January’s full of future predictions; see these, these, and these, from other Corante news columns. From Chuck Frey’s Innovation News I found an article by Linda Naiman offering practical advice on how you can “mine the future” yourself, spotting trends that you can connect to ideas for your own business. Here's some of her advice, with my comments in italics on how to use the Internet and blogs to kick up this future-mining project a few notches:

-- Track via film, TV and print media the four sectors of society that tend to capture leading trend behaviour, products and personalities: music, fashion, sports and fitness. Good starting places: Google Zeitgeist and Blogdex. Or just pick any blogroll and dive in. 


-- Track new laws. Reason your way to new tools and assistance folks will need to comply. Try Copyfight, LawMeme, and blogrolls therein. Also check this and this.


-- Futurist Watts Wacker advises clients to read a trade magazine from a different industry once a week. "Let's say I'm working with a bunch of computer executives. Once a week for six weeks, I'll send them a different trade magazine - 'Progressive Grocer,' 'Automotive News,' something from the corrugated-box industry, a jewelry magazine. Their assignment is to find two things in every issue that relate to their business or provoke their thinking. Everyone comes in with at least ten." Try this using the Business 2.0 Web Guide Industry page as a starter.