Daily Inspiration: “Set your controls for the heart of the trend!”

“Set your controls for the heart of the trend!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

With a shoutout to Pink Floyd fans everywhere!

19 Trends for 2019 – and today, we hit a dozen, with #12 – The Issue of Timing

The future is going to happen – it’s only a matter of “when,” and that can be one of the most difficult things to determine. It’s easy to find and discover a trend – it’s challenging to determine when it might become real.

Gosh, I spend a lot of time on stage talking about the issue of timing. timing is everything, particularly when it comes to the issue of getting involved in any particular trend. In the era of acceleration, it becomes even more critical. You’d better make sure you are ready with any trend of importance and relevance, because the future might happen before you know it.

Any new technology, trend or idea goes along a curve – it appears, then hits the time of excessive hype and expectations. That is followed by the inevitable collapse of enthusiasm as people realize that it takes a lot of time and effort to implement the future, and determine the opportunity that comes from it. But inevitably, both the expectations, ideas and capabilities mature, and the trend becomes a key component for innovation and so much more.

The timing issue? As Kevin Kelly, the founder of Wired noted, “the future happens slowly, and then, all at once.” Any particular trend can bubble along for a time, seemingly inconsequential and of little impact. And then, all of a sudden, it can ‘go supernova’, explode in importance and significance – and suddenly, be everywhere!

That’s why my mantra to “think big, start small, scale fast” gives a key shoutout to timing. “Start small” implies that you should be on board with any particular trend, despite the potential immaturity it might have, because you want to make sure that you understand it, have experience with it, know how to work with it – and are ready to go when it “goes supernova!”