The Harvard Business School | Working Knowledge has a list of ten low costs methods for spotting consumer trends. The article is from the year 2002 but content like this is timeless.

The ten methods are :

1. Take a neuroscientist to lunch (yes they are serious )
2. Tap into your community
3. Organize to integrate knowledge, not isolate it
4. Choose forward-thinking partners and customers
5. Develop a shared framework to sort the trends from the trendy
6. Form a posse on the future
7. Diversify your teams, not just your workforce in general
8. Get off the beaten trail
9. Beware traditional research
10. Watch the games people play, and the people watching games

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