The Shift Age Trend Report is a semi-annual report, published in July and January. It is a uniquely formatted PDF that is interactive, media rich, with embedded video, Power Points and PDFs. It has links to videos and web sites of interest, and of course it is all about the future. In between these downloadable semi-annual PDFs will be videos that will serve both as updates and as Q&A videos to answer questions from subscribers. An annual subscription will provide access to the current Shift Age Trend Report and two subsequent volumes along with the videos.

The Trend Report will now be the place where I publish all my forecasts and trends. These forecasts are divided into Short Term Trends and Forecasts 0months – 9months, Medium Term Trends and Forecasts 9 months – 2 years, and Long Term Trends and Forecasts 2 years – 5 years. I have had a good degree of accuracy particularly in the economic and cultural areas relative to my forecasts. In addition I forecast some Long Term Trend Lines that will be dynamic in the coming decade. The Shift Age Trend Report will now be the one place where all these trend forecasts will be published.

In every issue there will be interviews with people who are visionaries in their own field. These are people who look ahead and see where certain industries, technologies and global developments may be going. In the current issue there are interviews with Henry Tirri, SVP, Head of Nokia Research Center on the fascinating future of hand held mobile devices, Greg Skibiski, CEO and Co-Founder of Sense Networks a company that indexes the real world using real-time and historical location data for predictive analysis across multiple industries, Dr Feng Hsu of NASA on the future of Space Based Solar Power, and Mike Shatzkin the Founder and CEO of the Idea Logical Company on the future of publishing in the digital age.

I have formed a partnership with the Leo J. Shapiro Company (LJS), a 50 year old, well respected market research company to develop a section called Shift Age Trend Research. In the current issue, in a research presentation called “From the Great Depression to the Digital Recession” Owen Shapiro looks at the trend data from their national sample to compare the current recession to the 1980-82 recession, perhaps the only recession since WWII that most closely maps to the current one. In addition we have developed proprietary “ShiftScape” research to analyze consumer behavior for companies as we move into the Shift Age.

Each issue will have the Shift Age Digital Forecast by Digital Trend Forecaster Caleb Poterbin, where he takes a look at developing interactive and Internet trends. In the current issue he looks at the future of search, an area undergoing incredible transformation.

Finally, since a high percentage of subscribers to this Newsletter and people I advise are CEOs there is a section entitled Transforming Corporations for the 21st Century. In each issue a CEO writes about leading his or her company going through a transformation from the way they used to do business in the 20th century to the way they have to conduct business in the 21st century. In the current issue Darryl Rosser, CEO of Sagus International describes the journey of transformation that now places him at the center of the effort to create the 21st Century American School.

All of this is 85 pages of interactive media rich content that will stimulate you for several readings in the months ahead. If you want to take a look at some sample content, just go to: https://www.davidhoule.com/shiftstore/trend_item_renew.asp and click on the button in the middle of the page under “Download PDF Sample Content”. This page also highlights several accurate forecasts I have made over the past three years.

So what’s the inaugural deal for you a Shift Age Newsletter subscriber?

The regular annual subscription price is $275. As an inaugural discount you can subscribe for $200 for a limited time. The promotional code for this discount is NSATRX. Just go to the web page above, click on the Purchase button and follow the instructions to enter this promotional code.

This is both a thank you for being a Shift Age Newsletter subscriber and a welcome to a unique place to see the future. Welcome to the future!

Visit the Shift Store to learn more about the Trend Report

In Newsletter #1 I wrote that the Great Recession of 2008-2010 is a reorganizational recession. We are in transition between two ages. We are moving from the Information Age to the Shift Age. When humanity transits between two ages there is profound disruption. This is one of the reasons that most economists have been off the mark in their predictions. They just see this as a particularly deep economic recession.

In Newsletter #1 I correctly forecast that the first quarter of 2009 would show a contraction of 4-6% and that the second quarter would be a contraction of 1-3%. Right now there is general excitement that since there was just a bit over 1% contraction in the second quarter that the recession is over and that we are ready to move into expansion. I do not see it that way. What we are now experiencing is a dramatic slowing of contraction. After the free fall of the fourth quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009, a 1% contraction feels relatively great.

In that first newsletter I wrote that I thought the contraction would be around 1% for the rest of the year. I think there is a good possibility of that. There is also a good possibility that there could be a similar uptick. Either way we are a long way away from any economic recovery. The “double digit” unemployment I forecast in January for the second half of this year will prove to be true. This will be a lingering problem through 2010. The last time this occurred in a recession was the double dip recession of 1980-82 when unemployment stubbornly stayed high. Well guess what? That recession, and the equally severe one 1973-75 were the two recessions that took place during the transition between the Industrial Age and the Information Age. These two recessions correlate to the current Great Recession much more than any recession that has occurred since WWII.

In the brand new Shift Age Trend Report [see above] there is a section called Shift Age Trend Research. I have partnered with the esteemed Leo J. Shapiro market research firm to develop trend research for the Shift Age. The Leo J. Shapiro firm (LJS) has been publishing trend data from a national sample since 1979. This means that they have trend data on consumer behavior and expectations from the 1980-82 recession. We decided to compare that data with the date from the first six months of this year – the nadir of the current recession – to see if we could find correlations that would allow us to predict what might lie ahead.

In his column “From Great Depression to Digital Recession” in the Shift Age Trend Research section , Owen Shapiro, in comparing the current recession to those of the past concludes that:

“A delayed recovery or a double dip recession, however, could lead to a major restructuring of consumer culture in the U.S. leading to a major reordering of priorities, where discounting and free/low cost entertainment, and other austerity oriented trends, could become entrenched for years to come”.

In this reorganizational recession of 2008-2010 that is an extremely good possibility.