In 1971, Alvin Toffler wrote the first of a handful of books regarding his views of the future. His book was named, “Future Shock”, and it was a major part of the popular culture of the era, especially among college students.

I was a twenty-one year old college grad in 1971, and reading Future Shock greatly changed the ways in which I saw the world. For the most part, the book re-directed much of my thinking about technology, sociology, and human behavior.

Toffler’s talked about three main points.

a.) a future where technological change would, and forever thereafter, radically outpace the ability of human beings to assimilate and deal with such changing technology

b.) a future where the rate of technological change would increase at an always-increasing rate.

And c.) Toffler predicted that people would become so overwhelmed by the “flow rate” of new technologies that they would eventually cease to even attempt to educate themselves regarding their make-up and their applicability. Instead, Future-ShockED consumers would seek out third-party “experts” whom they could trust to both analyze and recommend relevant technologies and services.

Sounds like the guy knew just a little bit about what he was writing, no?

Again, it was THIRTY-SEVEN years ago that Toffler made these ground-breaking observations and predictions.

A decade and a half later, John Naisbett wrote a conceptually similar book (also the first of three if I can recall accurately) that he named, “Megatrends”. Megatrends was a sort of application-oriented version of Future Shock, in that it foretold the future more specifically, and within certain niche areas. Naisbett used a clipping service (remember, this pre-dated the internet) to accumulate articles related to leading-edge social, cultural, and technological trends. Then, he would categorize and draw inferences from them. Usually, he too was right.

I bring all of this up because I have personally started a number of companies, and some of them have been quite “apart from the mainstream” in terms of their respective deliverables and premises. And, since I give dozens of speeches and presentations each year, I am constantly being peppered with questions about “how to build a business”, and “how did I do that”.

Far and away, however, the most frequently-asked question from my audiences is …

“Where do you GET your ideas for starting businesses?”

Well, if you are a regular listener to my radio show, or if you are a student in our entrepreneur program at Duquesne University, you will frequently hear us say, “Out of Chaos Comes Opportunity”.

Because turmoil and change are the friends of entrepreneurs, while placidity and predictability are certainly not.

Think about it. How many dollars has government alone appropriated and spent since 09/11/01? Just look at Iraq … hundreds of billions spent because we associated Bin Laden and Hussein.

Think also about how many re-financing companies have sprung up (and closed!) following the drop (and subsequent rise) in home mortgage interest rates.

Take any hurricane or tornado. I sometimes think that if the good people at Wal-Mart could just find a way to create “harmless but intimidating” super storms; we’d likely have three of them a week!

And it’s not just catastrophes, either. Look what the Internet has spawned. And, the cell phone. And, each new interstate road.

But you must read. And, you must think through the ramifications of the techno/socio/cultural change that is happening. This is not a game for everyone.

Never forget, the strength of an entrepreneurial enterprise is really just one thing … its ability to “turn on a dime” once it sees an opportunity. For in the time that a big and well-heeled corporation can create and approve a business plan for one of these emerging chaotic sub-niches, a true entrepreneurial business can conceptualize, prototype, manufacture, and even distribute and sell its products or services.

But you need people within your organization, and that probably means you, to constantly brain-storm the ramifications of both radical, sudden changes as well as slower-moving and yet still significant trends.

I once told an audience that if ever my mind should contort itself into believing that a tattoo was anything more than a statement of insecurity and/or vanity, I would have my personal flesh-engraver dye just one word onto my forehead.

The word?

“N I C H E”.

You can get there from studying trends and reacting to chaos.