Noted Author's New Book on Trends Takes Home Nine Book Awards in Business and Technology Categories

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn., May 16, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- After winning plaudits from reviewers, Ken Thurber's new book Trends, Waves, Windows & Bubbles, has also started to rack up several book publishing awards. The latest tally includes several wins in the category of best business book from the Paris, Los Angeles, and Great Northwest Book festivals. It was named Best Business Book by the NABE SPRING 2014 Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards. Trends also won in the technology/business sector in the Great Southwest and was runner-up in the same category at the Great Southeast Book festival. The book captured two awards at the Beverly Hills Book festival, winning in the category of technology and named finalist in the reference category. Trends also took honorable mention business from the San Francisco Book Festival.

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Just released in March by the Amazon best-selling author, Trends, Waves, Windows and Bubbles, talks about spotting and profiting from the opportunity a trend can create. Trends is the third (the first two were Big Wave Surfing and Do Not Invent Buggy Whips) in a series of books where Thurber examines why some products and companies succeed while others fail. It looks at how technology moves from research to products. How do ideas become inventions? How do inventions become products? And how does the average investor, product designer, company owner or layperson spot the trend and not the fad?

Thurber lays out the issues and creates the book in four parts. Each step or part builds upon the other. First stop is the trend. Is it your friend? Does it create a wave? Is the wave created by the trend a real product innovation? Next is the window. If it is a window – how long will it remain open. And is it a real window of opportunity. Or is it about to close shut. Now you have a trend, which causes a wave, and to the keen observer, a window of opportunity. The problem is not that you see the opportunity but can you see or time the bubble? Are we into opportunity or just on the verge of crisis. Bubbles have proliferated recently from internet stocks to real estate. Each was an opportunity and each crashed as magnificently as it once rose. Money rushed in, many were crushed. Now you understand the title: Trends, Waves, Windows and Bubbles.

A short passage from the book explains the issues - "Trends exist in many forms. A trend may be as simple as some new fashion worn by teenagers. Or, it may be as complex as a new potential form of computing - quantum computing for example. Trends will form and they will grow. If successful they will spin out more trends and eventually some part of them will collapse and some will morph into other trends. The key is that such change will come sooner than you think and will probably take forms you have not thought about."

According to the author, "I've always been fascinated by the question  - how do people innovate and how do you define innovation." To answer these and other questions about product launches both good and bad the author began to draw on his more than 40 years experience as an innovator, company creator and product developer to explore the issues of why some products, companies and trends succeed while others fail.

Like the buggy whip, many products die due to advances in technology, but according to Thurber there is a pattern. Trends can be defined and understood. By studying the underlying issues of trends he digs deeper into the basic terms, including how to define, spot and profit from this uniquely modern phenomena. The key is knowing when to get in, how to protect yourself and balance risk when it's time to get out.

Readers are bound to get a better understanding of trends, waves, windows & bubbles  from someone who has advised the Fortune 500 and the largest government agencies. In his latest book, Thurber helps shed light on understanding the trends that shape these interesting times.

Trends is available in softback and kindle at Amazon.

Check out more at:
http://www.trendswaveswindowsbubbles.com/

About the Author:

Kenneth J. Thurber, Ph.D. is a renowned computer architect and has developed technology and systems worth billions of dollars. He's the author of the award winning and Amazon Best Sellers - Big Wave Surfing - Extreme Technology Development, Management, Marketing and Investing and Do Not Invent Buggy Whips. He developed the concept of "technology big wave surfing" to empower readers to understand and harness the opportunity of an ever-changing technological marketplace.

See and read more about the author's two previous books at:
http://www.technologybigwavesurfing.com/

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SOURCE Kenneth J. Thurber, Ph.D.