It starts to get a little fuzzier in this category. Nevertheless, tracking demographic, technology, product, legal and other areas is important. In technology, the broad trends of things getting smaller, faster, cheaper and more communicative is not a revelation to most people. More recently, the trends toward more social media, lowering energy consumption, increasing recycling features and more emerging market support are becoming important. The key to trend monitoring to find the ones that most affect customers (and, therefore, their buying decisions). After an important trend is identified, then it is critical to understand the rate at which the trend is being responded to in the market. The goal is to eventually identify the triggers (see step 3) which more concretely describe when and how competitors might gain some advantage.