."
- Editor's note: If you find the whole briefing appalling, you're not alone. That doesn't mean it's not worth spending a few minutes reading. You'll get a fair dose of advertising for Trendwatching.com's paid services--that is, of course, how you get "free everything."
Free love
Speaking of "free everything," that's the theme of the March 2008 Trend Briefing:
- FREE LOVE: the ongoing rise of free, valuable stuff that's available to consumers online and offline. From AirAsia tickets to Wikipedia, and from diapers to music.
- FREE LOVE thrives on an all-out war for consumers' ever-scarcer attention and the resulting new business models and marketing techniques, but also benefits from the ever-decreasing costs of producing physical goods, the post-scarcity dynamics of the online world (and the related avalanche of free content created by attention-hungry members of GENERATION C), the many C2C marketplaces enabling consumers to swap instead of spend, and an emerging recycling culture.
- Expect FREE LOVE to become an integral if not essential part of doing business.
Editor's note: Libraries have been doing "free" for a long time--but supported by taxes or parent institutions instead of a constant barrage of ads and marketing messages. As you ride down the road in your free Prius or use your free notebook while drinking your free latte, consider the wonderfulness of this message...and in the spring of 2008, the "post-scarcity economy" should excite you all the more. By the way, the photo on the briefing front page may not be safe for those with weak stomachs.
Top ten IT issues in higher ed: EDUCAUSE 2008 survey results
- by Leslie Dillon from Leader's Digest May 2008
From the press release:
The 2008 survey gathered responses from 32 percent (589) of the 1,845 primary representatives of EDUCAUSE member institutions, representing public and private, and associate through doctorate-granting institutions of all sizes.
Three findings merit special mention:
- Since 2003, the top three issues in terms of strategic importance to the institution have been, in various rankings, Administrative/ERP Information Systems, Funding IT, and Security. Funding IT was ranked number one for three straight years, 2003–2005, until 2006 when Security and Identity Management (a single issue then) emerged as number one. In 2007, Funding IT moved back into the top spot, with Security as number two. This year, Security is number one, Administrative/ERP Information Systems is number two and Funding IT has dropped to number three.
- Change Management appears in the top ten list for the first time. This issue has two dimensions, one in the larger sense of fostering culture change and the other in the sense of developing a process for handling IT changes that are made on a regular basis (e.g., patches, upgrades, replacements) and that can be very disruptive if there is no change management process in place.
- Staffing/HR Management/Training emerges among issues of strategic importance for the first time since 2001. There is a renewed awareness among CIOs of the challenges of recruiting, remunerating, and retaining a skilled IT staff.
The 2008 Current Issues website offers the following resources:
- Recommended readings for each of the top-ten issues
- Links to EDUCAUSE Connect resources for each of the top-ten issues
- Downloadable PowerPoint presentation on the 2008 Current Issues Survey and multiyear trends
- HTML and PDF links to the EDUCAUSE Review and EQ articles
- Tables with detailed demographic survey results
(EDUCAUSE, press release, May 7, 2008 via OCLC Abstracts, May 12, 2008.)
Related articles
- Technology trends and Technology trends 2007 include a range of library and non-library trends, including some that may not be quite as trendy as Trendwatcher's relentless drumbeat.
