What Is RFCI Score And How Do You Estimate It?

Using RFCI scores, you can get a better understanding of a polar trend and decide whether you want to do something about it or not. 

The RFCI score is simply an estimate given by the person who is evaluating the polar trend in question. Due to the fact that there is no single standard method for calculating it, different people or companies may use different approaches. So if the source is not reliable, you should only treat the RFCI score lightly.

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What Is RFCI Rating / Score?

RFCI score if broken down into 3 components:

1. Widespread prediction

This is an estimation on how well-known / familiar the topic is expected to become at it's peak. Not to be confused for how important it is (that's the impact component).

Think of the widespread component as a way of estimating what % of the world's population will be directly affected by the polar trend, once it starts trending.

• The lower the number = more people will recognise this topic in the future
• The higher the number = the topic is niche. It's will only ever be relevant to a small subset of people at it's peak popualrity.

For example, something like 'pop music' would have a widespread rating of 1. That is because pop music is a universal, mainstream music genre consumed by people of all ages, in all countries.

Lathes on the other hand would have a widespread rating of roughly 4. That's because most people don't know what lathes are, unless they are involved in manufacturing.

High Number Does NOT Mean “Unimportant”

This is where people get confused. Just because something is niche (high widespread number), that does NOT mean it isn’t important.

Let’s go back to the lathes example above:

Almost 100% of people in metal manufacturing use lathes.

And metal manufacturing includes millions of people worldwide.

So even though the general public doesn’t know about lathes:

• They are extremely important.
• They are heavily used.
• They matter a lot within that industry.

Just remember: there are over 8 billion people in the world.....So even if an RFCI score has a high widespread number (meaning it’s niche), that topic can still affect millions of people.

It just means it won’t affect everyone. It will mainly matter to a specific group of people, not the general public.

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2. Acceleration (Rarely included) 

This is a percentage from 0% to 100%. The closer the number is to 100%, the more the topic is getting spoken about and/or recognised online and in real life. 

Most people estimating an RFCI score don’t usually include the acceleration component. It’s not common, but can be helpful when they do include it. 

This is because actual data in the form of graphs and proof of popularity growth is far more trustworthy than claims about how quickly the topic is being spread.

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3 - Impact

The impact component refers to how positive (or negative) of an impact the polar trend will have on the world

The impact component considers the real-world changes rather than how popular the topic will be. A high impact score means the polar trend could significantly change industries, economies, health, technology, culture, or daily life (for better or worse). A low impact score means that even if the trend gets attention, it won’t meaningfully change much in the bigger picture.

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Summary

Just to reiterate, the RFCI score is just a prediction and/or estimation done by the source. It can be inaccurate if the source’s method of estimation RFCI is ineffective, so take it with a grain of salt if is being calculated by an idiot!