In our hyper-connected culture of touch screens, smart phones and ironic fashion, the act of trend-spotting has become a science unlike any other.

Trends pulse through many veins of society, from technology and fashion to financial and dietary—trends inform and perpetuate the taste of the masses.  Having the ability to forecast a trend just before it becomes fashionably popular in a given market can mean big successes for an individual idea or even a whole industry.

Why Waste Time on Trendy?
While it may seem like a clichéd act harkening back to high school years spent trying to be the first kid to wear Nike Air Jordans’ or use ICQ messenger, genuine trend spotting is a valuable tool.   The fact is, trends are more than just accidental explosions of popularity; they are reasonably calculable offshoots of human desire. Once you are able to track and foresee trends, there is no limit to the ideas and avenues of profitable innovation that you can seize.

For instance, when the desire for affordable, fast dining outside the home first appeared in the late 1940’s, a few trend-spotters were quick to respond.  Spawning burger and fried chicken stops across America, the fast food nation trend as we know it was conceived, and those originally inspired trend-setters are still pumping out McProfits today.

How Can Trend Spotters Help You?
It boils down to the pattern whereby tracking trends generates inspiration and insight into consumer culture.  And, if you are able to harvest trends before they become mainstreamed and mass produced, not only will you find yourself ahead of the curve, indeed, you can be the innovator of the next successful IPad, American Appareal, Facebook or something even better.

TrendCity
It is in this haze of trends that the TrendCity project becomes obviously necessary.  Ultimately, TrendCity will become the go-to website for groundbreaking trends pertinent to Canadians.  Our website will act as a hub of inspiration for thought leaders and trendsetters in Canada.

By bringing together leading trendsetters we can create the ultimate online community of Canadians to share their insights on the current trends in their area of expertise.  TrendCity members will be able to maximize their networking potentials and feed off the inspiration of other like-minded “Trendies”, while benefiting from exclusive access to groundbreaking trend reports and guest lectures.

TrendCity is currently a work in progress, but we are actively seeking to grow a team of talented Trendies to populate our community.

If you are always ahead of the curve and constantly forecasting future trends (whether it’s science, the arts, design, business, film, technology, education, etc.), send an email to: andi@agentwildfire.com and brag about your trend-talents.

An invite and referral-only gathering of style-conscious tastemakers, innovation brokers, culture-savvy trendspotters & seriously connected ringleaders who live, work, play & think ahead of the mainstream.

the big idea:
The future is already here, it’s just not widely distributed yet. Less than 4% of the population are true trailblazers of culture - the people that develop incredibly creative or innovative stuff or the people that spot the best stuff first. They are incredible allies for brands trying to build crowdsourced content and creative, sparks for innovation research and seed ambassadors for new launches. TrendCity is the first Canadian-focused network of thousands of these early-adopting people.

elements:
Email newsletter and Insight Blog - exposure among leading Canadian people, places and things
“Wall of Orange” Trendspotter Network - a database of informed early market movers
“Wall of Purple” Tastemaker Network - a hothouse of creative talent and ideasparks
Trend Reports - periodic and customized reports on marketplace and cultural trends
TrendCity Beta Testers - feedback from informed market tastemakers
TrendCity Launching Pad - twice-yearly live event platform for launching products
TrendCity Consulting - workshops and private events on creative ideas and insight on what’s next

benefits:
- superior concept research
- advance testing group
- seeded tastemaker and trendspotter exposure
- innovation stimulus
- seeded and credible ambassadors
- marketplace insight

scope:
- Geography - Canada - Major Cities
- Timing - All year - April and September events, November professional event
- Scale - 5,000 qualified trendspotters/tastemakers

the right partners:
- New launches
- Buzz industries –i.e. entertainment/fashion
- Tech, gadgets, hardware and wireless
- Innovation and insight chasers
- Premium brands and exclusive products
- User-generated content seekers
- Non-traditional exploratory techniques

contact:
Agent Wildfire - Canada’s Word of Mouth Experts www.agentwildfire.com 416-255-4500

the big idea:
A profiled group of thousands of Canadian tastemakers, trendspotters, opinion leaders, experts, social ringleaders and grassroots celebrities - essentially, the people that influence what the other people buy, think and do. In a connected world, you need these people. Now with more community features, web functionalities, expanded campaign slots and customized content

the benefits:
- Opportunity for clients to build brands/launches with an influential member group
- Word of Mouth campaigns/influencer seeding
- User-generated programs
- Insight and research programs
- Brand experience/VIP events
- Promoting base Agent Wildfire stand alone communities or campaigns
- Engage influencers on a more cost effective and time-efficient basis
- Build an opportunity to for a uniquely Canadian, portfolio-wide category exclusivity

scope:
- Geography - National
- Timing - Third quarter 2010
- Scale - 10s, 100s, or 1000s of influencers engaged

the right clients:
- a natural opinion leader audience
- a new launch, audience or claim
- a need for credibility, authenticity or pre-seeding
- a grassroots approach or complement to a mass campaign
- a need to build or change perception

url:
www.theinfluencers.ca

contact:
Agent Wildfire - Canada’s Word of Mouth Experts www.agentwildfire.com 416-255-4500

I keynoted an opening presentation with an auditorium of 200 marketers in Toronto at Marketing Magazine’s conference “Engaging Influencers” this week.

Given the reaction of the crowd, it’s about time this section of marketing was covered off.  You could tell for some, it was reinforcement of stuff that wasn’t getting nearly enough airplay in their offices, for others - you could see the pin drop and give consideration to an entirely different world out there beyond the scope of their current “marketing air wars”.

For another constituency, habits were so engrained that people were trying to fit what they were learning into what they already knew and practiced. Not an easy forcefit. My friend David Alston from Radian6 explained adroitly what this actually meant using a really clever metaphor of the “church of the community” - engaged brand owners and the “church of the audience” - mass marketing practitioners — worthy consideration for another post.

In my opening keynote, I covered off in the attached presentation:

- some of these people are not like the others - the parallels and proof that influencers exist

- our networks, white papers and new book - Wikibrands

- refuting Duncan Watts and supporting The Tipping Point

- how we should value these people differently

- a call to action - why we should care, the Marketing Divide, the power of a “person like me”

- the flipping on its head of the mass marketing model

- growth expectations for word of mouth #1 and individual components of the new marketing spectrum

- the stories of Mozilla Firefox and lululemon

- why influencers are so damn valuable

- RECS - the formula of influence - Reach x Exposure x Credibility x Suasion

- the inequality of Influencer participation

- the traits of an influencer - ACTIVESP

- 6 types of Influencers - their definition, motivations and profiling questions

- Crossing the Chasm - how each type of Influencer works in sequence to spread ideas

- the 36 motivations that spark Influencers to do stuff - the who (the audience), the what you do (the activity) and the what you are (brand/product), yes there are 36

- the six dos and don’ts of influencer marketing

- reinforcement that humans are social animals - engage, converse, relate - don’t brag, broadcast and conquer

- our contact page

As much as their were some good case studies presented at the conference, it made ourselves at Agent Wildfire have a little swagger in our step realizing just how up front of our industry we really are and what an incredible set of assets we offer our clients - a nice unexpected reinforcement.

Please share us your thoughts on the attached and stay tuned for three important Agent Wildfire influencer announcements and launches in the new year.