But even in that process the signs are there, before our head space is suffused with new thinking from the thinkers.
In Art and Physics, even Einstein's relativity theory gestated in an artist before the theory was cemented.
Mathematicians, Modellers, Business Cognitives spend, as they should, exhaustive amounts of time trying to tell the future. Some Crystal ball gazers say they can.
Marketing companies crunch data and hire cool hunters who ferret below emerging phenomenon before they become trends. Then that data is decanted with facts, figures, and hush don't tell anyone... gut feeling.
Everyone wants a bit of the pie, almost everybody wants to know the next best thing. And once where small numbers rendered an idea too obscure for traction, the long tail supplied just enough figures to keep that idea ticking over until, with any luck, your idea becomes the next best thing.
There must be no joy in this process if that is your sole work, for the wheel can be invented only so many times in your life span. And it is nay impossible, to, at some point, find yourself contradicting the very thing that you claimed would never happen 7 years ago ( the 7 year business cycle).
In a while I'll be talking to a couple of CEOs, so what am I going to tell them?
They could
a) employ their own cool hunters
b) read the trends and ride the set
c) ignore and follow their own new path
d) Business as usual
Depending on their business, it's likely most will want to follow (b). Trouble is that change goes through a a swift medium and long term trend. Look at Tweets, Facebook and Google respectively.
To use the footballism, "at the end of the day" it boils down to people. People who follow other people. People whose views you share telling you about someone else. You find a twitterer with a big flock of friends and force your way in to exact reciprocity, so you now have a big wad of friends. Satisfied!
So the question is what next? I have just had an idea! Syms - symbioters?
I'll explain this week.
