While you may not think too deeply about the layout of your office building, innovation speaker Jeremy Gutsche explains that the design of your office is actually "an element of branding" for your company. Constantly on the lookout for the next cutting-edge developments in every industry, Gutsche recently spoke about the rise of "imposed interaction" in the workplace. This increasingly popular open concept business environment encourages workers to interact with coworkers in different departments of a company. Companies like Google, Facebook, National Bank, Pixar, Inventionland and Oakley have incorporated this trend in varying degrees into their corporate strategies. Instead of segregating employees, these companies are encouraging company-wide interaction to improve morale and boost innovation within the business.

To further expand on this concept of openness in business, Gutsche recently appeared on BNN's Business Day PM to discuss the use of transparency in branding. McDonald's, for example, unveiled a marketing campaign where they encouraged the public to ask them questions about their manufacturing process. Every question (aside from those with profanity contained in them) would be publicly answered to make the company more open and authentic to the public. As Gutsche adds, this is the biggest asset that social media provides—the ability for companies to connect with their customers in an open and meaningful way.

As the founder of Trendhunter.com, the largest trend hunting website in the world, Gutsche is plugged in to the latest in consumer behavior. In his wildly popular keynotes on innovation, he combines the crowd-sourced information he gathers on his site with research from his book Exploiting Chaos to help companies get ahead in these uncertain economic times. Insightful and practical, his talks cut through the noise and help audiences master the skills they need to become more innovative in the marketplace.