Welcome to the third part of our four part series we are calling Trend Spotting, written by futurist and friend of Callaghan Innovation, David Mattin.
Over this series David will supercharge your ability to be a trend-driven innovator helping you spot powerful emerging trends that have deep relevance in the agritech space.
If you are coming to this late, catch up previous instalments here:
Pro Tip - Too busy to read this email? Why not listen to this third instalment instead: Listen here
Trendspotting with David Mattin - Part 3
Trends are innovation opportunities. They’re meant to be used.
In the second email in this series on trend-driven innovation, we went deep on how you can become your own trend watcher.
Remember, trends are all about newly-emerging human behaviours, mindsets, and expectations. If you can spot these kinds of trends as they arise, you have a powerful window on to your customers and clients.
But spotting a trend is only the start. If that trend is going to mean anything for your organisation, you need to do something with it.
Specifically, you need to innovate with it. That means turning that trend into new product, service, campaign and business model ideas that will have impact.
In this email, I’m going to show you how you can use the trend-driven innovation method to do just that.
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To turn trends into new innovation ideas, we use the same building blocks that we deployed to help us spot trends.
In emails one and two, we saw how trends are made of two core building blocks: change and fundamental human needs.
Trends emerge when some change in the world — often a new technology — unlocks a new way to serve a fundamental human need such as security, convenience, status, and many others.
When this happens new human behaviours, mindsets, and expectations emerge at scale.
As we saw, spotting trends is about putting these building blocks together.
But when we want to innovate with a trend that we’ve already identified, we reverse this process. That is, we go through a step-by-step exercise to analyse the trend by breaking it into its constituent building blocks. This allows us to understand the trend — and the opportunities it offers — deeply.
We then take this analysis, and see it through the lens of the customers or clients we’re innovating for.
I know, all this sounds pretty theoretical. But it’s done via a simple canvas tool:
The Trend-Driven Innovation (TDI) Canvas is really just a way to lend an innovation session some structure.
It does that by guiding you through a series of simple but powerful questions.
Those questions will lead you direct from trend to innovation ideas.
Let’s look at a worked example.
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In email one we looked at a trend called Resilience Training.
The Resilience Training trend will see consumers embrace new products, services and experiences that bolster their resilience against disruption, socio-economic turbulence, and future crises. That means lessening their reliance on fragile global systems, and embedding them deeper in reliable local networks and resources.
Let’s see how we’d use the TDI Canvas to turn this trend into new innovation ideas.
You can do this exercise alone. But it’s far more powerful if you gather your team, add some coffee, and set about it as a group.
The first thing to notice about the Canvas is that it’s broken into two halves, labelled Analyse and Apply.
We start with the Analyse half of the Canvas. This is where we focus on deep understanding of the trend. Later, in the Apply half, we’ll look at this analysis through the lens of our own organisation its customers.
The Analyse side of the Canvas is about answering four big questions about the trend in question. You can write your answers direct onto the Canvas, or use sticky notes to drop them in.
— What examples of the trend have we seen?
This one is easy. Most likely, you spotted the trend by seeing examples of it in the wild. Or you’ve read about a trend and associated examples. Simply throw those examples into the Examples box.
For Resilience Training, we looked at UK urban farming startup Crate to Plate, retailer MUJI and its in-store farms, and the government of Singapore and its SG Farm Tycoon game inside Roblox.
— What basic human needs does this trend tap into?
Every trend is about the collision of change with one or more fundamental human needs.
For Resilience Training, these core human needs in play are twofold.
They are security: the need to protect ourselves against the vicissitudes of economic and environmental change. And control: the need to feel that we are not entirely dependent on other systems and people for our wellbeing.
— What is changing to drive this trend forward now?
We divide the changes at work into two rough halves.
Shifts are longer-term changes. For Resilience Training they include disruption to food supply chains caused by climate change, and changed mindsets in the wake of the pandemic.
Triggers are shorter-term changes. For Resilience Training they include a higher cost of living across much of the Global North.
— What new expectations emerge when these changes and human needs collide?
This is the box that people often find they need to give most thought to.
We’ve identified forces of change that are colliding with, and unlocking new ways to serve, core human needs. Given this collision, how are mindsets and expectations going to change?
For Resilience Training, a world of disrupted supply chains and post-pandemic awareness of fragility will mean greater expectations that organisations work to allow consumers and clients new forms of control and access to more stable and secure resources.
It could also mean expectations of advice, education, and empowerment on how to create and manage their own resources.
Go through this process with Resilience Training and you might end up with a Canvas that looks like this:
You’ll probably be able to think of more answers to each question; I’m sticking with these to keep things simple.
Now it’s time to turn to the Apply side of the Canvas. This is where we take our analysis of the trend and use it as fuel for new innovation ideas. To do this, we ask two final questions.
This time, they’re about ourselves and the people we’re trying to serve.
When you answer these two questions, it’s a chance to think about the trend in the context of your organisation and customers or clients.
How are the changes in play manifesting in your industry, and in the lives of those you are trying to serve? And what about the basic needs at work here: how do they manifest in the lives of your customers and clients?
With all that in mind, get into the two questions. Remember, there are no ‘right’ answers to these questions; it all depends on your organisation and the customers you’re trying to reach.
— What kind of innovation do you want to create using this trend?
Think product, service, experience, marketing campaign, or new business model or strategy.
It’s fine if you want to think about more than one — or all! — of these.
— Who are you innovating for?
Who do you want to target with your innovation around this trend?
This can be any kind of customer or client segment. Busy professionals. Seniors. The eco-conscious. Baby boomers. If you’re a B2B organisation, think client or industry segments.
Be as narrow or as broad as you like.
Once you’re done, your Canvas will look something like this:
And with the Analyse and Apply sections complete, you’re ready to start having concrete innovation ideas.
Take everything you’ve discussed — your analysis of the trend, and thinking on how the trend meets your organisation and its customers — and use it all as innovation fuel.
What new products, services, campaigns and more can meet the new expectations you identified?
How can you use this trend to serve the customer or client segments you put on the Canvas?
You’ll most likely find, in fact, that you’ve already got ideas: they will have fallen naturally out of the work you’ve already done.
This is the power of the six questions that make up the Canvas: they lead you step-by-step from trend to innovation idea.
Give it a try!
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This is, of course, just a quick outline of the TDI method.
The method really comes to life when you gather your team, set aside 60 to 90 minutes, and put a trend to work on the Canvas.
A team size of between three and six working on one trend (and one Canvas) is ideal. So if you have a large group, split into teams of this size and let each team work independently. The teams can work on the same trend, or each choose a different one.
Then come back together at the end, and ask each team to share their best innovation idea.
I’ve run countless workshops using this method with teams inside all kinds of organisations, from global retailers, to hotel chains, to pharma and food giants. And universally, those teams have been surprised by the number and quality of the ideas they’ve produced.
One trend, and six simple questions, really can lead you to your next breakthrough innovation.
Happy innovating! I’ll be back soon with email four.
