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Hi everyone, If you’ve been following along with this new newsletter, we’ve talked about where to collect weak signals data from, and also the importance of analysis. Let’s say you’ve bought into being more systematic about storing whatever weak signals you’ve read, and now you are ready for the next step: building your own database.
OMG! 😱😱😱 But first, a tangent It was the late 1990s. I was working as a tech journalist for CNET Canada (just like regular CNET except we called it “CNET, eh.”) We were about to launch a new dynamic web site with all our stories put into a relational database. WTF, I thought, I don’t know anything about relational databases! No problem. Attend the training session. Learn about primary keys, secondary keys, and table schema. Ok, I can do this. I did do this. Now, I am doing this. Ok, back to the newsletter… Don’t panic; use this template! A relational database needs a structure, which is where we usually mess it up. We start hacking away and come up with something weird and unwieldy and we quit. I almost did this when I made an Airtable database at my last job, but I did not quit because I had taken that weird tangent in the late ‘90s (story of my life, tbh). I kept going. Then I made one in Notion. You can use it! Here it is! Sam Ladner’s Foresight Database Template. This template is free to use, but if you want to pay me something, please just Buy Me A Coffee ☕🙏 How to use the database If you watched my UXRConf presentation, you will know that scanning is the first step in a foresight practice. But you need a basket to put all that sweet information into, so that’s what the database is for. Go ahead and start scanning. Don’t worry if you’re getting it right, just start. Put what you find into the database. Write little notes to yourself on the significance of what you found. Keep your database to yourself for the time being. No one needs to know about it, until you have a critical mass of insights in there. After you have a critical mass of weak signals When you have a robust set of insights, at least 5 signals per STEEP category (hopefully a LOT more than that), you can start mixing and matching the STEEP category trends together, and seeing what you come up with. Then it’s time to start writing your point of views of what could happen. Note that I said “points of view” plural. More on that next week! One more thing…BIG BOOKS In case you missed it on LinkedIn, I’ve started a little video project on books that I’ve found inspiring. I’m calling it Big Books and you can find all the videos on my web site. I release new video reviews every week. Know anyone else who would love this newsletter? Subscribe here. Missed an earlier edition?
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