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Do you follow the yearly trends? This year, trendwatching.com has a quick one for us: “
7 Consumer Trends to Run With For 2014.” These are trends focused on the needs of the consumer and how the consumer will shape products and services in 2014. Here they are:
- Guilt-Free Status
- Crowd Shaped
- Made Greener By/For China
- Mychiatry
- No Data
- The Internet of Caring Things
- Global Brain
The trends are following the movements for greener development and lifestyles (Guilt-Free Status and Made Greener By/For China) and crowdsourcing (Crowd Shaped, The Internet of Caring Things, and Global Brain) using locally sourced resources to engage people and communities toward innovative practices. One item on their list seems so timely considering Target’s recent data breech of customer credit cards during this holiday season: No Data.
The concept of this trend is the opposite of what has been happening since the Internet started selling things. It’s about
not mining consumer data and yet still providing excellent service. The article mentions that consumers believe data collection has gone too far and many consumers have tried to delete or disguise their online activities.
“The challenge for businesses will be finding a balance between the very real benefits of data collection and utilization… and earning the trust of increasingly HACKED OFF consumers.”
Perhaps this is a trend that libraries can use to their advantage in 2014 and beyond.
