I sit here late at night, on my 26th birthday no less, and reflect on where we are today.  I like to think that I am a fairly sharp individual, with a solid education and all that, but I came to realize something recently: what good is it to be capable of doing if you aren’t actively doing?  So in the spirit of change and progress I’ve decided that I am going to be more vocal, more active, and make an effort to effect change whenever possible.  This post is inspired by a recent post by Jeremy Schoemaker entitled “What is sticking your pecker out?“

The last 18 months have re-awoken the spirit of a rebel in me that I grew up believing I was.  I have always fancied myself a revolutionary at heart, though I probably wouldn’t fit the definition in the traditional sense.  In the last 18 months we’ve seen what can happen to our society when we allow people to let greed consume us, fear paralyze us, ignorance guide us, and leadership fail us.  We’ve seen the dollar fall, the housing market pop (you HAD to see that coming), the stock markets lose trillions in value, an unpopular war march on, and a ridiculous presidential race emerge. Now it hasn’t been all bad, we as a people have come together to help our fellow man in times of need, and many have been inspired by the symbol of change.

It is that change, the mere symbol of change, that has sparked this renewed spirit of enlightenment in me, and hopefully many others. When in the past many might have refrained from speaking their voices (a very troubling fact in my opinion) for fear of upsetting or offending people, now many share their views openly, and hopefully many more will follow their lead.  I for one was very tight lipped in the past about my support of liberal candidates and liberal policies for fear of upsetting people and having it negatively affect my business and personal lives.  Now though I know that by being tight lipped about my desire for change, or my disgust in the current political leadership (not limited to solely the executive branch), I was really giving in to the oppressive nature of the culture of fear we are allowing ourselves to submit to.  So with that in mind, I think that we cannot expect to grow as a culture and a society if we remain afraid to voice our opinions.  The old adage of “opinions are like assholes, everyone has one” might hold true, but if you keep your opinions to yourself aren’t you really just constipating yourself?

I’ve had a long fascination with observing trends people follow. Fads and trends intrigue me. Not sure why, probably has some sociological reasoning behind it. However there is something inherently valuable about being able to spot a trend before it becomes a fad. This insight is something not too many people understand.

One of my favorite professors at “The University” was an economics professor by the name of Kenneth Elzinga. He once said “anything you read in print has already had its influence on the stock markets.”  The same can be said of trends. Anything you see written about a trend usually means its already too late.  So what does this have to do with anything?  Well the point I am trying to make is that it pays to follow changes and observe them early on. Those who see the changes early enough can react to them and extract the most amount of revenue from them before the competition gets there.

Look at any early stage web business, if you see the risk takers who gambled on changes early on, when they were smart about it, they tend to have capitalized big time off these bets.  A venture capitalist is effectively betting on these changes hoping to bet on the right team that will sow the seeds of change in their respective industries.

So how do you keep a finger on the pulse of change? Sign up for trendwatching services (though if you believe the first argument, you are already too late, but you would be ahead of the mainstream press) such as trendwatching.com, trendhunter, springwise, and i’m sure there are tons of smaller ones throughout the web.  You can also monitor the media to see when something you thought was hot, was already on the cooling cycle (when you hear a 75 year old say he plurked you, then plurk has effectively jumped the shark ).

I like to keep my eye on lots of different sites as I see crossovers in trends that lots may be missing. Jason Fried of 37signals once told me years ago that he looked at architectural trends for inspiration in web design. So if you are looking for what the next big thing is, you better start scouring everywhere, even unlikely places, because I’m sure your competitor or future competitor is doing the same thing.