Using consumer trends to stimulate innovation

Takeaways: innovation comes from many sources. Analyzing consumer trends and even trends in other industries can stimulate new ideas and hone creative thinking skills.

Innovative thinking comes from many sources – following trends and using some creative questioning to analyze them is one way to hone creative thinking skills and create new innovations.

Trendwatching.com has developed an interesting Trend Canvas to help you focus your thinking around a specific consumer trend and develop a potential innovation for your business. They even provide an example of how to take a trend, such as Pretail, and work your way around the Trend Canvas to develop some innovative ideas.

In a two-step process, you first Analyze a specific trend and then you Apply the potential by answering a few questions:

Analyze:
1. Which deep basic consumer needs & desires does this trend address?
2. Why is this trend emerging now? What’s changing in the world around you?
3. What new consumer needs, wants and expectations are created by the changes identified above?
4. How are other businesses applying this trend?

Apply:
1. How and where might you apply this trend to your business?
2. Which (new) customer groups could you apply this trend to? What would you have to change?

This process results in New Innovations that you can further develop, assign some metrics and costs to, and begin to implement. Try it in your business to see what new ideas you discover.  Then let us know how this works for you!