Welcome to this 55th issue of our newsletter “Weak Signals and other Trends”. Each week, I 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.
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This is what I noticed this week, thank you for sharing this newsletter to those who look into the future.
Competitive Search and Analysis
Search engine for bots. Open source alternatives. Gnod is a meta-search engine aggregator which lets you select which engine’s results it throws up.
Strategic blindspots
Looking at the familiar with “alien eyes” allows you to unlock new business model opportunities while avoiding risks stemming from strategic blindspots.
DTC brands are shifting ad spend from Facebook to print catalogs. The unseen costs of food poisoning. Amazon will let merchants sell goods with Prime benefits on their own sites. Video conferencing apps gather data on users even after their mics are muted. New technology allows fast food workers to take orders from home. Using Product Teardowns As Inspiration for Innovation. Equipment Supply Shock. House-flipping algorithms are coming to your neighborhood. Tool lending library. Building a Sober Bar Franchise.
We have scheduled the dates for 2022 for our “Strategic Blindspot course . Our next course will be offered in Montreal on October 26-27, 2022. Registrations are now open.
Our future
A company programs prgrams cells to make the tiny hair cells that enable humans to hear. Taking Stock With Teens. The Future Of The Grocery Industry — Will Walmart, Kroger & Amazon Remain Leaders? New technology allows fast food workers to take orders from home. Technology. The Craft of Forecasting Our Possible Futures. Architecture Future100. Decentralized biotech. American Eagle’s next influencers will be Twitch streamers.
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?
BeReal is the newest social media craze. People are meeting their spouses on LinkedIn. Walmart Heirs Launching Their Own Woodstock. Secret Government Info Confirms First Known Interstellar Object on Earth. Billionaires' basements. Selling insurance on Tinder. Massive Abandoned Town of Disney-esque Castles. New Hallmark romance film will be led by an actor with Down syndrome. Little Signals explores new patterns for technology in our daily lives. Amazon acquires India's GlowRoad in social commerce push. Meta is opening its first retail store.
On our radar
Our Clubhouse discussion last Saturday led us to discuss a World with Fewer Children. I had on my radar a world with more extreme age adults, but had spent less time looking at the consequences of fewer children from a societal point of view: A Long Walk in a Fading Corner of Japan. Peak Child: When, and what does it mean? China’s demographic time-bomb. Italian set to shrink . Countries With Declining Population. There Are No Children Here. Just Lots of Life-Size Dolls. The Future of the City Is Childless. When will the world reach ‘peak child’ (from the work of the amazing Hans Rosling). A World Of Few Children .
Down the rabbit hole
This section highlights a subject that lead me to many useful threads, or a single site, that opened many doors.
This week, I went down the rabbit hole into The FBI's 83-page guide to internet slang.
Hodgepodge discovery
Articles for curious minds and the polymaths …
How brands are using NFTs—a continually updated list. In Defense of Melancholy. How Pixar’s Toy Story 2 was deleted twice. A furniture-making powerhouse in Turkey. Is octopus farming unethical? A.I. Is Mastering Language. The story of the fake snow at the Olympics. Fast. What if we no longer go anywhere for the content/art/music, but rather simply as an engine for us to create our own content and brand for the world?
Thank you this week for the inspiration: from the newsletter of my colleague Mitch Joel Six Pixels of Separation.
Feeling Good
Where will you be on April 8, 2024? Second mentions. Vespa rewamped. Audio and ringtones from the NASA. The photo Ark. Watch Netflix Through
a Filmmaker's Lens.
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Contact me at Competia with your feedback or ideas. Thank you for reading.