If – like me – you’re a fan of using statistics to show you where you should be going, have a read of 10 Things from 2010 that May Shape Your 2011 on Search Engine Journal. The author has pulled together “a compendium of industry-level tid bits” for the UK, many of which came as news to me. It’s easy here in industrial and scientific marketing to say that almost all the growth areas aren’t of interest to us, but time and time again in the past, where the consumer sector has led, the business-to-business sector actually follows. So even if you’re quite sure that Facebook, mobile devices, Twitter and online stores have nothing to do with your business, perhaps you should at least be considering how you’re going to cope if they do suddenly become important. This time last year I wouldn’t have thought I’d have been doing much other on a mobile device than checking emails in the immediate future. The iPad changed all that. There may be a lot more surprises in store for us over the next year or two.