As the founder of Trendhunter.com, speaker Jeremy Gutsche relentlessly tracks and finds The Next Big Thing—that valuable but elusive commodity—for a global audience that generates millions of views a month. But how can businesses jump on board? In a major article, Profit Magazine features Gutsche and his work with big data at Trendhunter.

"Trend Hunter, [Gutsche] explains, is more than a website: It’s a market research firm for the digital age, with a data-driven model that contrasts with more traditional 'cool gurus', who identify trends and dispense insightful pronouncements based solely on observation and 'gut instinct', writes Profit. "Every article view and click on Trend Hunter’s litany of listicles and galleries is fuel for its data machine."

And the data machine is what companies are after, in the hopes that it will yield market insights that will shed light on consumer behaviour and provide a competitive advantage. But raw data can be unwieldy and chaotic. That's what Gutsche and his company have set out to do—to filter out the chaos. "Just as it takes a master craftsperson to cut, polish and give a rough diamond its shape, raw data ultimately requires a human being to make it shine," says Profit. "Data might add scientific sparkle to the business of finding the next big thing, but there’s still an art to telling us what the numbers mean. And that too is what companies pay people like Gutsche to do."

Curious about which trends are really going to skyrocket in 2015? In the video embedded above, Gutsche presents next year's top trends, from responsive retail to everyday robotics to multisensory marketing and virtual reality.

Jeremy Gutsche is one of the world's top innovation speakers and the author of Better and Faster: The Proven Path to Unstoppable Ideas. To book Jeremy Gutsche for your next event, contact The Lavin Agency.