Business Opportunities Weblog

October 19, 2007 by Rich Whittle | 5 Comments

Columbia Tribune:

Market research includes studying various trends, as well as an evaluation of the business opportunities within those trends.

One of the pioneers in this work was John Naismith, who in 1982 published the book “Megatrends” and was one of the first predictors of the transition of the industrial economy to an information economy.

Today’s research in this discipline focuses more on what author Mark J. Penn calls “microtrends” in his new book “Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes.”

According to Penn, today’s world is broken into smaller subgroups of people engaged in similar behaviors, which results in smaller – or “micro” – trends that are not as obvious but every bit as powerful as the larger, more homogenous trends of the 1980s and 1990s.

In his research, only 1 percent of the population – or 3 million people – is enough to launch a microtrend that can have major ramifications for business, communities, education, social services or political campaigns.

Here are just a few of his findings:

• What Penn calls “extreme commuting,” or traveling more than 90 minutes each way to work, is on the rise, nearly doubling in the past decade. For whatever reason – property prices, quality of life, better schools, less crime – people are moving farther and farther away from the metro areas in which they work.

There are several possible business opportunities: healthier fast-food meals that travel well, more comfortable car seats, more audio products to help commuters occupy their time and better navigational systems.

• The number of Americans sleeping less than six hours a night is increasing. That lack of sleep has an increasingly powerful impact on work productivity, health and marital harmony. Shrewd entrepreneurs are seeing opportunities in this microtrend, among them pharmaceuticals and herbal supplements to help us sleep.

For those wanting to help us stay awake, there are opportunities in the stimulant and caffeine-packed drink industry.

One of the most interesting business opportunities is in the creation of nap centers, where people can take naps during the day. One company offers sleep pods in airports and office buildings where, for a fee, you can take a 20-minute power nap to help you through the day.

For more microtrends, go here.

Photo by Grand Central Publishing.

In Ideas, Operations, Trends | 5 Comments