My YouTube channel is getting flesh on the bones

Posted on December 18, 2023 by Christophe Pelletier

After a month and a half, my YouTube channel is starting to look nice. As you may have noticed, I have added a page on this website, especially for the channel.

There are now 14 videos on it, and I have quite a few ideas for topics, so I have full confidence that it will keep on growing from here. All I need now is more viewers and more subscribers, as it will help my channel to get more exposure. I am sure that it will come over time.

I also have started a podcast series, under the title “Q&A with Christophe” that I use to answer questions that some of my contacts, connections and viewers have been asking. I believe this series is an interesting format for a kind of interaction with a more personable style. Feel free to ask me your questions and pass on the information to your contacts.

One of the videos is a compilation of bloopers. I have sometimes been learning the ups and downs of video shooting the hard way, although rather fun. I found out that it was not as easy as I thought it would be. Actually, it is rather different than public speaking.

Here it is if you wish to see me embarrassing myself.

Enjoy the videos and thank you in advance for spreading the word around.

Christophe Pelletier – The Food Futurist

Launching my YouTube channel

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Christophe Pelletier

It was something that I have had on my mind for some time but I will admit I have been guilty of procrastination. In the past, I had placed some videos on a YouTube channel but I had not pursued that avenue. These videos are actually still there and you can find them in different areas of this website. Since I have no recollection of how to access that old account and I have not been able to retrieve the necessary information, I have just decided to create a new one, called -you’ll never guess- “The Food Futurist”.

My purpose with this channel is to post short videos, of three to five minutes maximum, in which I will share my thoughts on whichever topic I will find useful. Of course, if anyone of you wishes me to address one particular subject, I will be happy to listen to your requests. My goal is primarily to provoke some thoughts from the viewers and have them reflect on some issues. It is meant to be entertaining, and hopefully informative as well. I am not interested in playing influencer.

You might wonder why am I doing this? I have several reasons:

I do keynote presentations on a regular basis. Therefore, a large part of my professional activities is about speaking. Sharing videos are just a logical step.
More and more, people prefer watching videos rather than reading. Perhaps, this is because watching is more convenient and requires less effort. Anyway, once again, videos are a logical step.
From my end, making short videos off the cuff requires less time for me than elaborating a written article. Also, since I am still in the process of writing the book on value marketing that I mentioned in a previous post, I can use a different form of communication with you.
Having my own channel will allow me to share my thoughts in a direct and (almost) uncut manner. It is more authentic and genuine. I have been regularly interviewed by media outlets since the beginning of this website (2009) and my works as “The Food Futurist”. I always found that exercise frustrating because the interviews last between half an hour and an hour but in the end, the journalists extract just a few sentences in their final articles. Then, most of what I said does not make it to their readers. The excerpts tend to miss context as they are isolated from the rest of what we discussed. Also, and perhaps the most frustrating is that usually the excerpts are not the most important and useful bits of what I told them. They are just the ones that resonate with the particular audience of that media outlet, and the interview ends up producing just a few catchy or trendy statements. At least with my own channel, I control the content, from producer to consumer.

Bright future for The Food Futurist

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Christophe Pelletier

Christophe Pelletier speaking - Pic Talk03-4 As another year is soon to end, it is a good time to look back and reflect on the future direction to take. Just as I repeatedly advise my clients and audiences to look forward, identify the changes to come and to adapt timely, it is a useful exercise that I carry out for my own business as well on a continuous basis. For the Food Futurist, 2013 has been a great year. The amount of business has grown strongly and the work of the past years is fully delivering its fruits. Venturing in a new area and starting from scratch has been quite the thrill, especially considering how much time it takes to get visibility, recognition and a solid reputation when the business is about mostly about what is in the owner’s brain and how that brain functions. My literature and the positive word of mouth have helped growing the business without me bothering organizations with cold calls or mailings. My clients have found me or heard about me in one way or another; and one thing leading to another, they decided to hire me for their projects and events. All assignments have run successfully with satisfied customers, all being very reputable and professional organizations.

I am quite optimistic about the further growth of The Food Futurist. The motivation now for me is to keep the strong momentum going and to grow further. As this business is growing, I am getting more “hungry”, too. I love what I do, maybe even more so than anything else I have done before; and the more business comes my way, the more fun I have and share with others. In my work, I always insist on the power of helping others succeed. Therefore, it is going my turn to ask a little bit of help from my friends to reach my goals. If my work can add value to you or to organizations or events that you know, please do not hesitate to contact me or have them do the same. I am always open to new ideas, I am quite approachable and I always reply to serious requests.

So what do I want to achieve in the next year?

An average of 1 to 2 speaking engagements and/or seminars a month
Between 3 and 5 small projects (max. 100 hours each)
Getting 1 or 2 large projects (around 500 hours each) in the areas of strategic foresight and strategic business development are well-manageable numbers for a whole year
Getting 2 or 3 positions of advisor on boards of organizations with focus on strategic foresight activities

So, all it would take is probably less than two dozen new interested contacts. Considering the number of events and projects of all sorts out there, that should be achievable.

Next to the usual topics of innovation, sustainability, leadership and market orientation, I would like to do more seminars on niche marketing, effective reconnecting of producers and consumers and, last but not least, reach the youth to get them interested in food and agriculture. In terms of sectors of activities, I would love to be more involved with animal protein producers, retailers and food service operators than I am today as, for different reasons, future changes are going particularly important for these them.

So far, my client base is in North America and Europe. I want to grow further in these two regions, but I would like to gradually expand it in other regions as well. I would like clients from other countries to be more familiar with my work and my vision of the future of food and farming. The list of the regions that I have in mind is rather long. Actually, it covers the whole world. Because of their current and future strategic importance, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina, the Black Sea region, India, China and Arab countries are high on my wish list. But I would like to get a chance to also present how the math works with market orientation and waste reduction, and how it opens the door to huge business opportunities for Africa, India, Southeast Asia and South America in particular.

Ideally, the number of assignments outside of North America/EU that I would like per region is as follows:

India: at least 1
Russia/Ukraine/Kazakhstan: at least 1
Latin America: at least 1
South East Asia: at least 1
China: at least 1
Australia/New Zealand/Pacific: at least 1
Sub-Saharan Africa: at least 1
North Africa/Middle East: at least 1

If you are interested or if you know an organization that would be interested, please do not hesitate to contact me. To reward those who will bring me leads to assignments, I am willing to pay you a finder’s fee.

Looking forward to hearing from you or from the contacts you will send to me.