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Top 100 Internet of Things Influencers | Postscapes

2011-07-18T23:29:00.001+01:00

2011 100 Thinkers tracking the Internet of ThingsPostscapes - Postscapes Top 100 #IOT Influencers list lets you discover and follow all the industry leaders at thinkers in the field.
Amazing list: the world's top 100 blogs & ppl tracking the Internet of things: http://bit.ly/prD3dT
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MIT Student Develops $3 Cutting-Edge Healing Device, Field Tested in Haiti | Fast Company

2010-04-15T21:52:00.001+01:00

BY Cliff KuangWed Apr 14, 2010

The new device could radically improve healing times for tens of millions, at a cost of $3.

No one really knows why, but for an open wound, simply applying suction dramatically speeds healing times. (The theory is that the negative pressure draws bacteria out, and encourages circulation.) But for almost everyone, that treatment is out of reach--simply because the systems are expensive--rentals cost at least $100 a day and need to be recharged every six hours.
No more. Danielle Zurovcik, a doctoral student at MIT, has created a hand-powered suction-healing system that costs about $3. The device is composed of an airtight wound dressing, connected by a plastic tube to a cylinder with accordion-like folds. Squeezing it creates the suction, which lasts as long as there's no air leak. What's more, where regular dressings need to be replaced up to three times a day--a painful ordeal--the new cuff can be left on for several days.
Zurovcik originally intended to field-test the device in Rwanda, but then the Haiti Earthquake struck. At the request of Partners in Health, an NGO, she traveled to Haiti with 50 of the pumps.
Currently, Zurovcik is verifying the healing benefits of the device, and developing a new model that can be readily carried and concealed. The one technical hurdle that remains is ensuring the bandage seals tightly--but after that, the device could benefit a huge portion of the 50-60 million people in the developing world that suffer from acute or chronic wounds.
[Top image: Melanie Gonick/MIT; Bottom image: Patrick Gillooly/MIT]

via fastcompany.com

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Travel Leica: Cities, People, Perspectives | TrendLand -> Fashion Blog & Trend Magazine

2010-04-13T22:24:00.001+01:00

Leica recently launched their micro-site/Social Media platform, called Cities, People, Perspectives, paired with Google Maps, they brings together a variety of photographer from around the world, showcasing their pictures shot with their Leica (obviously).

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Retail Evolves: Shop Out In The World With Visual Search | MobileBehavior

2010-04-12T23:24:00.001+01:00

With tools like RedLaser, Amazon, and Google Product Search all running on our mobile phones, retail stores have come under threat of becoming simple display rooms. Users get hands-on with products, decide whether or not they like, and then price check or order online.

Frog Design looks even further into the future, envisioning the entire world as a display case.

In the future nearly every visible thing will be cataloged and indexed, ready to be instantly identified and described to us. Want to go shopping? In the future we won't need big retail stores with aisles of objects on display. We'll be able to shop out in the world (see image, above). Do you like that new car you saw drive by? Or those cool shoes on the woman sitting across the room? All you’ll have to do is look at it and your mobile handset or AR-equipped eyeglasses will identify the object and look up the best price and retailer.

With recent developments in image recognition technology, and Google's acquisition of Plink, this seems entirely possible. While this is definitely further down the road, think about how brands would get their product out into the marketplace. Product placement would take on new meaning.

via mobilebehavior.com

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Coke + Emeco: Get Hitched, Spawn Chairs | Design of the Times | Fast Company

2010-04-12T22:04:00.001+01:00

Now you can have your Coke and sit on it too.

On the eve of the world's biggest furniture fair, two classic brands--Coca Cola and Emeco, manufacturers of the iconic 106 aluminum Navy chair--are announcing the rainbow-hued progeny of their new collaboration.

Each new Emeco 111 Navy Chair is made of 111 recycled plastic bottles. Over the course of a year, Emeco estimates it will process more than three million PET bottles to produce the product, which will be sold for $230 at Design Within Reach.

Designed in 1944 for the U.S. Navy, the original Emeco chair takes 77 steps to produce and includes a process that alters the aluminum's molecular structure so that it's three times harder than steel.

The new chair won't be quite so tough, but will provide a way for PET to be up-cycled. Each chair will contain a mix of 60% PET and a combination of other materials, including pigment and glass fiber for strength.

"Although re-engineering a core product is a significant investment for us, I was excited...to turn something many people throw away into something you want and can keep for a long, long time," says Gregg Buchbinder, chairman of Emeco.

The chair will come in six colors, chosen by designer (and Fast Company expert blogger) Laura Guido-Clarke: Coca-Cola Red, Snow, Flint, Grass, Persimmon, and Charcoal.

Reached in London on her way to Milan, Guido-Clarke offered this: "The colors needed to complement the form of the chair and the qualities of the new material. Because the chair and Coke are classic, the colors reflect a sense of modern heritage. They connote a sense of history but were pushed enough to feel refreshing." Her personal faves? The charcoal and the green. "And together, they make me really happy!" she said.
On May 1, the collaborators will launch a Web site, www.111navychair.com, to house the "111 Navy Chair Project." The companies will be sending the chairs out to various artists, celebrities and designers for comment, and will post their responses. In other words, stay tuned. And keep recycling responsibly.

via fastcompany.com

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Putting people first » Your life in 2020

2010-04-12T09:10:00.001+01:00

Forbes Magazine, in collaboration with Frog Design, has been looking at what the future in 2020 might look like in a range of areas: computer, choice, classroom, commute, home, job, diet, health and reputation.

Some articles are clearly more inspired (and less technology and US-centered) than others. Many scenarios are far too optimistic, and I miss some broader socio-economic and environmental analysis. What could be the real consequences of privacy concerns, crime, cultural differences, war, climate change, overpopulation or poverty in all this?

Here is for instance a quote from one of the scenarios (about social networking in 2020) that, when thinking about it, would open up a huge range of privacy and security problems, none of which are acknowledged or addressed:

“The virtual display could be used to illustrate relationships between a group of people. A husband and wife might be linked by a thin glowing tether. Flowchart arrows could indicate if one person is another’s boss. Even former friends–people who were once connected but severed ties–could be identified with broken chains or angry lightning bolts.”

This lack of broader contextualisation makes the whole exercise somewhat naive and superficial. That said, here are my preferred pieces (with Steve McCallion’s one – addressing some of the issues mentioned above – my personal number one):

Your life in 2020
by John Maeda, president of RISD
In 2020 we might just regain some of the humanity that was lost in 2010.

“So, what will take technology’s place? It begins with art, design and you: Products and culture that are made by many individuals, made by hand, made well, made by people we trust, and made to capture some of the nuances and imperfections that we treasure in the physical world. It may just feel like we’ve regained some of what we’ve lost in 2010.”

Your computer in 2020
by Mark Rolston, chief creative officer at Frog Design
Traditional computers are disappearing; human beings themselves are becoming information augmented

“When computing becomes deeply integrated into our knowing, our thinking, our decision processes, our bodies and even our consciousness, we are forever changed. We are becoming augmented. Our first and second lives will be forever entwined.”

Transportation in 2020
by Steve McCallion, executive creative director at Ziba Design
In 10 years, your commute will be short, cheap and, dare we say, fun.

“In 2020 a new generation will emerge from a period of frugality into one of resourcefulness and resilience. Americans will start searching for transportation solutions that are smarter, healthier, slower and more social.”

The classroom in 2020
by George Kembel, cofounder and executive director of Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design
The next decade will bring an end to school as we know it.

“In 2020 we will see an end to the classroom as we know it. The lone professor will be replaced by a team of coaches from vastly different fields. Tidy lectures will be supplanted by messy real-world challenges. Instead of parking themselves in a lecture hall for hours, students will work in collaborative spaces, where future doctors, lawyers, business leaders, engineers, journalists and artists learn to integrate their different approaches to problem solving and innovate together.”

Reputation in 2020
by David Ewait, Fortune Magazine
Social networks change the way we look at the world and introduce new economic incentives.

“Web-based social networks are cutting-edge technology in 2010. By the year 2020 they’ll be so commonplace–and so deeply embedded in our lives–that we’ll navigate them in the real world, in real time, using displays that splash details over our own field of vision. We’ll even use the social capital that results from these networks as a form of currency.”

But if you understand French, it is useful to compare these insights with the five videos broadcast on the France 5 channel: vivre en 2040.

via experientia.com

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Gatorade campaign wins top honors at ANDY Awards - Boards

2010-04-11T14:29:00.001+01:00

In Replay, Gatorade restaged well-known high school sports rivalries 15 years after the fact.
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Replay, an integrated Gatorade campaign from TBWA\Chiat\Day, Los Angeles has won the Grandy prize at the 2010 International ANDY Awards in New York last night.

Launched online last May, the doc-style branded content series restaged classic games between high school sports teams 15 years after the fact. Originally conceived as five webisodes (produced by Caviar Content), the show was picked up by Fox Sports Net in the fall and is now in its second season.

Inspired by a statistic that only three in 10 adults over age 30 exercise regularly, the campaign was designed to rekindle the athletic instincts for those in that demographic. Replay was awarded the Grandy in the Earned Media category and has generated 154 million online impressions since its debut.

In total, ANDYs jurors awarded 21 gold, 13 silver and 11 bronze prizes. JWT and Leo Burnett were the top-winning agency networks with six awards each, followed by Euro RSCG with five, TBWA with four and DDB with three.

Gold-winning TV work included Euro RSCG, New York's popular The Most Interesting Man in the World campaign for beer brand Dos Equis; Publicis Mojo, Sydney's unusually subtle beer commercial "Pure Waters" for James Boags Draught and Euro RSCG, Paris' action-packed "Closet" ad for French broadcaster Canal+.

We Choose The Moon, The Martin Agency's virtual, real-time recreation of the Apollo 11 moon mission for the John F Kennedy Presidential Library picked up a gold in the public service category, while BBH, London's single-take "The Man Who Walked Around the World" spot for Johnnie Walker nabbed gold in the long-form category.

Leo Burnett, Chicago's Tampax film "Zach Johnson", directed by Smuggler's Randy Krallman, scored three gold awards for video/cinema direction and branded content, respectively, while Leo Burnett's London office picked up gold in the integrated category for Shelter "House of Cards". Cummins Nitro, Melbourne's Best Job In The World campaign for Tourism Queensland, a big hit on last year's award circuit, also won a gold for branded content.

Three new categories were introduced this year. TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris, Johannesburg's The Trillion Dollar Campaign for The Zimbabwean Newspaper won gold for Earned Media; Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco picked up gold in the Best Program to Make People's Lives Better category for Hyundai Assurance. Crispin Porter + Bogusky's Twelpforce campaign for Best Buy meanwhile won a gold for RESET, which recognizes unique thinking and unusual approaches.

Wieden+Kennedy, Portland's Chalkbot campaign for the Nike Livestrong Foundation won the Richard T O'Reilly Award for Public Service. The campaign gave web users around the world the chance to chalk the roads along the Tour de France route with messages of hope in the fight against cancer. The agency used a robotic chalker - or Chalkbot - to deliver 36,000 messages during the 25 day event.

In the student competition, an idea from the Miami Ad School Europe in Hamburg won the The Glenn C Smith Scholarship prize for the second consecutive year. The award was given in the Branded Applications category to Bjorn Borstelmann and Thibault Gerard for The Voiceipt Campaign for The Swedish Tax Agency.

This year's ANDY Awards were co-chaired by former JWT chief creative officer Ty Montague and Big Spaceship founder Michael Lebowitz, who sought to inject new life and buzz around the showcase by crowdsourcing this year's jury through the Elect The Jury campaign.

"I'm so proud of how the ANDYs reinvented itself this year. As a first for any advertising awards show, we engaged the community to Elect the Jury," Montague said in a statement. "The process provided us with a fresh mix of talent to evaluate the submissions in all categories and mediums."

For the complete list of winners, visit the Andy Awards site.

via boardsmag.com

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‘Local’ Debuts In Milan | We Heart: Essential Lifestyle Guide

2010-04-08T15:57:00.001+01:00

new U.A.E label at this year's Salone Internazionale del Mobile...

Interiors

April 8th, 2010

Time for the influx of jaw-dropping new design from this year’s Milan furniture fair… first up for us is this beautifully unconventional new label from the most unexpected of places, the United Arab Emirates. With the goal of stimulating the design scene of the U.A.E, Rami Farook – the founder of Dubai based art and design collective, traffic – has conceived ‘Local‘, a new brand that sees designers and artists create outside their usual mediums….. an architect designing seating, a media artist working in product design. With a launch collection that features chairs, sofas, benches, loungers, coffee tables, lighting and storage debuting next Thursday at Zona Tortona, Local is one of the key new brands to watch….

via weheart.co.uk

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Leica CITIES.PEOPLE.PERSPECTIVES Website | SLAMXHYPE

2010-04-08T00:16:00.001+01:00

Leica have unearthed this most recent project, compiled of highly regarded influencers. Entitled CITIES.PEOPLE.PERSPECTIVES this initiative was designed to offer a look into the lives of these peoples, with a look at their city and travels. Featuring William Yan, Sevada A. & Philipp S., Anh Phan, Nii Obodai, TK and Tomohiro Fujii, the website has been created along with Google Maps providing viewers of details about the location of each shot. Take a look below at some of the highlighted images while check back for regular updates.

Thanks to TK for the info.

via slamxhype.com

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Frog Design Imagines Urban Food Systems of the Future | Sustainability | Fast Company

2010-04-06T22:54:00.001+01:00

What if getting affordable, local food was as simple as going to the nearest corner store or stopping by a food cart on the way home from work? Frog Design imagines that this is possible with Mobile Market and Stones Throw Harvest, two entries in the Digging Deeper SF competition. The San Francisco-based competition invited designers to "Design an urban agricultural product, system, retrofit, service model, or communication campaign/platform that is simple to set up/manufacture/produce and/or implement/sell/distribute, and maintain within the context of the urban environment with existing neighborhood, city and state regulations"--not a simple challenge to decipher, much less take on. Frog, however, tackled it well.
In the Mobile Market scenario, Frog Design attempted to solve the issue of local food distribution from farms to urban centers. "We're proposing a new way of helping farmers get food to urban centers via carts distributed throughout the city," explained Catherine Sun, one of the Frog designers behind the project. In the proposed system, farmers bring produce to a pick-up location near their farms, and the food is taken to a central location for vendors to access. Carts are placed throughout high-traffic areas in San Francisco. They display both fresh local food and pre-packaged ingredients for meals. An RFID card-reader system for the carts mean that customers don't have to bring cash to get their produce. At the same time, cell phone applications alert customers to the types and quantity of nearby produce and pre-prepped meals. The Mobile Market system allows easy access to fresh produce--no farmer's market required.

The Stones Throw Harvest scenario empowers corner stores to distribute local organic produce. The scenario consists of three parts: store owners, growers, and community. Local certified organic growers who have, say, extra lemons in their backyard lemon tree can bring produce to a corner store in exchange for credits that can be used to purchase other pieces of organic produce throughout the city. Community members on the prowl for quality produce use the Stones Throw harvest cell phone app or website to check out nearby fruits and vegetables. Anyone using the app can rate growers and corner stores in a Yelp-like system--so community members know where to go for the good stuff.
For either of these scenarios to occur, support from the city would be needed. But considering how inaccessible local produce is to people who don't have the time to make it to the farmer's market, both proposals could end up being successful.

via fastcompany.com

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Insiders’ Tips: Abigail Ahern | We Heart: Essential Lifestyle Guide

2010-04-06T20:53:00.001+01:00

With her hugely popular, ultra-chic Aladdin’s cave of cool in North London, Atelier Abigail Ahern – Elle Decoration called it “one of the coolest places to shop in the UK” – a highly rated, “fabulous new interiors tome” – so say The Times – ‘A Girl’s Guide to Decorating‘, a range of products, concession at Bluebird at continued interior design work, Abigail Ahern is one of London’s most prominent design figures, so you can imagine just how excited we were to get her on board as the first ‘Insider’ for our new regular feature…. if you want to know what an influential interiors guru enjoys in her hometown, read on…..

“Cool stuff in London” by Abigail Ahern

I covet stores that are independent, playful and glamorous – that tantalize my mind and take me on a shopping experience. Particular gems include, Squint, Caravan, Story, The Shop At Bluebird (pictured), Start and of course my own Atelier Abigail Ahern. I am also a huge fan of markets from flea markets like Portobello to food markets such as Borough and my local Broadway market.

Crazy hours makes going out to supper a local experience as the thought of trekking the other side of town induces an instant migraine. Luckily Shoreditch is on my doorstop – über trendy bars that spill out onto the street abound, as do some fabulous eateries including Pizza East (pictured), The Boundary & Lounge Lover.

The music scene is vibrant and often on a Friday night we hang out at our local jazz club Café Otto or the Dalston superstore. The superstore plays a genre-crossing mix of popular music including pop, electro, old school hip-hop and house.

In terms of art galleries Dalston and Shoreditch get my vote its, London’s new Bohemia with many young artists living in and around. The White Cube is the most famous, situated in Hoxton square. The gallery supports most of the famous names in contemporary art in Britain. I am rather into street art at the moment and love Pure Evil’s Gallery in Leonard Street (pictured). All around this area are small little galleries dedicated to primarily up-and-coming artists.

What I am doing

We are in the process of launching our own range of lighting, art, wallpaper and a small selection of furniture, which is hugely exciting. A lack of desirable merchandise has prompted us to put together our very own range, and although its proving rather challenging its also very exciting. The store and our concession at Bluebird also keeps me busy, we have just launched a faux flower shop within our store and its taken off a storm. On the interior design side a couple of residences are underway, as well as a corporate office in London.

via weheart.co.uk

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Life's a Skitsch - Interior Design Blog

2010-04-06T16:22:00.001+01:00

By Rebecca Hoh, idfx
Skitsch, an Italian slang word meaning cool, is also the name of the contemporary design brand that launched in Milan 2009, who marks its first anniversary with the opening of a new 350 sq m store on the Brompton Road. I went along to check out the interesting interior and catch a sneak preview of the new products which will be launched at this year's Milan show.

The interior is actually quite industrial and distressed, despite its swanky South Kensington location, with sawed wooden floors, rough concrete surfaces and glass shelves supported by iron girders. Remnants of wallpaper appear left on the wall that leads you to the ground floor space that has been designed by Studio Pepe.

The new collection sees the company collaborating with a new selection of designers such as French collective 5.5 who has created the Fire Lamp, a blown glass flame that burns on a wood chunk base. Marcel Wanders is also on board with the transformable sofa with its giant quilting and crystal buttons and Dutch designer Bertjian Pot offers Pion, a table lamp of Nomex (a Dupont style material) and will also showcase an installation in the showroom in the near future.
It's definitely an exciting space, with a great set of products shown in a very cool (or should I say skitsch) way, marking a successful first year for the brand. To this end, I am looking forward to celebrating at the official birthday party in the Milan showroom during the design show next month.
www.skitsch.it

via blog.worldinteriordesignnetwork.com

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ISO50 - The Blog of Scott Hansen » Typography of the Fashion World

2010-04-06T16:05:00.001+01:00

In honor of the currently unfolding (ha) Fashion Week in NYC, I thought I’d post on some of the terrific typography at work in the fashion world. When I first got into design, I used to think the typeface for the Louis Vuitton logo was the epitome of graphic design. I remember writing everything in Futura Medium for a good month (even research papers, nothing was spared). These days, I still to pick up the occasional GQ or etc just for the ads — usually can pick up a few interesting things. There are always a number of logos that catch my eye, continue reading to see some of the marks that resonate most.

The mark for The Fashion Center (above) is perfectly simple. How brilliant to utilize the button holes to form the F! This is probably one of my favorite logos of all time. What it comes down to for me is that the 5th button hole is slightly smaller than the rest — this subtle scale shift makes the whole thing. Developed at Pentagram.

Selected Typography of the Fashion World

You don’t see too many slab serifs in the fashion world — this one for Iceberg is my favorite. Bally is OK too, but I prefer the “B” in the Iceberg mark for the details (no bottom slab). Also, it’s sort of unfair, but Iceberg is a cooler word and thus I find it more appealing.

Tom Ford probably has one of the most photogenic names in the business. The two words strike a great balance and convey the boldness of the brand very effectively. It announces itself proudly and authoritatively, and is somehow able to be colored pink/violet and still seem completely bad ass.

This one is an uber-classic. Designed by Cassandre in 1963, the Yves Saint Laurent lettering has always had a mysterious air to it for me. Maybe it’s because I could never figure out how to pronounce it. Anyway, the kerning in this one is masterful — just look how smoothly the letters flow into one another.

One of my favorites for its simplicity. The Helmut Lang logo says to me that they don’t mess around — they make classic and quality clothes without comprising their core principle of (stylishly minimal) utility.

Dunhill takes a slightly different approach than most. Seeing the ascenders ascend to new heights is certainly a nice change of pace. It stands out amongst the more typically “restrained” fashion logo. Whether accurate or not, I get the feeling that (like a Paul Smith) there is some extra dose of personality and flare to what they do.

Trussardi has one of the best crests. I’ve seen other brands try this approach (see Juicy), but rarely are they able to achieve such a sense of heritage and refinement like Trussardi. There is even a little touch of playfulness if you look closely at the greyhound in the middle; he looks like he’s up to something.

I love the Hermes identity. The logo is great — especially love the rendering of the horse and buggy — but the real winner for me is the color. If you walk into a Hermes shop, you know you where you are immediately because of the crazy and unusual blends of colors you find yourself surrounded by. A nice contrast to the muted tones of some of the above.

Of all the script logos in the fashion world, Paul Smith is my favorite. It’s hard to imagine the brand without his signature color rainbow, but I think the lettering alone still does a great job summing up what the brand is all about. Seeing this lettering inside of an extra sharp suit somehow makes complete sense, especially when you see that the lining is bright purple.

I know I said Paul Smith was my favorite hand written face, but Salvatore Ferragamo comes pretty close. Each letter is wonderfully drawn if you take them individually — they all have interesting little quirks and imperfections that come together nicely. It’s hard to tell if I like this one because of the actual rendering or just prolonged exposure.

This condensed face is not the official logo of Zadig and Voltaire, but I enjoy it anyway. Their current logo (which you can see on their site) is great, but my love of condensed type always led me to prefer this one. I suppose the current one has more personality (especially in that “g”!) in the end.

– -

Definitely left a few out I know; Chanel, Louis Vuitton, maybe even American Apparel. Let me know if there are any others!

via blog.iso50.com

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Adverblog: Connected marketing still needs the media (but in a different way)

2010-04-06T12:40:00.001+01:00

Connected marketing still needs the media (but in a different way)

Today I discovered Bank Run, an interactive action movie that you can play online (the first part) and then continue on your iPhone by purchasing the application on the Apple Store. The game itself is pretty good, it is quite amusing and difficult enough to become addictive. But the smartest thing about the project is the ability to engage first and then connect with the players/consumers landing on their personal mobile devices.

Mix the platforms, establish a first contact on the Web and then continue the relationship on a mobile device. It's not a rule that the order should be this, but the principle to follow is quite straightforward: if you want to win consumers' attention in today's world, you need to be able to "connect" with them and their daily life. Which means, to deliver meaningful experiences (useful/entertaining) without necessarily requiring the consumer to visit our (corporate, brand, boring) website.

For a brand to "connect" might mean to create iPhone/mobile applications (or games) that people enjoy downloading and most of all keeping on a device which is part of their lives at least 12 hours a day. To connect might mean to engage and deliver value to fans on a Facebook fan page. To share news and new products but first of all to deliver valuable information worth interacting with in a flood of updates from tons of friends (and people you barely know).

An advertising campaign is still the fuse to light the relationship with consumers. But, you know, advertising is no longer enough (and I'm probably just repeating this after a million other people). However, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying advertising is dead. I speak out of personal experience, and I confess that I believed for sometime that Facebook would have been enough to activate consumers. But I proved wrong. A strong relationship in the virtual world doesn't necessarily translate into a strong relationship in real life. And, in the same way, producing an entertaining advergame is not enough, developing a good branded application is not enough to activate wide audiences, to ask them for commitment and participation or simply, to spread the word about the game/app you provided them for free. Word of mouth is a myth, viral effects are tougher than ever to obtain. We still need a "little" help from our media friends. Because media (especially print and TV) give us credibility and have the ability to last and possibly become a reference (especially OOH and print). In the virtual world, and especially on Facebook, trust is difficult to gain. There are just too many fakes, and just too many messages out there for people to believe everything they read, even if it comes from their favorite brand.

So we, the brands, still need our friends, the media. But times have change. And media should understand that "connect" is the key word also in our relationship. It is not just about buying media space. It is about building together projects that prove useful and meaningful to consumers. Because advertising, on traditional media, might prove boring and end up unnoticed. I quote Elvis Presley's who used to say "do something worth remembering". And this is so damn true for marketers as well, both in short and long term. And to do something worth remembering, means to go back to the first lines of this post, it means to connect.

Pardon this unusually long post. I just wanted to share some thoughts that come out my recent experiences and stimulate a bit of discussion. I look forward to hear your comments.

via adverblog.com

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Creative Spaces and Innovation | Blog | design mind

2010-04-05T10:39:00.001+01:00

Creative Spaces and Innovation

By Tim Leberecht - April 4, 2010

Last fall our friends from Palomar 5, a collective of young German entrepreneurs, and affiliate curators gave 28 residents under the age of 30 from all over the world the possibility to stay for six weeks in an Innovation Camp in Berlin. It was an invitation to collaborate, and to discover and express themselves. Furthermore, the participants could network with leaders from the fields of economics, science, culture, and politics, and meet experts at the forefront of their fields (among them frog). The initiative generated a cluster of projects ranging from perspectives on social entrepreneurship to technology, art, design, and psychology. Eight of the Palomar 5 residents have now arrived in San Francisco to continue developing their projects at GAFFTA, the Gray Area Foundation of the Arts.

A few weeks ago, four of them – Axelle Tessandier, Edward Harran, Gijs Burgmeijer, and Sagarika Sundaram – presented their experiences and projects and held a debate around the subject of creative spaces as a catalyst for “significant innovation." Reflecting on the role of creative spaces for their innovations, they proposed three types of spaces: the mindset (brain space), the location and work environment (physical space), and the network (virtual space). They described how each of these had played a pivotal role in facilitating their projects: how the lack of privacy had occasionally fueled tensions between residents but also forced everyone to – literally – listen to other ideas; how the lack of boundaries between work and life had surfaced a growing quest for “meaning” in what you do; how “curiosity, risk-taking, and challenging the status quo” had been the key requirements for a fully immersive experience (and how some of the residents weren’t able to cope with these demands). They stressed that scarcity (space and time limits) had propelled intimacy and urgency and thus increased output intensity, and that in the face of the abundance of information and social connections on the web the experience of face-to-face collaboration had changed their concept of work: “It’s not who you know, but how well you know someone. Trust is becoming the biggest resource,” Palomar 5 participant Edward Harran put it.

Trust is also the main currency of Axelle Tessandier’s Show Me Love lab, which explores “how to make work like love,” providing businesses with the tools to implement new paradigms of productivity and collaboration. At first I was skeptical, thinking ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ but I figured that skepticism is anathema to love: Trust means believing without knowing it better. Axelle does not preach office love, no, no, but wants to introduce romanticism as a new dimension to work – not so much on the interpersonal level but as a guiding principle for the relationship between work and worker. Do what you love. Love what you do. And – in the spirit of the true romantic appreciation of the invisible – know that there’s always more than meets the eye. You can’t measure everything you manage. Embrace ambiguity. Let go. Love.

Creative office spaces are conducive to employee satisfaction, and a big factor in establishing meaningful relationships to one’s work. At least that’s what common wisdom holds. In her recent book, I Wish I Worked There: A Look Inside the Most Creative Spaces in Business, Kursty Groves examines 20 well-known companies, including the LEGO Group, Oakley, Bloomberg, and Urban Outfitters, among others, and provides insights into how these firms use space in ways that promote creativity and collaboration, increase satisfaction, and decrease employee turnover. She distinguishes between stimulating spaces (that tell stories or enable people to access different information), reflective spaces (where people can go to focus or relax, as an individual or as a team), collaborative spaces (where people casually connect with one another, i.e. the cafeteria), and playful spaces (where people can bond through playing games, i.e. foosball).

There's a space missing in the list of creative spaces for innovators discussed by Palomar 5: the market space. “Innovation is the only way to turn change into opportunity,” as Peter Drucker once said, and for breakthrough ideas to come to market, one has to reinvent the market space. For a recent strategy workshop I just once again skimmed through Blue Ocean Strategy (2005) by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, and I was surprised to realize how much of what seemed provocative at the time, or at least original, has been broadly adopted by the business mainstream. The “blue ocean,” as opposed to the “red ocean” is the uncharted, the uncontested market space that allows you to make competitors obsolete, but not by outperforming them in the sense of Porter’s competitive strategies, rather by disrupting the market, changing the game: The DVR, the zipcar, the iPhone, the iPod, maybe the iPad, you name it. It often goes unrecognized that the innovator’s biggest creative accomplishment may not be to invent a new product or service but to imagine and create a new market.

Adding the definition of market space – a strategic task – to the mix allows you to view strategy as what it really is: a creative effort – one that is very ambiguous and elusive, an ever-changing living and breathing organism. Strategists are like good parents. They guide their children but don’t tether themselves to them. They provide a strong foundation and aspirational goals but leave everything in between to the imagination and the will of those who actually do the work. The best strategists redesign, recalibrate, refine, and rethink their strategies all the time, and they know that tactical adjustments in the execution often times trickle up to the strategy itself.” The best strategy is crafted after the project is completed,” Michael Aidan from Evian argued at the recent Marketing 2.0 conference in Paris. Because you need space to be creative.

via designmind.frogdesign.com

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Burger King: Media Buying Gets Smarter | Digital Buzz Blog

2010-04-05T10:32:00.001+01:00

Ok, so maybe this isn’t “smarter” media buying, but it sure is thinking outside the box. One of the toughest things about buying digital media is there is (generally) only so many placement types you can buy, and going outside of those placements either means months of negotiations or astronomical costs, so when I see something like this, I feel good for the industry as a whole to see it’s still flexible enough to do something a little different!
Burger King are now buying the “no results” pages on Digg.com and promoting their $1 Double Cheeseburger to anyone who can’t find what they are looking for! Sure, it’s not targeted like you’d expect from any digital media buy, but Burger King would be paying a much cheaper rate for a place most people haven’t experienced ads. I’m sure media owners around the world will now start to look at this as a potential revenue stream while brands can utilise it as a high exposure, low cost placement for special promotions.
I’d love to see this sort of buy across multiple major portals, but what do you guys think of this?

via digitalbuzzblog.com

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The Cube - In Japan, a Cellphone Culture's Real Connections

2010-04-03T18:10:00.001+01:00

TOKYO — It's a sunny day in Harajuku, Tokyo's trendy shopping district, and Saya Kato, a high school student, is waiting for a friend to accompany her into La Foret, one of the city's citadels of fashion. Exquisitely attuned to the style of the moment, Kato is wearing a filmy vest over a T-shirt and shorts, sporting a straw fedora and carrying not one but two cellphones.

The first, emerging from a vast pink bag, is a slim, honey-colored basic model with a flat-rate voice plan that enables Kato to enjoy long chats with friends who have the same plan. The second is a hot-pink Sony Ericsson that connects her to everybody else. With it Kato can access the Internet, read the news, watch television, update her blog and the diary she keeps on Mixi, a social networking site, and, most important, text her broader social circle.

Asked how many hours she spends on a cellphone daily, she says simply: "All the time."

Around her are infinitely more teen-age girls on exponentially more cellphones, often personalized with rhinestones and charm-tipped straps. In Japan, Web-connected smartphones became widely available about a decade earlier than they did in the United States, and girls quickly became the most incessant and creative users, driving the ways phones are designed and the extras they come loaded with today.

The country's cell-obsessed culture now takes its cues from the gaggles of young women carrying multiple phones: Twenty percent of Japanese high school girls own two phones, and some own even more.

So Japan's teen-age girls offer a good window on the way in which ceaseless mobile phone connectedness affects adolescent culture and identity. The good news is that the view isn't that scary. In Japan, where experts have had years to study the impact of mobile messaging, a number of observers have concluded that cellphone culture can enhance independence, cement friendships and expand horizons.

That's reassuring to know, as American teen-agers in rapidly growing numbers embrace phone texting, phone Internet browsing and phone Facebooking. According to the Pew Research Center, which is preparing to release a major report on the topic, 75 percent of Americans ages 12 to 17 own a cellphone, and they are getting their phones at ever-younger ages. Among teens, 66 percent use their phones to send or receive text messages. As our smartphone market catches up to that of Japan, our devices are gaining the versatility — the ability to blog or social network, for example — that has long been a quality of phones in Japan, which early on had reliable network coverage and a rich trove of apps.

In Japan, girls were the ones who discovered all the ways to live life through a cellphone. They learned that the best way to text in the bathtub is to put your phone in a plastic bag, which protects it in case of droppage but still lets you type. "We love American Ziploc," says Rika Lindroth, a researcher for Boom Planning, a Tokyo marketing firm that focuses on high school girls. When in public, girls run their phone batteries down so quickly that convenience store managers have taken to taping over outlets to thwart them from plugging in chargers.

"They've become so cellphone reliant," said Yohei Harada, a cultural researcher, that "if they have a paper due, they'll write the paper on their cellphones, send it to their computer, cut and paste it, and send it in." They also write and read cellphone novels.

Cell-savvy young women are even credited with inventing a new language. Japanese has three main character sets — kanji, hiragana and katakana — all of which are available on phones, along with Roman and other letters, mathematical symbols, and an array of emoticons, or "emoji." Several years ago, girls began playfully transposing characters to create something they called "gyaru-moji," or gal language.

Gyaru-moji can be laborious: The simplest sentence may require a lot of steps. The trouble you've taken proves the depth and durability of your friendship. "You're trying to get a sort of code — not necessarily to shut out, but to enclose and bring in those people who share this common expression," said Yasuko Nakamura, president of Boom Planning.

In the past, Japanese men were the drivers of high-tech electronics — especially computers and gaming — and girls were "really a very marginal group in terms of traditional notions of cultural and social power," observes Mimi Ito, a cultural anthropologist at the University of California at Irvine. Once girls started using cellphones to communicate and refine their personal style (another big phone activity is reading fashion blogs), this "had a big impact on the overall value that was placed on girls' culture," Ito says. "You saw teen-age girl culture in Japan becoming one of the dominant places people look to for cultural and technology trends."

In Japan, as here, researchers worry about cellphone addiction, harassment and the deleterious consequences of never being alone with your thoughts. But others have found that phones enhance friendship by providing a reassuring stable of peer support on standby. Calls and texting can supplement face-to-face encounters with side-by-side ones: relationships in which friends are apart but still have a sense of being together, like a married couple sitting companionably in the same room, Ito says.

Or, as one young user, Aya, puts it: "If you are walking and see something strange or beautiful, it's fine to enjoy it yourself, but it's even better to message a friend."

And not every message is banal. Standing on the street after shopping, one girl displayed an e-mail from a friend, featuring a huge "happy birthday" emoji and a message recalling confidences shared, including "being groped at my part-time job or struggles with friends."

Another, Akane Ota, reckoned that she sends and receives 100 messages a day. "Everybody has their cellphone in their hands, so you can always send a message to someone. To let them know you're thinking of them." That way, she says, "Even when you're not together, you can feel together."

Liza Mundy is a Washington Post staff writer. This reporting was supported by a Japan Society (New York) media fellowship. mundyl@washpost.com

via thecubenews.com

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Thinking About Innovation

2010-04-03T18:00:00.001+01:00
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
Thinking About Innovation
View more presentations from nbrier.

A Quick "Utility Brief" for Brands

2010-04-02T13:52:00.001+01:00

Consumers expect more from brands. "Branding" has long been the art and science of applying meaning to products and services that drive people to purchase and value a brand beyond its purely functional benefit. Today, consumers want their brands to deliver more value through utility, entertainment or information (the latter two are really just forms of utility). They want high quality products and services but expect brands to go beyond that to keep them as customers or to at least earn their advocacy.

Here's an excerpt from the Global Web Index that asked European consumers what brands could deliver that would be most relevant for them. Utility tops the list.

Trendwatching has a great collection of brands providing utility in their recent "Brand Butlers" report. There are some intriguing examples including:

"In March 2009, Galp Energia launched Galpshare, a carpooling platform available throughout Portugal, where commuters can create a profile, specify their daily route and find others heading the same way"

"ColorSnapis a free iPhone app from US paint brand Sherwin-Williams that allows consumers to match the color of a photo taken on their iPhone with over 1,500 colors listed in the Sherwin-Williams database"

"Beck's Gig Finderapp helps users to find local music gigs. The app's map and GPS interface allow users to see where he or she is in relation to the gigs"

The Utility Brief

What if brands embraced this role via their marketing? What if they standardized a "Utility Brief" to replace their standard marketing or creative brief. Its really replacing the creative brief, isn't it. I mean, what was that all about anyhow? We thought at one time that if we were only creative enough (read: disruptive, interruptive, clever, loud) consumers would look up from what they really wanted to do and notice our brand. Should they do that 3-4 times, we octile claim they were "aware" of our brand.

The utility brief would have the following fields:

1. Current business objective: every communications or service brief must start with what are we trying to get done. It should reflect our understanding of our current business model, i.e. how we make money.

2. Customer and brand moments: an outline of how our core product or service intersects with our customers lives. For a home surfaces product like Corian (disclosure: client), we would be tracking all of the moments that drive a customer to consider and purchase the product from home renovation to dream home building. We want to understand the role we currently play in their lives. Ogilvy uses the term "customer journey" to document this in pathway form.

3. Customer intent:this section outlines what the customer is trying to get done throughout those moments by acknowledging that they have some intention that drives them. We do something cool called "Consumer Intent Modeling" via our colleagues at GSI. This looks at consumer intent via search engines to better understand what they are trying to get done and the language we all use when seeking answers via Google.

4. Customer profiles: from digital behaviors to shopping tendencies to trends, we want to have a pretty good view of other parts of our customers lives. This is the hardest section to standardize. It could include everything from their mobile phone usage to video interviews with customers.

5. Social Brand: This is quick, It strives to articulate a natural or authentic place the brand can come from via social media. Often this is but 10,20, or possibly 30 degrees left of where their overall brand position is. And while utility is not always expressed via social media, it pays to know the social personality fo the brand as you venture towards interacting via utility

6. Utility Mapping: okay, that is a fancy name for brainstorming big, disruptive utility and more subtle services you could provide. It starts with blue-sky brainstorming around customer intent and continues through some more subtle problem solving. Example:

for Corian, I will hypothesize that many designers and property owners would love to see a convincing visual overlay of a Corian installation in their kitchen. (big disruption)

7. Measure of Success:if you provide a smartphone app that really provides utility you must gauge success by more than the app metrics (installs, stars, etc..). You will want to measure its impact on your net promoter score and the likelihood of customers to share word fo mouth (i.e. advocate)

Its just a first attempt at a new type of brief that gets brands pointed towards utility.

via Digital Influence Mapping Project

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Adverblog: 3D Dance Off

2010-04-02T11:22:00.001+01:00

3D Dance Off

From Oz - I'm sure I've seen this type of idea before (the freeze motion to view product details but can't remember where - was it done by Uniqlo??) Anyway Jay Jays Dance Off 3D is an interactive catalogue - a mash up of fashion, music & movement. Check out all the dancers & find the codeword for 20% off in store.

Users can get their 3D glasses in-store. Nice idea but having to go to a retail outlet and then return to the site seems like a lot of work just to see the seasons range (which you would have already done if you actually went in-store to get the glasses).

via adverblog.com

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Marketing Unleashed Blog by Gary Bembridge: INTERACTION. TRANSACTION. RESEARCH. ENTERTAINMENT: The 4 most important things to remember when thinking digital?

2010-04-01T13:47:00.001+01:00

The Internet and its use as a marketing tool can strike fear and trepidation in the hearts of marketers – or simply be dismissed by them.
The industry itself did not – and has not – helped at all. Firstly it sent everyone down the wrong path by focusing on the use of the Internet in particular as a direct response tool, where clickthrough is king. And more recently, the debate is over how big your ads should be.
Let’s get back to basics: here’s a simple approach to consider as you think about if, how and when to use new digital media and channels like the internet to build your brand or company. This straightforward way of looking at new digital media and channels is based on consumer insight – which should always be the basis of marketing initiatives.
A consumer has four main uses of digital media. Let’s look at each in turn – their roles, applications and the opportunities they present:

1. Interaction
People mostly go online to interact – with email being the most popular tool. Instant messaging, community sites (e.g. iVillage for women) and chat facilities are not far behind – and are growing fast.
So?
The implication of this is that your consumers are online, ready to interact, chat and engage with you in as close to real time as possible. Are you set up and able to take advantage of this?
2. Transactions
This doesn’t just mean shopping – although online retail is the area that gets the publicity. The real powerhouses are things like online banking (faster and more convenient than queuing at your high street branch) and most importantly, peer-to-peer activities. These are where consumers transact in goods (eBay), information (dooyoo) or money (PayPal) with each other.
eBay, the online auction site is the master at this and is not only the most-visited site in the UK, but is also the most profitable online business.
So?
Consumers love peer-to-peer activities and online services that enable and facilitate these make money. Is there a role your company or brand can play in this arena?
Another hook is to enable consumers to manage their relationship online with you by giving them access to their information and data – think personal address books and diaries attached to email facilities.

3. Research and education
The starting point for many people on the Internet is search engines. Google, Yahoo and MSN search tools are among the most-visited group of sites. Sites that consumers associate with education, research and learning are second in popularity only to online transaction sites.
So?
You need to ensure your sites or products are listed well and high up in search engines by making use of search engine optimisation and listings.
Can your site build in more educational content or services?

4. Entertainment
When thinking about digital media for entertainment, many people tend to think of the much-publicised music swapping and downloading. But the powerhouses of e-entertainment remains the big three portals: AOL, Yahoo and MSN.
These are the three most-visited sites globally and provide the gateway to news, business information, entertainment news, features and downloads – and much more.
Specialised target market portals like Babycentre.co.uk (new and expectant mothers) or Gay.com perform extremely well with their niche audiences.
Big money though is being made in the areas of vice, gaming, gambling and ‘adult’ entertainment.
So?
Forget the idea of building a portal yourself. Too many have burned piles of money trying to compete with the big players. Instead focus on having a presence and relationship with those portals where your target customers are going already.
Focus on the four main areas of digital media and channels that the consumer operates in: interaction, transactions, research and entertainment. Look at each in turn and see what the implications and opportunities are for your brand, product or company.

via garybembridge.com

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Luzinterruptus, Packaged Vertical Garden, Madrid

2010-03-31T14:10:00.001+01:00

Luzinterruptus' latest light installation - a criticism of the lack of green spaces in modern cities. Leaves are trapped in plastic containers.

via unurth.com

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studio sjoerd jonkers: neolastic vases

2010-03-31T13:49:00.001+01:00

'neolastic' vases by studio sjoerd jonkers
dutch design studio sjoerd jonkers will present 'neolastic' vases at tuttobene during
milan design week 2010. for the exhibition jonkers created a collection of ten objects,
showing a broad view of colors, shapes and sizes of handmade plastic casted in a
sand mold.
'neolastic' is based on the principles of experimental archeology. each object is
handmade with plastics casted in sand molds. the objects presented focus on
simplicity and confront our views of modern civilization.

neolastic vase - 30cm diameter, 25 cm height

neolastic vases - 40 cm diameter, 30 cm height

detail

neolastic vase - 60cm diameter, 60 cm height

'neolastic' vase - 35 cm diameter, 70 cm height

via designboom.com

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tokujin yoshioka: 'memory' for moroso

2010-03-31T13:48:00.001+01:00

japanese designer tokujin yoshioka has designed 'memory' chair for italian company moroso,
which will be presented during milan design week 2010.

'memory' chair sequence
'memory' is a chair of unlimited forms. its design is completed through the alteration
of its silhouette. for the project, yoshioka developed a special fabric made with recycled aluminum,
which he has used to create a chair that transforms and memorizes its shape upon use.

'this chair might remind us of the beauty in nature with its ever-changing expression,
and also create impressions as if there is no presence of design.' - TY

'memory' chair in its beginning state

transformation occurring...

'memory' chair

tokujin yoshioka with the 'memory' chair

via designboom.com

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Creative Review - Noma Bar at KK Outlet

2010-03-31T10:58:00.001+01:00

Bitter Sweet, a new exhibition of illustrator Noma Bar's work, opens tonight at KK Outlet in London's Hoxton Square...

Fans of Bar's work will recognise some of the imagery exhibited in the show – which runs until April 30 – from his most recently published book, Negative Space, published by Mark Batty Publisher last year – although, specially for this show, Bar has transformed flat illustrations into a variety of objects that include 3D wood cuts, installation pieces, screenprints and light boxes, all available to buy.

KK Outlet has very kindly sent us some photos of some of the work in the show (which was hung yesterday) to preview here on the CR blog...

More Or Less

Blind Optimism

Night Train to London

Epic Fail

Think Harder

Now You See Them Now You Don't

Bitter Sweet runs until 30 April at KK Outlet, 42 Hoxton Square, London, N1 6PB.

See more of Bar's work at dutchuncle.co.uk

via creativereview.co.uk

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