02 Apr Outlier-Cluster-Trend – Teaching ourselves to read signals
Today’s topic is Trendspotting. This is another in the set of 21st-century explorer skills because we have to search for signs in the uncharted territory between the industrial and information eras.
Techniques for trend spotting
How do we figure out what is going to happen? It comes from paying attention to signs and signals. And we are more likely to notice these in areas that are of most interest to us.
The Tesla story
It freaked me out the first time it happened to me. I barely noticed it creep up behind me at the lights as I was chatting to my 12-year-old while ferrying him to football practice. It was the quiet that caught me off guard. And completely captured my attention. Bright red. I had just seen my first Tesla.
“Electric is coming!” I remember telling my automotive industry husband as I walked through the door. How long before a switch to electric would disrupt his industry? We debated the logical time frame and obvious obstacles. Legal. Infrastructure reconfiguration. Highway design. Manufacturing retooling. We estimated this was a slow burn. Possible ETA 2040.
Over the next few years, as the young kid graduated from touch football to rugby, I started noticing more Teslas with their distinctive T hood emblem – first clustered in that small neighbourhood around the practice field, then extending into the surrounding towns and spilling onto the highways.
That boy is now 21 and almost through university. And Teslas and electric cars (EV) are now everywhere. Countries are investing in divesting from fossil fuel. Electric charging banks co-exist alongside gas stations designed to serve the extended network of highways that crisscross nations whether they be in Norway or India. Possible ETA 2025. And the automotive industry has embraced the changes.
Outlier-Cluster-Trend.
I could share another 450 words describing this phenomenon on noticing. But this video describes it most appropriately:
This is the thing about emerging trends – at some stage we are each that guy in the red underwear who rushes to join the trend before it is too late!! Most interestingly, at the end the tables are turned and the outlier is now the one guy in the green shirt still seated.
Thanks to Tilter Neilda Pacquing Gagné for sending me this video link. (Check out her latest essay titled The Caladian Dream on why Canada is a great place to launch a start-up.)
Of course, if you want to talk more about this idea, I am always eager to learn more and share what I know. [I tried to write a song about it. The chorus goes:
One is an outlier, Two is a cluster, Three is a trend]
On the surface, this skill of trend spotting (part of futures literacy as UNESCO refers to it) seems very forward-focused: How do we predict? How do we forecast? But in reality, it is much more about awareness in the present moment: Do you notice what’s going on around you? Are you picking up signs and signals?
Here are some of my simple sign and signal activities.
What is your leading indicator of spring (or autumn, if you are reading this in the southern hemisphere)? Mine are the days lengthening. And the deepening red on the bare trees nearby before they burst into a fuzzy lime green haze.
Play the outlier-cluster-trend game in nature:
Raindrop-drizzle-downpour.
Bud-flower-fruit.
Observing nature trains us to recognize the leading signals of change. It is a great place to remind ourselves that we are born with these skills.
… Outlier-cluster-trend.
As promised, a photo from my trip to Boston last week. (Most of the others were either plates of food, libraries & buildings, or with other people, so could not share!)
- The break and change of scenery were great. My voracious mind got extra reps with the Behavioural Economics and Adolescence sessions I was able to attend.
- I’m still picking up metaphors and learning from Annie Duke’s audiobook “Thinking in Bets” on the long drives. Recommend the book. She talks about signals and signs.
- We were able to spend quality time with our youngest child, and indulge in the variety of cuisine that Boston offers!
- My mind is buzzing with the wonderful conversations I had with friends. I got to meet VR friends IRL. (Translation VR=virtual/zoom, IRL=in real life).
This is a photo taken at the IRL get-together with three other Writing In Community (WIC) companions who drove in from all corners of Massachusetts. How generous of them to share their time with me. And what a special treat! It was -8C, but the sky was a beautiful cloudless blue, and the sun glinted off the Charles River like a thousand sparkling diamonds.
Being together and trading writing stories has amped up my writing appetite.
Other articles in the Future Skills series:
Thanks for reading Tilt the Future – answering when serendipity knocks!
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