Trend Watching Rules
Here's an excellent list of 10 trend watching rules, as prescribed by Grant McCracken. I particularly love this line from #7 (about offering "big picture" observations):
We need to give "observations" an opportunity to scale up to "insight" and insight an opportunity to scale up to "conclusion."
The list is definitely worth reading. In fact, just about every post to Grant's always thoughtful This Blog Sits at the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics is worth reading. There you can see the observation > insight > conclusion progression at work.