Book Review: Microtrends – The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes

Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes by Mark J Penn is a fascinating compilation of how lifestyles are changing, and how this could present opportunities for businesses, politicians, and anyone who needs to know what is happening to the way we live.

Mark Penn was the man who used his statistical methods to identify Soccer Mums as a new force in American politics, and helped Bill Clinton to win the election by focusing on the issues that this group was fervent about.

What is a microtrend? According to Mark Penn,

“The whole idea that there are a few huge trends that determine how America and the world work is breaking down. There are no longer a couple of megaforces sweeping us all along. Instead, America and the world are being pulled apart by an intricate maze of choices, accumulating in “microtrends” – small, under-the-radar forcse that can involve as little as 1 per cent of the population, but which are powerfully shaping our society.”

The book identifies 75 microtrends ranging from love, sex and relationships, to health and wellness, money and class, and technology. Although focused mainly on America, some of these microtrends are probably global phenomena as well.

I’m going to list the chapter titles so you can quickly glance down the list to see if any group grabs your attention, because you are part of that group or have interactions with that group. Detailed analysis of statistics are provided in the individual chapters in the book.

Quick Overview

Love, Sex and Relationships

Sex-Ratio Singles
Cougars
Office Romancers
Commuter Couples
Internet Marrieds

Work Life

Working Retired
Extreme Commuters
Stay-at-Home Workers
Wordy Women
Ardent Amazons

Race and Religion

Stained Glass Ceiling Breakers
Pro-Semites
Interracial Families
Protestant Hispanics
Moderate Muslims

Health and Wellness

Sun-Haters
30-Winkers
Southpaws Unbound
DIY Doctors
Hard-of-Hearers

Family Life

Old New Dads
Pet Parents
Pampering Parents
Late-Breaking Gays
Dutiful Sons

Politics

Impressional Elites
Swing Is Still King
Militant Illegals
Christian Zionists
Newly Released Ex-Cons

Teens

The Mildly Disordered
Young Knitters
Black Teen Idols
High School Moguls
Aspiring Snipers

Food, Drink, and Diet

Vegan Children
A Disproportionate Burden
Starving For Life
Caffeine Crazies

Lifestyle

Long Attention Spanners
Neglected Dads
Native Language Speakers
Unisexuals

Money and Class

Second-Home Buyers
Modern Mary Poppinses
Shy Millionaires
Bourgeois and Bankrupt
Non-Profiteers

Looks and Fashion

Uptown Tatooed
Showed-Under Slobs
Surgery Lovers
Powerful Petites

Technology

Social Geeks
New Luddites
Tech Fatales
Car-Buying Soccer Mums

Leisure and Entertainment

Archery Mums?
XXX Men
Video Game Grown Ups
Neo-Classicals

Education

Smart Child Left Behind
America’s Home-Schooled
College Dropouts
Numbers Junkies

International

Mini-Churched
International Home-Buyers
Live Apart Together (LAT) Couples
Mammonis
Eurostars
Vietnamese Entrepreneurs
French Teetotalers
Chinese Picassos
Russian Swings
Indian Women Rising
Educated Terrorists

Highlights

Five of the microtrends listed intrigued me, so I’ll highlight them here.

1. DIY Doctors

“The biggest trend in American healthcare is DIYDs: Do-It-Yourself Doctors. These are people who research their own symptoms, diagnose their own illnesses, and administer their own cures. If they have to call on doctors at all, they either treat them like ATM machines for prescriptions they already “know” they need, or they show up in their offices with full-color descriptions of their conditions, self-diagnosed on WebMD.”

What is the implication of this trend? Obviously there is a high chance of misdiagnosis if you are a DIYD, since DIYDs are not trained as doctors. On the upside, it’s so hard for doctors to keep up with all the advances in medicine nowadays that perhaps it is a blessing that patients are willing to share the load.

Where is the opportunity here? If you have an interest in health, you could become one of the many providers of information, either online or offline. There is a ready market. Watch out for giving misinformation though, especially if you are not a trained doctor. Remember, professional doctors insure themselves for hefty amounts, and for good reason.

2. Impressionable Elites

“A funny thing has happened to the American electorate; it’s flipped upside down. America’s elite – the wealthiest and best educated of our society – have become less interested in America’s economic and strategic challenges than they are in candidates’ personalities. Go to any upscale cocktail party, and listen in on what they think is most important important in the presidential election. I guarantee it – they will start off dissecting the personal traits of every candidate.

This is what makes it particularly ironic that when you ask elites why they are focused on personality, they will tell you that “The Voters” – ie lower-income and less well-educated Americans – don’t understand the issues and so they vote on the basis of personal traits. But nothing could be further from the truth. The so-called herd in America is better educated and more issue-focused than ever. Come to a political town hall, with America’s regular voters, and you’ll see that personality never comes up. Voters zero in on health care, education, and friends who are serving in Iraq. They have levels of knowledge about Medicare, Medicaid, our school system, and the global economy that would put many PhDs to shame.”

This was probably the microtrend that surprised me most of all, because it is so counter-intuitive. No wonder the charismatic Obama won the recent US election!

3. Aspiring Snipers

And this is the microtrend that surprised Mark Penn most of all:

“1 percent of California’s young (aged 16-22) respondents volunteered that, in ten years, they would most likely be snipers. Now in an open-ended question, for every one respondent who says something spontaneously, several more are thinking it. So this was truly news: A new ambition of the younger generation – not of a lot of them, but enough to be on a scale – is being a sniper…

“And why the sudden interest? Part of it, no doubt, is an increasing respect for the military and law enforcement in America… (however) there is more of a questioning about being a front-line soldier, when you can do more damage to the enemy and be safer behind the scenes… This is also the generation that was raised on a lot of shooter video games… Finally, the statistically significant appearance of Aspiring Snipers says something about the post 9/11 culture in America. More so than in decades, young people today are unabashed in wanting to take down Bad Guys.”

When I read this chapter, something clicked in my memory. I’d once heard a young American boy say that his ambition was to be a sniper. At that time I put it down to the video games he’d been playing. To realise that many other young boys are thinking the same way was an eye-opener for me.

You too, could know someone whom you think is slightly off the beaten track, yet that person could be leading a new microtrend.

4. Starving For Life

“These Thinning Thousands are not your garden variety anorexics (although sadly, they, too, are on the rise). They are not chasing a particular body weight, and they’re not necessarily repelled by food. Nor are these people your super0fit Gym Junkies, working out every day and boasting teen-type weights in their Golden Years. No, these apple-for-breakfast, lettuce-for-lunch Century Chasers are a discrete, intense group of people who believe – based on some decent scientific evidence – that cutting their calories to near-starvation levels will lengthen their lives by ten to twenty years.”

I’d heard before that you should eat until you’re 80% full, and then stop. This means you go through life never feeling gastronomically satisfied. I’m not sure I can do it, but for many people, eating at subsistence level is not a fad after all, but a whole new lifestyle.

5. Long Attention Spanners

“It is conventional wisdom that America’s attention span is shrinking. A couple of decades ago, we cut our sixty-second TV ads down to thirty, and not apparently the ‘right’ length of an Internet ad is fifteen seconds… How much more ADD could America be?

But – slow down a minute… Some people operate on a totally different wavelength. From books to movies to products to news, they want more depth, more information, real answers to more of life’s questions. They want substance, not style and flash.”

This microtrend came home to me when I started blogging and reading other blogs. Although you’d expect that with so much to read nowadays, people would prefer short, crisp posts, it was undeniably true that many of popular blogs had seriously long posts. I suppose the lesson here is to either keep it short and sweet, or to give it serious substance.

(This post, by the way, is about 1500 words. That is considered pretty long by blogging standards, though some other bloggers easily write posts of 4,000-8,000 words.)

On this last microtrend, I’d love to hear comments from readers about your preferences and from fellow bloggers about your experiences. Do you really prefer reading longer, more detailed posts? Do you find that writing longer posts increases your readership?

You can get Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes here for further reading.

—

From the Carnival of Personal Development Edition 3: Erin Pavlina presents The Path to Purpose posted at Erin Pavlina’s Blog.

Posted by Daphne | January 11, 2009 | in Book Reviews

7 Responses to “Book Review: Microtrends – The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes”

Book Review: Microtrends - The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes
January 12th, 2009 @ 3:12 am
[...] post by WP-AutoBlog Import var AdBrite_Title_Color = ‘0000FF’; var AdBrite_Text_Color = ‘000000′; var [...]
Evelyn Lim
January 12th, 2009 @ 10:59 am
Thanks for providing a quick overview on microtrends. I find it fascinating!! It can be revealing of the niches that we can focus on in terms of doing a business.

I also find it very interesting about the DIY Doctor. It is true that I do a fair bit of research on the web about health symptoms. But any DIY that I self-administer is on energy related work. Still, I recognize that the essence is about self empowerment in being DIY.
LifeMadeGreat | Juliet
January 12th, 2009 @ 1:42 pm
Hi Daphne

Wow, the book sounds fascinating. I certainly fall into some of those categories.

Really interesting that the author is so observant to pick these up and come up with this concept.

Juliet
Daphne
January 12th, 2009 @ 5:59 pm
@ Evelyn,

You’re right! When I read the book I started thinking, “Wow, there’s a whole lot of business opportunities right here!” In fact I started thinking about whether I wanted to make this blog go niche in one of those areas…

Thanks very much for the Stumble too, Evelyn!

@ Juliet,

Which categories do you fall into? I was inanely proud that I was in some categories too – part of the statistics! Ha ha. Speaking of which, yes his statistical methods are pretty rigorous, and all these microtrends are based on actual surveys, not casual observations. Very impressive stuff indeed.
Tess The Bold Life
January 13th, 2009 @ 12:03 am
Hi Daphne,
You convinced me to get the book. I used to own the domain oldnewdads and gave it up a year ago.

Thanks for the heads up and the lengthy review!
Lance
January 13th, 2009 @ 9:10 am
Hi Daphne,
So, I saw this earlier today…and skipped reading it (I don’t like long posts). That said, I do like your writing…so I’m back…and it was very, very good. So, in this case I was initially chased away because of the length, yet drawn in, also, because of the length – and how thorough it was. So what am I saying? You did good, Daphne. Yet, I think post length is an important consideration. I prefer shorter posts and more often than longer posts. However, this one worked well at the length it was. Some posts lend themselves better to longer write ups.

On to the subject of the book – a very excellent review, Daphne! I need to check this one out. The idea of microtrends is very interesting to me. And what those trends are…

So, this post lent itself well to an longer post. You couldn’t have shared nearly as in-depth of a review in a short post. Kudos to you for making it this length – the key for me was that once I started reading, I really appreciated the thoroughness of it.

(and now I’ve given you a long-winded reply!!)
Daphne
January 13th, 2009 @ 12:34 pm
@ Tess,

Wow, I’m impressed that you actually thought of buying the domain oldnewdads… that’s entrepreneurial foresight indeed! Hopefully you made some money by selling it later.

@ Lance,

You are funny! I was laughing all the way through your comment. By the way, some long comments are worth the length too!

Thank you for coming back to read the post even though you found it long. Like you, I personally tend to skip long posts too. So I am very grateful that you made the time and effort to read through this. Thank you!