FiredogLake "Book Salon" has an interview with Mark Penn about book "Microtrends" over there now...

[KoKo]

for anyone who is interested.

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http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/10/27/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-mark-penn-and-tom-schaller/#comments

FDL Book Salon Welcomes Mark Penn and Tom Schaller
By: Tom Schaller

13516707.JPG(Please welcome Mark Penn, author of Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes, and Tom Schaller, author of Whistling Past Dixie in the comments — JH)
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/10/27/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-mark-penn-and-tom-schaller/#comments

(Please welcome Mark Penn, author of Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow’s Big Changes, and Tom Schaller, author of Whistling Past Dixie in the comments — JH)

I must confess that I’m a sucker for books like Mark Penn’s and E. Kinney Zalesne’s Microtrends. Why? Because I love numbers, specifically demographic numbers. In that sense, I really enjoyed this book. For those who find too many stats annoying, the book’s fun, clipped, breezy and example-filled writing is very accessible. Some microtrending groups struck me as obvious or familiar (“Christian Zionists” are those John Hagee-inspired nutjobs), while others were quite surprising (“Long attention spanners”…who knew?!). Just so we have the primary definition out of the way, Penn defines a microtrend as an “intense identity group, that is growing, which has needs and wants unmet by the current crop of companies, marketers, policymakers.”

Given Mr. Penn’s political background, I had expected Microtrends to contain more findings or advice related to political targeting and lessons for partisan politics and party-building. Certain chapters, of course, suggest important political-electoral implications, and there are scattered references throughout other chapters of partisan effects or patterns. (Did you know, for example, that internet daters are disproportionately Democratic, or that about three-quarters of women who work in the fields of law enforcement, construction and armed services consider themselves moderate or conservative?) More generally, the book lacks a structural synthesis or narrative to hold together these microtrends, though maybe that’s precisely the point. Indeed, this may be the only book ever described by its author as both an “impressionist painting” and a “periodic table”; the 75 chapters are very short—micro-chaptered, you might say, so the book’s execution fits its theme.

more at link.......

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/10/27/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-mark-penn-and-tom-schaller/#comments

[KoKo]

1. Discussion is finished but you can still link it for days...if you are intterested in what went on.

Check it out....