Jeremy Gutsche, “chief trend hunter” at TrendHunter.com, woke up the hungover Sunday morning crowd with a lively panel on innovation and trending. Displaying the subversive attitude that one would expect from a trend expert, the charismatic speaker started his lecture by stating, “Cool is not what’s popular. Cool is unique, cutting edge, and viral.”
Gutsche presented case studies and examples in support of his arguments, which were perhaps unconventional, yet made perfect sense. He emphasized the importance of culture in determining what is relevant and appealing.
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast. When you make a cultural connection you’re not speaking to someone, you’re speaking with them,” said Gutsche.
As the title indicates, the discussion focused on seizing opportunity. Gutsche displayed a lengthy list of highly successful companies that began in the midst of disaster. He presented a framework for exploiting chaos, thoroughly exploring the processes of trend hunting, adaptive innovation, and infectious marketing. The main point of Gutsche’s presentation – simple, yet profound – was that “crisis equals opportunity.”
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him, good culture starts with hiring a good group of strong executives to surround you. The second most important thing is the employee hiring process. At Bazaarvoice, at least 3 executives interview each candidate to see how people fit into the company culture. If you hire right, employees can really contribute to the culture since culture doesn’t always evolve from the top down. Hire slowly, hire quickly. Jason Black, CEO of 
Finally, I’ll go to Designing Change in America. Politics is another passion of mine. I look forward to hearing how the Obama “brand” was created during the Presidential election…and how it evolved. I always like hearing about how things start out and how we got to the final product. Given the hectic, fast-paced nature of politics, I’ll be interested to hear how it all came together. John Slabyk, the Art Director of 
