Be Your Own Trend Spotter Preparing for the future is easier if you know what's coming.

When Jeremy Gutsche sees his disparate group of 20,000 trend hunters posting similar observations on his trend-spotting website, he gets excited.

That usually means something's emerging from the chatter. He calls them "clusters of innovation," and they're the basis for the trend predictions on Trendhunter.com, which logs about 8 million views per month.

Gutsche's approach is very different from that of Ann Mack, advertising giant JWT's director of trend spotting, who leaves no research stone unturned when hunting trends. Mack and her team have a network of influencers in publishing, music, fashion, technology and other sectors that they tap for insight about what's hot. They also audit existing research and conduct their own surveys, focus groups and observations of consumer behavior through diaries and consumer immersion. "We identify a pattern, formulate that into a hypothesis and try to validate or invalidate it," she says. "We also have a team of trend scouts all over the world who keep us honest." The trend scouts, many of whom are JWT employees, tell Mack and company whether the trend translates across borders.

Other trend spotters, like Richard Laermer, go by their own sense of the world and their gut instinct. A voracious reader, Laermer, author of 2011: Trendspotting, likes to "look at industries that have nothing to do with my business," he says. "If I look at sports marketers, paper companies and farmers and they're all looking for the same thing, I know there's something there."

Whether trend spotting through social networks, research or your own gut is most effective is anyone's guess, but each of these futurists has hit the mark. Laermer says he called the BlackBerry trend when he predicted that technophiles wouldn't want to be tethered to their computers and would, instead, love to receive notification of e-mail on their pagers. Gutsche says he predicted the expansion of luxury brands back in 2005, before the trend went mainstream. And Mack says one of the trends her team called first was the rise in radical transparency--the idea of showing and telling all on social networks and blogs, no matter how personal--and how it would give rise to radical transparency remorse, as inappropriate sharing on social networks would begin negatively affecting college admissions and job offers.

So how can you adopt these trend-spotting styles to become your company's own futurist? It's possible, say the experts, who share these tips:

• Listen.You've heard it so many times that it may seem trite, but listening is essential to predicting trends, says Mack, and it's something many business owners don't do. Ask your customers questions about your products and services. Ask what they're looking for next. Find out what media they're watching and what they think of current events. "If you have a number of constituents and they gravitate to and consume [enough] media to reflect their media patterns, create a watch list," she says. "Take all that in and look at the media they're taking in."
  
• Pay attention.Read trade publications related to your industry to identify key issues. And watch industries that are always on the cutting edge, such as technology, music and fashion, to find emerging trends that may benefit your business. Mack and her team often tap experts in other fields who look at particular challenges and offer fresh insights. She says BIZ Experiencess can do the same. Bring in a trusted colleague from a different industry and get his or her take on what you're doing and what might be next for your industry. A smart outsider can be a real asset, she says.
  
• Follow trends online.Trend-hunting websites like Gutsche's, as well as trendhunter.com and JWT's jwtintelligence.com, offer up the trends du jour, so add them to your regular web surfing itinerary. One thing to avoid, says Laermer, is only perusing the media that relate to you. "You have to be interesting," he says. "The only way to do that is to know what's going on in the world. That helps you keep your business interesting and relevant to your customers."
  

• Go old school. Ask your customers what they think, says Mack. Laermer suggests organizing online or in-person focus groups to find out what people are thinking. You can also launch social media groups or chat rooms to gather feedback from your audience.

  Each of these experts agrees that spotting your own trends requires a combination of knowing your business and your customer and keeping an eye on what's happening around you. With that big-picture/small-picture view, you'll be better able to identify the emerging trends that will affect your business.