Futurology - any recommendations?

[Not So Wise]

As others have said, does not work like that*. Most sites/consultancies are really just pushing their own products/their clients products or just hyping whatever they personally like.

You just have to just make up your own mind and expect to get it wrong regularly

*One exception, whatever Gartner says will be the next big thing follows one of these two simple rules

• It has already been the "big thing for last 12 months and is now the norm"
• If the rule rule is not true, it will never make it past the starting gate, so best avoid it

[realityhack]

Thanks for the replies.

It's not an easy one to call... There's the sociological/environmental/technological/financial factors research, where people have made trend maps and so on...

...then there's the purist, tech R&D stuff - that can lead in all sorts of directions...

...and then there are the latest investments/plans of tech/telcoms companies...

...and there's so much David Ickeish rubbish out there it's hard to tell the loonies from the proper commentators.

Yep - some wise comments around change being the only constant, repackaging the same old tat, and validated predictions.

Thanks for the links DS.

If anyone knows the names of any reliable industry/technology commentators who talk around trends, I'd appreciate it.

[Clippy]

How about Wired magazine or Trendwatching

[DS23]

kesten green and scott armstrong spring to mind.

armstrong is a bit of an arse in his approach to communicating with people but you can't fault the dedication.

http://www.kestencgreen.com/

greens website on advertising might contain something useful for you hackers.