A friend of mine used to tell me that what most attracted him to a nonfiction book was the opportunity to learn something that would make for good dinner table conversation. My friend would rate Microtrends at five stars for sure. I don't recall a book with so many factoids that highlight minor trends in society. Here are a few examples:

1. There are more Christian Zionists than Jewish ones.

2. One percent of young Californians want to grow up to be military snipers.

3. As a result of the crime crackdown, one of the fastest growing population segments is newly released ex-convicts.

4. Knitting is making a revival among young people.

5. Those who love technology are more outgoing than those who hate technology.

The book also has some international examples. One of my favorites is that 82 percent of men aged 18-30 in Italy live at home with their parents. I felt like calling my sons to congratulate them on having moved out.

Mark J. Penn and E. Kinney Zalesne argue that you can build political conclusions from looking at such small trends. It's a lot easier to switch an independent voter than to attract a first-time voter . . . or to switch a voter who is loyal to the other party. Be spot-on with an issue that creates excitement for a small group of swing voters, and you may carry an election. The book is filled with references to the 1996 role that Soccer Moms played in Bill Clinton's re-election.

Beyond that, this is a book of trivia. There's not much analysis of products or positions that such groups might like. There's also no attempt to tie these small trends back to these people being independent voters.

Mark J. Penn and E. Kinney Zalesne also argue that contrary to what many Republican pollsters believe that swing voters are more interested in positions than in personality and character. I found that the book did more asserting of that point than proving of it.

In the brief concluding section there's a tiny effort to pull it all together: In a world with more choices, people will fragment in their selections. If you've read The Long Tail, you already knew that.

This is much too lightweight a book to have much significance. But it is fun to read. Don't feel like you need to read all of the sections.

I only found four tiny trends described that I hadn't already noticed, but I did find it convenient to see some estimate of how important the size of the trend is and a few reasons for the trend.

Penn Argues that in our current large and subdivided world that the next big thing isn't big at all, but rather small. All it takes is for 1% of the population to be interested in, well anything, for it to matter, to marketers, politicians, historians, businessman, etc... The books looks at 75 interesting trends that Penn sees going on now, he then proposes how one might cash in or take advantage of all these next big small things. Penn might be right, he might not, I don't know, neither does he. All his ducks are in a row when it comes to the stats. But, there were times while I was reading this that he explanations for those numbers made me shake my head. There are other explanations that are just as likely... Despite the fact that he might be a little long on supposition in explaining the numbers I enjoyed the book and found much of it compelling.

The other thing to note, which Penn downplays I feel, is how wrong people are when they make decisions or build beliefs on their own experiences without looking at the numbers. In our complicated world it might makes sense to look at the stats and what they are telling us as opposed to what the talking heads are saying on the television