Interesting book, detailing our increasingly niche-market oriented society. Penn (known as the guy who defined "Soccer Moms" as a key voting block for Clinton) covers 75 "microtrends" (1,000,000 people being enought to pop up on his radar) that he feels will have a big impact on America today.
His methodology seems sound, and many of the trends he points out are interesting and quirky, but the book (2007) already seems a little dated- it's like FutureShock or Faith Popcorn or something- when you try to write about the next big thing tomorrow, you might be better off writing for magazines, because by the time your book is published, you might already be behind the times. In one major misstep, Penn points to Zunes as the big MP3 player- a glaring, jarring error in a book that claims to be on top of such things. Zunes were made to try to enter the Ipod dominated MP3 player market, and never caught on at all, and it just seems like a weird mistake.
One of the most alarming statistics was out of California, where 1% of teens polled expressed a desire to be "military snipers". 1%. Scary stuff.
MicroTrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes
Quality: 8 Popularity: 9 Overall: 17
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