Granfluencers, raw dogging, and mini animals

August 16, 2024

Aug 16, 2024

Welcome to this 132nd issue of our newsletter “Weak Signals and other Trends”.

Each week, I personally sift through hundreds of sources of inspiration to track where we’re heading. If you are a new subscriber to this newsletter, take the time to send me a note and introduce yourself, I love to understand who is reading.

Competitive Intelligence

Satellites Spotting Ships. Estimate a Twitter personality. Locate any photo. A wayward keyword search. The Information Laundromat analyses the html code of a website and extracts 60+ indicators from it to help find other related sites.

Strategic blindspots and business models

Looking at the familiar with “alien eyes” allows you to unlock new business model opportunities while avoiding risks stemming from strategic blindspots. This section also is about the risks we miss.

The value of waiting spaces. Surge in sports and music tourism as personal passions drive global travel trend. Space economy. How Randomness Improves Algorithms. Why CVS and Target Locking Up Products Is Backfiring. Sony filed a patent for a “nursing care robot. What the Microsoft Outage Reveals.

Our future

The New Consumer. South Korea to establish birth rate ministry amid population decline. Xiaomi's self-optimizing autonomous factory. Underground cave found on moon could be ideal base for explorers. Atom-Thick Gold Coating Sparks Scientific ‘Goldene Rush. Beyond Smart Rocks. The World’s First Programmable Organism.

We keep you updated on those trends and more on Twitter.

Weak signals

Weak signals are indicators of a change, a trend or an emerging risk that might become significant for the future. They allow us to run hypothesis, expand our thinking, and challenge assumptions. How will you interpret those in your industry or field of expertise?

A Windshield for Runners, to Cut Air Resistance. China’s gig workers stress over their incomes. American Vending Machines Are Selling Bullets Using Facial Recognition. Dog perfume from Dolce & Gabbana. What’s up with Gen Z’s socks? Items that get pawned, and their premium. Meet the granfluencers. Gen Z are ‘raw dogging’ flights. There's a growing demand for mini farm animals.

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Down the rabbit hole

This section highlights a subject that led me to many useful threads, or a single site, that opened many doors: “A rabbit hole is not a distraction. A rabbit hole is your brain trying to tell you to pay attention to something you’re curious about. Ignore algorithmic rabbit holes” ( by are.na):

This week, I explored a tool to build short-term climate scenarios, by the United Nations.

Hodgepodge discovery

Articles for curious minds and the polymaths

The Birth of Breaking News. The Play report. The Delightfully Saturated History of Color Charts. Scientists Discovered an Entirely New Type of Wood. The predictive brain. In Japanese You Need a Dictionary to Count Things. The Many Lives of Null Island.

Numbers

3.3 - From 2009 to 2023, the square footage of shelving in supercenters decreased 5 percent and in supermarkets decreased 3.3 percent.

11- This year, a team of soldiers and Sherpas funded by the government of Nepal removed 11 tons of garbage, four dead bodies, and a skeleton from Mount Everest

11- How many days the average American takes off per year

Feeling good

Thread of bench plaques. Video games skies. Letters Anonymous. Create and edit your own bluescreens. Public works.

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Weak signals and other trends