Mining Data

Fifty years ago tattoos were rare except on some GI's who had too much to drink one weekend. I never imagined that these permanent designs would become fashionable on so many people today. (I'll never have one.)

The authors of Microtrends, The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes have statistically studied recent behavior changes and advised politicians to be aware of possible big changes ahead. Mark J. Penn and E. Kinney Zalesne authored this book that was published in September 2007.

They studied emerging trends of increasing college dropouts, vegetarian children, neglected dads, teenage knitters, car-buying soccer moms, women in "word professions", and much more. There are around seventy-five minor trends reported in this book and not a lot of statistics to wade through, just interesting reading that is informative and sometimes verification of what some of us have already observed. For example, the rise in the number of obese people. Their data estimates that there are around 8 million morbidly obese people in America. Morbidly obese is defined as 100 pounds or more overweight. "Eight million" is the population size of North Carolina or New Jersey according to the authors.

This book was published by Twelve. Go to the web site for Twelve by clicking here and read their mission statement and see other books they've published.

This book can be read by browsing the short sections or starting in the front and reading to the end. I read the whole book and was amazed at the rate of change that's happening all around us in ways I didn't know.

You may want to check out this book and also visit Twelve web site.

Have a good week!