My life as a Trend Watcher

Hi, I'm Michael de Wert, 18 years old, and I love to fly gliderplanes First of all, welcome to my trendblog. You'll come across trends you've never heard of, and I'm sure to give you a new look at the world. Trendwatching is what I do! For more information about these kind of trends search for Trendwatching in Tumblr.

[gentleman-class]

[michaelstrendblog]

The target group of my orderer nowadays. A beard, short sleeves and casual wear and suits combined. Nice picture to see.

[michaelstrendblog]

Wildenberg Ynformal

When I went to the orderer of my trendrapport I was amazed how well they contact their customers. The owner told me he could select his customers in their database and seperate them on size, collection, age and amount they spend. I didn't know he could do already so much. He checks his stock, and according to that send a seperate group of customers a special deal. Very smart!

[mensfashionn]

[michaelstrendblog]

I'm writing a trendrapport for the orderer called Wildenberg Ynformal. This store is located in Eindhoven and exists for over 50 years now. They have a target group just like David Beckham in the picture. These people show off their wealth via their clothing, and always try to look classy. Wildenberg has a larger assortiment in suits and have an atelier located inside their store. When you haven't been there go there!!

Kleine Berg @ Eindhoven

[michaelstrendblog]

Quality of Life

The Quality of Life can't be measured or tested. It's pure how people experience their own life. Because everyone is 24/7 online and busy, the quality of their life is suggested to be lower. Nowadays you'll see a lot of people take time to enjoy little things in life. They take time to make their quality of life higher.

Fundawear, developed by Durex, is one of the coolhunts that fitted this trend. This product is just like underwear, except for their ability to be controlled by an app. Once this app is installed on your boy-/girlfriends smartphone, they can control your underwear. So if your busy during school of work and you feel your underwear moving, you know your betterhalf is thinking of you. The 'I miss you' texts are no longer needed, just buy the Fundawear. It improves your quality of life.

The second coolhunt is the Scanadu Scout. With this device the user can check their own health. It measures your heartrate, bloodpressure etc. and finally give an advice with if you're healthy, and what you maybe should do to become healthy. It saves a lot of time, because users don't have to go to the doctor for a check-up when they feel a little bit ill. With more free time on your hand, you can enjoy the fun things in life, and doctors become less important.

Source: http://fundawear.nl/

https://www.scanadu.com/scout/

[jessemeggelaars]

This is a presentation by Sergey Brin, one of the co-founders of Google. This video was recorded in 2000, only 14 years ago. Amzazing to see how much technology has gone forward in the past 14 years.

[michaelstrendblog]

Future Urbanities

The future urbanity is all around us. You'll probably see examples of future urbanities yourself every day. The trend is all about making the city a place where the inhabitants can do anything they want, whenever they want and where they want it. The people who lead this trend are called Urban Nomads. They travel around the city and make use of as much as possible to provide in their own advantage.

The Me-Mover is an example of the Urban Nomads who travel around the city with this. The founder, Jonas Eliasson, wants to combine fitness and work-outs with transport. The multifuntionality of object is very import in this trend, because when something becomes multifuntional, and people can use it for multiple reasons and purposes. The Nomads can make the object their own like the Me-Mover, because they use it to provide it for their own purpose. It's either a work-out of transportation.

The second coolhunt came from the designer Pauline van Dongen, who developed a dress which can charge your mobile device. Another example that eveything becomes multifuntional. Clothing that charges devices can be useful in businesslife and for ordinary days. It replaces a lot of cables and chargers in your household, and people can work everywhere outside. It opens an entire new world for flexworking people.

So what can we do in the future with our clothing of transportation methodes??

Source: http://me-mover.com/

http://paulinevandongen.nl/project/wearable-solar-video/

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Power of the Social Web

This trend involves the online spread and organization of people. The developer of the trend; Carl Rhode says Self-Organizing-Self-Reliance is the key term in this trend. The most recent and biggest example is the Arabic Spring, where groups of demonstrators have collaborated themselves via communities, and fight together against the ruling regime.

The coolhunt I found with it was the online search for the missing flight from Malaysia Airlines MH370. Everyone can visit the site of Tomnod, and search in the ocean for parts of the Malaysia Airlines wreck. It’s a pretty simple concept, but I think a breakthrough in the growth potential of future emergency help. An individual can’t make a big difference, but a big group of people doing the same thing can.

The second coolhunt came from Kickstarter, where a couple named; Beverly Kim and John Clark try to open a new local restaurant in Chicago. Via the site of Kickstarter they try to raise money to open their restaurant as soon as possible. Parachute, the name of their restaurant, will be opened when they’ve raised a total of 15.000 dollars. This principal is an example of granting each other some money to let them realize their dream. Because the contact between people is a lot easier via the internet and social media, the principal of giving a small amount of money to others happens more often. This is stated as the power of the social web in this trend.

[michaelstrendblog]

The museum that should be forbidden

This year we were forced to go to the museum the Pont. When I and my classmates went there, there was an exposition about art. It contained statues, paintings and objects. Nothing in there could grab my attention. There were literally paintings which were entirely grey. I've tried, but I can't see which form of art is beneath it. I've been to a lot of museums earlier, but this one was probably the worst in my opinion.

After the museum we went to a 2nd hand store. The store: "Used Before" is a very tiny shop with almost everything in it that can be re-used. They sell from dolls to radios. Everything that was missing in color at the Pont came back at Used Before. Everything was so colorful and crowded, a little bit too much for me. However I enjoyed my visit to this store, and I'll visit 2nd hand stores more often because I wen there.

[michaelstrendblog]

My Favourite First Fieldtrip

My first fieldtrip ever went to Interpolis in the city of Tilburg. This was a meeting of different kinds of intrepreneurs. All of them started in a different way, and became succesful in a special way. For example one of them asked the local community to let him control an abandonded part of town for a few months. Then he brought tons of sand overthere and started a new beach in the middle of nothing. This was a great succes, and from his profit he started a new company.

Other speakers from that day were for instance professional Trendwatchers such as Peter van der Wel. He predicted that the world will be partly controlled by computers in fifty years. There will be less jobs, and less people needed. This problem needs to be solved now, and we don't have to wait for this, because we have waited for to long. This scenario will become reality, it's just a matter of time. One solution he brought was to give everyone the same amount of money, and devide the work amost everyone. This way we work less, and enjoy life more. It's a very socialistic principal, but it can work.

Concluding, I will recommend everyone to go to one of these kind of fieldtrips if they are able to. I enjoyed it very much, and I'm looking forward to go to another fieldtrip like this in the future.

Source: http://dutchfuturesociety.com/meet-the-frontrunners-of-tilburg-trend-research-fieldtrip/

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Cool Rotterdam

I went to Rotterdam with classmates, and at first I was not looking forward to it. The reason for that was, that we were compelled to visit a museum. With a small group we visited the Kunsthal. While we were overthere, we dicovered that there were multiple expositions at the same time. We walked together through all of them, and finished outside with a mind full of ideas, thoughts and inspiration.

The exposition that caught me the most was about found objects from the Second World War. All the objects that were presented, had a unique story written next to it. A lot refreshed my mind with how cruel people can be in certain situations. An example of it was a wooden plane, made out of toiletseat. Soldiers made it for their children, but when they came home their family was gone. Unfortunatly taking pictures was forbidden in there.

Secondly we went to a really special little shop/theater/bar. This place, called WORM, is the most inspirering place I've been my entire life. It was located in an old library. Therefor there were rails in the floor where benches were build on. These can be moved by turning a wheel. In the back there was a theater created with airplaneseats.

When I spoke to the owner of the shop, she told me it was a very multifuntional store. It was a coffeebar, theater, recordstore, studio and relaxing place. Every part of the store is deisgner for it's own purpose. There are expositions, rollplays and many more events, all in the same store. I was really amazed by the multifuntionality of this place and the owner who told me everything.

[michaelstrendblog]

Flat World Creativity

I've found two coolhunts which can be combined under the theme convenience goods/services. In this theme goods and services are used to make activities on a daily basis easier. The coolhunts are on two completely different aspects, but come together under this theme.

  The first coolhunt involves Spray-On Clothing. This product was found by the British designer Manel Torres. It's a spraycan with a special liquid inside it. When sprayed onto a surface like the human skin, it turns into a fiber structure, just like a regular T-shirt. After use you can tear it apart, and put small pieces of the fiber in a solution. After some time it turns into the same stuff as there is in the spray can, and it can be reused. This product makes dressing easier for people, because they can spray on the color they want and personalize their shirt by shortening it, or use different color on top of the basis color. (http://www.fabricanltd.com/)

The second coolhunt involves an Egg Vending Machine. I found this vending machine at a farm near my home. The idea behind it was that the farmer fills the machine any time he wants, and the customer can buy their eggs, any time they want. It's actually a win-win situation for both parties. (http://en.rocketnews24.com/2012/02/19/japanese-egg-vending-machine-vends-eggs/)

I think these coolhunts are ‘cool’ because it are signs of bigger trends like convenience and transparency. The spray-on clothing lets the consumer know their clothes aren’t made by children in Bangladesh, but it are recycled clothes from days before. In just Holland 200 million kilos of clothing is thrown away per year. Only a quarter of that is reused or recycled. That means that 150 million kilos disappears in garbage cans. By using spray-on clothing this can be dramatically reduced. (http://www.projectnaturalbeauty.nl/fashion/kleding-weggooien-waarom-zou-je)

The egg vending machine also covers bigger trends like convenience and transparency. The convenience is pretty obvious now, because customers can buy their eggs any time a day, and aren’t restrained to the business hours of store. Transparency  also involves this vending machine, because the location is next to the farm where to eggs are produced. The customer knows where their eggs come from, and can visit the farm any time to check if the chickens are treated right. Trendwatching.com says transparency will become a major trend in 2014. One of the first big companies who work with this trend is McDonalds. In America they advertise with ‘Under 400 Calories Menus’. These signs are the beginning of something big. (http://trendwatching.com/nl/trends/10trends2013/?fullfrontal)

[michaelstrendblog]

I woke up, scrolled through my Twitter timeline, and stopped at this picture. It grabbed my attention, because it’s not a photoshopped picture like all the others, but it’s a picture of something interesting. This old man was placed on a parking lot of some local grocery store. The fact that people give attention to this man seems interesting to me, because continuesly more people give attention to the oldies. I think the reason for this is that the oldies have all the wisdom and knowledge we don’t have. Computer take over many aspects of life, where back in time people had to do it themselfs. We also have to have the knowledge of how our car works, just in case computers fail.

Source: https://twitter.com/distractify/status/444279270945615872

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A picture of the Pope in Vatican City. I thought this was an inspiring picture, because it shows how many people are still admiring him. The Pope tries his best to keep them doing it by, for instance in this picture, wearing a hat which was handed to him by a random fan. The same happens in the methode of a network Trend Watcher. Spotters through the whole world hand information to one Trend Watcher. He combined all the information and gives the spotters something back like; money, credits or the latest version of the new rapport.

Link to source: https://twitter.com/distractify/status/441741048608333824

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You always have to get up once more, than you will fall down.

Dutch long distance ice skater; Mark Tuitert

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Those who don't believe in Magic will never find it.

Roald Dahl

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This picture stood out when I scrolled through my timeline on twitter. The difference within one picture was so extreme. It was tweeted by Distractify, and the text below it said; "Before & After - Kiev's Independence Square in Ukraine" Link: http://t.co/GQ0Q0xNc3K

[michaelstrendblog]

My selfmade Sound Map. I was sitting on the spot of the red dot on the map. The red circles respresent the approximate location of the the sound(s) I heard. At the top of the map there were girls taking pictures of each other. I heard them giggling a few times. At the two circles, a little bit beneath the top circle, there were small groups of students gathering, talking and waiting for their lesson to start. The arrow to the left was the sound of someone playing the piano standing in the room. The other arrow to the bottom was the sound of students interviewing different people behind each other. The two left over circles at the tables were the sounds of smartphones ringing and discussions of students about an exam. I enjoyed this experiment, because it didn't take a lot of effort, just paying close attention. Unconsciously people skip a lot of inimportant sounds (especially me), which might be more important than we think.