Today, just as many of us have been digging through endless snow, I dig into a bunch of interesting links. In future posts, I will have something substantive to say about some of them but in the mean time, read ‘em while they’re hot.

NPR on the idea of trends and how as soon as one has been identified, it’s pretty much over. My question is why shoes seem to be such a hot category for this phenomenon. (Crocs, anyone? Uggs?)

The Wall Street Journal on the effect of aging Boomers on product development and marketing. Shout out to our clients from Kimberly-Clark, several of whom are quoted in the article.

Financial Times (via Slate) article on Behavioral Economics. I would love to hear from those of you who know more about this, particularly why economists seem so afraid to talk to actual people to discover how they fit within the models—or not.

A strangely medicalized article about slumber parties in the New York Times. As a children’s researcher, it’s interesting to see how regional (geographically, ethnically, socioeconomically) some of these parenting attitudes are. It's also a little surprising that what's been going on at slumber parties for decades is news.

Product developers—cool stuff from Jonah Lehrer on collaborative discovery in science and the fading of the lone genius. This article dovetails with another in the same issue on the idea of unlearning and staying nimble. (Thanks to Elaine, my personal WSJ clip service.)

Cuddle up with some new thought fodder, and let me know what's going on in your nimble brain.