Elements and Characteristics of a Trend Characteristics of a Trend • Its capacity to make sudden surprises and reversals about the things that we can see around us. • By exploring its emergence, we can anticipate future plans and challenges. There are countries whose economies are growing as the number of available jobs significantly increases. • For analyts and forecasters, this trend is urgent , blaming the lack of leadership and weakening of democracy in government agencies. • The pattern to determine a trend in any issue must pass the basic tests of significance so that it can create change to a wide range of people and have broad social economic, and political implications • Unlike fads, which are transitory, quick, and effect specific groups in a very short time, trends are significant and have broad implications in all aspects of society. • Another characteristic of a trend is that it overlaps and interlocks with other trends. • Globalization hastens the creation of urban centers. • Urbanization is being forced by Western lifestyle, where jobs are mostly concentrated in the cities. • Different countries band together for global cooperation. • Asian countries have formed groups that address security, economics, and political stability in the region in order to compete and cooperate with other global forces. • Some of the trends we look at are dynamic. Their identification maybe familiar to us since they are with us for a given period of time, but trends have changed. • Centuries ago, colonization was the trend where powerful countries conquered and subjugated weak territories for their economic and political trends. • As civilizations evolved, nationalist movements condemmed colonization as racist and oppressive. • Proponents of colonization needed to devise their strategies of intrusion to other countries under the guise of assitance and international aid. • Years ago, we did not have the internet and ther were no social media networks. The jobs we find today are nonexistent decades ago. • Work trends are so dynamic. We do not know what jobs will exist in the next twenty years. • The people out of work today will soon find jobs again, but their job descriptions will not the same. • Global work trend include the concept of location, people can work together anywhere on the globe, project teams use web development tools and mobile devices, and skype has made long distance call virtually free. • Location does not matter because business can tap experts and contractors around the world. • Crowdsourcing makes wikipedia’s 13 million articles written and maintained by a pool of contributors. Many business are choosing contract relationships over hiring new employees.
