The Tap on the Shoulder: When You're Suddenly Responsible for “Emerging Trends & Tech”
I’ll never forget the moment it happened — the tap on the shoulder. You know the one. Your manager leans in with that mix of urgency and opportunity in their voice:
“We need to start paying attention to emerging trends and technologies — can you take this on?”
And just like that, you’re in the driver’s seat of something that sounds both exhilarating and terrifying. There’s no playbook, no budget, and definitely no time to lose. The brief is vague, but the expectation is clear: do something innovative and fast.
So, you do what any sensible person would do. You rush to the trend databases. You start trawling through colorful dashboards, scanning the horizon for the “next big thing.” You filter, bookmark, and shortlist. You find the coolest-sounding technologies with the most eye-catching thumbnails and proudly pop them into a spreadsheet, complete with hyperlinks and bold headings.
When you present it to your sponsor, they nod approvingly — you’ve demonstrated initiative, energy, and decisiveness. But fast-forward six months, and you’re wondering: why hasn’t anything actually materialized?
The spreadsheet is buried in a shared folder, the conversations have moved on, and no one remembers what “Quantum-AI-as-a-Service” was supposed to do for the business anyway.
My Epiphany: Where Trend Management Efforts Fall Apart
My wake-up call came after attending two innovation symposiums — the latter hosted by HLB International, a global professional services firm. The sessions were packed with energy and insight. Eminent innovators delivered brilliant talks on the latest technologies and cultural shifts shaping the future.
For an hour, the fire burned brightly — I was inspired and full of ideas. But walking away from those talks, a thought began to nag at me: nobody was talking about how to actually do it.
As an Innovation Consultant, I suddenly saw the gap everywhere. We’re great at talking about what’s coming next — the metaverse, AI, sustainability, automation — but few organizations have a repeatable trend management practice for translating those signals into action. That realization has shaped much of my thinking since.
What Makes Trend Management Actually Useful
When I first started in this role, I thought the value lay in finding trends fast. Now I know the real value lies in building a system around them — understanding what matters, assembling the right people, and creating the conditions for ideas to move from insight to implementation.
Too often, organizations treat trends and technology like a buffet: pile everything on the plate, take a taste, and hope something sticks. But if you don’t have context or a sense of how things fit together, those insights never translate into outcomes.
Managing trends isn’t just about collecting signals; it’s about establishing a foresight practice. A practice that helps you:
- Understand the business need behind every trend you chase.
- Assemble the right team to scout, curate, and evaluate.
- Use fit-for-purpose tools — including trend databases — to capture insights systematically.
- And crucially, declare your opportunity spaces upfront, ensuring that every exploration supports your strategic goals.
There’s a quote from Dan Ariely, behavioral economist at Duke University, that perfectly captures this situation:
“Big data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.”
You could easily swap “big data” for “trend and technology management.” Every organization talks about it, but few truly know how to do it. That’s where the work really begins — not in more dashboards, but in more discipline.
How to Build a Repeatable Trend Management Practice
Since that epiphany, I’ve been banging the drum for a more intentional approach. At HYPE, that thinking has now been embedded into how we talk about our Trends and Technology software.
We no longer position it as just a database or a monitoring tool. Instead, it’s part of a value proposition that helps clients build a trend and technology practice — a structured way of sensing, curating, evaluating, and acting on emerging change. Because without the practice, the platform alone won’t move the needle.
Some organizations are already leading the way:
- DHL operates a global trend practice through its Innovation Centers, turning signals like automation and robotics into operational pilots.
- LEGO’s Foresight team connects cultural trends to product and digital innovation, always anchored to their purpose: “creative play.”
- IKEA uses its Strategic Foresight and Innovation Lab to link trend analysis directly to long-term priorities such as circularity and urban living.
- In the public sector, the UK Government’s Policy Lab and Singapore’s Centre for Strategic Futures have formalized foresight into continuous strategic practice, not one-off exercises.
These examples show that effective trend management isn’t about having the most data or the fanciest reports — it’s about having a rhythm: observe → interpret → align → act.
When we help clients adopt this mindset, everything changes.
Instead of asking, “What’s trending?”, teams start asking, “Which emerging changes could impact our declared opportunity spaces?”
Instead of chasing buzzwords, they identify fit-for-purpose signals — things that matter to their mission and customers.
Instead of producing static reports, they build living systems of insight that feed their innovation portfolios.
That’s the difference between reacting to change and being ready for it.
The Takeaway
If you ever find yourself on the receiving end of that tap on the shoulder — the one that says, “We need to start paying attention to trends and technologies” — pause before you open the spreadsheet.
Start by asking:
- What business problem are we trying to solve?
- Who needs to be part of this?
- How will we turn insights into opportunity?
Because trend hunting isn’t the goal. Building capability is. And when organizations develop a consistent practice around trends and technology — one grounded in strategy, collaboration, and purpose — the conversation stops being about “what’s next” and becomes about how we get there.
