Marian Salzman

Knowing what the future holds isn't just a great party trick; it has many implications for companies, brands, and their consumers, especially in an economy in which every dollar (and follower) counts. In today's "always on" culture of information overload, Marian Salzman's trendspotting acuity has only become more honed, and necessary, for making sense of it all. Her provocative, bespoke presentations showcase her extreme knowledge of all things topical and ability to relate intimately to anyone – propelling audiences to not only enhance their business or themselves but also watch for smart trends as they engage in their own world.

Sample speaking topics include:

• Trends for the Near Future: Ten Trends That Will Redefine the Next Three to Five Years
  Marian has been spotting trends for almost two decades. She is best known for launching metrosexual mania in 2003, but she also created several other buzzes, including "It's America Online," "globesity," and "millennium blue." Trends are hard to figure and harder to tease out. Marian talks about how doing it right means tracking people, social momentum, brands, economies, companies – big business for people in many industries who need to be thinking ahead, for themselves and clients. Some of her more recent trends include the surreality of life, hyperlocal as the new global, a lack of real intimacy in the era of "friends," and emo bling, hyperpolarization, cyberdisinhibition, kidsploitation, and beware the mobmedia.
• Millennials: The Generation Making the Next Loudest Boom
  In 2007, Marian told 60 Minutes that millennials, people age 18 to 25, could be incorrigible. "You can't really ask them to live and breathe the company," she told Morley Safer, "because they're living and breathing themselves – and that keeps them very busy." And now? She has never been as optimistic about the power of young minds. People under 30 changed the way we communicate (see the founders of Google and Facebook) and helped propel Barack Obama into the presidency. They have a genuine passion for good, forcing businesses to clean up their act and pay up on their promises of social responsibility. And they are energetic and passionate about their own power (with the help of social media) to change the world.
• Consumerism in the Age of Less is More
  The world has seen its share of change lately. Now, a New Consumerism is taking hold. People around the world are making changes to simplify their finances, their consumption, their lives – because it makes them feel good. Significant portions of the populations in seven markets are trading hyperconsumerism for a consumption that's more subdued, considered, and sane, according to a survey by Euro RSCG Worldwide. Four paradigms underlie the shift: rightsizing (owning less stuff), growing up (gaining control and accepting personal responsibility), seeking purposeful pleasure (being aware of their capacity to influence by what they buy), and embracing substance (finding what's real).
• Teenagents and How They Are Reshaping... Everything
  Teenagers are at a new frontier of social culture. They're changing the field of marketing, altering communications, inventing new lexicons and adopting still-embryonic innovations. Once we were impressed, maybe even a little confounded, when a teen guided us through a new social technology. But today the situation is far beyond that. Teens are the ones who are inventing, not guiding; they're creating, not using. The teens of today have never known a world without hyperconnectivity. They're finding that the moment they possess two critical things they never had before – the tools of social power and a reason to use them – they are transformed. And so is the rest of society because of it.

Called "one of the foremost social media/marketing experts in the world," Marian Salzman uses her two BlackBerrys and her singular flair for trendspotting to observe and participate in the SoMe sphere. In tailored presentations, she decodes the changing vocabulary, sends cultural and business trends through a digital lens, and focuses on the intimacy and calls to action that underlie the seemingly distant social world. Marian gets hyperlocal with any audience, cutting through the blurring and buzzing to give them surefire strategies for understanding and integrating the latest in social media and social networking.

Sample speaking topics include:

• Welcome to the Age of the Social Mind
  There's a whole new vocabulary in today's social media-focused world: trialogues, square marketing, SoMe, hyperlocalization, virtual bully. Size doesn't matter; breadth and depth of connections do. Demography and geography aren't so relevant anymore; intimacy is. On the plus side, social networking is opening the world to causes, awareness, social responsibility, social action. And blurring is taken to the extreme: Life meets work for the ultimate convergence. Yes, you can reach anyone, anytime, but that has led to an "always on" culture leading many of us feeling the need to unplug. Time is now the ultimate luxury item and our most precious resource.
• Social Media and Social Life: A Portrait of Today's Connectivity
  Americans have dramatically integrated social networking tools into their lives. According to a definitive study by Euro RSCG Worldwide, the parent company of the PR agency Marian leads, their world is expanding and narrowing at the same time because of social media's hyperlocalization quotient. And cyberdisinhibition – being more willing to behave online in ways they wouldn't in person – has both emboldened users and led them to inappropriate behavior. Plus, despite buzz to the contrary, online social networking is enhancing, not deteriorating, relationships among Americans and their involvement in political and humanitarian issues. The study also guided Marian toward spotting some new trends, including the hugs of virtuality and preview dating.
• Global Consumer Insights & Social Media Tools for Harnessing What's New!
  The social media sphere has become the world's richest soil for smart trends. For the best opportunities to create breakthrough campaigns, build buzz, and keep people talking about brands, tap trendsetters. Marian shares what she thinks are the best websites and social networking sites to know for teasing out trends, talks about some of her recent trends and how they're proving out, tells what her biggest trend hits have meant for markets, gives a competitive analysis of other top trendspotters and offers a list of top idea-exchange venues.