Predicting the Future for Business

In one of the many various electronic newsletter that I receive (getfuturethink.com - focused on innovation) there was a link to a recent NPR piece on predicting the future for business. The main gist of story was about companies' attempts to come up with the next iPod or similar "next big thing." Although not discussed in the NPR piece, the e-mail led into the story with

"While every company is looking for “the next big thing,” few successfully find it. How can you avoid failure when looking toward the future? Keep it simple, and solve people’s most fundamental problems."

This is something I teach my entrepreneurship students - focus on solving problems. This works for the case of green business very well - work on solving environmental problems, but from a consumer perspective. That is, look at consumer problems that are also environmental. A good example is in energy. It costs quite a lot for people fill up their cars or heat/cool their homes. Many of the solutions we can think of also have environmental benefits, primarily that being getting us away from or reducing the use of fossil fuels: solar power, led lighting, bio-diesel, etc.