Max Valiquette

Max Valiquette is an innovation and trends expert who helps companies, organizations and brands figure out solutions to their problems, usually by better understanding their consumers, employees or citizens.

Valiquette focuses on what’s new and modern - what’s young and now. As one of North America's foremost experts on media and modern consumers, his knowledge of the ever-changing world of marketing, branding, youth culture, social media and communication has established him as one of Canada’s most sought-after speakers and consultants.

Valiquette helped to found Youthography, North America’s leading full-service youth market research firm, and for over ten years he worked with some of the country’s biggest brands, organizations, and companies, creating innovative solutions for organizations trying to connect with the ever-changing youth market.

Marketing Magazine declared that Max Valiquette one of Canada’s most influential marketers. He makes frequent media appearances, contributing to CBC’s Day 6, the Business News Network’s, SqueezePlay, and Canadian Business magazine, among many others.

Valiquette’s varied expertise and exceptional presentation skills make him one of the country’s most sought-after speakers. He has made hundreds of presentations to tens of thousands of audience members in virtually every industry and sector, as well as all levels of government. He has also spoken extensively to school boards, educators and administrators about the future of education, and is a regular speaker at Human Resource conferences and participates in marketing and media roundtables, as well.

Valiquette is a former Central Canadian Debating Champion, and has performed, as a sketch comedian, at Second City. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Media Fund, and contributes to various charitable endeavours.

• 2. Leveraging Trends for Future Success

  What are the trends of today that will have the greatest impact tomorrow? Max Valiquette’s  career has involved market research, strategic planning, running focus groups, conducting and analyzing research. He's worked with big brands and tiny companies, governments and not-for-profit. In this highly customized presentation, he'll analyze the emerging trends that are most likely to impact your industry, business or organization, and provide a roadmap to help you create a better future.

• 3. Future/Present: Make the Change of Tomorrow, Today

  Change would be so easy if we could all see into the future. So how do we innovate like we know what tomorrow will bring?
  
  “The only constant is change.” But you probably work at an organization that finds change the hardest thing to deal with. Fostering and rewarding innovation is a tough thing to do, but now, more than ever, staying on top depends on creating a culture of innovation. So how do you make this happen? Max Valiquette has worked with some of the biggest brands and organizations in the world to help them understand what they need to do for tomorrow right now.
  
  In this presentation you’ll find out how to make innovation a priority in your workplace; how technology and innovation are forever, completely linked; and why it’s important to abandon some of your most-used (and most-hated!) workplace practices right now, no matter how engrained they are in your organization.

• 1. The Conversation

  Facebook isn't a strategy. Twitter isn't a strategy. In fact, "social networks" aren't even a marketing strategy. But more and more, we're led to think that they are. Why?

  Welcome to the world of The Conversation – where communications and marketing, which used to be one-sided, a top-down monologue – is now a two way dialogue between marketer and target. This presentation examines the changing role of communications and how best to connect to a consumer that is more in demand, more in change, and more in control than ever before. It's not enough to understand the monologue that marketing was – we now have to understand the conversation that it is. Fun, funny, and fundamental, this presentation is appropriate for consumer marketers and B2B; for agencies and clients; and anyone with a message who wants to be heard. Max's years of leadership and experience in the marketing field makes for an exciting but actionable presentation, filled with real-world examples, and best practices.
  
  Don't just listen to marketing messages any more: instead, join The Conversation.
  
  

• 4. The Sweetspot: How to Manage a Multi-Generational Workplace

  The difference between older and younger workers is the biggest generation gap ever. So how the heck do you manage that?
  
  There’s never been as big a gap between the edges of our workforce: generational management is a bigger issue than ever before, as we work later and later into our lives, and as young people raised in technology arrive at their jobs with a completely different point mindset than their bosses. How do we attract and retain workers from such significantly different generations? How do we bring them together in one productive workplace? It’s about understanding and creating the HR Sweetspot – that place in the middle where all employees can connect to each other and be productive workers. You’ll learn about the different sorts of employees in your organization, and what makes them different – and then how to make them come together. 

• 6. Le@rning

  Students are changing. Technology is changing. So why are schools staying the same?

  The education revolution is happening before our very eyes, transforming our students, our classrooms, our schools. But what happens when the technology that best delivers a learning experience to students is also the thing that distracts them the most? Is this new generation of digital natives outpacing their parents and teachers in technologically-assisted learning? In this big, connected world, how are administrators, support staff and parents more essential to the school experience than ever before? And how does a school’s brand – how it presents itself to its students and potential students – have an impact on all of this?
  
  This is a presentation for teachers, for parents, for administrators and school staff – anyone involved in the school system and the learning process. You’ll learn how to better connect to your students inside and outside the classroom, why technology is essential, and what’s next.

• 5. Understanding Youth

  Forget  "Generation X," "Generation Y," and "Millennials," – if you're looking to connect to young Canadians you need to know about all of them, and this is the way to do it. This is the only presentation you need to get a complete handle on the under-35 age group. Max's most requested presentation, which has been seen by tens of thousands of people across the continent, is the most complete presentation on connecting to young people available today. A combination of statistics, primary research, insight and anecdotes, it's an enormously entertaining, high-energy presentation that will unite your audience with a common understanding of how best to connect to young Canadians.

  Demographics and Psychographics, Values, Social Networks, Youth Culture in Transition, and Implications for Your Organization are all a part of this presentation; which is customised, every time, for you industry and your audience.

• Great Presenter! Great Sense of Humour! Great knowledge base! Very interesting!
  Educational Computing Organization of Ontario
• Comments like 'awesome...inspiring...informative...enlightening...an amazing opportunity for learning and growth..." were sprinkled heavily throughout the evaluation responses. Max, we want to thank you for your part in making the conference such a success. Your audience was clearly fascinated by your presentation, which was rich in content and extremely relevant.
  Trillium Health Care
• Your presentation was very well received and was an integral part of the overall event. We appreciate your valuable contribution, which helped us achieve our goals of promoting and providing an effective forum in which delegates could share their perceptions, experiences and knowledge relating to the forum theme of the 'creative economy'.
  The Conference Board of Canada