The world’s best trend map. Ever.

December 21, 2006

James (MindShare Asia Pacific team, Singapore) writes:

I can’t think of a better way to end the year than to share this little gem - the world’s best trend map. Ever. It’s called Trend Blend 2007+ and was just posted last week at Ross Dawson’s excellent blog ‘Trends in the Living Networks’. You can download the pdf here. Here’s how Ross describes it himself:

Nowandnext.com and Future Exploration Network have collaborated in producing a map of major trends for 2007 and beyond, across ten segments: society & culture, government & politics, work & business, media & communications, science & technology, food & drink, medicine & well-being, financial services, retail & leisure, and transport & automotive.

Inspired by the subway map for a well-known city, the map shows some of the major trends in each of these segments, as well as the key intersections between the trends.

The other nice touch is how it’s been made open source.

As with most of our content, this is released on a Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons license, so if you disagree with the trends we’ve chosen or think you can improve on the map, please take it and run with it!

I just wish I had a few days to sit down with colleagues to give this a go, for Asia-Pacific media/marketing trends in particular. Perhaps it should be a New Year’s resolution to do it…

Being a great fan of Edward Tufte, and especially ‘The Visual Display of Quantitative Information’, it’s great to see the classic underground map being employed to help untangle the impossible complexity of overlapping trends. The beauty of this map, or one like it, is that once you know your way around it, you can use it to present, over and over again. Simply thread your narrative with reference to the lines and ’stations’ on the map.

Thanks Ross - genius.

Entry Filed under: trends, visualization. .

8 Comments Add your own

1. Ian S | December 26, 2006 at 2:28 am

hi James,

This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen for a long time. The whole concept of visualising data is very interesting. Thanks for posting.

Ian
2. Trends in the Living Netw&hellip | December 27, 2006 at 10:23 pm

Trend map for 2007 and beyond

Given it’s festive season now, it’s probably time for a bit of fun. Nowandnext.com and Future Exploration Network have collaborated in producing a map of major trends for 2007 and beyond, across ten segments: society & culture, government & politic…
3. deviant | January 2, 2007 at 2:27 pm

The visualisation of data is catching on. Currently, the group which is known for leading the way in visualising for business is XPLANE - http://xplane.com/. They call themselves a visual thinking company and are helping businesses convey complicated messages and strategies via effective design.

Anyone interested in learning how the XPLANE process works should check out their free online visual thinking school - http://www.squidoo.com/communicationnation/.
4. deviant | January 7, 2007 at 8:45 am

Taking a closer look at the map, I found one trend missing - social entrepreneurship. This can appropriately fit under the dark green line that mentions “climate change” and “activism” among other things.

Social entrepreneurship or triple bottom-line enterprises has been gaining momentum in recent years. More and more organisations are embracing dual or triple bottom-lines that maximize on social, environmental and economic goals.
5. imparare | April 15, 2007 at 5:59 am

Interesting comments..
6. Richard Watson | October 15, 2007 at 12:47 am

Hi Big Switch,

Another trend map for you - but this time one that works the other way around!

http://www.nowandnext.com/PDF/extinction_timeline.pdf

As always it’s open source so people are encouraged to add to it, delete from it or otherwise play around with it (and if anyone wants the artwork file just get in touch). BTW, as usual it’s a bit of fun so it shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Cheers,

Richard.
7. acoups | February 11, 2008 at 10:24 am

Hi all. Cool site Google
Thank.
8. Astofe | February 14, 2008 at 4:50 am

Hi all. Cool site zawermash Google
Thank.

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