Category Archives: Practices

Gaming Relationships

By Simone | Published: August 10, 2011

I have often seen people reference the process of securing a significant other as a game, but rarely have I seen actual relationships presented as game-like exchanges. To me, it seems as though the thrill is in the chase, and once a couple settles, things get dull and boring. Perhaps that’s a major problem that needs to [...]

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Efficiency-Boosting Tech & the End of Boredom

By Simone | Published: July 10, 2011

I was watching this video on Tesco’s smart idea of making it possible for people to buy groceries on their phones while waiting for trains… … when it hit me just how much modern tech enables us to maximize every second of our lives. This Friday night, for example, I found myself stranded for an [...]

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Mexican Pointy Boots and Modern Pelts

By Simone | Published: April 16, 2011

While I’ve fallen down the gamification rabbit hole and have spent the past month and a half studying game mechanics and funware instead of blogging, I still have an eye out for fun new trends and the like. One of my favorites is the Mexican pointy boots trend.  About two years ago now, a bunch [...]

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Food Trend Alert: Hot Pot Cooking at Home

By Simone | Published: December 29, 2010

Hey, kids.  Just because I’ve been a bit silent on the blog front doesn’t mean I haven’t been researching.  More is coming down the chutes soon, but for the time being, I thought I’d toss out some fun thoughts on a potential food trend: in-home hot pot cooking.  Mmmmm.  Steamy. The photo above originates from [...]

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Halloween Costumes and Holiday Trends

By Simone | Published: October 31, 2010

Holidays make for excellent trend spotting devices as they’re steeped in ritual and occur at a fixed point every year.  Changes in holiday traditions, dishes, songs, costumes, and parties are indicative of changes in greater society. As it’s Halloween, trend spotters (at least in countries that celebrate the day) may consider what has changed- and [...]

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2011 Fashion Trends to be Influenced by Small Designers

By Simone | Published: October 7, 2010

Fashion is a unique beast within the trend spotting industry.  In a recent paper on fashion forecasting and coolhunting, Marco Pedroni points out how Fashion, which used to involve a trickle down effect from haute couture designers to the masses, has evolved into a more complicated industry in which trends also make their way from the bottom [...]

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Trends in Communication: Social Stenography

By Simone | Published: October 4, 2010

Via the top drawer curation of Kyle Cameron Studstill, I came across a most fascinating post on Social Stenography a couple of weeks back. Danah Boyd, a researcher at Microsoft Research New England, describes social stenography as hiding in plain sight, and gives the example of a teenager who is “creating a message that can [...]

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The Trouble with Naming Trends

By Simone | Published: September 30, 2010

Today, Slate served up some new criticism on a New York Times article claiming a “new” trend of fashionable women riding around New York City on retro bikes.  Jack Shafer points out that not only does the so-called trend lack numerical validity, it strongly resembles a trend described in a 2007 New York Observer piece. [...]

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Potential Trend Alert: Double-Jeaning

By Simone | Published: August 4, 2010

I’ve heard from several Bay Area residents that people are starting to layer their sagging jeans over another pair of jeans, turning an already pronounced fashion statement into one even more pronounced one.  I have not seen this double-jeaning myself yet, but am keeping an eye out and am most intrigued indeed! The entire jean-sagging [...]

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On Creativity, Death, and Trends

By Simone | Published: July 28, 2010

I am afraid that, as of late, my life has seen a bit more death than I would have liked, but these misfortunes have encouraged the contemplation of a subject which is actually quite fascinating. I am particularly interested in how creative people have become with human remains. For example, I recently read a Fast Company piece about small sculptures made with 3-D printers using peoples’ ashes. I myself have written about the relatively new option we have to turn our ashes into diamonds. Furthermore, when traveling through Germany, I encountered yet another cool way to bury loved ones the traditional way- graveyard plots that I ran across had been customized with little gardens…

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