By: Alireza Hejazi

Environmental scanning is all about identifying emerging issues. When an issue becomes enough big to be considered as a potential driver of change, it is called: Trend. A trend is a lot easier to manage before it has acquired a lot of mass and picked up momentum. The process of reviewing a wide variety of specialized or esoteric sources to sift out the spores of change is called: environmental scanning.

TRENDS:

1. Inclinations or tendencies. Directions of change in one variable over time;

2. Analytical comprehension and usage as: stay the same; increase; increase and then level out or decrease; decrease; or decrease and then level out or increase;

3. Driven by some change in the environment;

4. When trends stabilize, we start thinking of them as conditions;

ISSUES:

1. Issues are newborn trends out of aging conditions and sedentary trends.

2. Issues grow with people's attention and concerns into a trends.

3. Issues analysis assumes that change is rooted in the innovative and the extraordinary.

 

Reference:

Schultz, Wendy L. (1994). What to do when you want to surf the tsunamis of change, Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies, Retrieved from: http://www.infinitefutures.com/essays/planning/surfing.shtml