Welcome to this 33rd issue of our newsletter “Weak Signals and other Trends”. Each week, I sift through hundreds of sources of inspiration to track where we’re heading.

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This is what I noticed this week, thank you for reading and sharing this newsletter to those who look into the future.

Competitive Intelligence

Tools and methodologies competitive intelligence professionals are using:

The Ultimate Guide to Selling Data to Hedge Funds. Convert web pages to Kindle. The green search engine. Visualizing your LinkedIn network. Wireless Passwords From Airports And Lounges Around The World. Open-Source Flight and Aircraft Tracking Data. Sci-hub get (almost) any research paper in pdf.

We offer courses to learn to efficiently use online sources to gain competitive and strategic intelligence.

Strategic blindspots

Looking at the familiar with “alien eyes” allows you to unlock new opportunities and avoid missing emerging risks

Focalism, A Source of Durability Bias in Affective Forecasting. Mad Dash for ‘Dirt and Iron’. Subscription bars. Is Amazon Changing the Novel?. The Miracle of the Internet’s Not Breaking. Metal-Eating Bacteria. “Email urgency bias”. Omotenashi or what service is really like. Mixed tapes.

Omotenashi is good for the soul. It nurtures our intrinsically motivated, non-maximizer self

We have scheduled the dates for our “Strategic Blindspots” course which will take place early 2022.

Our future

AirPods that take your temperature and monitor posture. Stratospheric balloon rides. Simulating the future of global automation, its consequences. LOve this personal electric aerial vehicle. Eyeglasses with Alexa. Cubicle appartments. Food waste feast. Ghost retailers stock up physical DTC stores. HR ghosting (in French). Young People’s Voices on Climate Anxiety, Government Betrayal and Moral Injury. Amazon’s Project Kuiper hopes to launch first two prototype satellites in late 2022. Gaze detection.

We provide in-house training to executive teams and board to feed their strategic planning process and investigate future scenarios. More here.

Weak signals and tiny patterns

Weak signals are indicators of a change, a trend or an emerging risk that might become significant for the future. They allow us to run hypothesis, expand our thinking, and challenge assumptions. How will you interpret those in your industry or field of expertise?

A luxury Electric Car To Be Designed By Virgil Abloh. Adult ‘Chatter Telephone’. A Tik Tok bones salesman. The Instagrammable Chinese Village. The “antiwork” reddit thread. Westarctica. Scripted homicides. Smart Sidewalk Protection. The yodeler who sued Yahoo. Gen Z are collecting 20-year-old iPods. Top Chinese live streamer sells nearly US$2 billion in goods in 12 hours. Tower running. Nap dresses. New Hong Kong bus tour is meant to put people to sleep. Amsterdam to oblige homeowners to live in homes worth less than €512,000.

On our radar

I am preparing a keynote on the latest consumer trends mid-January, so my radar is tuned to the following: The great consumer shift: Ten charts. The meaningful brand report. Jolty (podcast). Ideas and industries for the next 10 years. Recirculative design. The 2022 trend report.

Hodgepodge discovery

Articles for the curious mind …

What Motivates Lifelong Learners. Skyhooks. China’s great pirate, Zheng Zhilong, takes on the Dutch. Reading Zimbabwe. 500 ancient Mayan sites. When did singing start? A Huge Indoor Ocean. The forgotten art of storyboarding. The theory of construction. Teahouses Offer Both Community and Solitude. Missing Apostrophe Lands a Man in Defamation Court.A Colorful History of Racing Hues. Iron, How Did They Make It? Guideline about how the use the CEO.

Down the rabbit hole

This week, I got lost in Bizzare historic events.

Feeling Good

Glaze spectrum. The Waterside Bee Hotel. You can see a bird singing in the winter. Hear How You Would Sound on Mars. Daily creative challenges with artists around the world. Donate your voice.