Name: John Fischer.
What's your technical title?
Trend Analyst at Faith Popcorn's BrainReserve.
What the heck does that mean?
BrainReserve is one of the first 'Futurist' consultancies. We direct Fortune 100 companies on what the next 10 to 15 years will look like in a given category. I've worked on 'The Future of the Supermarket,' 'A Day in the Life of a 5 to 10-year-old in 2015,' and other such ridiculous sounding projects. We do this by 'brailing the culture,' meaning that we are constantly out on the streets attending art installations, poring over fringe magazines, and trying strange fermented-milk beverages from Russia. As a Trend Analyst, I try to make sense of the noise, and at the end of the day I try to draw conclusions about consumer behavior based on all the data points. A rash of bed-themed restaurants around the globe (like New York's Duvet) might mean that people are feeling afraid of life's harsh realities and craving an almost infantile security. Or it might mean nothing.
