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If anyone knows innovation, it’s Jeremy Gutsche, founder of TrendHunter.com. He makes a living studying it. His online magazine follows the newest trends and tells the world what will be cool in six months, a year, or five years. He spoke this morning at the 2008 Digital Now conference.

Gutsche is a sound-bite seeker’s dream, so here are several of his snappy bits of advice on finding and fostering innovation and "unlocking cool," with some thoughts added in italic:

“Situational framing dictates outcome.” What you believe may be blinding you to reality.

“Complacency will be the architecture of your downfall.”

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Don’t try to fight culture or the world around you. Accept it and adapt accordingly.

“Innovations must often fail.” This is perhaps the most important point he made. We have to accept the bad with the good and have faith that every failure is an opportunity to learn and increase the likelihood of future success.

“Create opportunities for failure.” Great example that Gutsche shared: the BBC established a “gambling fund” to develop programs that very few people thought would work. The Office, one of the BBC’s most popular shows (and now a popular show in the United States) was a gambling fund idea.

“Innovation starts with observing your customers.” Put yourself in their element. Visit them in their places of business. Create open online environments for them to interact.

“Senior people need to be crazy.” Aren’t they already? (Sorry, bad joke from a millennial). What Gutsche meant is that senior-level leaders need to encourage, accept, and foster wacky ideas. Too many great ideas from all levels get killed at the senior-leadership level.

“Relentlessly obsess about your story.” i.e. stick to your mission and reinforce it consistently through your marketing.

“Simple, direct, and supercharged.” According to Gutsche, these are the qualities of “infectious” marketing.

I followed up with Gutsche after his session and asked him about his emphasis on embracing any crisis as an opportunity. He even promoted declaring a crisis so as to bring that opportunity out into the open. “When you are in a crisis, regardless of how you got there, you get good ideas,” he says.

TrendHunter.com prides itself on finding the “next big thing,” seemingly in contrast with the previous day’s keynote message about the long tail and the death of culture-wide blockbuster hits. Turns out the next big thing for any organization is just a matter of scale. “So many things can be a success,” Gutsche says, “but that doesn’t mean everyone in America buying a toaster.”