Amazon.co.uk: Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Today's Big Changes: Mark J. Penn, E. Kinney Zalesne: Books

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Product Description

Bill Gates
'Mark Penn has a keen mind, and a fascinating sense of what makes America and the world tick, and you see it on every page of Microtrends.'

Bill Clinton
'Mark Penn has a remarkable gift for detecting patterns and identifying trends. The ideas in his book will help you see the world in a new way.'

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Measuring Tiny Trends Provides a Complex Mosaic of American Society, 29 Nov 2007

By	Donald Mitchell "a Practical Optimist" (Boston) - See all my reviews

A friend of mine used to tell me that what most attracted him to a nonfiction book was the opportunity to learn something that would make for good dinner table conversation. My friend would rate Microtrends at five stars for sure. I don't recall a book with so many factoids that highlight minor trends in society. Here are a few examples:

1. There are more Christian Zionists than Jewish ones.

2. One percent of young Californians want to grow up to be military snipers.

3. As a result of the crime crackdown, one of the fastest growing population segments is newly released ex-convicts.

4. Knitting is making a revival among young people.

5. Those who love technology are more outgoing than those who hate technology.

The book also has some international examples. One of my favorites is that 82 percent of men aged 18-30 in Italy live at home with their parents. I felt like calling my sons to congratulate them on having moved out.

Mark J. Penn and E. Kinney Zalesne argue that you can build political conclusions from looking at such small trends. It's a lot easier to switch an independent voter than to attract a first-time voter . . . or to switch a voter who is loyal to the other party. Be spot-on with an issue that creates excitement for a small group of swing voters, and you may carry an election. The book is filled with references to the 1996 role that Soccer Moms played in Bill Clinton's re-election.

Beyond that, this is a book of trivia. There's not much analysis of products or positions that such groups might like. There's also no attempt to tie these small trends back to these people being independent voters.

Mark J. Penn and E. Kinney Zalesne also argue that contrary to what many Republican pollsters believe that swing voters are more interested in positions than in personality and character. I found that the book did more asserting of that point than proving of it.

In the brief concluding section there's a tiny effort to pull it all together: In a world with more choices, people will fragment in their selections. If you've read The Long Tail, you already knew that.

This is much too lightweight a book to have much significance. But it is fun to read. Don't feel like you need to read all of the sections.

I only found four tiny trends described that I hadn't already noticed, but I did find it convenient to see some estimate of how important the size of the trend is and a few reasons for the trend.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

An engaging read on human behavior with a bit of a liberal bias, <