START WITH HUMAN NEEDS. Sometimes focusing on the underlying human emotion in a story or idea can help you see why it matters and how it connects with others. For example, the basic human need for belonging fuels many activities that people engage in online, from sharing their images on social media to joining online communities. RECOGNIZE THE

A trend is a curated observation of the accelerating present.

START A FOLDER. I keep a folder on my desk to store ideas written by hand, articles pulled out of magazines and newspapers, printouts from the Internet, brochures from conferences, and print ads with intrigue. The physical folder helps me to visualize the ideas and (as you’ll notice from the photographs) serves as a fundamental element of how I

Gathering is the disciplined act of collecting stories and ideas while taking notes of why they are interesting.

What interests me most about this group of ideas? What implications of the stories might I have missed earlier? What is the broader theme that these stories have in common? How can I link stories from multiple industries into a single idea?

What broad group or demographic do these stories describe? What is the underlying human need or behavior revealed in these stories? What makes these stories interesting? What are they an example of? Haystack Method Step 2: Aggregating articles into possible themes or topics How is the phenomenon the stories describe affecting multiple industries?

Is the name already in use or well understood? Is it relatively simple to say out loud in conversation? Does it make sense without too much explanation? Could you imagine it as the title of a book? Are the words in the name unique, not clichéd or generic? Does it describe a topic in an unexpected way?

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Great trends reflect a moment in time, but that moment is never fleeting, and the basic idea is more elevated. Good trends always focus on the shift in an underlying human behavior or belief. They don’t describe a single interesting story or a hot new product or industry.