Here is a smattering of trends that you might find of interest:

SYNC ­ Sync is everything! From the Palm Pilot to the Computer to the future of Home Convergence ­- Our machines must be able to talk to each other!!

9.1 Billion is the potential number of spam emails sent yearly to all Net users. This would equal approximately 200 pieces per person per year, according tot he Spam Calculator created by Brightmail.

According to the American Camping Association, citing trends for its 2,500 accredited camps, the average "sleep-away" camper's age, over the past 10 summers, has dropped from a little over 11 years old "to slightly over 9 1/2." Proportionately, that's a significant move - From "Love Those Millennials" Newsletter, Frank Gregorsky/Editor

The Intelligence Factory, a trend-spotting unit of advertising agency Young & Rubicam, predicts that "as more older men become fathers, a new breed of young, athletic male nannies will emerge to take on the more physically demanding aspects of the job . . . teaching a child to ride a bike or playing ball in the park, for example.

Transforming Tomorrow

You can’t transform tomorrow when riding on a dead horse. Dakota tribal wisdom says when you are riding a dead horse, the best thing to do is dismount. We often think we can keep going by sheer determination and will to survive. This list from a friend gives you some ideas of what we do with dead horses when we don’t realize they are dead.

1. Buy a stronger whip.

2. Say, "This is the way we always have ridden this horse."

3. Change riders.

4. Appoint a committee to study the horse.

5. Hire a consultant to study the horse.

6. Hire a designer to create new uses for the horse.

7. Visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.

8. Appoint a team to revive the dead horse.

9. Create a training session to increase our riding ability.

10. Change the requirements and declare, "This horse is not dead."

11. Hire contractors to ride the dead horse.

12. Harness several dead horses together for increased speed.

13. Provide additional funding to increase the horse’s performance.

14. Purchase a product to make dead horses run faster.

15. Promote the dead horse to supervisory position.

16. Blame the chain stores for killing the horse.

17. Blame the trade associations for killing the horse.

18. Blame the sales reps for killing the horse.

19. Sell the dead horse to a group of outside investors.

If you are guilty of any of these ­ you may want to take another look ­ and invest in a new horse!

Published: January 25, 2001

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Kathy Lamancusa is a trend strategis, professional speaker and author who tracks the forces that impact our lives. Over 1.6 million copies of Kathy's books are in print, and she has appeared on numerous television and radio shows including Oprah! She is a public speaker who can offer organizations entertaining and enlightening peeks into what is coming and what is shaping change so that they can better reach their own customer bases.