IBM Smarter Commerce: Jeremy Gutsche On Crowdsourcing and Predicting New Trends

In today's market, a trend can be born overnight, making it particularly challenging for experts to make predictions. Many, however, rely on data and focus groups as a source of information for calculating the next big product on the market.

In a recent interview at Smarter Commerce Global Summit 2013 in Nashville, Bryan Kramer, the CEO and President of Purematter, spoke with innovation keynote speaker and trends expert Jeremy Gutsche on the best methods for predicting trends.

Gutsche starts off the interview by recognizing a very important difference between what is "popular" and what is "cool." According to him, popular is mainstream, but "cool is something unique and cutting-edge and something people are talking about."

While many major businesses and market research firms rely on crowdsourcing and focus groups to identify what will be "cool" tomorrow, Gutsche believes that these methods will not product accurate results. He sees "[looking] for all the pockets of opportunity" across industries that other people aren't necessarily looking for as an effective way for finding new viral trends. He believes that too many companies are "micro-comparing" themselves to competitors, and as a result, the market is riddled with duplicate products and services.

Watch the full interview at IBM Smarter Commerce.