Dec 10 2007 7:10AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |
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One of the most difficult issues home builders face is the expanse of time between the neighborhoods and homes they’re designing now and when those homes will be built. Generally, that’s about three years, unless you live in California, when it seems to be about 10 years.

So, today you are faced with the task of anticipating peoples’ future wishes and desires – wishes and desires they don’t even know they have yet. Home builders who can do this successfully should also be brilliant at predicting the stock market, anticipating the next Cubs’ World Series appearance, and prognosticating who the future president will be.

Where do you turn for help on this kind of forward-thinking analysis? I think one of the best places is magazines. Here’s what I read as I look for business and technology trends that will shape consumers and the environment we build in.

Inc.

Fast Company

Wired

Fortune

I used to read Business 2.0, but they’ve gone out of business. That is more a result of the shift to electronic media than an indictment of their quality or prospects. (The last design, though, had a decidedly retro internet look that I think hurt them.)

I remember an article I read in Wired about ten years ago on the future of hydrogen fuel cell cars. This Sunday, Honda rolled out plans to develop a hydrogen fuel cell car called Clarity. On Sunday, Norman Mayersohn of the New York Times reviewed a prototype that he actually got to drive (See here). Soon, the company will start a pilot program in California where participants drive a car for a year. The distant dream is becoming more of a reality.

The point isn’t the nature of the car – which is pretty cool – but that the reading I did 10 years ago is pointing to an issue that is closer to our horizon. For home builders, who have to make decisions so far in advance of their consequences, that kind of reading is essential.