Alvin Goats wrote: How do you find what the trends are in your field?

Again, magazines, mail lists, etc. Yes, magazines (printed and online) and mailing lists, plus conferences, and the one of the best of them all, staying directly in touch with the people who are creating the trends and helping to shape the trends in the first place.

Be sure to get the printed magazines as they are supported by the advertisements. This support also tends to get you more subscriptions and EARLY notices of new mags/newsletters to come (I got 3 new ones this month).

The magazines I skim (no, I DON'T read them all) include:

• Oracle Magazine
• InfoWorld
• InformationWeek
• Network Computing
• ECN
• Electronic Design
• SD Times
• Design News
• Industrial Physicist

I used to get:

• Semiconductor International
• Electronic Packaging & Production (EP&P)

E-mail stuff includes:

• InformationWeek Daily
• InformationWeek Between the Lines
• InformationWeek Events
• InformationWeek Report
• InformationWeek Editors
• Information Architect
• Network Computing
• Network Computing Newsletter
• NWC KnowledgeAlert
• SearchCIO
• SearchCRM
• SearchDatabase
• SearchEnterpriseLinux
• SearchNetworking
• SearchOracle
• SearchSAP
• SearchSecurity
• SearchStorage
• SearchWebServices
• Security-Pipeline-Newsletter
• TechWeb
• TechWeb Today Mobile & Wireless
• TechWeb Today Networking
• TechWeb Today Security & Privacy
• TechWeb Today Software
• This Week On InformationWeek
• InfoWorld Advice Line
• InfoWorld Cringely Notes from the Field
• InfoWorld CTO Source
• InfoWorld Enterprise Strategies
• InfoWorld IT Career Expert
• Linux Pipeline Newsletter
• InfoWorld Linux Report
• InfoWorld Mobile Pipeline Newsletter
• InfoWorld The Open Source
• SD Times News on Monday
• WhatIs.com
• Wireless Report
• Wireless World
• GovExec.com
• IBM developerWorks
• DallasBlue
• GeekMeet
• Web-Informant
• Government Enterprise
• Linux Today Security
• DallasBlue Events
• DallasBlue Jobs
• Monster.Com Newsletters
• Network and Systems Management Tip
• OSDN Newsletters
• Outsourcing Pipeline Newsletter
• Product Design
• BigAdmin Newsletter (Sun Microsystems)
• The Industrial Physicist
• WLAN Watch
• CIO (they still haven't sent the paper version)

I also scan through the Jobs section of the Newspaper (I get the DallasMorning News, so that's the one I scan).

It's impossible to read each one, so I skim for interesting articles and note trends in articles. More articles in the various magazines ande-mail stuff about a given topic indicate a trend towards that topic.

Just because something new is cool, it may take a while before you eversee a trend to that something. RFID has been around in practical use since 1998, but it's become a hot topic today, 6 years later.

Finding the Trend Setters involves networking directly with people,knowing people at other companies and the like. This is more difficult and involves developing trust so that what might be considered competition sensitive is revealed to you at some extent. This is the hardest to do, because of the need to "shmooze" a little bit.