One of the most difficult things to predict is trends. What trend is a fad and what trend will stick around? We aren’t just talking Beanie Babies and Nordic Tracks here, this is big money, and big decisions are constantly being made about which trends to follow and which trends we should let go of. Kenisha and Griffin want to know who to believe, so they start by soaking up trend advice from Head, RBCx and Ventures, Sid Paquette. Though he admits that he’s, “not a trendy guy,” - he knows a whole lot about the metaverse and augmented reality, among other things. Our hosts meet Swish Goswami, who is the CEO of Surf. Swish knows a lot about the trends that are out there from an entrepreneurial perspective, and his advice is invaluable when we look at where everyone’s focus is going to be over the next few years. Swish also sums up his popular keynote talk - leaving us with some thoughts of what he’s up to next, which is certain to not be a passing fad.
One of the most difficult things to predict is trends. What trend is a fad and what trend will stick around? We aren’t just talking Beanie Babies and Nordic Tracks here, this is big money, and big decisions are constantly being made about which trends to follow and which trends we should let go of. Kenisha and Griffin want to know who to believe, so they start by soaking up trend advice from Head, RBCx and Ventures, Sid Paquette. Though he admits that he’s, “not a trendy guy,” - he knows a whole lot about the metaverse and augmented reality, among other things. Our hosts meet Swish Goswami, who is the CEO of Surf. Swish knows a lot about the trends that are out there from an entrepreneurial perspective, and his advice is invaluable when we look at where everyone’s focus is going to be over the next few years. Swish also sums up his popular keynote talk - leaving us with some thoughts of what he’s up to next, which is certain to not be a passing fad.
RBC
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Sid Paquette
https://ca.linkedin.com/in/sidpaquette
Swish Goswami
Twitter and Instagram
@goswish
Hosts
Griffin Toplitsky
Kenisha Humber
RBC Team
Vishan Persaud
Rachel MacLeod
Elynn Wareham
Allison Tam
PSBX Team
Baron Manett
Dorene Arcayos
Shaun Benoliel
Isabel Magnoli
Norman Howard Team
Sandy Jobin-Bevans
Nate DuFort
Jason Reilly
Sandy Marshall
Disclaimer: Below you will find a transcription of this episode. The text is the result of an AI-based transcription from an audio recording.
Sid Paquette:[00:00:00] You're gonna see some real world applications being built that will
have longevity.
Swish Goswami: I think more and more people are starting to realize that being a creator and being an entrepreneur is actually a viable career path.
Griffin Toplitsky: Welcome to another action packed episode of In The Know. I'm Griffin tki. And I'm Tanisha Humber. We are so pleased that you could join us as we jump into the Trends episode. We wanna know what is just a flash in the pan trend and what is gonna stick around. We're
Kenisha Humber: talking things like artificial intelligence and the metaverse also
Griffin Toplitsky: podcasts trend or here to stay.
You're still not sure. I just wanna know if something I love is gonna stay or go. That sounds
Kenisha Humber: like you might have a more deep rooted anxiety there.
Griffin Toplitsky: Possib.
Kenisha Humber: To help give us some of those answers on trends. [00:01:00] We have head RBC x and ventures, Sid Paquette joining us this episode,
Griffin Toplitsky: and a very successful young entrepreneur, the CEO of Surf Swish Gwai will be here
Kenisha Humber: and like we often do, we wanted to kick off the show by going out in the field and finding out what's so-called current trends you're into, and is it a trend or is it here to stay?
Here's what's trending out there.
Listener: I'm not too sure if this is a trend or. But the other day I was doing online shopping and I was able to try on a pair of sunglasses online. I'm not too sure if I should be freaked out, but it's pretty cool to say
the least cargo pants,
no questions asked. I love cargo pants and street style, like I hope that trend sticks around forever.
And if I could, I would wear cargo
pants like 24 7.
Griffin Toplitsky: We always encourage our listeners to email in and Steve from Winnipeg write. The biggest new trend that is affecting my life is app-based investing. There's no need for me to call someone to invest my money like my [00:02:00] parents used to do. I just jump on the financial app on my smartphone and it's done well.
I hope that our podcast isn't just a trend or podcast in general aren't a trend because I have really been enjoying this. I love when we get questions and comments from the people out there. Cause it lets you know you're connecting with people. It's not just the two of us in a studio hitting record and talking.
Kenisha Humber: I agree. I really crave that connection to the world outside of our mics, which is why I also look forward to the fantastic guests that we invite into our little micd up world. And today is no exception. We also
Griffin Toplitsky: appreciate the RBC programs out there and want to continue to high. And what they can offer to you are listeners.
So before we get to our first guest, have a quick listen to this.
RBC Future Launch is an initiative to help young people gain access to the skills, job experience, and career networks needed. For the future world of Work, working together with young Canadians, RBC is bringing together community [00:03:00] leaders, industry experts, governments, educators, and employers to help design solutions and harness resources to chart a more prosperous and inclusive future.
Through programs like this, RBC is helping solve the quiet crisis of no experience, no job. Go to the RBC Future launch site to find out more.
Time to get into the world of trends.
Kenisha Humber: Okay. What is the biggest trend that you think you've ever gotten
Griffin Toplitsky: into? I mean, I was really into We bowling, but now it just sits collecting dust in the corner. Loved playing rock
Kenisha Humber: band. But then I was like, why don't I just actually join a band?
Griffin Toplitsky: I loved rock band too.
So many people would have those rock band parties, but now it's just a bunch of weird instruments sitting in the corner of a. Unloved. But let's talk
Kenisha Humber: to someone who knows about current trends and are they just trends or are they here to stay? Please welcome to in the Know Head, RBC x and [00:04:00] Ventures, Sid, PA.
Sid, thanks for making the trendy choice to join us.
Sid Paquette: Thanks for having me. Sid.
Griffin Toplitsky: Overall, do you consider yourself a trendy person? I am
Sid Paquette: absolutely not a trendy person. I am extraordinarily pragmatic, but when it comes to technology, it's my job to stay on trends. So I would say from a, from a professional perspectives, I, I do try to stay a little bit on.
Well,
Griffin Toplitsky: can we talk about your job momentarily before we get into it? Uh, R C X is this like a sleeker sport mode rbc. Really what R B
Sid Paquette: CX is, is it is really the technology and innovation practice of R B CX that is focused on banking, capital platforming investments. And so really what we're doing is we're working with both internal tech organizations, companies that we've acquired, companies that we're building.
All the way through to external clients as well, and ultimately helping both scale their practices.
Griffin Toplitsky: And what, what exactly does that mean? What would that look like, for [00:05:00] example?
Sid Paquette: Yeah. So if you think about some of the things that you need to scale a, a tech organization, right? First and foremost, you probably need some capital to get you started, get you, you know, put some fuel on the fire.
We absolutely provide that as you would expect, uh, a financial institution to do. When you kind of go along the value chain though, and you are building a company, there's a lot more that you need other than capital, right? So as an example, you'll. Expertise. So we have that, whether that be banking expertise.
We've also built a venture capital expertise. We have some of the best venture capital individuals in the country on this team. We've got operators. So again, this could be everything from marketing to HR to design to technology. And we leverage those for the benefits of our clients, both internally and externally.
And so really what we're there to do is really help you scale your business, right? So a lot of us have that expertise. We've worked with a ton of tech companies globally to help them do that. We're doing the exact same thing day
Griffin Toplitsky: in day. So when it comes [00:06:00] to trends, then you're looking at how can a company grow in the coming like few.
Or long term. Yeah, so I think from
Sid Paquette: a trends perspective, and again, we're just all a makeup of our experiences, a number of us have experiences as investors. We've invested in some of the top tech organizations in the country, and so a lot of our kind of on trend experience comes from that world. If we've always played in that world, we've had to stay on top of trends.
We've invested into some trends early and failed. We've invested into some trends early and we've done well. And so a lot of that is just really understanding what's happening in the, in the technology and innovation ecosystem, and then overlaying that on top of the business decisions, and ultimately we're gonna be making on a day to day basis.
When you couple those two things together, then you're gonna be making smarter business decisions and then ultimately, hopefully having a, a much tighter view to what the future.
Griffin Toplitsky: So this episode we're talking about trends and what we want to know is, is it a trend or is it here to [00:07:00] stay, for instance, uh, the metaverse, is that just a passing trend or here for good
Sid Paquette: metaverse?
I would put in the, you know, the idea of a shared digital universe. I think there's
elements
Sid Paquette: of that that
ultimately are gonna be the building blocks of the future. It's probably not gonna look in the future like it does today. Right. And so, you know, again, the metaverse, this was first coined by Neil Stevenson, you know, a long time ago.
Um, and yeah, like conceptually, there's a lot of things that could be really interesting in the Metaverse as an example. Could we use the metaverse from a learning perspective? Right. Could you go to school in the Metaverse? Could you, you know, do remote learning in the Metaverse? Absolutely. Do I think we're gonna go to the Metaverse to digitally recreate social situations?
I actually don't think we will.
Right? Not long term. Next
Kenisha Humber: step is podcast trend or here to stay?
Sid Paquette: You know what? Selfishly,
I think it's here to stay, [00:08:00] right? I think, I think the way we are consuming content now is very much in a podcast format, right? So I'm hopeful it's here to stay. Um, and I think, you know, again, The podcast world looks very different today than it did five years ago.
It looks very different today than it even did two years ago. Yeah, I hope it's here to stay because I think this is the way that a lot of us are consuming content now. The reality is, will it get better? Absolutely, it's gonna get better and will that mean that there is a medium change potentially. But uh, but I think conceptually it's
Griffin Toplitsky: here.
Hear that listeners we're not going anywhere. We made it electric vehicles trend or here to stay. Yeah. So electric vehicles are here to stay. Uh,
Sid Paquette: however, again, penetration on EV technology is not as in depth as we would expect, right? Not everybody is driving electric vehicles. In fact, we can't have everybody drive electric vehicles.
Otherwise we wouldn't [00:09:00] be able to do this podcast because the entire grid would shut. So there's a lot of infrastructure development that has to happen before we can sustain mass adoption of ev. I actually don't think EV's going anywhere though, right? Like this is now baked into.
You jumped on early. Great question.
Uh, I'd say the healthcare trends is one that I jumped on relatively early as an investor. It was a number of years ago that we kind of [00:10:00] identified that. As being a trend, and so we were earlier than most, and. You know, did some investments in that space. So I think you're gonna materially
against the needle forward.
Kenisha Humber: Well, Sid, thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate you coming
Griffin Toplitsky: out.
Sid Paquette: Thank you
Griffin Toplitsky: so much for having me. Thank you
once again, we have a guest on that teaches us. Things and makes me feel smarter. So many trends to follow. You really want to know which ones should be taken seriously and which ones are gonna be gone sooner rather than later. And
Kenisha Humber: yet so many so-called trends shock the world because they have staying power.
And so many things we fall for are in hindsight. So dumb.
Griffin Toplitsky: Remember
Kenisha Humber: Beanie Babies? Not a joke. An Uber driver of mine told me that they were making a big comeback for big money. He was trying to buy one for his partner. And let's just say he was stressed and struggling.
Griffin Toplitsky: I would not have called. I think my mom threw all of ours out.
Oh,
Kenisha Humber: sorry man. But cheer up. You're about to tell us about another RBC program.
Griffin Toplitsky: Yes. Thank you. [00:11:00] Here
I go.
Are you a student recent grad or have a few years of work experience? But need help navigating your next step. RBC Upskill tm. Powered by Future Fit AI is a free and intelligent career tool that gets to know you, your career relevant skills, education, interests, and work experience so that it can help you discover, prepare for, and get closer to that job you really want.
Check out RBC upskill.ca.
Well
Kenisha Humber: done now. Didn't that re help you forget about your mom throwing out your beanie baby nest egg?
Griffin Toplitsky: No. Well, now it's back. All I can think about is that sweet beanie ca gone forever.
Kenisha Humber: Great. Let's move on. Griffin, I feel like our next guest is going to be very enlightening on the subject of trends because he's an entrepreneur and if you have the entrepreneurial spirit, you always have your ear to the ground to know what's up and coming and maybe what you [00:12:00] can invest in or start a company to support.
Griffin Toplitsky: Totally. He's the exact opposite of me who just seems to miss the trend boat. Well, I
Kenisha Humber: guess you were way ahead then behind, then ahead again on the Beanie Baby thing.
Griffin Toplitsky: I don't wanna talk about that
Kenisha Humber: anymore. That's fair. Swish GWA is a CEO of Surf, which is all about understanding digital audiences and driving commerce.
In other words, how to get what the digital audience wants and make money on it. Perfect. Please welcome to in the Know entrepreneur, author, speaker, and investor, swish gwa. Hi, swish. Thanks for joining us.
Swish Goswami: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Let's
Griffin Toplitsky: start by sharing your backstory with our listeners.
What got you to where you are today? Where did
Swish Goswami: it. Yeah, there's a few things to kind of note there. I think number one, I was born in a beautiful country island called Singapore, and um, I lived there till I was nine years old, and I went through a little bit of the education system there, which really helped me when I came to Calgary, Alberta is, you know, the Asian education [00:13:00] system is significantly faster than the North American education system.
So when I came to Calgary, School was relatively easy for me. It wasn't anything too difficult, which really allowed me to do a lot of stuff outside of the classroom. So I danced. I played cricket, I played basketball, I played volleyball. I debated, you know, I did karate. I was able to just kind of do anything that I saw in the newspaper.
I'm like, mom, let's do that. She's like, all right, cool. I'll drive you. And, uh, my mom would drive me there. And, but very, very supportive of just taking every curiosity I have and letting me kinda live it out. In high school, I got very serious about debate. I debated for the Canadian National Debate Team for three years.
Kind of primed me to think that perhaps I had this future in law, cuz typically a high level debater will go into politics or law. And two years into the University of Toronto, I realized law was definitely not my calling , it just wasn't for me. I heard you have to actually read a lot, which definitely didn't know that before.
I thought law was like what you saw in suits where you just go and. You know where million dollar suits talk and that's it, but it's really just not that. [00:14:00] So I decided to kind of go down my creative path again, and I had the opportunity to work on a really cool Instagram account at dunk on Instagram, and we grew 21 accounts that had 11 million followers overall on Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.
And accounts were all very focused on basketball, which was a big passion of mine in university. I was able to kind of take my passion and mix out with business, and it was like kind of my first foray into, you know, building out a community and also understanding the type of data and metrics that brands care a lot about and how that might change in a privacy conscious feature.
That whole exploration really led me to Sharp, which is a project I'm currently working on. I've been working on it for the last four. And you know, essentially in a nutshell, we're building obviously a very cool company for consumers that can help them earn from their data while providing brands data directly from people that can help them navigate a cook less world in a privacy conscious world.
Well, let's talk a little bit
Griffin Toplitsky: about surf then. What exactly does that mean? What is surf? Yeah, so on the
Swish Goswami: consumer side, we're a browser extension, so you [00:15:00] can download the extension on any major web browser. And you essentially browse the internet like you normally would, and you'll get points for your browsing data.
So as long as you're sharing data with us, you'll get points back and you can use those points for items, for gift cards, for discounts. You can donate your points to charity. You can even enter your points into giveaways for the chance to win a much bigger prize. So think about this kind of loyalty program as like a frequent flyer program for browsing.
We're not trying to get people by the way, to brass 24 hours a day. You know, we, there's a weekly cap on how many hours we can grasp for to get points, um, but we are trying as much as possible to compensate people for a type of data that they've never been compensated for. Traditionally, on the enterprise side, we have an analytics platform.
It gives essentially brands a very clear understanding into anonymized web browsing insights. So for example, 18 to 24 year old males in Toronto. What are the top publications they read? What are the places they shop at? What searches do they make on Google? What searches do they make on TikTok? What videos do they watch?
What streamers do they follow? That's the type of [00:16:00] information we provide them to help them navigate this cook and privacy conscious.
Kenisha Humber: On this episode, we are talking about trends, so I was just interested what are the top three trends that you think are here to.
Swish Goswami: Well, I think number one, you know, dealing very closely with surf, obviously I do believe the world will become more and more privacy conscious.
What I mean by that, if I had to unpack it, is number one, cookies going away. So for those people that are listening that maybe are unfamiliar with cookies, you know, back in the day, you know, before we ever had to click, I accept cookies. There was nothing. So like when you went on someone's website, they could put a cookie on you and track you all the way across the internet what you were doing, even outside of their own website.
And so now that's obviously changed. You know, most websites require you to like say, I agreed to, you know, accept their cookies. And even when you're accepting a company's cookie, you're only accepting them tracking you on their website. So what you're doing on Lululemon's website is what Lululemon can track.
They cannot now understand what you're doing outside of their website. [00:17:00] And so that coupled with. Regulation like GDPR and CCPA that has come to the forefront and made opt-in data more important. The Apple iOS 14.5 changes in late 2021 that have made it very hard for mobile app developers to track people without getting explicit opt in or even look at paid ads, losing effectiveness ad blockers rising.
It's clear to me that the world is gonna be moving more and more into a privacy conscious future. The second big trend, I think, is, I think more and more people are starting to realize that being a creator and being an entrepreneur is actually a viable career path. You know, and I think for. I saw that definitely.
But if you ask like my parents' generation, I don't think they saw that. Now. I don't think for them being a creator on the. And streaming or posting was a livelihood and something they could make a lot of money from. But it's really cool to see that a lot of people are taking passions they have in any industry really.
And just figuring out a way to build content around it and create a livelihood from it. And then the third and final thing, which I've been [00:18:00] looking a little bit more and more into actually synthetic media and AI art. I have a lot of friends that are very interested in it, and I've been very captivated by this idea of, well, everybody has a lot of thoughts in their.
But not everyone is like Picasso or not everyone is a really good painter or drawer. And so what if there was a way to be able to use a program to put in a prompt, a very specific prompt, not just one word, but like even a whole paragraph, and then have an ai, create that artwork, create that world for you.
It would just disrupt the way that we make video games. The way that we pilot movies and TV shows, the way that we express ourselves. It would change that entirely. So I'm, I'm, I'm quite a fan of that trend, and I think it'll be more and more dominant. Go. So
Griffin Toplitsky: on the flip side of things, what are trends right now that you think are just that, just trends that are gonna soon be gone?
Swish Goswami: Oh man. I think influencer marketing, can I say that? Like I think yes. You know, celebrities will always be around to promote products. I just think for me, When I look at consumer buying decisions, I just genuinely feel like we're [00:19:00] going back to now listening to more around like authentic voices. And obviously the most authentic voices in a person life, person's life will probably be their friends and family members because those are just the people you know the best.
Like you actually know who they are. And so I just, I just think that it would be less and less relevant. I know that like influence, the marketing had this massive inflection point around 20 14, 20 15, I mean, Was building a business within that inflection point around 2016. And so I know that there was a massive appeal there, but then I think now it's dwindling away as authenticity has become more and more important to brands and trying to find figures that they can promote through that are, that are actually like using the product that they're promoting, that are, that are actually connecting on a grassroots level with their audience.
That's become 10 times more important to a lot of brands.
Griffin Toplitsky: So our podcast is all about giving advice to young people. So I wanted to talk about the debate between staying in school or dropping out early.
Swish Goswami: Yeah, I mean, a don't do it. , stay in school. I'm very pro college. I think a lot of people think I'm [00:20:00] not, but I.
I went there for two years and I, I, the biggest thing I took away candidly from college were just the people. You know, like I, I still am very close to a lot of my best friends from college. Uh, I'm actually close to a lot of my professors that taught me at college. A lot of them are, they, they never thought that me dropping out would lead to me starting a business around kind of the.
Like area of expertise that they had specifically, you know, when I was taking like an Eco 1 0 1 course, for example, or even data ownership at the course. And so that was really cool. But again, for me, the decision came down at this, which was, am I in a situation where I could go back to school next year, uh, and take a year off?
Yes. And I think that's a privilege, by the way. Not a lot of people have that opportunity, and I definitely recognize that. But I, I was in that situ. And do I feel like the opportunity that I have in front of me requires my full attention. And that was also a yes. And so when I kind of got a yes on both, it came down to me then talking to my parents and that was a bit of a difficult conversation for sure.
My parents were going through a bit of a divorce at that time, so it made it a bit easier cause there was like bigger fish to fry and I was [00:21:00] like, okay, great . But at the same time, me being able to drop out I don't think sat very well with my mother. But I mean, I think the biggest thing that concerned her, just that her son wouldn't be independent, So once I started to prove that I could be independent financially, I think she started to believe in me a little bit more and was a little bit more confident in terms of what I wanted to do.
And obviously now she's like my biggest fan, biggest supporter, which is great. But I think without her blessing, without her support, I wouldn't be able to do what I'm doing right now.
Kenisha Humber: Sweet. Well, what are you up to now that you'd love our listeners to know about you?
Swish Goswami: Yeah, I mean, surf obviously is the biggest focus for me.
It's the nucleus for everything I do. If I don't do surf well, I mean, I can't, I can't, you know, can't speak well , like, I can't, uh, I can't write content well on social. I can't invest well if I'm not doing my main job properly. So surf is my day to day, and I'm excited to get surf outside of North America in the coming months.
We're hoping to be in the uk. By the end of this year, uh, we're also hoping to have a mobile solution ready for se, where people can earn points for their mobile browsing and their mobile app usage data as well, not just desktop. And then beyond that, I'm launching a Formula One podcast as well in the new year.[00:22:00]
So I'm very excited about it. Formula One, to be a big passion of mine and, uh, I'm excited to do something creative around that space. So that'll be a big passion project for 2023.
Griffin Toplitsky: Well, swish, thank you so much for joining us here today. It was great to have.
Swish Goswami: Thank you for having me. This is the blast.
Kenisha Humber: That was great.
Although after an interview like that, I'm always left feeling mostly inspired, but also feeling like I should be doing so much
Griffin Toplitsky: more. I hear you. It's crazy how some people are so good at motivating themselves to do more. I wish I had just a bit more of that.
Kenisha Humber: Griffin. Maybe it's time to bust
Griffin Toplitsky: out the we again, that is the opposite of what I need to be doing.
Kenisha Humber: I'm a bad influence.
Griffin Toplitsky: Sorry. Time to tell our fine listeners about what's up next.
Kenisha Humber: Yes. Are getting into the topic of climate change. We know the news on the topic is often grim, but we are going to look at how we can clean up this mess and explore career opportunities in the field. While we do that, to
Griffin Toplitsky: help with that, we'll talk about sustainable finance with Lindsay Patrick, who is the head of Strategic initiatives and esg, [00:23:00] RBC Capital markets.
If you don't know what ESG stands for, you'll have to wait to find.
Kenisha Humber: Put a cliff hanger. We will also be joined by executive director of the Students Commission of Canada, Sharif Ma.
Griffin Toplitsky: Very cool. I'm looking forward to it. Me too. Kenisha, before you go, reignite your love of rock band. I wanna say thanks to Head r CX Adventures.
Sid Paquette for being here.
Kenisha Humber: And I wanna say thanks to the CEO of se Swish Gwai for stopping by
Griffin Toplitsky: another really informative set. That we are so lucky to have had. Make the time. We hope all of you out there enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed making it for you. And finally, we'd be nowhere without our in the know listener community.
Thank you all for sending such amazing questions for this week's guests. If you would like a chance to be included in a future episode of In The Know, email us at RBC future launch rbc.com. Within the Know in the subject line, in
Kenisha Humber: the KNOW is a production of RBC [00:24:00] dedicated to focusing on the issues that matter and are important to society and people.
For more on RBC citizenship, check out the links in our show note. And here to share their mission is none other than Mark Becks, vice President, social impact and innovation at rbc. Mark, it's your time at
Griffin Toplitsky: rbc.
Mark Beckles: Our purpose is to help clients thrive and communities prosper, and that's why we are investing 500 million over 10 years as part of RBCs future launch to help empower young people for.
Of tomorrow. We want to help you be the best that you can be. So we work to increase your access to information programs, tools and resources to share different points of view and challenge your norms, and ultimately helping you make sense of the world around you. We know that our future and the future of our communities starts with you, and that's why we want you to be in
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