By now many of you have probably seen, and chuckled about, this delightful video that went viral of a senior couple goofin’ around with their webcam. These two are trying to figure out how to use it (and having fun in the process) but the humor obscures the reality: Using a computer, using Skype, and making certain Skype’s audio/video inputs are set correctly is befuddling to most senior citizens!

Let me tell you a story that may mirror many of your own to illustrate why we need a brain-dead-simple Skype phone that is as cheap, super-simple to operate, and as powerful as a landline phone.

It’s a few years ago and I’m in my home office on a Saturday, facing the street and my neighbors house across it. I bear witness to my elderly neighbors — he a fairly tech-savvy retired Fortune 100 executive and she a loving mother and grandmother — saying a very emotional farewell to their son, daughter-in-law, and two toddler grandsons. 

The son is an executive at a different Fortune 100 company and the family was headed to Europe for two years to open a new line of business. My elderly neighbors would have only one visit during that time and I immediately thought, “Oh geez…those two boys will grow up so fast and forget them” so I had to do something.

I sent my neighbor and email clearly laying out all of the power of Skype, that it was free, that if he and his son each had a webcam that they could see one another and talk often. The biggest reason to do it was to maintain (and continue to build) grandpa and grandma’s relationship with those two little boys.

Not hearing anything for two weeks, I feared that I’d stepped WAY out of bounds as a neighbor. But what happened next surprised even me.  [Read more...]

Pine cones near a pond by Red Rock Lake in Eden Prairie, MN

Snagged this photo with my new iPhone 4S (and its 8 megapixel camera) on my morning walk with my dog. The light was nice at that hour and I stopped to snap a photo of these pine cones…but I came away with A LOT more than just a picture!

After I took the photo I closely examined this spruce and the bunches of pine cones all over it. I was suddenly struck with the thought about how fascinating it is that pine cones like this on another form of pine, the Bishop, which require fire to drop and open up…thus spilling their seeds so a new generation can grow. I immediately thought, “What a metaphor for what we all are going through right now in the U.S. and globally.“

The global economy has “burned” and, like so many of you who stay up on current events, know that many people around the world have seen their lives “scorched” with jobs lost, homes foreclosed upon, benefits reduced, and governments toppled. But ALL THE TRENDS point toward new growth and I fundamentally believe that, as the world continues to accelerate toward an internet-connected future, we will see unprecedented innovation and an increase in value created.

How? Where are all of these trends pointing to a future like that one? Like any other innovation or invention, one cannot look backwards (like many conservatives and MBAs do) or look side-to-side to see what other countries or companies are doing and then do what they’re doing only slightly better (e.g., trying to knock-off iPod with Zune; deliver ho-hum tablets to compete with iPad). The key is to strategically anticipate the future and look ahead to make the best, educated and calculated guesses you can and then go make the future happen.

In our core business (The Trend Curve™) we track trends globally for the home furnishings industry. Since so many other factors influence what happens within the home, we analyze industries like fashion, technology, manufacturing and what is happening with color, since color equals emotion and, surprisingly, echoes the mood of consumers. Color is becoming more vibrant, brighter, and dare I say, “optimistic?”

In some general trend areas as well as all of the foundational home-related industries we track, optimism abounds:

• Small Business Optimism Picks Up: “The National Federation of Independent Business reported that it’s Small Business Optimism Index gained eight-tenths of a point to rise to 88.9. The gain snapped a six-month string of declines.”
• The Expectation Economy (note #3 that “Copying competitors is a race to the bottom“) expects a brighter future: One site we follow is TrendWatching and their new business types site called Springwise since the latter, especially, delights us often with some of the new, disruptive and radical businesses being created around the world
• Manufacturing is quickly embracing trends like 3D printing (great blog by Howard Smith, a U.K. technologist). 3D printing promises to accelerate the time from idea-to-prototype-to-manufacturing; at some point relatively soon to buy, as a consumer, plans online that will enable one to simply print-out an object at home; and much more.
• Technology gadgets, the internet’s impact, ubiquitous wireless and more are transforming the world. To get up to speed quickly on what’s going on globally, look at former Morgan Stanley analyst, and now venture capitalist, Mary Meeker’s State of the Internet at Web 2.0 Summit or read this article & watch the video of her presentation.