The complete Foundation training is outlined in 4 sections, each section dedicated to 4 main socio-dynamic forces. Students will be introduced to consumer insights and attitudes, on global and local level, trend tools and exercises, coolhunting research techniques, and suggestions for trends application. Through the 35 lessons, participants will become aware of the main aspects of socio-cultural change: Talent & Personalization, Sustainability & Simplification, Sensoriality & Exploration, and Sharing and Sociability. Participants may however opt for a Part-training having access to only 1 section, or the Full-training, having access to all 4 sections, exercises and materials. The first TrendsGymnasium training programme is now available.

Full-training: 4 sections, 35 lessons, 11 months
Part-training: 1 section, 9 lessons, 3 months

Internships to top score students for on-the-job training will be offered in Milan by Future Concept Lab, after the successful completion of the Full-training course.

What’s a trend?

Trends are “social facts”, as Emile Durkheim, the father of empirical sociology, claimed. In short, they are all those phenomena that, no matter of how rapidly and in which context they evolve, give tangible evidence to social, relational and cultural phenomena of change. Trends have a complex lifecycle and evolution, ranging from Microtrends and Macrotrends to Collective Imagination, each one of these categories containing different strata of phenomena which evolve at different speeds. Their interpretation could be sometimes counterintuitive: for example, only ten years ago diet food was a Microtrend that quickly spread from a small niche of people through different levels of society. Only few people would have guessed, however, the emergence of the opposite phenomenon (countertrend): “indulgence food”, grounded on taste and on traditional ways of cooking and capable to connect the sensorial experience with a healthy promise.

Working on trends

The abilities of observation, curiosity and a good dose of intuition could seem to be enough when working on trends analysis, but the reality is very different and complex.
It is necessary to distrust the many professional figures (experts in trends, cool-hunters, futurologists) who boast this ability only because they are young, informed or stylish.
There is always a great risk of becoming enthusiastic over one trend, ignoring the other emerging trends.
Trends need to be placed within a scenario: as within the TrendsGymnasium learning environment.
A single discipline, or a point of view, is not enough to construct a trends scenario over time.
In this profession approximation of results does not exist: if the trend that one identifies does not survive and does not become stronger it means that the direction was wrong.

What is Coolhunting?

Coolhunting, is neither a job-title-coined in the mid nineties- nor a new professional figure. Future Concept Lab launched coolhunting in 1992 – the first institute in the world – as an innovative alternative to existing research methods. The coolhunting activity interpreted clearly the need to face, in a spontaneous manner and without much theory, change: the elastic mind and job role of researchers, managers and designers.

What does a Coolhunter do?

Coolhunters are young creative people, usually freelancers, gather and report all those interesting (cool) expressions emerging in the urban and domestic reality of a specific city, where they live and work, giving photographic and written evidence. Their wide Microtrends observation includes how people dress, which are their cultural or consumption preferences, which are the new city venues.

What does a Cultsearcher do?

Cultsearchers are, usually older and more experienced than the coolhunters, young researchers who do not only gather information, but have got the ability and expertise to manage Microtrends and Macrotrends and turn their findings into ideas generating new projects.