The Root Trend

Exploring The Link Between Social Mood and Consumer Behavior

The Root Trend is three years old this month. It's existed as a sketch on scrap paper for two years before that as a coffee coaster. I posted a similar diagram in the pages section of the blog a while back.

This is the root trend as I see it:

Why it matters is because consumer behavior and social mood are constantly interacting but never more noticeably than during inflection points like the one we are (collectively) navigating now.It's a great time to stop and look closer.

Over these three years there were several important social trending patterns I've noticed the most. The first became its own discussion and is about how media tools are being changed endlessly now by a combination of technology, social momentum, and the and developing social mood. It makes sense to me because I am able to combine three sets of understanding to better see the forces driving  the industry. I call it the (industrial) (r)Evolution of Media. The second is even more general and related to branding issues. Brands, as I see them, can be highly subject to changes in social mood. This is a potentially big topic and another post I continue to work on is how financial brands are emblematic of an important challenge in the branding universe right now. This post is still being written but right now let's look a more immediate brand issue that is reflecting social mood. This thread also touches media issues too so it is timely and relevant. 

I might have taken time to improve the diagram (above) a long time ago but since the trending issues I write about here qualify as the least understood "hobby" I've ever had, I tend to offer only the examples from the outside world that seem to shout the loudest.   I've watched (and am watching) a lot of trends develop with the always developing social mood in mind. It is a remarkable platform from which to appreciate social trending. In this diagram (above), in the disc representing consumer behavior, is what I suspect is a deeper inherent value to those focused on consumer behavior. I have not yet clearly reflected it in the diagram but the point is clear to me. Maybe this developing Face Book thread from the past two weeks will help explain some of what I mean:

Face Book is a social phenomenon because it has positively reflected more than one core social value shared by many people at the time of the mass adoption (these past few years). Up till now, however, it has not reflected the social correction in a very predictable manner.

Then, in the Sunday NYT Magazine 8/30/09, ran a story called Face Book Exodus.  The story was likely chosen because it would be controversial and grow legs as Google searches now reveal how the very idea that Face Book is in decline was being fought, emotionally, by both sides of the argument. There's always an emotional argument in the digital universe.

From a social trending perspective, (using social mood), Face Book is destined to morph into something very different. Why?

Our Affinity for Cycles and seeing Degree of Trend

All of our individual lives are impacted by recurring cycles. Most people rely upon recurring cycles to add structure to their lives. Society, as a unit, certainly does. Awareness of different cycles and rhythms are our first experiences in life. Cycles offer repetition and therefore some amount of certainty in a world that is uncertain as we come into it and grow in it. Our innate tendency when reacting to uncertainty can be seen to manifest as a polarized behavioral pattern, and is at the root of all our reactions and creations as individuals and as a society.

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What I call The Root Trend, is the incremental view of how groups of people collectively respond to uncertainty and in doing so have created all that we have, both individually and collectively. The Root Trend uses a narrow perspective on the broad social process first called 'social mood' by Robert R Prechter in his books and writings as well as the work of Ralph N Elliott years earlier.  Both this developing narrower view offered here as the root trend, and the larger perspective of social mood matters to business because in them are the key to all social trending we see. It is linked to all consumer behavior, all creative endeavors(in the aggregate), investor behavior (broadly), and the markets we touch in the processes of our productive enterprises,(and so much more). As a result of these observations, social mood can tell us a lot about our specific industries, the past, the present and even suggest the shades of gray in the future. In uncertain times this can be seen as a strong tool that transcends doubt. It will not solve problems on its own but, it will add perspective where it is needed. The main value of my added perspective is in how you use this insight...how you apply social mood to businesses and industry in a meaningful process that will foster better (longer term) strategic insight.

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A longer post than usual follows with two key diagrams for understanding a likely link between individual and collective social behavior. These diagrams also offer context for this analysis as well as suggesting a process to explain how social mood manifests in self similar patterns of behavior and in doing so creates discernible patterns within ever larger patterns, each with a specific significance to all social trending we see. This is practical insight and it offers those willing to see, a competitive advantage. If you absorb the broad ideas that follow, it will help build a better appreciation for many posts to this blog that will come later. I hope you'll keep reading. Dave