Trends are about ideas and what people like that are fresh and in the moment.  Some trends become “classics” and then woven into the fabric of popular culture.

But, as often happens, as something becomes too trendy, it becomes stale and a cliché to be avoided.

We like trends too, when used gently. Companies certainly need to appear modern and in touch with their customers and if possible trend-setting.  Here’s a look at some trends we expect to see in 2012 as well as our recommendations on how to embrace, avoid, or reinvent them to reach your customers.

And as always, ask us anything. We’ll give you honest answers on trends or just great ways to promote your message.

Happy New Year from the Trendiest Team we know… Red Thinking!

Color it

Pantone, has just released its 2012 color of the year: Tangerine Tango PMS# 17-463. This is a glorious color. (We especially like the hint of red in it!)

How to use it:

• Sprinkle a little into your marketing and promotions, or find a similar vibrant color. It’s youthful, eye-catching and honestly appealing.
• Don’t base a logo or long-lasting campaign on it.
• Wear it if it looks good on you.

Type it

Font styles can be trendy and Adobe, the leader in font types, has new fonts to keep you looking sharp.

How to use it:

• Remember that communicating your message is the most important job. Select a font that is easy to read.
• Don’t mix too many fonts on a page or in a particular piece.
• Select both serif and sans serif fonts that complement each other.
• Pick one and stay with it as your signature font for your company or a campaign.

Move it

Video clips, animation, YouTube channels, custom apps… These elements are skirting the line between trendy and the way businesses communicate with customers.

How to use it:

• Make sure you need it.
• Make certain it is high quality.
• Make sure no one will spoof it – unless that’s part of the marketing plan.
• Remember that anything posted on the Internet is there forever.
• Consider your image… nothing with an “ist”… racist, sexist or in general bad taste or bad for children

Visit Adrants for a great archive of both good and bad advertising videos.

Take it with you

Design for smart phone and tablet viewing. This falls between trendy and becoming normal.

How to use it:

• Make sure your website can be viewed properly on a smart phone or a tablet. This may require some new coding but if you want customers to take you with them as they move about their day it’s a must.

Tell the world everything

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare…

How to use it:

• Make sure you need it. Just because you’re a business doesn’t mean you have to have a Facebook page.
• Commit to it. Twitter is a feed; it’s hungry do you have the time to take care of it?
• That video from the holiday party was a riot – but it doesn’t belong on the web.
• Plan for it. Create a marketing plan first then incorporate social media for optimal success.

Have fun with trendy ideas but use them with caution.

There are a lot of problems facing the nation right now. There are too many to list and our blog doesn’t like to talk about politics – we’re about creativity. In our last Red Thinkers post, we profiled Dean Kamen, a modern day inventor and science and technology leader who is working to support science education for kids 6-18. One of Kamen’s leading accomplishments is that he holds 440 U.S. and foreign patents. Here’s why that is a feat to be celebrated.

Prior to the Leahy Smith Act, it took inventors up to three years to receive patent approval. Three years is a long time to act on an idea. Three years is a long time to show an angel investor an invention and receive funding. In the course of three years, solopreneurs and small companies have to keep their cards close to their chests and protect their ideas and hope that a different, more robust solution to something they think they solved doesn’t come to market first and grab the consumers imagination.

Oh sure, there are hundreds of products on the market that say patent pending. This is to serve as preliminary patent and trademark protection, but it’s not the same. And yes, there are critics to this new act. Some feel it gives an advantage to large corporations who have the money to push harder. One thing about laws in the United States, they are far from ever perfect, whoops, that was a political idea again, sorry for the lapse. Here’s an interesting discussion from NPR Talk of the Nation. Decide for yourself.

We see this new law as a way to release creativity in the marketplace. America may be short on jobs – that’s not a political statement, that’s a fact – U.S unemployment now stands at 9.1%. But we are not short on ideas. As a nation we never have been. This law gives the Patent and Trademark office the ability to hire more people to help free up the immense backlog of applications. This isn’t bigger government. The Patent and Trademark office has always been independently funded. The fees inventors pay to file their ideas pay for the office.

Since it first opened in 1790, the U.S Patent and Trademark Office has issued 7,752,677 patents. Millions of jobs have come from those ideas. There are now an estimated 700,000 patent applications backlogged in the system. Imagine the millions of more jobs that will be created with the amazing ideas waiting to see the legally protected light of day. It’s about time. Let the creativity flow and let’s empower the next wave of Red Thinkers.

The balanced concept of innovation and technology working together is RED THINKING and one of today’s most exciting inventors, Dean Kamen is Red Hot.

Kamen, hails from the Granite State, New Hampshire and makes his home there today. Though he’s a celebrated and wealthy genius and entrepreneur, we give extra Red Points to his desire to stay close to his roots and perhaps the source of his inspiration.
Kamen is best known as the inventor of the Segway PT, the popular upright personal transportation vehicle. But long before the Segway came the first wearable infusion pump, a medical device that changed how patients received chemotherapy.

Kamen began his formal studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Massachusetts where as an undergraduate he invented the infusion pump. In 1976, he founded AutoSyringe, Inc., to manufacture and market the pumps. The company was then sold to Baxter Healthcare corporation.

With the proceeds from AutoSyringe and a mind spinning with ideas he started his next company DEKA Research and Development. DEKA has been responsible for some of the most innovative medical devices now is use including:

• HomeChoice™ peritoneal dialysis system for Baxter International Inc. This invention allows patients to be dialyzed at home
• ThinPrep® Pap Test
• UVAR™ XTS™ System, an extracorporeal photophereisis device for treatment of T-Cell lymphoma
• An advanced prosthetic arm in development for DARPA
• The Hydroflex™ surgical irrigation pump for C.R. Bard
• The Crown™ stent, an improvement to the original Palmaz-Schatz stent, for Johnson & Johnson
• iBOT™ mobility device
• The Segway® Human Transporter

Kamen has also been awarded the National Medal of Technology in 2000 by then President Clinton. He received the Lemelson-MIT Prize in 2002. In 2005, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He also holds 440 U.S. and Foreign Patents.

FIRST
But, let’s get back to the ideas of innovation and technology and what we see as Kamen’s Red Core. In 1989, Kamen founded FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), “an organization dedicated to motivating the next generation to understand, use and enjoy science and technology.” This organization will help over a 250,000 students ages 6 to 18, in more than 50 countries. “High-school-aged participants are eligible to apply for more than $14 million in scholarships from leading colleges, universities, and corporations.” In Kamen’s own words, “You have teenagers thinking they’re going to make millions as NBA stars when that’s not realistic for even 1 percent of them. Becoming a scientist or engineer is.”

We believe that a generation of Red Thinkers are now on their way to creating the next innovative solutions to solve our world’s most pressing problems. FIRST’s celebration of science and technology combined with Kamen’s creativity and leadership is a very RED road to follow.

O’Keefe began her art instruction at a young age, first using watercolors. As she moved through high school, she continued to pursue her love of painting. She enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and later attended The Art Students League of New York where she studied under William Merritt Chase, a world-renowned American impressionist painter.

In 1908, she won the League’s William Merritt Chase still-life prize for an oil portrait. The prize was a scholarship to attend the League’s outdoor summer school at Lake George in New York. This was the beginning of a stream of significant awards O’Keeffe earned.

In the 1920s, she revolutionized the tradition of flower painting, presenting blossoms and petals close up as if seen through a magnifying lens. Her paintings of buildings, structures, and landscapes were soon recognized as very compelling work. By the mid 1920s, O’Keeffe had become one of America’s most important artists.

Her fame grew even as she continued to learn and practice new techniques of painting as well as pursue other arts, including sculpture and eventually pottery. Her passion for all things artistic made it easy for her to master every art form she pursued. After her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, died in 1946, she pulled away from her work for three years to handle his estate and focus on healing from her loss. Eventually she was able to resume painting. Through the 1950s and 1960s, she travelled extensively around the world, taking on commissioned work.

When her eyesight began to deteriorate in 1970, she withdrew from her artistic life though not for very long. In 1973, she met a young ceramic artist, Juan Hamilton, who soon became her manager and confidant. He inspired her to return to her art and she began making pottery.

In 1970, the Whitney Museum of American Art cited her as one of the most influential American painters. In 1977, President Gerald Ford presented O’Keeffe with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 1985 she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

Throughout her life, Georgia O’Keefe worked with mentors, always curious to learn new techniques and art forms. Despite setbacks, when she took the time away she needed, she always returned to her art, reinventing herself each time. Her perseverance, vitality, and vision makes O’Keefe a true red thinker.

An economics major in college, Smith first broached his idea for an express delivery service in 1965 in what must now be among the most infamous term papers in corporate America (or academe). Lore has it that he received only a modest C grade, though Smith doesn’t think that was the case. Whatever the grade, he wasn’t deterred. “I knew the idea was profound,” he says.

After a hitch with the Marines in Vietnam, Smith returned in the late 1960s and began to pursue development of his concept. He soon found backers with more faith in his ideas than his professors (or at least that one). With $4 million inherited from his father and $80 million raised from venture capitalists, he formed Federal Express in 1971. Its promise: guaranteed overnight delivery of goods between any two points in the initial 11-city network FexEx served.

His company was hardly an overnight success. Ready to launch the service from Memphis (a city picked for its central location and under-used airport) on March 12, 1973, Smith secured all of seven packages for the first night’s run. He sent his salesmen back into the field, more than doubled his network to 25 cities, and relaunched the service a month later — this time beginning with a grand total of 186 packages.

Sparse initial volume wasn’t the only headache. Until the late 1970s, the U.S. postal monopoly prevented FedEx from delivering documents. Onerous airline regulations at first restricted FedEx to flying tiny Falcon jets. By 1973, Smith was so desperate for cash that he flew to Las Vegas to play the blackjack tables. He wired the $27,000 he won back to company offices in Memphis.

Smith’s persistence paid off. By the late 1970s, American business came to rely on FedEx’s ability to deliver goods overnight — be it spare parts, urgent business documents, or 11th-hour birthday gifts. Merrill Lynch executivess even discovered employees were using FedEx to deliver documents between floors of its Manhattan headquarters building because it was faster and more reliable than the interoffice mail!

Today, FedEx has become a linchpin of the “just-in-time” delivery revolution — its planes and trucks serving as mobile warehouses — that has helped companies around the globe cut costs and boost their productivity. The logistics service now contributes the lion’s share — 92% — of FedEx’s $26 billion in annual revenues.

Although FedEx has spawned numerous competitors, it is still the biggest operator, with a 44% share of the air express market. Its widely-recognized fleet of 645 aircraft and 71,000 trucks carry an average of 5.5 million shipments each day. And all because a college kid could see a market niche that others couldn’t. Now that’s vision and innovation.

Smithson was enrolled at Pembroke College in Oxford and studied the natural sciences. He soon established a solid reputation as a chemist and a mineralogist. There was little technology to retrieve quality information in the natural sciences in the 1700s. Despite this drawback, Smithson’s curiosity sparked his dedication to learning more about minerals and ores. His thirst for knowledge and the resulting understanding was what he wanted to be known for. He was wealthy by heritage but was determined to make a name for himself among scientists and other scholars.

Just a year after he graduated, the Royal Society recognized Smithson for his scientific contributions. His research notes recorded detailed accounts of his findings. Each discovery was calculated with precision.

He published nearly 30 research papers throughout his life; always learning and sharing what he discovered. He was adamant about carefully documenting the knowledge acquired through years of intense research.

Indeed, Smithson was so committed to the sharing of knowledge that upon his death, and after several interim steps, his fortune of more than a half-million dollars (more than $10 million today) was left to the United States, a country he had never even seen, to establish an institution in Washington, D.C. dedicated to “the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.” Although Congress took some time to act, his bequest was eventually accepted in 1838 and formed the basis of the institution that today bears a version of his name — the Smithsonian Institution.

Trippe was attending Yale in 1917 when America entered World War I. He applied for flight training with the Navy, becoming a naval aviator at age 19. The end of the war precluded combat flying and he graduated from Yale in 1921. He tried working on Wall Street, but bean counting was not to his liking. Within a year, he persuaded some wealthy classmates to support development of a new aircraft business. Being a visionary is in part a matter of timing—and Trippe developed his air service in the midst of the nation’s growing fascinating with anything that flew.

He began with an air-taxi service. Visionaries need markets—and Trippe knew only the rich could then afford to fly. Gathering investors impressed with his initial success, Trippe helped to form Colonial Air Transport. That fledgling airline received one of the first Post Office contracts to carry airmail in 1925, which provided steady revenue to allow expansion. Perceiving a growing demand for service, Trippe turned his eye to tourist and business operations in the Caribbean and shifted his focus to southern Florida. By the late 1920s, his vision would evolve into what became Pan American Airways (Pan Am).

Trippe’s airline plans came in measured steps, defined by available funds, landing agreements with other nations, and how far airplanes of the time could safely fly. His huge (for the early 1930s) flying boats captured the country’s imagination, even if few could afford to fly in them. He foresaw that many who watched his airliners (or coverage of them in the press) might eventually become future customers. From a network of routes serving the Caribbean, Pan American expanded service down to South America despite the Depression. But Trippe envisioned a truly global air service. The peak of his fame came with Pan American’s first trans-Pacific flying boat service in 1935, and the first scheduled trans-Atlantic service four years later. No other airline could match what his had accomplished in less than a decade.

Convinced of the value and importance of a global air service in the post-war world, Trippe always sought more. Never satisfied with existing limitations, he pushed plane makers to build bigger and faster aircraft, persuaded governments to allow expanded routes, and marketed his airline to attract more passengers. He was a dogged competitor with airlines from other countries. Pan Am pioneered the manufacture of the first American jet airliners with large orders in the mid-1950s. Within a decade he pushed Boeing to create the 747 jumbo jet. Pan Am also developed computerized reservation systems to fill the growing number of airplanes and routes. Far from his early work serving a small number of wealthy fliers, Trippe in his final decade at Pan American (he retired in 1969) envisioned global air travel as becoming accessible to everyone.

Juan Trippe perceived the potential of a regional and then global airline market long before it was possible and took great risks to see that vision through. He created and directed Pan American by trusting in his imaginative view of an expansive aerial future, and then doing whatever it took to make that vision into reality.

We’ve scoured the web for the best tools for your social media efforts. Know of something that didn’t make the list? Share your favorites in the comments below.

A: aviary.com
When you want to edit images but don’t want to invest in expensive photo-editing software, give Aviary a try. Whiten teeth, reduce redeye, remove blemishes, crop, rotate, and more with this simple (and free) online tool.

B: bit.ly
Links are long. bit.ly makes them short. That way, you have plenty of room in character restricted channels like twitter. You can also track and analyze your links, again, for free.

C: copyblogger
Where do go to learn how make your content relevant and interesting? Copyblogger is the first stop. Founded in 2006 by Brian Clark, Copyblogger has a plethora of resources on how to improve your writing on the web.

D: disqus
Commenting is central to building an online community. Disqus makes commenting easy and is chock full of features to help you keep track of the conversation.

E: eventbrite.com
Hosting an event? Eventbrite makes it easy to get the word out and manage registration. The service is free if your event is free, but there is a fee if you charge. There are also plenty of videos and how-to guides available to help you make the most out of your service.

F: Facebook
We almost feel bad for other social media tools that start with an F (or T). Facebook is the social networking Goliath with a whopping 500 million active users. If you haven’t dipped your toe in the proverbial social media pool, facebook is a great place to start.

G: Google Imagesearch
A picture is worth a thousand words, but not a thousand lawsuits. When you’re choosing images for your social media efforts, you want to make sure you’re copyright compliant. Luckily, Google’s advanced imagesearch tool gives you the power to filter images based on permissions.

H: HootSuite.com
If you’re managing multiple social media accounts or have several contributors, a social media dashboard is a must. Hootsuite helps you manage several accounts such as facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, and more. You can schedule posts and tweets in advance, know who on your team has responded to messages, and create filters to help monitor your brand.

I: instagram
Have an iPhone? You’ll likely love the filter-adding, photo-sharing app instagram (sorry Android users, no word yet). It averages 4.75 stars with just under 80,000 reviews, boasts 5 million users, and is growing by the day.

J: jing
This nifty little app let’s you capture screenshots and create screencasts (up to 5 minutes in length) in a snap. The free version boasts a bunch of useful features, but if you want to go pro it won’t break the bank at under $15 per year.

K: klout.com
Out to create a standard unit of measurement for social media influence, klout is sort of like your social media grade. Link your facebook, twitter, and linkedin accounts to see how your efforts fare compared to others.

L: linkedin.com
Over 100 million people are connected through LinkedIn, making it one of the “big three” in social media world. Profiles, which act as interactive resumes, allow you to search for candidates, find clients, and connect with coworkers. It’s more professional than most social media sites and has recently launched an IPO.

M: mailchimp.com
Don’t forget the grandaddy of social media. E-mail campaigns still have a place in your online marketing efforts. Mailchimp offers an easy-to-use interface and seamlessly integrates with other social media channels such as facebook and twitter.

N: ning.com
If you don’t see a social networking site that you like, why not start your own? Ning lets users easily create online communities to help you “foster conversations, drive action, and earn revenue.”

O: onlywire
Publish your content to over 40 social networking sites with just a click using Onlywire. The service is free for up to 300 submissions, and pricing goes up the more you submit. When you submit using a service such as onlywire, you can save time and increase your visibility.

P: ping.fm
Ping.fm also lets you publish to multiple sites, but is less robust than onlywire, and is free. Another bonus is that it integrates with social media dashboards such as hootsuite, so if you want to publish to a service that isn’t supported by your dashboard, you can use ping.fm as a workaround.

Q: Qurify
Quick Response (QR) codes have been popular in Japan since the 90’s, but are just starting to catch on as mobile device usage grows. QR codes work by snapping a picture with a QR enabled phone (most smartphones will work). The user is then immediately sent to a website or shown text. To create your own QR code, give qurify a try.

R: Rollip
Want to make an image look like a sketch or oil painting with just a click? Give rollip a try. Like instagram, it applies pre-determined filters to images, but is made for the desktop, not your iPhone.

S: stumbleupon
Wouldn’t it be great if you could channel surf the web? You can! Stumbleupon allows you to choose categories of interest and then generates random websites. A quick thumbs up or thumbs down will help refine your searches so you get more relevant results. It’s a fantastic research tool, but be warned, it’s easy to spend hours flipping.

T: twitter.com
Another big player in social media is twitter. When twitter launched in 2006, many pundits laughed at the concept. But twitter has proven itself over the years, and has grown into one of the most used and integrated “microblogging” platforms on the market today.

U: uservoice.com
Branding isn’t just about marketing — customer service is another area where social media shines. Uservoice helps you gather feedback and create an online helpdesk to keep clients happy, loyal, and referring.

V: viralheat.com
Listening to the social media chatter is a great way to monitor your brand’s rank in the marketplace. Viralheat takes brand monitoring one step further with its “human intent technology” aimed at turning datamining into sales leads.

W: wordpress.org
What started out as a blogging platform has grown into a full-fledged Content Management System (CMS). Many businesses use WordPress to manage their website and use social “plugins” that automatically pull in content from other social media efforts.

X: xing.com
If LinkedIn is business casual, xing.com is dressed in a three piece suit. It’s serious networking for serious people. In addition to helping professional find jobs, assignments, and corporate partners, xing also hosts events to help people connect locally.

Y: youtube.com
Unlike some video hosting services (ie, vimeo.com), youtube does allow you to post videos for commercial purposes. In fact, it’s encouraged. Youtube even lets you brand your channel to match your website.

Z: zoho.com
Zoho offers a ton of collaborative applications to help you maintain your social media. From wikis, to chat platforms, and even an online word processor, zoho makes it easy to create content and collaborate with others.

Well, there you have it. Social media from A to Z. Love them? Hate them? Found some new hidden gems? Let’s keep the conversation going in the comments. Enjoy!

It might seem a bit hard to believe that color has such a huge influence on our mind, body or emotions, but it’s been scientifically proven. In a study by professors Harry Wohlfarth and Catharine Sam of the University of Alberta, Canada, 14 severely handicapped children experienced an environment altered by color. When shades of orange, white, and beige were introduced into a room formerly filled with yellow and blue, the children’s aggressive behavior subsided, even resulting in lower blood pressure. Color really does affect our emotional state.

Here’s how the colors you choose can influence your business.

Consider your audience first. Color theory and meaning is received differently among various cultures, races, age groups and gender. For example, red in western culture, depending on the hue/value, can mean love and respect while the same shade in China represents good luck and in India represents purity. Brown in the US is often representative of stability or masculinity. In India, however, it is the color of mourning.

Then consider your business’ position in the marketplace. Is your brand personality fun and playful? Or serious and buttoned-up? How many colors are you using and how do they work together? Does one color dominate over another, and if so was that intended? Are you trying to look aggressive or passive? Are you trying to make people hungry… or perhaps angry? How are the colors used along all marketing materials from your business card to your website?

Finally, consider your competition. What colors are they using? Obviously, you don’t want to use the exact same shade of blue as your competitor (no matter how successful they are), but it’s important to be aware of what else is out there. If color has such a strong effect on your customer’s emotions — it’s important to consider how your color matches up alongside your competition.

Once you’ve determined your corporate colors — work with an experienced strategy team to help you use them effectively, appropriately, and strategically. Your clients’ repeated interaction with your colors in the same strategic way, time and time again creates a strong memory. This will leave a lasting impression of your company on your target — which by the way, is red — but that’s another brand blog.

Edward Lodewijk “Eddie” Van Halen was born on January 26, 1955 in the Netherlands. His father was clarinetist, saxophonist and pianist. His mother was originally from Indonesia, giving Eddie exposure to different ideas and an international perspective on the arts and life.

Van Halen learned to play the piano as a child. He was talented and placed first in several talent shows. Playing the piano, however, did not challenge or interest him enough. He needed something more exciting. He wanted to fully “perform” for the audience.

Inevitability his journey takes him across the globe, performing for the masses as a wildly successful Dutch-born American guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter, and producer. He is best known for his role as co-founder and lead guitarist of the hard rock band Van Halen back in the 80’s. He is also known for his energetic and acrobatic stage performances.

The interesting thing about Eddie Van Halen is that, over 30 years after the peak of his rock stardom, he still has a legion of fans he is committed to producing and playing music for. He has become a rock legend that can do no wrong in the eyes of so many loyal fans. It is public knowledge that he had many vices including drugs, alcohol, as well as plenty of controversy surrounding his love life and marriage to actress, Valerie Bertinelli (they are now divorced). He is by no means an angel and yet, he continues to be adored by millions throughout the world.

This rock star icon continues to make history even today. His curiosity of new developed sounds naturally forced him to try new techniques. He went from teaching himself music to inventing guitar techniques that musicians continue to emulate today. Known for his innovative performing and recording styles in blues-based rock, tapping, intense solos and high frequency feedback. His accomplishments landed him an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In February of this year, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History acquired Van Halen’s “Frank 2” guitar. Known as the “Frankenstein Replica” it was made in 2006 as a part of a joint venture between Fender Musical Instruments and Eddie Van Halen to produce a limited edition number of guitars for the Van Halen band. It is now a part of the museum’s Division of Culture and the Arts.

Eddie Van Halen continues to include music in everything he does. He is no doubt a survivor and determined to never sway from his one true love, music. He is reuniting with band members of Van Halen again and a tour has been scheduled for 2011.

As our featured Red Thinker, Eddie Van Halen certainly listens intently to the world around him, hears only music and keeps on playing to the sound his unique tunes. As a Red Thinker, he is undoubtedly thought of as one of the most influential, original, and talented musicians of the twentieth century.