Tome tracks our trends, from tattoos to snipers

— -- In a world where even the ring of a phone is individualized, it makes sense that the megatrends movement sparked by a best seller 25 years ago has now been sliced and diced into microtrends.

One man behind this shift to the niche is pollster Mark J. Penn, CEO of the PR firm Burson Marsteller and a chief adviser for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. You have him to thank for the term "soccer moms," a group he identified as pivotal swing voters while working for Bill Clinton in 1996.

In his decidedly macro-size book, Microtrends, Penn and co-author E. Kinney Zalesne have waded through polls, studies and surveys to ferret out 75 new pockets of humanity — from Extreme Commuters to Sun-Haters to Shy Millionaires. It's subsets like these, comprised of as little as 1% of the population, that are shaping the future of society, Penn hypothesizes.

Take tattoos. As of 2006, Penn writes, more than 30 million Americans have them. And it's not just for sailors anymore: A Harris Survey found the best-represented income group among tattooed Americans (22%) are people making over $75,000 a year — or as Penn dubs them, the Upscale Tattooed.

That's all very interesting, but the strength of the book lies in Penn's analysis of the implications and opportunities of each microtrend. With clientele like that, he wonders, where are the upscale tattoo parlors? Why no national tattoo chain? Where is the McDonald's of tattoos, he asks, a standardized brand, safety assurances and national advertising?

Inevitably, he adds, the rise in body art will force changes in workplace policies, as well. Ford, Wells Fargo, and Yahoo already allow body art, but it's still a no-no at other organizations such as Starbucks and many police departments.

The Upscale Tattooed fall under Penn's "Looks and Fashion" section, alongside Surgery Lovers and Powerful Petites.

Other categories run the gamut of life, from politics to religion and from work to leisure. Among some of the more eyebrow-raising microtrends: