The Trendmaster's Guide: Get a Jump on What Your Customer Wants Next

Fast, fun and, better yet, memorable. Since reading the book, I've put Robyn's A to Z advice to work in my business. "Connect the dots" helped me come up with an idea for iPhone application. "Edit" gave me permission to say no to a client assignment. "Keep it simple" saved me overthinking upcoming travel plans. And "Walk in other worlds" inspired me to attend a conference I would never have gone to otherwise. While I may not yet know what my customer wants next, Robyn's book has assured me I do have what it takes to guide my own ideas from concept to reality. And for me, there's nothing more valuable.

This book is the trend catechism, a must-have for any company or department trying to understand how to make their company, products or services more appealing to consumers. With examples from the Hotel Monaco to dish soap, Waters serves up relevant examples that tell how fledgling trend spotters and entrepreneurs can sharpen their skills. And because it is all based on Waters' experience as VP of Design and Development at Target, the hottest "class for mass" retail store on the planet, you know she knows what she's talking about. You can read Trendmaster's Guide on the train and be enlightened on your way to work, because this book is exactly what's it's supposed to be: short, quick, revelatory. It's well worth the $13.

I have never read so much in so small a space. Ms. Waters has captured the essence of trend-watching she's obviously learned from her years in business (especially as a significant contributor to Target's success) and she has distilled many of these down in this pithy & powerful book. Make no mistake: this is not a lengthy text book (thank God). Ms. Waters undoubtedly has much more flesh to put on these tasty bones. One can only hope she will be following-up this gem of an introduction to trend-watching with future insightful books. If you're a child, you'll be waiting for the next "Harry Potter" book; if you're a marketing professional, you need to be waiting for the next Robyn Waters book!

Don't be fooled by this book's diminutive size and brief length. The content is rock-solid and thought-provoking. Waters' suggestions and recommendations are eminently practical. This book is also written with a style which has Snap! Crackle! and Pop! Usually an A to Z organizing principle is merely a gimmick. Not so in this instance. Waters offers a series of brief but stimulating discussions of 26 subjects which range from A (Antennae by which to "tune in to the little things, the trivial nuances, and the irrelevant data which everyone else misses") to Z (Zen which embraces opposites, paradoxes, contradictions, etc. while celebrating duality and embraces polarity). Waters urges her reader to learn to practice "the Zen of trend." As she carefully differentiates, a "trend tracker" is someone who is alert for indications that help his or her business to stay [begin italics] up to the minute [end italics] whereas what she calls a "Trendmaster" uses that information to determine [begin italics] where that minute is going [end italics]. Years ago when asked to explain his effectiveness as a hockey player, Wayne Gretzky replied that others know where the puck is while he knows where it is going to be. Larry Bird once said that when he played basketball, he saw plays develop as if in slow motion and he could "see" exactly what would happen next. There are countless other examples of precisely the same skills on which Waters focuses, all of which almost anyone can possess and then improve. She may be overstating the case when suggesting that what she recommends is a "new way of looking at the world." The fact remains, however, that her insights will seem "new" to those readers who were previously unaware of "the invisibility of the obvious" and may have been captive to what Jim O'Toole calls "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." As a result, they have failed to recognize seemingly insignificant indications of emerging trends which (sooner rather than later) determine success or failure in any competitive marketplace. I highly recommend this book, especially to decision-makers in small-to-midsize companies which have limited resources and thus must somehow do more and do it better, do it sooner, and with less. I agree with Warren Buffett who said something to the effect that "price is what you charge but value is what others think it's worth." This is especially true of current and prospective customers. Mastering the use of various tools which Waters provides will help each reader to become a Trendmaster. Because trends evolve in sometimes unexpected directions, the same tools and skills can then be used to make necessary adjustments of the given strategies and tactics. Waters includes a brief section, Recommended Reading, in which she lists a number of outstanding sources. To them I presume to add five others: Thomas S. Kuhns's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Joel A. Barker's Paradigms: The Business of Discovering t