Much of the information gathering done prior to a research project aims to collect facts and figures about the past and present state of the market for a particular product or service. What have the trends been? Who uses the product? Who doesn't and why?

But what about the future? Seena Sharp, owner of Hermosa Beach, California-based Sharp Information Research prefers to look ahead - one, two, three, years ahead, if possible. She locates business and marketing information for clients in a wide range of industries and applications.

To find her information, Sharp spends much of her time in libraries, poring over publication indexes and association directories, accessing on-line databases, and on the phone, talking to trade journal editors, association heads, government experts.

"There are people who have been investigating things that influence your industry or your product directly or indirectly. There are clues all the time out there and it's the savvy marketer who will pick up on those clues and try to make them work for them."

One of the main ideas Sharp stresses to her clients is the importance of staying informed about future trends.

"The focus of our work is to look for information that will give our clients a competitive edge in the future. We don't really spend a lot of time looking at what has happened up until today. We look for information that will point out opportunities or warn clients of potential problems or threats.

"There are so many changes that are occurring in our world today, you cannot do business just by knowing what's going on in your industry. You really have to be aware not only of what's going on in industries that are directly and indirectly related to yours, you have to be aware of changes in the economy, attitudes, behaviors, lifestyles and how they will affect your product in the future."

For example, she says, while doing research on group life insurance many years back, she came across information on the effect that "transitioning" - changing jobs, going through a divorce, caring for parents who become ill - might have on the insurance industry.

"When people go through an experience like that there's a feeling of a lack of stability, of being unsettled, and what that means is that if you can show some way that your product or service can give people a greater feeling of stability or security, you're tapping into a kind of unspoken concern. This finding applies to many industries, but I came across it in an article on group life insurance."

While Sharp is often asked to gather numbers - what she calls "hard" information - it is in the more nebulous world of opinions and commentary - or "soft" information - that she makes some of her most useful finds.

"People like facts and statistics, because they're tangible and verifiable. But I think the soft information is also valuable, even though it's more readily dismissed, because that's where the clues are, the insights, and perspectives."

It is also important, she says, to be open to information that challenges your opinions or beliefs, about your market, or even the world around you, because this can often be the source of new insights.

"Most of us, when we find information that's different or unusual, we tend to dismiss it. The more diverse and open-minded you can be, the better.

"For example, a few years ago, I read an article on how single people spend their money. It said that single women over 55 spend more money than single men over 55 on cars, and conversely, that men of that age spend more on apparel. That's the opposite of everything we believe, and even if you're not marketing cars or apparel, it's telling you that something is going on with that age group. And maybe it's something you hadn't considered before and which could be an opportunity.

"You have to wonder, how did a competitor come out with something that never even occurred to you? It could be an ad campaign, or the way they position their product, or the features they're touting. What was it that they knew that you didn't know?"

Sharp says she is surprised that so little "future researching" is done prior to primary research. "It seems to me that your primary research is most valuable when you have some clues to what might be happening in the near future. If you can incorporate that information into your primary research, you have the opportunity to check it out perhaps six months to a year before those changes become larger trends or movements."