The CX 055: Collaborative Memberships Are On-Trend with Geraldine Wharry of Trend Atelier

The CX 055: Collaborative Memberships Are On-Trend with Geraldine Wharry of Trend Atelier

Geraldine Wharry: I think I'm learning that actually putting members at the center of what's happening in the community and putting them in the driver's seat is the new phase really. Because in the beginning I was like, "Wait, we're charging people. We shouldn't be giving them things to do," but now actually people are revving up. They're like, "No, no, no, I want to be at the center of this." And I'm finding that our members, this has been a major catalyst for them. They're like, "Yeah, this is it!”

Jillian Benbow: Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Community Experience Podcast. I am Jillian Benbow and I am the host of the show. And today I am so excited to talk to Geraldine Wharry who founded the Trend Atelier community, which is a community for trend forecasters, or future forecasters, to come together in a membership and get to talk all the things that future forecasters talk about. Her members are mostly independent, so they're not working for big agencies, and that is very much the model in this world. So it's this opportunity to get people together and as she says, and I love this, "To geek out on data and quantitative foresight."

So what is future forecasting? What is trend forecasting? If you'd asked me before I'd met Geraldine, I would assume it had to do with what's going to be in Vogue for upcoming fall fashions, that kind of thing, but it's much more big picture and it's much more in the future. So it's things like, in 10 years, what's going to be important to consumers based on society? What will be our priorities and therefore, what will we be looking for in products, in clothing, fashion, et cetera. Geraldine explains a lot better than I can, it's like the metaverse, I'm still trying to wrap my head around what this means. So I will let her explain it, you will hear her much better explanation at the beginning of the interview.

And then we're going to talk about specifically the community that she's built, why she built it, why it's special and get into the weeds a little bit, which I love to just talk about how she figured out what programming made the most sense for her community, especially because the members of her community are researchers, they like to read and think and analyze. And so community engagement for that sort of group is going to look different than some other communities where you expect people to be having a lot of forum-based conversations and that kind of thing. This is not how it works in her community. And she's found a way to have quality high value engagement for the type of member avatar that joins her community. So let's get into it with Geraldine Wharry of Trend Atelier.

Jillian Benbow: Welcome back to the Community Experience. I'm here today with Geraldine Wharry who started Trend Atelier and also the Trend Atelier community. Before we started recording, I said, I was going to go full French with that word and then I didn't do it, I chickened out, so I'll let you do that. But welcome to the show, Geraldine. I would love you to tell us just who you are and what you're doing, because it's just so fascinating and I'm so excited.

Geraldine Wharry: Well, first of all, thanks for having me. I really love your podcast. So I was really honored to be invited. And yes, my name's Geraldine Wharry and it's Trend Atelier, but we're a global community so we accept all ways of pronouncing it. And what do I do? That's a really good question. I'm a fashion futurist. And I guess you could say that for a long time my title was trend forecaster. And prior to that, I was a fashion designer and design director for big brands in the US, although I'm originally from Paris. But anyways, so I have a bit of a windy road and what I do is basically advise brands and institutions on the future. And I specialize more in macro trends, so two to five year predictions, but I've gone even much farther to 30 year predictions or looking even at the end of the century. So my work sometimes gets quite speculative and creative. So that's kind of the niche part of future foresight that I'm a part of because there's actually quite a layered and broad niche industry, if that makes sense?

Jillian Benbow: It does. And love, you mentioned this in some of the documents we have that you sent over before the show, that it can be interesting telling someone what you do. If you're at a cocktail party and depending who it is explaining what you do, because I feel that deeply with community. I can only imagine with futures forecasting. And I want to clarify for the audience because this is what I got held up on, but also found just so fascinating is this isn't the, "Oh, an A-line dresses are coming back" It's not that, because I think of fashion trends, it's, "What's hot for fall." It's not that, it's more big picture, correct?

Geraldine Wharry: Yeah. Yes, because it's really interesting. Well, there's different ways of responding to this. Number one, people don't know that actually fashion is very much influenced by society, cultural changes, behaviors. It's also very much influenced by technology. And even when we look at the suppliers and manufacturers that supply goods to designers, they actually work quite far ahead of time, several years ahead of time, so that's where the long view happens with fashion on a broad scale. And especially when it comes to active or the sports industry, the performance industry, they're quite far ahead in terms of fabrics, technology and everything. But as you know, fashion is very linked to marketing and culture and so people are always looking at the way we interact with fashion. We can even just look at the metaverse now and how everyone is talking about digital fashion. This is something that I was talking about years ago in forecast when it was just bubbling up.

So our job is to tell brands or institutions, "Hey, this is bubbling up and so this is what's next. Because actually you may not think that people are going to have a taste for digital fashion for their avatar, but actually they will and this is why, because X, Y, Z is happening in society." And essentially fashion is a mirror of society and one in six people in the world are employed in the fashion industry. So when there's a preference in color, it stems from something also happening in society, a mood. So when there's a preference in brights and sparkling fabrics, often that stems from also something happening in society. So I tend to be the person that talks about that rather than what's the next skirt shape.

Jillian Benbow: I have so many questions that could just derail the point of this show. So I will try to not go there. I might just email you. So one question that's popping in my head is, and I realize whether the pandemic was predictable or not, that aside, do you think just everything that's happened in the last couple years globally, do you think that's shifting what trends you've been looking at in the future? Do you think that will change what you had originally seen coming? Has it caused a pivot?

Geraldine Wharry: For me, personally no, because I've been predicting things like climate change and how it would affect our consuming preferences and just ways of designing for many years now. My first forecast around that, I put out in 2013 or 2014, and it was called refuge. And I looked at different ways, the way we would dress, but also interact with clothing, even down to how we would use biomaterial. So for me personally, I've been talking about this for a long time, but now it's reached a tipping point where it's really in the mainstream. And when I was presenting these forecasts at seminars or events or even online or through articles, through just the different channels I used to use, people would often ask me, "Do you think sustainability is a trend?" And I'm just using sustainability as just one aspect, because that's the big term we use in fashion. And I would say, "No, actually it's underpinning everything, the same way AI, for example, is going to underpin everything." But when these things are emerging, people often wonder if they're just passing trends.

But what I'm noticing now is that it's very much reaching the mainstream obviously and that's a good thing, that's a really good thing. But I think it's a bit like peeling onions with your understanding of future trends. A trend begins, maybe it's just people, pioneers, who are really at the forefront of that trend and who are ahead of the curve. And your job as a forecaster, or a futurist, is to really be able to identify who are these people on the fringe? Who are those subcultures, et cetera, et cetera? And so basically what's been happening is that now what's on the fringe of something like, how do we design more sustainably is looking more at new economic systems, et cetera, et cetera, or repair or reuse. How do we decouple manufacturing more with profit? So what's probably evolved more as a more systemic approach. And I think what has come more to the forefront are issues around inclusivity and diversity, obviously, as well. Because I tend to focus quite a few years ahead. I tend to pick up on these things before everyone else sort talks about them.

Jillian Benbow: That's so fascinating because I feel like the supply chain issues that started with the pandemic and are still lingering, seem to have accelerated how we as consumers talk about consumerism sustainability and that kind of thing. I think it's opened to a lot of people's eyes who maybe didn't realize just how global some things were. And also just with the rise of brands, like Sheen, where you're just buying direct and it's coming from Hong Kong and then it's getting stuck at a port for a month and it's so against our Amazon Prime, two day delivery habits that we've gotten into. I think it's caused some people to reassess and say, "Huh, wow, that's coming all the way from Hong Kong, plus there's supply chain delays, et cetera. Maybe I don't need that sweater. Maybe I don't need to... Oh, it's so cheap, but the carbon footprint is so large. At least I hope.

Geraldine Wharry: Yeah. And that's the thing, I guess sometimes you have these big events, these black swan events that many didn't predict that end up being tipping points. Since very often in my forecast, I have a section called wild cards where, for example, we know that the trend for buying local was emerging but what happened with the pandemic accelerated this. We know that there was already a taste for digital fashion and avatars, but what happened with the pandemic accelerated this. We know that brick and mortar stores were struggling, et cetera, et cetera. So I like to talk about wild cards and years ago I talked about, I had a wild card called scarcity behaviors. And I talked about what would happen if we're starting to run out of water, if water becomes a thing and now that's what we're seeing around the world. And that's obviously going to affect the supply chain as well.

So that's why I felt the need to explain and send you that little video before the podcast, I was like, "I just want to preface, I'm not that traditional trend forecaster." As much as I understand the need for that, I actually think that the scale of the issues happening in the world right now require more than ever this really long-term view. And that's why also I created the Trend Atelier community, not just to just talk about myself, but as the founder, I sensed a need where a lot of my fellow forecasters and or designers who really put future foresight at the center of their work, were having these conversations and needing a place to figure out, what do we do next? Because basically future foresight is encouraging people to make something new, to produce something new. We say to brands to people, here's what's next, go chase it, but our paradigms are changing.

Jillian Benbow: And so that brings up a fantastic segue into the community you created because there are two things that really jumped out at me, was one, this industry you mentioned, there was a lot of gate keeping. It was very hard to get into and maybe share information, so there was that piece, but then also, to what you just said, you really focus on environmental factors, sustainability, but also what's happening in society, social justice, that sort of thing. So you have this niche view, it sounds like, in the very broad scheme of people doing this future foresight, I'm trying to get the lingo down. So tell me about how did this community come about? Other than you saw a need for it, but also I'm assuming you wanted a place for people to be able to come together and safely talk about these things, but share, knowledge share in an environment that maybe didn't exist before.

Geraldine Wharry: So I was doing forecasts and I was doing trends seminars and then I got interviewed on the future foresight methodologies. So that was my first inkling on the high demand for knowing more about future foresight methodologies. And then I had a point where I had this retainer contract that ended and I had a pocket of time to just finally be able to deliver these future foresight classes that I had started developing for universities or seminars on the side of my consultant work for people who had been demanding, they were online. But the byproduct of that, because I decided that we should have monthly live sessions, is that people would come together from the Trend Atelier school once a month from around the world and conversations would start to go in different places.

"How do I get recognized for my work and fairly paid, because my work is so time intensive?" Because obviously we are technically researchers and almost doctors and anthropologists of the future, but also, "How do I talk to my clients about producing less and producing sustainably? How do I convince them? I know this is important. I know this is the future, but they're not really listening to me." Just so many questions. And then on the flip side of that, I was also doing keynotes, talking at trade shows, events, et cetera, or delivering forecasts that were PDF, and I was finding the format really prescriptive. And I was noticing that through active learning and ways of work shopping or questioning or involving people, that actually maybe I would have a greater impact because I guess that's maybe slightly manipulative. My idea was, "how do we make an impact? How do we convince people the direction they need to take?"

So a long story short, I was talking about this to a coach at the time, a business coach I was working with, and I was telling him about my dream of delivering future foresight that would be interactive, that would be a learning experience, and that would allow people to trial new methodologies, but also discuss future trend themes. It was a big ask. It was very ambitious. And the coach was like, "You should look up these community platforms that are emerging," and that was it, that was it. And then the pandemic was born and all these people I was helping support, we were coming together online and I was like, "That's it. Do you want to join? I'm putting out this community and beta testing and this is what we're going to trial." So for about six months, the future trend forecasters or designers who were very focused on the future, I selected maybe, there were only 15 of us and we got together and they helped me shape. Then when we were ready to go live, which was in early 2021. And so that's kind of how we were born.

And I would say that now I'm at a stage where I'm wanting to combine the school and the community even more. And so there's certain things we're piloting right now that I can't really talk about, but I'm really excited about making this an increasingly, what I call co-creative process, and really putting also the members in the driver's seat of what we do because we have so much talent in the community. And obviously I'm someone who's quite plugged into innovation, so I look at what DAOs are doing or what's happening on the blockchain.

And I don't want to power the community with a crypto. I don't necessarily want to create a DAO on the blockchain, but I am really interested in these decentralized models. And so I feel like I just rambled a bit, but that's how it came about, but it's literally peeling an onion. It's constantly evolving and it's a iterative process and it requires a ton of listening from the members. And now I just feel more strongly than ever from listening to the members that we need to really focus lot on social and climate justice because that's all they really care about increasingly.

Jillian Benbow: That's amazing. And it sounds like it's so fortunate these community platforms are just such a game changer, their evolution in the last 10-ish years to give someone like yourself and a business like yours, a place to gather. And it's life changing for so many people because you can have these global communities of specific types of people in fields or whatever it is and come together and collaborate. And hopefully it's like a glimmer of hope for humanity. We can have people come together and really accelerate the thinking and the ways of doing things.

Geraldine Wharry: And I feel like I didn't fully answer the section where you said it was gated. There are amazing future trend agencies, but oftentimes if you're an independent it's really hard to break through and it's really hard to have access to high-quality future trend insights, these future trend reports or insight platforms where you get a lot of trend news are incredibly costly. There's a lot of barrages also in terms of feeling recognized, feeling well remunerated for their work. I found that actually, yes, I could have gone for a company that is B2B, but I felt like B2I, I mean B to individual, was much more powerful. And I wanted everyone to feel like they could have an impact in this future foresight industry, if that makes sense? And have access to a ton of resources because it can get quite a lonely job.

And that's the thing about community, you enter with a type of focus, whether it's like, I remember this reading about this woman who had a community that deals with copper deficiency in goats, you can get very niche, but through that, you end up discovering people who have self confidence issue, who don't know how to price themselves, who don't have support, can't afford a business coach, maybe are neurodivergent. You discover so many other things and community becomes something that you can't scale, that is really about listening to the individual. And our industry is generally about listening to the brands and just making these big reports and helping brands make money. And I am trying to look at it from a different angle. How can we help individuals in the foresight industry make an impact so that we put in place more sustainable ways of living and thriving? So that's the ambition, I guess.

Jillian Benbow: I love it. It's funny too, it's ironic, I think, in a way, that you're very much creating a decentralized marketplace, in a way. You're getting away from the big agency ways that have the expensive reports and whatnot and creating the modern version of it, the future version, the futurist version of futurism, if you will.

Geraldine Wharry: And the way I envision it is you're attending a future trend presentation that sort of lubricates your thinking, gives you new ideas, gives you access to new projects or ideas you hadn't known that'll feed your idea around this future trend. And then on top of that, you're workshopping on the methods to even further implement this or sharing methods of how we came up with these future trends. So because ultimately something I didn't say in the interview is that I really believe ultimately that we will all be somewhat futurists, that hopefully in future generations, not too far from now, we will all understand better how important it is to have the future in mind when we make decisions. And that maybe even future foresight will be something that will be taught at school.

And this is something the UN is already doing, they have a whole futurist literacy program for children and teenagers. And even ancient wisdom's called for always thinking multiple generations ahead. So I'm hoping that it sounds maybe a little bit weird, but people have criticized me in the past for sharing too much, sharing what my little secrets of how I do what I do. I'm like, "No, that's the whole point. Everyone should know what I do."

Jillian Benbow: And it's funny because it reminds me very much of old school business mentalities versus where we are now with this shift. Be it, the great resignation people leaving corporate jobs to be creators in their own way, become consultants and work on their own terms. All these companies that are demanding their employees come back to the office after two years of remote work for the pandemic and people saying, "No, this is great. We want to do this. You need to listen to us or we're leaving." And that's such a mind shift, I think, for larger companies. But a lot of us I think are realizing, "Yeah. That works for them. But for me, what would be great?" Is just having real conversations with real people and coming up with a very well thought out solution, it's better.

Geraldine Wharry: Yeah. And it's challenging because it requires thinking of entirely new... A whole new business model and a completely different community architecture. And obviously as the founder of the Trend Atelier, we do need money, so we do need funding, so that's something that I'm trying to map out what that would look like. And even just, I know you've had episodes about founder burnout or the mindfulness and wellness needed to be a community founder, it's so much work. So I'm thinking about the legacy and the work of the community, but also within that, where do I fit in? So there's a lot of moving parts, but creating this community... Creating the school was game changing because it was a big success and I didn't even promote it that much, because I'm a busy consultant, but it was very eyeopening, but then what the community did, it was a game changer in my life really. It's been a ton of work and at times really tiring and very demanding, but it's also, on a human-centered level, been transformative really.

Jillian Benbow: I'm curious if you're comfortable sharing just a little bit about your pricing model, is your community free or is it a paid community?

Geraldine Wharry: So it's a paid community and we do offer discounts for-

Jillian Benbow: I'm very happy to hear that.

Geraldine Wharry: Yeah, there is a value to what we bring and let's be honest, nowadays, people are paying for a podcast, five pounds or $5 a month. I'm in the UK, so I'm saying pounds, but I mean I think what we offer is transformative. We're helping people refine their careers, we're helping them get jobs, we're helping them connect. We are creating, indirectly, a form of wealth for others and we need funding as well so that it was never going to be a free community.

The first few weeks we allowed our students to surf through it for a month and then we said, "That's it, you've had a chance to look at it." But it is still very moderately priced because our members are not companies, they're individuals, but every time we reopen, we raise the price and we have discounts for educators and for activists. We don't have really many students, but we have a few members who might have gone back to school, they're doing a master's and then I might say, "Hey, do you need a little discount?" And then in some cases we look case by case if a member is a single mom and needs some support. So we are very human. We're not trying to be cut and dry, but it's really challenging. The ROI and the pricing thing is challenging.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah. It's always hard. And I think it's very easy to worry, "Oh this is too much. I don't feel right." But you also have to think about what you're providing and then also the amount of money you can put towards hiring help or those kind of things, so you don't burn out. So it's a tricky, tightrope to walk. Absolutely.

Geraldine Wharry: It requires a kind of self-worth. I'm a member of communities where I pay and I don't go in that often, but when I do, I get so much that it's worth even the two or three months I wasn't in it, because I know my time is worth a certain amount and I make the calculations and I'm like, "This is totally worth it." But not everyone is in that kind of money mindset. And so it's just so interesting to me, the whole money mindset thing. Anyway, that's a whole other conversation.

Jillian Benbow: It's super fascinating, it really is. We see that in Pro, people come at it different ways. Some people join and are like "Oh, I just put money on the table and join and magically the issues in my business will go away."

And then we have the extreme opposite, we have members like yourself that sometimes I'm like, "Are they still here?" And then I'll check in and they're like, "Yeah, I'm great. I pop in when I need it. And otherwise I'm busy with my business." I'm like, "Awesome, good to know, good to talk to you." It's the whole gambit. And it's one of those lovely things about communities and member avatars, if you will, the different ways people engage, but also how they think about it financially, as far as what sort of investment it is.

Geraldine Wharry: With the kind of work I do, and I noticed it with a lot of our members, during the day we read a lot, we research a lot, we read a lot of articles. We listen to a lot of podcasts, we go to conferences, events. So our bandwidth for commenting online and interacting online on our spare time is not very big. And I've experienced that with members of the Trend Atelier where I'm like, "Gosh, they're really quiet." And then I get messages saying, "This community has changed my life." And I'm like, "Wow, stuff is happening behind the scenes that I don't realize," because we're so focused on the data and the likes and how often someone logs in. But actually the value sometimes is very hard to quantify.

Jillian Benbow: It is. It's very hard with community. I've talked about this before, so I'll be brief, but I just have to take the opportunity. But community metrics are not figured out yet by any means. And I recently interviewed Mathilde over in the Circle community, she's the head of community there, but I think her episodes coming out after... I love her. Her episode's coming out after yours actually, so for anybody listening, stay tuned for that one. But we talk a lot about how the evolution of how you determine if a community is valuable through metrics is very much based on the product world and the tech startup world. And it's not quite there, it's not the same thing. Community as a product is not the same as software as a product.

And so your engagement metrics are just a piece of the puzzle and it can be really hard. It can be to know the health of your community depending on the way most people interact with said community. So to your point, it sounds to me what you're saying is your members are used to consuming versus the interaction on a post type thing. So maybe it seems like no one's there, but in reality they're doing what you do at work, which is reading it, analyzing, thinking, that kind of thing and not necessarily feeling obliged to then...

Geraldine Wharry: Our community, we're think we're thinkers, total thinkers, total artists, creatives, intellectuals, that's totally our profile. We need time for introspection.

Jillian Benbow: That's interesting. Do you find with your community, is there a specific type of programming that does result in engagement? I know you do live events. I think you just did an in-person event. Did that just happen?

Geraldine Wharry: No, we're planning on one. It's not finalized at all, but it's time, it's really time that we meet in person. Yeah, we do live events and it's quite varied, the ones that do really well. Sometimes we'll have a guest, we had a journalist, a fashion journalist called Kish Lal, who talks a lot about trends and is essentially a bit like a forecaster herself and works for really big magazines. She came to speak to us, that was really popular. Depending on the topic as well, some topics earlier this year when our first quarter was focused on the metaverse and what we call meta objects, people loved that. But then right now we're focusing on degrowth and capitalism futures and people are really engaging with that and wanted us to request it a follow-up workshop, so we were delivering that.

So I'm finding it hard to really pinpoint what drives more engagement, but a recent project we're doing, which is that a commitment we gave to ourselves at the end of last year through a survey, we discussed as a community, what we want to do, and we decided that we want to put out a collective future foresight report early next year. And so I decided, "Okay, so this needs to be a co-designed collective journey, something that is a learning journey, something that is a pilot program." So anyway, we're putting that together and the excitement is very palpable.

So I think I'm learning that actually putting members really at the center of what's happening in the community and putting them in the driver's seat is possibly, this is the new phase really at the center. Because in the beginning I was like, "Wait, we're charging people. We shouldn't be giving them things to do," but now actually people are revving up. They're like, "No, no, no, I want to be at the center of this." So I'm happy that we took a type of slow approach, that we only open once a year. We might do a flash opening soon. I'm happy that we do it that way because it gave us a chance to iterate and really develop.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah. What little I know about your community, to me, the collective working on research, a survey, that kind of thing, it sounds like, chef's kiss, that is probably what gets everyone going and is very exciting. Because also there's a lot of value in being in the room with a lot of like-minded people and working on that and learning other people's styles and getting to work with, like you mentioned earlier, it can be a lonely can be job when you're independent, so getting to have a team, a group to work with, that sounds fascinating. And also just the ability to see other people's styles and just how they do things. I could see people being really excited about doing collaborative projects like that and even with a paid membership, right?

Geraldine Wharry: Yeah, because a lot of the methods that we use in foresight have been very helpful, but they're also very traditional. And they're also part of what got us into this mess in the first place, because as forecasters and futurists, we have the eyes and ears of decision makers in big companies, and institutions, also governments, governments work a lot with futurists.

And so it's important that we take seriously our influence, our power of influence, and we realize that the same way you talked about community metrics that are different, we need to change our metrics because the world is changing. And we need to change the way we value a trend. "Is a trend worthy because it's the hot new color? Or is a trend worthy because it's urgent and it's right for the planet or for some...?" So these are the things that we're questioning and I'm finding that our members, this has been a major catalyst for them. They're like, "Yeah, this is it. This has been the call to action kind of thing."

Jillian Benbow: As someone who's not involved in it at all, it's so exciting to hear that this is happening. Because I think of the fashion industry and I just think of, honestly, I just think it's a very dirty industry. Fast fashion is horrible and it's just getting easier to get. And as someone who lives on a mountain and loves the outdoors and just wants the planet to survive human invasion, it makes my little hippie heart happy to know that this is a part of where consumerism is going and the "trend" of sustainability is not a trend, it's a shift in mindset globally. You're willing to challenge the norms and say, "Cool, we've done it this way for a while. It doesn't work anymore. Thank you for your service. We're going to do it this way now. And we're going to focus on what's meaningful for a trend," like you said, not the new hot color, but instead, "Is this the right thing to do?"

Geraldine Wharry: And I'm hoping that our members who have struggled to convince their client that they need to only work with sustainable suppliers or that sustainability is not just about materials, it's very much about how you treat people and workers, et cetera. I'm hoping that by being part of a collective that shares methodologies, shares ways of broadcasting these things, shares the latest expertise, because when you do these forecasts, you have to deliver expertise. So we share as much as we can to deliver a strong message and I'm hoping that by being part of that collective, our members are really growing in confidence because many of us are part of the system that we're trying to fix, so it's not easy. But if we get louder and louder, and I mean that in a gentle way, but if we become more and more convinced and have a very convincing message, that makes the difference.

Jillian Benbow: Absolutely. And it's always going to be a fine line. We were talking about changing a shift in people wanting to work for a big giant corporation and the capitalist machine, but also we need to make money. So it's not like you can just walk away for money and revenue, you can't. And to your point, you charge a membership, you need to make a revenue to live and to keep the membership going. It's like we don't want to be over here with this big company thinking, but we still need to be in the general orbit of revenue to then bring things forward.

Geraldine Wharry: There's nothing to be ashamed about making money from something for the greater good. Of course there're a different business model, we could have been focusing on funding and partnerships and things like that, but that would've probably meant for me, at least for now, until we grow more, to give up my consultancy and I'm not willing to give up my own private consultancy. So everyone makes choices, but I'm just saying this today, things I'm sure will change and evolve. But I think we have some members that might work in marketing, say they joined the community, for example.

They're looking for the most innovative voices, they find someone who's really making a difference, they put them in a campaign, this changes the messages of their brand, the positioning of their brand and puts them on a new trajectory. This is powerful stuff. And it generates new stories for brands and ultimately also some income for other people. So I think there's nothing to be ashamed about saying, "What I do actually develops people personally, but also professionally and makes money for other people and that's okay." And I need to embody that because that's also what I'm telling the members, "Charge what you're worth."

Jillian Benbow: Plus you're creating, I mean, as a catalyst, you're creating a place for the future, the next generation, the next futurist to come in and have the path paved in this direction,you're one of the foundational voices to say, "Hey, we need to pivot the way we think.” So I think it's wonderful. It's all great.

Geraldine Wharry: Yeah. Thank you. I'm part of a new wave. It's not just the Trend Atelier, there's a wave. It's always like that, but I think it's really exciting and I feel pretty emboldened and I feel so inspired by our members as well.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah. And to your point, it's okay to make money. We're talking livable... We're talking being able to run your own life or company or however you do it is one thing, we're not talking about making money like, "I'm going to buy my third yacht. There's a huge difference in the money mindset.

Geraldine Wharry: No, we're not talking about, "I'm going to move this bridge in order to move my yacht," like someone with the last name Bezos did this year.

Jillian Benbow: Don't get me started.

Geraldine Wharry: No, we're not looking at that kind of money.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah. No, no. We're talking about changing the world, but also having a roof over our head, it's amazing.

So before we get to the fun, rapid fire, I did just want to touch on, you mentioned briefly, but I want to dig into this, in your community, you do, and I'm probably saying the wrong terminology, but kind of a quarterly trend, it sounds like. So you did a metaverse, quarter... Tell me more about how you came up with this, what I would call programming topics. What inspired having these chunks of, "Hey, for this month, we're going to focus on what's called it the metaverse?"

Geraldine Wharry: When we first started, we had a theme per month and one event a week, and that was hard to sustain. I think sometimes when you start out, you kind want to overdeliver. And so we covered a lot in 2021 and it was amazing, but it was also, I have to say a bit exhausting for me by the end of the year. And then I started to notice that people were starting to find it a little bit too much for them as well. And it's not good to have a community where people feel they're missing out because they can't ever join the events or things like that, even though we have, obviously we have replays. So luckily we didn't have a big issue, but I could somehow feel into it that I needed to kind of shift. And so we did the survey and we said, How do you feel about doing these same themes, but spreading them out over or a quarter so that we can go deeper into them?" Because the other thing we noticed is that we didn't have a chance to go deep enough in each theme.

And so we came up with a couple of ideas, we proposed ideas, we always, in our surveys, we proposed things and then ask people to contribute. We'll have a follow up meeting as well to discuss survey results and crystallize our decisions. So anyways, the programming ended up being a quarterly theme. And I guess that's not that different from other... DAOs have seasons and even trend forecasting agencies in fashion will forecast a season. But anyway, so that was great because through the quarterly theme, then I was like, "Okay, I can breathe a little bit more and stop overloading the community with a weekly event, focus more on quality guests." We can have one quality guest a quarter, we can have one workshop a quarter, and then we can have one insane future vision presentation, a quarter. And so far it's worked really well.

And what we've done is that we improvise. So when we reopened the community, we noticed we obviously had to add on some member meetups and icebreakers and celebrations. Obviously things move around, but that's essentially the programming. And then the school students have access to a section of the community that is included in their enrollment and they have a live session a month, and paying members can attend these sessions. So it shows up on their event scheduling and each session we'll discuss something very tangible for people who are more like students of the community. Some of them are professionals too, but very literal, "How do I organize my future trend research? Or how does intuition play a role in future forecasting?" Things like that that are maybe a bit less high-level than, how do I forecast sustainably with a whole new foresight methodology, type thing. So I hope that answers your question in terms of the programming.

Jillian Benbow: It does. Yeah. I really like how you do the survey. Asking for myself, tell me more, so do you send the survey via email or do you just drop it in the community and give a deadline on when to submit the results and then you already have that follow up meeting scheduled? So it's kind of like a one, two? Tell me about the details.

Geraldine Wharry: Both, because we've found that some people... This is the part where it gets challenging. Some people don't see all the posts in the community and some people don't read their emails. So we have a weekly email that we send religiously every Friday around the same time and it'll be a recap of important things in the community, the upcoming events, stuff like that. So we post the survey in the community and then we'll post a reminder and then we'll post maybe a final reminder. And that is twined in the newsletter and not maybe exactly with the same term. And then we'll schedule... We'll close it, at some stage, we'll close it. And then we'll schedule the follow up event, and we're very transparent from the get go that this will have a follow up event and that we're not going to make huge decisions just only based on a survey, that there will be live conversations as well.

Jillian Benbow: I love that. That's a smart way to do it. We haven't done a survey for a while in Pro. Maybe this is the sign that it's time for another survey. I may be emailing you to be like, "Hey, what do you think of this?"

Geraldine Wharry: Yeah, for sure. I'd be happy to give you any input, but I'm the one who's loves what you do.

Jillian Benbow: Oh, well, maybe we'll just schedule a coffee chat and we can ask each other questions. It's the power of community right there. Okay, final question about all the wonderful work you're doing and then we're going to go into the rapid fire, which I'm very excited about as well. I'm just curious from your perspective, what's something really exciting in your world that you're excited about as far as just stuff going on or stuff that you think is going to happen in the future? Give us some insight into what you're researching, what you're excited about right now, it can be anything. It's a big question, I know.

Geraldine Wharry: I'm excited about the potential for Web3, although I'm concerned about the lack of ethical guidance and things happening, but I'm really excited about the creative renaissance that we're seeing in the creative industries of the designers and artists that are designing for digital medium, that's really amazing. And it's fascinating to see even artists create NFTs and then create a matching physical piece of art that matches the NFT. And I'm excited about also obviously Web3's potential to just really get rid of a lot of the gate keeping. I even just saw, I think today or yesterday, I was watching a TED Talk of this guy who bought 600 acres of land in Wyoming with a DAO. They raised so much money, DAO is rising, buying basketball teams and things like that. So this idea now that you could pool talent from around the world is really insane and sometimes a little bit scary because it's like, "Why do I even matter anymore?"

And what really fascinates me is also, it's sort of adjacent but connected, more and more designers designing with the help of AI or lately there's been the whole DALL·E thing went viral where OpenAI is creating these visuals, and so that has both great and really scary potential. So I guess it's about taking a balanced view of the future, but I'm also just really passionate about decarbonization, just people who are at the forefront of trying to completely disrupt the supply chain model in fashion. Next month, I'm interviewing people who've created a microfactory in the UK in London and are doing amazing work, and completely redefining how you could make your clothing. You might download the pattern of a dress and pick the material and get it made at this local microfactory.

So I'm fascinated with this idea of what are called fab labs or maker centers that are more local. And just combining these new technologies, but also just with the philosophies that our grandparents had, just make the stuff yourself, prepare it yourself. And that being a potential avenue for brand new profit models. And buying less doesn't mean that we're going to live in a cave and have nothing. So sorry I rambled, but this is just literally the tip of the iceberg of the things I look at. Only because I look at societal shifts, I have to often look at a bit of science, philosophy. Sometimes my head feels so jumbled that at night all I want to do is watch the cheesiest TV show. I'm not listening to serious podcasts at night, I'm watching The Dodo YouTube channel.

Jillian Benbow: Oh, I agree completely. I often do the same, my daughter and I will watch craft tutorials on YouTube just to escape. It's so funny that the maker space, that wasn't what you called it, but that idea, the micro... What did you call it? Wasn't micro warehouse?

Geraldine Wharry: There's a micro factory, but there's also this notion of fab labs, which are...

Jillian Benbow: Yes. Fab lab, which is a great name. But it's funny you mentioned that because when we were earlier in the conversation, you're talking about just sustainability topics in general. And it got me in the back of my head, I started thinking about, oh kind of like Patagonia, you can send things in to get repaired or you can send in things you no longer use and they upcycle them into new, like a vest, or they take the materials they can still use and repurpose. And I personally, I'm a huge fan of Patagonia. Where I live, it's a very popular brand because it's outdoorsy brand, people like to call it Patagucci because it's very expensive. But I still have Patagonia items that I bought in high school and I went to high school in a different century than we are in now, so talk about wear, so whatever people think about Patagonia.

But it got me thinking also about the idea of a cobbler or a zipper repair place. Those used to be so common and they've gotten less and less. I feel like, and maybe they didn't, it was just me, but it felt like they went away, at least places where I... I Live in a small ski town, so it's not the same as living in a city, but I've noticed a resurgence, I've noticed more repair services even where I live and it's exciting. And there's a shift, I know, I am very into creating art and crafty things and I've noticed a huge resurgence in things like darning and visible and invisible mending. And these things that my partner's... My partner's grandma. I remember once asking her about darning because I was interested in learning how and she was like, "Oh no, just buy new socks." She was so like, "No I had to do it way too much, I'm never doing it again."

Geraldine Wharry: Why would you ever want...?

Jillian Benbow: Yeah. She's like, Why would you do that? Just go buy a new pair of socks." But it is, there's this, I think we're going back, like you were saying, to what our grandparents did.

Geraldine Wharry: Oh yeah. There's amazing things being done with darning. I just wrote a whole piece of fashion repair as a form of healing. I do a monthly column for a magazine called Spur, it's a big fashion magazine in Japan. And so it's published in Japanese, they translate it, but I just did a whole piece on that. And actually speaking of Patagonia, they had done a whole collaboration with iFixit, who now have all of these tutorials on how to fix your clothing, how to upcycle your clothing, turn your shirt into a dress or just all these things. And I really believe in that because imagine even going back to the micro factory and this is, just to give you an idea, this is what we do as futurists, trying to show the possibilities.

Imagine if a Patagonia partners with a microfactory making one of their beanies or something like that, open source, and then all of a sudden you can make your own Patagonia beanie in this microfactory. That's a whole new business model. And obviously fashion brands, they're also gatekeepers, they're afraid of... But all that is changing and it's exciting times. So I get quite excited about fashion because I think it's a great place to really experiment with a lot of things actually happening in society.

Jillian Benbow: It is. I love it. Okay. See, this always happens right at the end. I'm like, "There's this one random thing I want to ask you about," and it's like, "Let's talk for 45 more minutes about darning." But if anybody listening happens to run an online school that is not on Facebook that teaches embroidery and darning and those skills, please email me because I would like to take your classes. I'm currently deep in learning how to do this and I'm not very good at it. Okay.

Geraldine Wharry: Well, I wish you were in London because there's a whole event about that and they have weekly workshops of what they're doing.

Jillian Benbow: This is my answer for something on my bucket list that I haven't done, but want to, is live in London for a while, and maybe just straight to Scotland, but yeah, London would be... It's my favorite city.

Geraldine Wharry: If you love nature then Scotland makes sense.

Jillian Benbow: I just love London so much. If there's a city to live in, it is London in my opinion. Okay. Well Geraldine, we could obviously talk forever. Let's go into the rapid fire and then we'll close it out with where to find you. So first question, I can't wait to hear the answer to this Geraldine. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Geraldine Wharry: I wanted to be a vet in the jungle and a parachute jumper.

Jillian Benbow: You could parachute into the jungle to take care of the jungle cats.

Geraldine Wharry: I wanted to do these two things, I remember quite clearly.

Jillian Benbow: I love it. How do you define community?

Geraldine Wharry: Community is kinship and people coming together willing to make themselves vulnerable also and really grow professionally and personally also through community.

Jillian Benbow: Okay. What is something on your quote, unquote, "Bucket list," that you have done in your life?

Geraldine Wharry: I lived in Tanzania for three months. I always had a big dream of spending time in Africa somewhere. I just really love African art and culture. And so I got to work there for three months and that was on my bucket list.

Jillian Benbow: That's amazing. Yeah. Speaking of textiles, African textiles are... And I realize Africa's a continent, but different, Kenyan, Tanzania, and all the different textiles out of the continent of Africa, I love them all, they're so beautiful. Okay. And then the flip question, what is something on this bucket list that you have not yet done and hope to do?

Geraldine Wharry: Gosh, really good question. Jump from a plane.

Jillian Benbow: Look back to the parachutes.

Geraldine Wharry: Somehow the jumping thing hasn't been done yet.

Jillian Benbow: It's still there.

Geraldine Wharry: And no, one of the things, I don't even know how to answer this question, it's embarrassing, but I guess what's on my bucket list is to, I'd like to really learn how to grow my own vegetables and really understand how to be able to live quite sustainably and independently, even in the city. I feel like I talk about these things and I think about these things, but I actually know very little about gardening even. And my father actually has a degree in organic farming and I do know about it, something in the family, it clearly runs in the family and I have a green thumb. But I really would love to... Everything from water containers, water catchment, if I had the chance to build a house from scratch and put all of these things into action, that would be, for me, a major achievement, and my partner and I, we discussed this. We met and bonded over the love of tiny homes, so that gives you an idea.

Jillian Benbow: I love it. Are you familiar with earth ships? That building style?

Geraldine Wharry: Yes, those look amazing. Yeah.

Jillian Benbow: That's also on my bucket list, live in earth ship.

Geraldine Wharry: Oh yeah. Yeah. That's a good idea. Yeah. Next level. That's next level.

Jillian Benbow: I know, that's a big one. We'll see. Okay. What is a book that you just love or just wish everybody would read? Any sort of just top book? It can be fiction, non-fiction, doesn't matter.

Geraldine Wharry: I was thinking about that because I guess on a sustainable fashion level, a book I've really loved, I have it here, it's called Waste Age. And it's basically the book based on the exhibition at the design museum here in London, and if anyone can get their hands on it. But in terms of being a business owner or a creative myself, I love Adam Grant and his book Originals had a big influence on me, and I recommend it and everybody who reads it loves it. But also his latest book, Think Again, is amazing because it's about how leaders should question themselves. And that the greatest leaders are ones that are able to question themselves. And Adam Grant is also someone who is a bit of a data geek, so it's not just these nice ideas, there's a lot of research data that goes behind that case studies and it's really inspiring.

Jillian Benbow: I love that. Everybody should think again.

Geraldine Wharry: Yeah. It's a really good book.

I actually listen to Think Again, so it's actually on audible for those who to listen to books.

Jillian Benbow: I love to listen. Jeff has to pay for his rocket trip.

Geraldine Wharry: Oh, that's funny.

Jillian Benbow: Geraldine, so I know you were born in Paris, you've lived in the US, you live in the UK, we just found out you lived in Tanzania. You've lived a lot of places, so if you could live anywhere else in the world, where would you go?

Geraldine Wharry: If I could live anywhere else in the world, I have to say that I'm half American and have my mother is American, hence the accent. And I have a really deep love for Arizona, Utah. I know that the heat is probably too much for me there, but whenever I've traveled through there, because I lived in New York and then I lived in LA for six years, I used to do these road trips and I just always felt at home there, even New Mexico, these areas, there's just something about the landscapes there and the ancient cultures I just feel a really strong connection with. And I've always dreamt of somehow having a type of desert life at some stage.

Jillian Benbow: I feel that way about New Mexico, it's just so cool. It's not cool literally temperature, but it's just such a cool... Again, and from an art perspective, I just love, there's these little art communities that are just so cool. It's a fun... There's also some real interesting parts, but that's life, but what a great place to live in an earth ship speaking of. Yes. Speaking of. It's all coming together. You could parachute down. It'd be great. Okay. And final question, Geraldine. How do you want to be remembered?

Geraldine Wharry: I want to be... Gosh, these are tough questions. I always find it hard to talk about myself in a way, I'm modest to a fault sometimes. I am and I'm not, it's a weird combo. But I'd love to be remembered as someone who believed in others, who believed in everyone. I'd love to be someone remembered as, "Oh, when I was interacting with Geraldine she gave me the strength to believe in myself, to do X, Y, Z." I never ever thought that I would actually care so much about teaching, but then it makes sense because I do come from a lineage of teachers, but I do care about passing on knowledge in a way that feels empowering, not just to learn more facts. So I'd love to be remembered as someone that saw you, I see you and I see your talent, I see where you need to perhaps grow and whatever, because that experience has helped me grow tremendously. People don't realize how much I get out of this as well, it's a two way road. So I hope I can be remembered for someone who cared in that way.

Jillian Benbow: We need more people with that mindset.

Geraldine Wharry: And obviously I hope I can be remembered as someone who helped the creating sustainable systems agenda, but I guess the other one is ultimately the more human-to-human one.

Jillian Benbow: I feel like they can overlap. They can exist together. I feel like your life purpose, if you will, is almost to just be like, you're a beacon. You're the light that people can use as a guide on their journey.

Geraldine Wharry: I feel like a lot of people who start communities maybe had those same people in their lives who made a difference for them and then we want to mirror and give back somehow. Somehow we feel somehow all of a sudden our life's purpose is to mirror that and some people just feel more strongly about it than others.

Jillian Benbow: I think you're right. There's something really interesting about people who are drawn to community building and for the right reasons. People who genuinely are natural community builders and love creating environments and situations for other people to better themselves in whatever capacity that is. Honestly, I think it's a really special kind of view on life and also just experiences in life to be like that. I don't really know how to explain it obviously very well, but there's something interesting. Just speaking with different community builders on this show, I just see so many similarities and the type of people that get into it and what drives us as humans, not necessarily careers or anything like that, but just as humans in a society. It's fascinating.

Geraldine Wharry: And I feel the misconception is to think that we're overly social people, that we love being in groups all the time. It's also not that either, so it's really, really all these... It's a very nuanced profile.

Jillian Benbow: It really is. People are always surprised to hear a lot of community builders are introverted and not necessarily... On the scale, just lean to introverted. Me at a party is very different than me hosting an event online in Pro. It's one thing to be standing in this room by myself, "Welcome," and having that kind of energy, versus going into a situation with a bunch of people that I find really draining. People are always surprised by that, but it's true. Anyways, Geraldine, this has been so fun. I'm going to be thinking about parts of this conversation all day and I'm looking forward to it because I'm going to be headed out to my garden where I'm terrible at growing food, but I can grow a wildflower and a weed. Oh my goodness, I can grow weeds like no one else. Where can the audience learn more about you, about your community, everything? What are your internet links that you would like to share?

Geraldine Wharry: So our website is TheTrendAtelier.com and on Instagram we're known as The Trend Atelier, but then there's also me, which is GeraldineWharry.com, and my Instagram is @TrendAtelierByGeraldineWharry. And I tend to be much more active on Instagram, although lately I've been doing more on LinkedIn as well, and I just go by my name for LinkedIn.

Jillian Benbow: Excellent. Well thank you so much. We can't wait to hear what's next in the future of futurism. I'm still getting all the terms wrong, but I hope you know what I mean? It's very exciting and definitely will be following your Instagram and please keep posting about all the good news things that are happening with sustainability and whatnot.

Geraldine Wharry: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. It's been really great exchanging with you.

Jillian Benbow: And that's the interview. Holy spokes, we talked a lot because you get two people together that want to geek out over the same things and that's what happens. But man, I just love talking to people who are building community in a very niche area of expertise, which is what I would call this, for sure, because it's just fascinating, but it's also so needed I think. And when someone is able to have the authority, like someone like Geraldine and have those people in their audience and however it is, I mean she does a lot of consulting and speaking, so it's natural that she would have, she'd be fairly well known in this industry and in this niche of this industry.

So yeah, just chef's kiss, it's the perfect magical recipe to create such a wonderful community. And I hope anybody listening, who is in of an adjacent type situation where maybe there could be this niche version of community, especially if it's impacting the world for good, super bonus points, gold stars for that, to create that and to give people who are in that mindset, a place to come together and collaborate and help each other out and mentor and mentee and just all of it. This is why I love community, one of the many reasons, but one of the big ones, this is the magic that I love to see happen.

I really love everything Geraldine was describing about her community, but especially about the evolution. She started saying they started with a monthly topic and then a live event that had to do with it, and it just quickly, for both sides, it was too much. And they were just scratching the surface and so Geraldine recognized this, put out a survey, was great about communicating the survey to get a lot of interaction and then had a follow up call, as she said, to crystallize what the move forward was. And collectively they agreed on quarterly themes and having maybe less is more, but also higher quality. So that really amazing guest once a quarter, really well done presentation, a very well thought out workshop, like, "Yes."

And then allowing people who naturally want to dig deeper, be curious, giving them that time, because now they have a quarter instead of a month. That is fantastic and way to listen to your community. The top thing I like to talk about is it, I mean, I like to talk about a lot of things, but listening to your members, asking your members, is a piece of advice I give new community builders all the time. Because there is definitely a difference between a community and a group of people following you. And you want a community, so that means member led. Also, to that point, I think Geraldine's hesitation to put out a project because it's like, "Ooh, this is a paid community. Should I be asking people to do work?" But in the instance of what type of community this is, the type of people that join, it made great sense. And obviously yes, because everyone was super excited to be involved.

And also if someone wasn't, if they're like, "Ooh, that sounds like work and that's not what I want to do here," they don't have to. But I love this collective research and putting together this piece of work together. It sounds like people were super jazzed about it and it makes a lot of sense and I hope it goes well and that they can do more things like that in the future. Because I just picture the person who's trying to make it on their own independently in this field and having those sort of working relationships, the being able to work in a group and learn other people's styles and ideas. I think that's just so valuable, so I'm excited to hear more about how that goes as they do that.

And I was incorrect, I thought they'd just had their in-person event, but I think it's still in the works it sounds like. And that's something that at SPI we are also like, "Yep. It's time." And so we're trying to figure out what that looks like. How do you keep it safe? How do we as a global community, a little different, instead of us hosting one event, not to say that's what Geraldine is doing, but for us we would be hosting lots of smaller events around the globe, but having our members host them and us support, so what does that look like? What are the guidelines? Should people be vaccinated? Is that a absolute requirement? Which it is for our company, but just thinking through that kind of stuff.

Also, the tiers, we didn't really talk about it too much, hopefully you caught it, but I love how she's doing tiers in her community so her students, if you didn't catch it, her students have access to an area in the community and that's the only part of the community they have access to. But then the paying community members have access to the community and also that student area, so they can see the monthly event that happens for students and participate. This is a great way to then turn, convert, I should say, convert those students into community members when they're done with whichever of her courses they're going through. It also helps establish relationships between the students and the community members.

We kind of have a similar thing with our Learner community, which is no application, you can just pay and join, it's in our academy space. And then we also have our Pro community, which there's an application, it's a higher price point, but all of our pros have access to the Learner community as part of their membership. So same sort of thing, they can create relationships, they can also be an inspiration to people in the Learner community because they're just farther along to see like, "Oh yeah, this is real. People can do this." We also have them do expert events in Learner, I shouldn't say have, we don't have them. It's voluntary, but it's an opportunity for Pro members who want to teach, want to participate and be an expert in the Learner community to teach what you know situation.

They can do that in Learner as an expert. And so then they get more awareness about the things they do, a little more authority in their field within our expanse of community. But also they get an opportunity to interact with the Learner community, and vice versa, the Learners have an opportunity to interact with people in our Pro membership and get an idea of what it's like a little bit. So love to see that there are tiers, I think that's really smart for what Geraldine's doing to have both of those in the same place. And I have so many things to go Google. I don't know about you, but key takeaway is identifying, hey, there's this group of people, it's kind of lonely individual work, what if there was a community where we could all talk about the kind of work we do and talk about trends and talk about things that are happening, and now work on research together, collaborate and just have this amazing think share to go to?

I love it. If you're doing something similar, I'd love to hear about it. You can tag me on Twitter @JillianBenbow, @teamSPI. And yeah, that's it for this week. We will see you next Tuesday.

You can find Geraldine all over the internet, the community is TrendAtelier.com, that is the word trend A-T-E-L-I-E-R.com. Same on Instagram. And if you want to follow Geraldine specifically on Instagram, she is at @TrendAtelierByGeraldineWharry all one word. And of course on LinkedIn, find her at Geraldine Wharry.

Your lead host for the community experience is me, Jillian Benbow. Our executive producer is Matt Gartland, our senior producer is David Grabowski. And our editor is Paul Grigoras. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. Theme music by David Grabowski. See you next Tuesday.