Do not confuse fads for strategic trends
I’m back from Paris, where I ate four times my body weight in pure-butter pastry and incidentally gave a talk to Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals – France at the lovely Hotel Ambassador
. It is experiences like this that keep me from really thinking that what I do is work.
Also, I also had the chance to meet with publishers regarding a French version of Future Inc. More on that when it’s out of the negotiation phase.
So back to the blog. I am no sooner back from Europe when I see a statement that really irritates me. I recently read about a business trend consultant who is announcing to his audience:
"Aging Populations" is no longer the "hot" trend. Today, "CLIMATE" is has replaced aging as the most important trend of the moment.
To be crude, this is one of the dumber things I have read in some time. I get asked quite a bit in interviews, "How can people distinguish between a fad and a trend?" I say that true strategic trends take a long time to develop, won’t disappear overnight, and have many levels of implications for our institutions. 
Fads come and go quickly, really just a function of personal taste and media exposure. For example, for some unknown reason, Ugg Boots are popular among college girls. Tomorrow, God willing, they will realize that the Cro-Magnon look is out, and there you have it – the demise of a fad.
Now, when we apply this fad mindset to strategic trends, the consequences are deadly for our organizations. Take this "trend tracker’s" assertion that talking about aging populations is passé:
- Have we suddenly figured out how to replace 50% of the world’s experts in everything from satellite design to forestry?
- Have we figured out how a smaller generation will pay for the social entitlement of retiring Boomers around the world?
- Have we explored what kinds of new products and services will be required for the largest, longest-living generation in history?
Not even close. Yet, if you think of strategic trends with a fad mindset, you think, "Aging Boomer discussion is so 2006. Let’s talk about Al Gore’s Oscar!
" For the executive, no mentality could be more frivolous or dangerous. The point is, both climate change and aging populations are going to pose strategic challenges for us. As well as biotechnology. And nanotechnology. And youth populations in Africa and the Middle East. And oil scarcity. And 100 other trends. It’s ALL going to affect you.
Just as I say "Two mentions in Newsweek does not a trend make," a corollary to that is, "Seven mentions in Newsweek, Time, and your hometown paper does not mean the trend is yesterday’s news." Would it have made sense if economists in 1855 decided that the industrial economy was passé just because they had seen ten articles about textile factories?
That’s the thing about the future — we’ve got a lot of it yet to come. So let’s get discussing it.
-Garland