Small Data: The Tiny Clues That Uncover Huge Trends

avoid what mythologist and writer Joseph Campbell once described as the greatest human transgression: namely, the sin of inadvertence—of not being alert, or altogether awake, to the world around us.

The cultural exaggerations I spend my business life trying to find operate both inside societies and between generations. Societies swing back and forth in more or less predictable ways.

Considering that 90 percent of what people give off in conversation are nonverbal signals, our truest identities can be found by studying who we are in our real lives, cultures and countries. This amalgamation of gestures, habits, likes, dislikes, hesitations, speech patterns, decors, passwords, tweets, status updates and more is what I call small

A new business concept generally has its origins in a cultural imbalance or exaggeration—too much of something, or too little of something—which indicates that something is either missing or blocked in the society.

Online, what we leave behind is largely considered and strategic, whereas the insides of our refrigerators and dresser

contrasts between people’s day-to-day lives and their unacknowledged or unmet desires,

We are afraid, for example, of letting others know more about us than we know about ourselves, fearing most of all that our masks will slip, and we will lose control, letting others see us as we truly are.

We desire whatever it is—the place, the person, the thing, the period in our lives—we’re convinced we’re lacking.

No matter how insignificant it may first appear, everything in life tells a story.