A short interview with Piers Fawkes of PSFK

Trends research and consultancy company PSFK has a huge audience: 800, 000 readers a month, and growing considerably since their launch as a blog in 2004. Their consultancy business is on the rise too. They bring out reports on issues of the moment periodically; their most recent one was inspired by a conversation with UNICEF on challenges in health, which served as the creative brief and focussed on the Future of Health.

In a world where publishing attracts more attention than it used to before, I thought it would be interesting to have a quick chat with Piers Fawkes, one of the founders of PSFK, to get his thoughts on publishing in a Web 2.0 world, and what he thought was the business model of the future. By his own admission, he's minced no words in saying what he thinks, reflecting his stand as someone with a strong point of view on the topic of publishing today, being so involved in it himself. Here goes:

1. PSFK was started in 2004. Since then it has grown from a blog to a consultancy that collects and publishes research, and a network connecting experts. With the rise of new agencies like co: that also tap collaboration as their USP, what do you think of the collaboration/co-working phenomenon, and how has it affected the way you work?

What PSFK has is media and content and that's what you need to fuel collaboration. Our daily content and regular events attract 800,000 creative professionals to us each month. We tap into that network everyday with our publishing, events and consulting business. No other agency can do what we do.

2. PSFK covers a range of subjects: design, architecture, advertising, social media and marketing, to name just a few. Are there any common themes you see emerging across all these fields?

It's important to get lateral inspiration across different topics and industries. We put these thoughts into our public reports including Future of Retail and Future of Health.

3. Which new start-ups from 2010 do you see as having the maximum potential to change the way we do things in our daily routine?

 The great companies in those reports!

4. Made by Many is very interested in the future of the news industry: we think that a giant like the Times (UK) didn't pay the enough attention to the issue of cultural relevance, which has resulted in their paywall alienating a large number of readers. As a content provider yourself, what tools and strategies does PSFK think are critical to employ in order to stay relevant?

I think publishers can do what they want. If they want to put up paywalls then they have every right to. You don't have the right to have a say in what a newspaper does just because you read it. If they fail, they fail. If they make enough money from a small private audience, good for them. 

5. The recently-concluded PSFK conference in London had 'Inspired Interactions' as one of its themes, where speakers examined the relationship between the physical and digital. Are there any examples that bridge the digital-physical gap not often mentioned in the press, that you think deserve more attention?

Our next report for the United Nations will provide themes on the Future of Realtime (due December). This report will look at how we can find indicators of change (people fleeing their homes, pandemics) by monitoring indirectly related data. Google Flu is the classic example: Google can predict a flu epidemic a week earlier than traditional methods by analyzing the geographical use of keywords such as 'fever'.

6. As a company that tracks constantly-changing trends globally, what is most difficult about your job, and what do you like most about it?

We have a pretty straightforward process that uses our global network to provide unparalleled trends research. Companies like Apple & BMW return again and again to work with us. Once they trust us, we provide the most amazing thinking that drives their marketing and product development.

7. What's next for PSFK?

Today, our services are spreading to traditional agency services. Pepsi just asked us to develop POS marketing concepts based on trends research. Target regularly asks us to ideate retail and service ideas. We present a future agency model.

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Thanks very much, Piers. Certainly an interesting set of answers!

Image by Sean Ganann via Flickr courtesy a Creative Commons license