Recommended Book: "Microtrends" - A Very Interesting Read

I just finished reading Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes by Mark Penn and E. Kinney Zalesne. I actually read it cover to cover (except for the Footnotes and Glossary of course). The authors goes through the book highlighting 75 small trends (mainly in the US) that have reached the 1% threshhold i.e. 3 million people. Each trend is bitesized at 4 or so pages so you can lay the book down easily and quickly pick up where you left off. It is a great complementary to "Competing on Analytics" in that all these trends were backed up by solid numbers and statistics that Burson-Marsteller is know for (Mark Penn is the CEO of Burson-Marsteller).

Overall, it is funny, well-researched, cleverly written and makes great talking points.

See also review from Publishers Weekly:
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From "Soccer Moms," the legendary swing voters of the mid-1990s, to "Late-Breaking Gays" such as former Gov. Games McGreevey (out at age 47), Burson-Marsteller CEO (and campaign adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton) Penn delves into the ever-splintering societal subsets with which Americans are increasingly identifying, and what they mean. For instance, because of "Extreme Commuters," people who travel more than 90 minutes each way to work, carmakers must come up with ever more luxury seat features, and "fast food restaurants are coming out with whole meals that fit in cup holders." In a chapter titled "Archery Moms?", Penn reports on the "Niching of Sports": much to the consternation of Major League Baseball, "we don't like sports less, we just like little sports more." The net result of all this "niching" is "greater individual satisfaction"; as Penn notes, "not one of the fastest-growing sports in America... depends substantially on teamwork." Penn draws similar lessons in areas of business, culture, technology, diet, politics and education (among other areas), reporting on 70 groups ("Impressionable Elites," "Caffeine Crazies," "Neglected Dads," "Unisexuals," "America's Home-Schooled") while remaining energetic and entertaining throughout. Culture buffs, retailers and especially businesspeople for whom "small is the new big" will value this exercise in nano-sociology.
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