Trend alert: business bait for innovative thinkers
Keen to step up your entrepreneurial efforts in 2011 but not sure where to start?
A new book by businessman and technology forecaster Dr John. H. Vanston might help you along that path.
MINITRENDS sketches out nine key money-making opportunities that will emerge over the next few years.
Rather than trends that will shape the way we do business, Vanston has identified trends individuals and businesses can capitalize on, and turn into profit-making ventures.
“Minitrends are of a scope and importance to offer attractive opportunities to individual entrepreneurs, decision-makers in small and mid-size businesses, innovative thinkers in large companies, and adventuresome investors,” Dr Vanston says.
Here’s a sneak peak and what he sees as the goldmines for mid-size companies in 2011:
1. Increasing Interest in Privacy:
Recent advances in technology, together with an increasing willingness of many to make personal information more easily available are threatening traditional concepts of privacy in terms of messaging, personal profiles, and identity. Techniques for countering these invasions of privacy, such as personal caution, technology aids, and group action are now being developed.
3. New Approaches to Giving and Receiving Advice:
Individuals and organisations commonly seek expert advice when making important decisions. In providing such advice, large consulting firms with large, multidisciplinary staffs, well-structured processes and procedures, huge computer capabilities, and long-standing reputations have traditionally had a major advantage. However, the ever-increasing power and ubiquity of information gathering, processing, and communicating technologies, small and medium-size consulting groups are often able to give more focused, timely, and user-friendly advice than the larger firms.
6. Evolution of Meaningful Maturity:
The twin trends of increasing life spans and decreasing retirement ages have caused a steady increase in retirement years. Because of social, personal interest, and/or financial reasons, many older individuals are either staying in their jobs longer or returning to the workforce. Their ability to utilise their experience, skills, and dedication effectively will depend on their current capabilities, their desires, and open opportunities to those willing to assist them.
Dr. John H. Vanston, is the author of MINITRENDS and Chairman, Technology Futures, Inc.
