Well it's been a busy old week, we've been manically working on a new consultancy project for a major British wallpaper company which has been lots of fun (despite missing all of the sunshine at the weekend), but it was all worth it today when we presented them with trends for Spring Summer 2011, which they seemed to be delighted with.
In addition to the mountains of work, I also had a fantastically inspiring day at the Entrepreneur's Forum SEVEN annual conference on Thursday, which was a generous prize to all the finalists in the If We Can You Can challenge. The EF team didn't miss a beat all day, many, many thanks to Victoria, Will, Hazel, Stephen and Rachel who all made a real effort to make sure I was looked after.
There were of course, SEVEN inspiring speakers at the conference, my favourites were Lord Kirkham, executive chairman of DFS, and chief economist of HSBC, Dennis Turner. As a trend forecaster specialising in home interior trends, you can imagine I was keen to hear about how Lord Kirkham developed the DFS furniture brand, and it was a truly fascinating story delivered by someone who was so infectiously enthusiastic and passionate about his brand. Dennis Turner was also a hit with the audience, giving us the low-down on what to expect in the ongoing economic uncertainty.
This was my kind of forecasting. I particularly loved his comment 'This will definitely happen...unless, of course, it doesn't...' Genius.
Aside from the great speakers, I managed to meet some new aquaintances and of course my fellow IWCYC Challenge finalists who were all really lovely and genuinely passionate about each of their businesses.
What I love about these events is that you get to meet people at different stages in their business- some very well established individuals who have built famous brands, medium sized businesses who are growing before our very eyes, and people like myself starting small ventures on what we hope will be a path to success. There's something to be learned from each of these groups, and I came away from the conference full of ideas.
So, what did I actually learn? Tons of stuff. But here are my top SEVEN (seemed fitting!)
1/ Rome wasn't built in a day. I hated this phrase, mainly because I'm so impatient for growth and success in business, but this week I feel like I really understand this much used saying. As I've mentioned, I met people who had been in business for 40 years, so I have been able to exercise a sense of perspective and pace that I didn't have beforehand, which makes me feel much calmer. Hurrah.
2/ Being flexible and agile in business really pays off. Many of the speakers mentioned their ability to adapt and change with the times which I thought was really poignant in our very uncertain financial and political climate.
3/ Every no is one step closer to a yes. I loved this phrase, coined by guest speaker Karen Darby of SimplySwitch. It had particular resonance with me as I've pitched to several potential clients over the last 16 months who have said they loved my product and service but haven't been particularly quick off the mark in actually commissioning work. Perseverance has paid off though, and I now have a 90% success rate for turning pitches into paid work. It made me realise that there are measurable ways of turning 'maybe' into 'yes'...
4/ If you can, I can. For some reason this week, as a result of talking to people at the event, I actually believe this now. At first it was just a sneaking suspicion, but now I'm pretty sure.
5/ Act on advice. We all do it, read a ton of business books, listen to inspiring speakers, and then do nothing with it. But this week I actually made stuff happen. One of the brochures I picked up at the event was entitled Lessons from Change, produced by event sponsors Ernst and Young. It had a really valuable breakdown of the results of a global survey of the world's best entrepreneurs. One of the questions asked was 'how have your business priorities around operations changed in the last six months?' and 62% of respondents claimed they had increased alliances. This reminded me of a conversation I had started over two years ago with a trend forecasting brand in the US, who strictly speaking ought to be my competitors, but whom I like to think of as allies! So I dropped them an email, on a Saturday, and got an immediate reply saying they would love to meet with me to discuss working together to generate some projects with US retailers. I'll be going out to New York to meet with them in August and see if we can arrange some mutually beneficial work.
6/ Mistakes are important. It's impossible not to make them, and each one helps get closer to creating the perfect strategy, the perfect process...the perfect mistake..oops no trying to avoid that...
7/ Enterprise is the way forward. Whether this is about true entrepreneurs, or people who demonstrate enterprising behaviours, most of the speakers talked about the role of innovation and enterprise as the key to emerging from the ashes of the recession. I'll be referencing this in a talk to students at a creative enterprise programme I'm sponsoring in the North East in a few weeks.
Monday 24 May 2010
Friday 14 May 2010
Today's Top Trend Tip: Bright Young Things
Here at Trend Bible, we produce a bi-annual forecast for children called Kids Lifestyle Trends. We sell this to all sorts of brands from kids furniture manufacturers to mobile phone companies- basically anyone who needs to know about trends that affect kids from babies through to teens. I've been doing some research for our Autumn Winter 2011/12 forecast, and have been really blown away by the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit among the 9-13 age group in particular.
Some of you may have already seen the debut of Junior Apprentice on BBC1 this week (I for one am totally hooked) which highlights the sheer determination of today's younger teens to set themselves apart and become enterprising individuals (who needs school anyway?!)
I'm also a big fan of teen fashion blogger, Tavi Gevinson, (my favourite headline was 'Tavi Gevinson- the new Anna Wintour?’), who is the author of Style Rookie, a blog she began in 2008, age 11.
As brands and marketeers inch closer to finding what drives and motivates these young consumer groups, the children themselves are dictating to brands and retailers like never before, fully ensconsed in their roles as opinion leaders and representatives of their generation.
I spent some time at a networking event in Newcastle talking to Peter Hirst who runs a company called MyKidology a North-East based market research company helping brands who sell to children test out their products and services before going to market. Peter explained; "At Kidology we believe in being creative and having fun in every aspect of our work; it's what working with young people does to you! We're keen to help any business, at any stage, achieve a great relationship with young people."
We've also noticed a flurry of websites for children helping them come up with ways to make money and be enterprising, like Kidpreneur, which encourages kids to be enterprising, from using their vast social networks to recommend and sell on behalf of brands, through to innovative online methods for making pocket money (no one likes washing cars right?).
So today's Top Tip is for all of you who include children or teens as your target audience. Are you enabling them to have input into your brand? Can you encourage them to promote your brand by offering them the opportunity to write a blog for you?
Some of you may have already seen the debut of Junior Apprentice on BBC1 this week (I for one am totally hooked) which highlights the sheer determination of today's younger teens to set themselves apart and become enterprising individuals (who needs school anyway?!)
I'm also a big fan of teen fashion blogger, Tavi Gevinson, (my favourite headline was 'Tavi Gevinson- the new Anna Wintour?’), who is the author of Style Rookie, a blog she began in 2008, age 11.
As brands and marketeers inch closer to finding what drives and motivates these young consumer groups, the children themselves are dictating to brands and retailers like never before, fully ensconsed in their roles as opinion leaders and representatives of their generation.
I spent some time at a networking event in Newcastle talking to Peter Hirst who runs a company called MyKidology a North-East based market research company helping brands who sell to children test out their products and services before going to market. Peter explained; "At Kidology we believe in being creative and having fun in every aspect of our work; it's what working with young people does to you! We're keen to help any business, at any stage, achieve a great relationship with young people."
We've also noticed a flurry of websites for children helping them come up with ways to make money and be enterprising, like Kidpreneur, which encourages kids to be enterprising, from using their vast social networks to recommend and sell on behalf of brands, through to innovative online methods for making pocket money (no one likes washing cars right?).
So today's Top Tip is for all of you who include children or teens as your target audience. Are you enabling them to have input into your brand? Can you encourage them to promote your brand by offering them the opportunity to write a blog for you?
Thursday 13 May 2010
Today's Top Trend Tip: How politics impacts taste
Today I was asked to contribute to an article for a magazine, and was asked how I think politics will affect taste, colour and design.
Politics may seem a million miles away from something as seemingly frivolous as colour, but you'd be surprised. Colour and design trends are inspired by social and cultural trends, and this very much includes politics.
Anything that affects social and cultural trends in turn affects colour and design trends. When we were forecasting trends for Spring Summer 2010 (back in November 2008!), we were very conscious that there would be a gaping hole in our research that we couldn't predict, and that was the election results. One thing we did know as we edged closer to May 2010, was that there was a real desire for 'change' and that this was more important than knowing exactly which party would win.
In terms of the colour trends that are forecast for Spring Summer 2010, it is all about fresh, vibrant, positive, celebratory colours. Green is important; we put this down to the desire to report 'green shoots' after the recession, and there are lots of trend directions that hinge on a consumer trend for wanting a 'fresh start' or a clean slate, so in fact white is very important in product design (beautifully anticipated by brands like Apple). After the depths of the recession, there is a sense that people want to move forward, to feel positive and safe, and this is reflected in all aspects of our life from politics to products.
Are these feelings you should be taking into consideration and communicating to your customer?
Politics may seem a million miles away from something as seemingly frivolous as colour, but you'd be surprised. Colour and design trends are inspired by social and cultural trends, and this very much includes politics.
Anything that affects social and cultural trends in turn affects colour and design trends. When we were forecasting trends for Spring Summer 2010 (back in November 2008!), we were very conscious that there would be a gaping hole in our research that we couldn't predict, and that was the election results. One thing we did know as we edged closer to May 2010, was that there was a real desire for 'change' and that this was more important than knowing exactly which party would win.
In terms of the colour trends that are forecast for Spring Summer 2010, it is all about fresh, vibrant, positive, celebratory colours. Green is important; we put this down to the desire to report 'green shoots' after the recession, and there are lots of trend directions that hinge on a consumer trend for wanting a 'fresh start' or a clean slate, so in fact white is very important in product design (beautifully anticipated by brands like Apple). After the depths of the recession, there is a sense that people want to move forward, to feel positive and safe, and this is reflected in all aspects of our life from politics to products.
Are these feelings you should be taking into consideration and communicating to your customer?
Networking Working!
Vote for Change! Oops wrong election. Vote for me!
My theory is that David Cameron and Nick Clegg won the election because they have got really nice hair, so until this competition closes on June 13th I'm going to brush my hair. Every day. And drink out of my If We Can You Can mug which seems to have been rather a good omen so far.
Well most of this morning was spent trying to encourage my networks to Vote Feeley. I also got a chance to check out the profiles of the other finalists on the If We Can You Can website, and there's some stiff competition! It really is brilliant to see so many diverse SMEs in the North East, two of them I think are absolutely genius. But I'll keep my opinions to myself, don't want to sway your opinion!
It has also been really lovely to get some messages of support from people I've met through being a member of the Nurturing Pool at Entrepreneur's Forum, from my fellow attendees on last summers Front Foot business development programme, from my friends at Newcastle Science City and many other people I've met along the way. I've also been pestering the Trend Bible community on our blog, Facebook, Linked In and Twitter who are an enthusiastic bunch! Thanks for all the lovely messages guys. It`s a real shame Grandmas can't text or email. I'd have two votes there for sure.
Fingers crossed it will pay off, but I must say it's an honour just to be in the final with such good entrepreneurs; I think I could live with losing out to one of them. Also one of the prizes for being a finalist is a ticket to the Entrepreneur's Forum Annual Conference next Thursday which I'm really looking forward to. I`ll be sure to tell you all about it.
My theory is that David Cameron and Nick Clegg won the election because they have got really nice hair, so until this competition closes on June 13th I'm going to brush my hair. Every day. And drink out of my If We Can You Can mug which seems to have been rather a good omen so far.
Well most of this morning was spent trying to encourage my networks to Vote Feeley. I also got a chance to check out the profiles of the other finalists on the If We Can You Can website, and there's some stiff competition! It really is brilliant to see so many diverse SMEs in the North East, two of them I think are absolutely genius. But I'll keep my opinions to myself, don't want to sway your opinion!
It has also been really lovely to get some messages of support from people I've met through being a member of the Nurturing Pool at Entrepreneur's Forum, from my fellow attendees on last summers Front Foot business development programme, from my friends at Newcastle Science City and many other people I've met along the way. I've also been pestering the Trend Bible community on our blog, Facebook, Linked In and Twitter who are an enthusiastic bunch! Thanks for all the lovely messages guys. It`s a real shame Grandmas can't text or email. I'd have two votes there for sure.
Fingers crossed it will pay off, but I must say it's an honour just to be in the final with such good entrepreneurs; I think I could live with losing out to one of them. Also one of the prizes for being a finalist is a ticket to the Entrepreneur's Forum Annual Conference next Thursday which I'm really looking forward to. I`ll be sure to tell you all about it.
As Featured in bdaily
Entrepreneurs demand answers
12.May.10 | Posted in News by bdaily business news network
AS THE finer details of a coalition between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives emerges, many of the region’s entrepreneurs are waiting with anticipation to discover how it will affect their business. They told bdaily of their hopes and concerns about uncertain times ahead.
Joanna Feeley, creative director of Heaton based trend forecasting agency, Trend Bible, said: “I think there is an air of tension in the business world surrounding the current political situation, as the recovery is so fragile and it’s important to have strong leadership at a time like this.
“My expectations are that VAT and income tax will go up, but my concerns are that with a coalition, the negotiations and the decision-making process will be painstaking, and already it’s evident that this is influencing the markets, which in turn is affecting our export trade. It makes it pretty hard to plan ahead as a small business owner.”
To read the full article click here
12.May.10 | Posted in News by bdaily business news network
AS THE finer details of a coalition between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives emerges, many of the region’s entrepreneurs are waiting with anticipation to discover how it will affect their business. They told bdaily of their hopes and concerns about uncertain times ahead.
Joanna Feeley, creative director of Heaton based trend forecasting agency, Trend Bible, said: “I think there is an air of tension in the business world surrounding the current political situation, as the recovery is so fragile and it’s important to have strong leadership at a time like this.
“My expectations are that VAT and income tax will go up, but my concerns are that with a coalition, the negotiations and the decision-making process will be painstaking, and already it’s evident that this is influencing the markets, which in turn is affecting our export trade. It makes it pretty hard to plan ahead as a small business owner.”
To read the full article click here
So how do we forecast future trends?
Blood, sweat and tears go into producing our seasonal trend forecasting manuals...we've been working on our Autumn Winter 2011/12 Home Interiors book for the past 3 months, researching the key social and cultural trend 'drivers' that underpin the trends, hosting colour forecasting panels and sourcing up-and-coming textile and wallpaper manufacturers to feature in our forecasts. We work 20 months ahead of the season and sell our forecasting manuals to interior designers, brands, retailers and manufacturers in over 18 countries. Our forecasts help our clients build effective forward-thinking strategies, understand shifts in consumer behaviour and have confidence in selecting the right colours, materials and prints to enhance their product ranges.
We thought we'd bring you some exclusive behind the scenes photos and explain the painstaking processes and methods we go through to create our unique books...We will soon publish a preview of each of our four trends for winter; Perfected, Utilitarian, Geographique and Alpine Shelter.
"Pastels are big for interiors for 2011, which is unusual for a winter season that would ordinarily focus on darker colours," explains Trend Bible Creative Director, Joanna Feeley. "This look isn't about mixing typical peppermint, baby blue, sugary pink and lemon, but about a more sophisticated palette of tinted neutrals. We love buttermilk yellow and apricot which look great in woolly mohairs, felted wools and plush velvets. We've included these colours in our Perfected story for winter."
We have worked with our highly experienced panel of colour forecasters to develop 4 palettes for winter, each palette has 8 colours that are represented in Pantone cotton swatches. Each colour is given a Pantone TPX and TCX colour value for easy interpretation." We only include the key fashion and highlight colours in our palettes, believing our customers have core colours they like to carry over from season to season," explains Joanna. "Our Pantone colour swatches are presented on mini palette cards which allow users to remove the swatches for colour matching and palette creation- it's really important to us that our books are as user-friendly as possible so little features like this make it a versatile design tool."
We work with our panel of 'unusual and inspiring thinkers' to develop themes based on future social and cultural drivers. The Trend Bible team then edit and refine this information, creating 4 commercial trends dedicated to home interiors. We then host a seasonal colour panel inviting key colourists and forecasters to share their research, thoughts and ideas. This work underpins our trends for the season. We have a database of over 4,000 designer-makers who keep us up-to-date on their latest designs and products, so we're constantly seeking out newness and finding the individuals that pioneer change and innovation. We share the contact details of every designer we feature in our Credits section, so that our customers can contact our contributors directly for more information. This makes our books indispensable design tools for interior designers.
Our fabric contributors range from large manufacturers through to niche designer-makers. We spend much of the year travelling to trade shows and craft fairs, graduate events and textile exhibitions to source the latest talent for our forecasts. This season we feature fabrics and wallpapers from MissPrint, Melin Tregwent and Madison and Grow to name a few. Each of our four stories has a fabric hanger page that shows eight key prints and materials for each theme. Each fabric is hand-cut in-house by our team- there are lots of blisters to show for it! "This year we've been to several shows including Maison in Paris, the British Craft Fair in Harrogate, Top Drawer and Spring Fair, Birmingham. We've included the top picks from these shows in our forecasts which helps buyers really see the trends start to come alive," explains Victoria Buchanan, Trend Bible design assistant.
Here are a couple of sample pages from our Autumn Winter 2011/12 book, the first shows our Colour Combinations and Key Materials pages from the Perfected story.
Below is a mood page from our Utilitarian trend for Autumn Winter 2011/12.
Trend Bible trend books help our clients gain an understanding of where the trends have come from, which colours and materials will be important and how you can commercially interpret each look.
We thought we'd bring you some exclusive behind the scenes photos and explain the painstaking processes and methods we go through to create our unique books...We will soon publish a preview of each of our four trends for winter; Perfected, Utilitarian, Geographique and Alpine Shelter.
"Pastels are big for interiors for 2011, which is unusual for a winter season that would ordinarily focus on darker colours," explains Trend Bible Creative Director, Joanna Feeley. "This look isn't about mixing typical peppermint, baby blue, sugary pink and lemon, but about a more sophisticated palette of tinted neutrals. We love buttermilk yellow and apricot which look great in woolly mohairs, felted wools and plush velvets. We've included these colours in our Perfected story for winter."
We have worked with our highly experienced panel of colour forecasters to develop 4 palettes for winter, each palette has 8 colours that are represented in Pantone cotton swatches. Each colour is given a Pantone TPX and TCX colour value for easy interpretation." We only include the key fashion and highlight colours in our palettes, believing our customers have core colours they like to carry over from season to season," explains Joanna. "Our Pantone colour swatches are presented on mini palette cards which allow users to remove the swatches for colour matching and palette creation- it's really important to us that our books are as user-friendly as possible so little features like this make it a versatile design tool."
We work with our panel of 'unusual and inspiring thinkers' to develop themes based on future social and cultural drivers. The Trend Bible team then edit and refine this information, creating 4 commercial trends dedicated to home interiors. We then host a seasonal colour panel inviting key colourists and forecasters to share their research, thoughts and ideas. This work underpins our trends for the season. We have a database of over 4,000 designer-makers who keep us up-to-date on their latest designs and products, so we're constantly seeking out newness and finding the individuals that pioneer change and innovation. We share the contact details of every designer we feature in our Credits section, so that our customers can contact our contributors directly for more information. This makes our books indispensable design tools for interior designers.
Our fabric contributors range from large manufacturers through to niche designer-makers. We spend much of the year travelling to trade shows and craft fairs, graduate events and textile exhibitions to source the latest talent for our forecasts. This season we feature fabrics and wallpapers from MissPrint, Melin Tregwent and Madison and Grow to name a few. Each of our four stories has a fabric hanger page that shows eight key prints and materials for each theme. Each fabric is hand-cut in-house by our team- there are lots of blisters to show for it! "This year we've been to several shows including Maison in Paris, the British Craft Fair in Harrogate, Top Drawer and Spring Fair, Birmingham. We've included the top picks from these shows in our forecasts which helps buyers really see the trends start to come alive," explains Victoria Buchanan, Trend Bible design assistant.
Here are a couple of sample pages from our Autumn Winter 2011/12 book, the first shows our Colour Combinations and Key Materials pages from the Perfected story.
Below is a mood page from our Utilitarian trend for Autumn Winter 2011/12.
Trend Bible trend books help our clients gain an understanding of where the trends have come from, which colours and materials will be important and how you can commercially interpret each look.
Wednesday 12 May 2010
Today's Top Trend Tip: Competition Crazy
Competitions are big news at the moment, in a world where we are bombarded with advertising and marketing has reached saturation point, competitions are a great way to engage the public.
I've been engrossed in the Great British Menu competition on BBC2, and I won't even get started on the phenomenon that is-love it or hate it- X Factor. You could even argue that the recent 4% increase in voters for the General Election was down to our new-found insatiable desire for voting, sharing our opinions and making ourselves heard (Facebook and Twitter tap into and feed this desire).
Those that know me will know that I pull trends out of everyday life and see patterns in behaviours all the time. It's what I do for a living and I share these insights with retailers and brands in the UK and USA, helping them develop accurate and timely insights into what the future consumer will want next.
As entrepreneurs, it's important to keep on top of these trends and monitor the general response to them, chances are you can tap into these trends and tailor them to promote your business and spread some positive viral messages.
Could you create a competition that would engage your audience?
We're certainly developing something similar here at Trend Bible, most likely we will have an awards ceremony that will celebrate up-coming new design talent in the home interior and product design fields.
Did someone say competition?
As part of the If We Can You Can Challenge, I've been asked to capture the ups and downs of the competition in this blog, and generally give you an idea of the day-to-day drama of running your own business. There's never a dull moment at Trend Bible so I'm sure I'll have plenty to report.
It's pretty exciting getting to the final of the competition, I must admit I had developed a very stubborn anti-competition stance over the past year, having spent hours filling out 15 page application forms only to be told I hadn't succeeded. So I got my head down and concentrated on building my business, getting new clients and making plans for the future, thinking that I'd just know when the time was right to start applying for competitions again. It wasn't until I had a meeting with a communications agency who suggested I enter the competition, that it even crossed my mind. When I say 'crossed my mind' I think my exact words were 'I don't do competitions.' I did say I was stubborn.
Anyway that planted the seed, and I began to wonder if maybe I was in the right place to enter a competition. It's been a tough old couple of years making it through a recession, having a baby (note to self; own business + recession + maternity leave = gigantic headache) and trying to grow a business, so to come out on the other side of that and be doing well seemed like a good time to start spreading the word.
So here I am in the final of the competition, enjoying every minute of it. I'm planning to use this blog not only to share the process of the competition with you, but also to hopefully share some trend forecasting tips that can benefit any entrepreneur in business.
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