Finding Secondary Data: Hot Trends in the Tech Industry Are you a member of the “thumb generation”? Can you work the keyboard of your cell phone or personal digital assistant faster than most people can speak? The term “thumb generation” was coined in South Korea and Japan and is applied to young people under 25 who furiously finger their handheld devices to text message, e-mail, and complete other electronic functions at lightning speeds.
More technological innovations are coming that are likely to transform our lives. WiMAX is a new wireless super technology that will cover entire cities at cable speeds. New-Field Communication (NFC) takes the Bluetooth technology a step further to connect cell phones and other devices. NFC is touted for its boundless commercial applications enabling Americans soon to complete many sales transactions by cell phone, as is already customary in Korea, Japan, and Finland. These and other trends are described in a BusinessWeek article titled “The Future of Tech.”24

Your Task:
You are one of several marketing interns at MarketNet Global, a worldwide e-commerce specialist. Your busy boss, Rick Rivera, wants to know more about the cutting-edge trends described in the BusinessWeek article he saw. He is particularly interested in learning whether they might be successfully used in selling and marketing. Individually or as a team, research one or several of these high-tech concepts. Chances are you will not find scholarly articles on these subjects because peer-reviewed publications take years to complete. Instead, rely on the Web and on electronic databases to find up-to-date information. If you use search engines, you will retrieve many forum and discussion board contributions as well. Examine them critically for authority and validity. In teams or individually, write an informative memo to Rick Rivera, complete with a short list of references in MLA or APA documentation style. Explain what each new trend is. Your instructor may ask you to complete this activity as a report assignment after you study Chapter 12. You could use your research to write a short informational memo report describing to Rick Rivera what your sources suggest the new trends may mean for the future of business, specifically e-commerce and online marketing.