TREND WORK-OUT: TREND TRIGGER QUESTIONS

The Trend Work-out: flex your muscles to train your inner trend researcher. In the  past months I, trend intern Sanne, have been your trend fitness instructor and gave you tips and tricks on practicing trend research.
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This week we will do the last exercise together: I will help you to formulate trigger questions to use for applying trends. Read more and get started right away!

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Hi there, good to have you here again! This is my last blogpost about the 'How to Research Trends' workbook.

To apply trends to a challenge we often use brainstorms and ideation sessions. Today we are going to formulate trigger questions that you can use as a starting point for your brainstorm sessions. This will help you to move from a trend insight into first innovative trend-based ideas.

The ‘right’ trigger
​Trigger questions have an open formulation like ‘how can we..?’ or ‘what if…?’. This openness stimulates divergent thinking: thinking in possibilities rather than narrowing things down.

You develop these trigger questions by combining trend values & insights from your research with your brand values or with a specific problem that needs to be solved.

There is no right or wrong, as long as you keep in mind it has to be an open enough question that inspires to let your creative juices flow.

Page from the workbook to fill in your trigger questions.

​And.... action!
​So let’s take the example of a food truck company again. They want to be future proof and therefore ask for advice from a trend researcher. Based on your research you can formulate several ‘HCW’ and ‘WI’ questions.

Try to make at least 10 of these questions so you can choose the best ones to start your creative session with. Below I've filled in the sheet to give you a couple of examples on how  to formulate the questions.

Brainstorm rules
There are a couple of rules to keep in mind when you start brainstorming. These rules are there so you can imagine as many ideas as possible, without judgement and exclusion.

During brainstorming you go for quantity over quality, and you can use different trigger questions to gather as much interesting and innovative ideas as possible.

Brainstorm rules by IDEO

Get inspired
Not sure how to get creative and inspiring answers to your question? I have listed a couple of books that can help you reverse, change or think differently about your questions.
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• Not invented here. This is a book that inspires you to rethink and read how other companies solved problems. It requires you to think differently and that might bring you on other, new innovative ideas that help you lift your ideas.

• Whatever you think, think the opposite. Bursting with ideas, innovations, art, philosophy, science, and brilliantly bad advice from Paul Arden. A cult figure in the worlds of advertising, art, design, and marketing. The book offers a new way to approach business and life.

 

• Inspiration for Innovation. In 101 short columns, Inspiration for Innovation offers practical insights and tips on you to become a successful innovator. With the use of an expedition metaphor, it shows the key elements achieving a strategic mindset: timing, breaking patterns, understanding customers, creating a culture for innovation, and implementing innovation projects successfully.

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Hope you enjoyed the work-outs with me! You can check the blog section on this website for the previous work-outs. Many more activities are compiled in the 'How to Research Trends' workbook.

Stay active and keep up your trend fitness!