I am going to NYC today to present the the capital markets data collected in Boston, Seattle and Kansas City (see posts above). But a couple of things before I go.

I am setting up a forecasting model for popular culture for a large client, and I want to recruit people who are well informed about one or more aspects of same. I am looking for people who really know their music, film, magazines, zines, sports, design, retailing, food, architecture, cars, capital markets, marketing, radio or television. The idea is to establish “listening posts” throughout contemporary culture in order to identify and track innovations. This is not a full time but a consulting assignment. The expert would be consulted on a monthly basis, supplying perhaps a day a month. (Details of the project are still being worked out.)

The “listener” will be a rare bird. Some of the people who are well informed about an aspect of contemporary culture are, in a sense, too well informed. They cannot see for forest for the trees. My client is looking for someone with tremendously good powers of pattern recognition and a feeling for the bigger picture.

The other key qualifier is that the listener exercise a curiosity that is dispassionate. There are lots of people who know popular culture down to the ground but they use this knowledge to demonstrate how exquisitely hip they are. In a phrase, they are “too cool for school.” No avant-garde-ists need apply.

Could I ask “this blog sits at” readers for names of people they think might qualify. I will post more details in subsequent entries (and forgive me if I slow acknowledging your suggestions…I will be on the road for the next few days.)

Your help would be very much appreciated.