Yes, I know, third post of the day … but I did warn you!
Anyway, in keeping with most of the people eating in the Morrisons cafe this lunchtime (not!) I was reading a trend briefing by Trendwatching.com. All about the ‘innovation avalanche’. (It occurred to me that ‘avalanche’ might have been a preferable term to ‘diarrhoea’, if it had occurred to me earlier!) These guys, and their sister company Springwise.com, do a great job in spotting what’s going on in the world and what it might mean for the future. It’s really interesting stuff, although one unfortunate side effect for anyone with a brain like mine is that you end up with yet more ideas for new businesses! And right now, I’ve got to stay focused. I must, I must, I must make Mummo work!
But on the subject of people with lots of ideas, last night I dragged myself to a Scanners meeting. I say dragged myself only because I was feeling really rough – only in Britain can you get a summer cold! In case you don’t know what a ’scanner’ is (and I didn’t until about a year ago), it’s the term given by American author and life coach Barbara Sher to people who have hundreds of ideas and passions but struggle to stick with any of them for long. There are various different ’sub-species’ of scanners, all detailed in Barbara’s book ‘What do I do when I want to do everything’! This is the book that leapt off the shelf at me in Borders one day and finally made sense of my life – no joke!
So last night I trekked off into London to meet John Williams, the man behind the Scanners meetings, and to see what other scanners look like! I’m happy to report that they actually looked pretty normal, with just an occasional flamboyant touch (and I’ll be generous and extend that to cover the ponytail on a male!). I also wanted to experience the guest speaker, wealth coach Judith Morgan. It was a slightly strange night, perhaps because I was spaced out on a lethal combination of Lemsip and Strepsils. But whilst I came away wishing I could have heard more from Judith, I also felt like I’d been in the presence of some really sharp, inspiring, inventive minds. In fact, I think I’ll go again. But next time I’ll drink wine instead of water … Ooops, no, not allowed! God this is going to be boring …
Tags: Trendwatching.com, innovation avalanche, Springwise.com, scanners, Barbara Sher, John Williams, Judith Morgan
