Jan Chipchase - Future Perfect

11 Principles: Designing Financial Services for the Poor

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 14:33:53 +0900

The Institute for Money, Tecnhology and Financial Inclusion has generated a list of 11 Design Principles for Financial Services for the Poor, drawn from a cohort of 20+ research projects they are running around the world:

1 Design for social obligation
2 Design for social rank
3 Flexibility with sanctions
4 Structured illiquidity
5 Change the iconography, design with local values
6 Design for convertibility
7 Calculate convertibility
8 Design for relative volume, not increment
9 Lucky Numbers
10 Tranches and Tiers
11 Design for Cyclical Events

Download the principles here.

The IMTFI is funded, in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and in 2010 is set to more than double the number of projects around the globe.

Full disclosure: I'm on the IMTFI external advisory board.

Purity in Form

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:20:34 +0900

Its difficult to imagine a more perfectly balanced graffitied waste bin - nothing to add, nothing to take away.

Rust Never Sleeps

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:17:45 +0900

The notion that the forces of nature are constant.

Mediums and Messages

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:20:39 +0900

Common Trouble

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:45:23 +0900

Outdoor lighting console - unusual to see such imprecise, assumptive language - "common trouble" in such a formal object. With the move towards software rather than hardwired systems; a move towards the use of displays in public spaces; and personally carried devices that can be used to controls such systems - the extent to which the interface language can, or should be tailored towards the user - from language, to font-size, to level of expertise.

Coin Return

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:53:22 +0900

Challenge the whole notion of putting something in, having to remember to take something out.

Thoughts for today: for any given service the difference between what is required and what is used; what happens to the surplus - whether it will find its way back to the customer, reclaimed by the service provider as excess profit (or waste) or through the magic of connectivity is location shifted to someone else, or time shifted to your future (or past, heh) self.

Object Protection

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 08:45:11 +0900

And how it affects the role of the calculator in the negotiations for more expensive, haggle-worthy objects?

When The Small Print Is Yours

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 02:10:27 +0900

Triple A's decision to monetise/sell/pimp the information provided by customers applying for an insurance quote - creates a short term monetary gain for long term erosion in trust in their brand.

For every service/process - what information do you share as part of the negotiation of whether to use the service? What happens when the organisation selling your data to the highest bidder is a government agency? How long before consumers are able to sign up to a personal data brokerage that manages and provides information to the services you are applying for? One where the BigCorps need to click on the I Agree To These Terms and Conditions checkbox before the data is handed over.

Think small-print reversed.

Kinder Surprise

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:30:22 +0900

A newly designed Tenga egg male masturbation device (above), a freebee from the Adult Entertainment Expo since you ask. A curious half-dozen of sex/egg related threads on this restless Los Angeles night:

The extent to which increased security in airports, train stations and hotels changes our purchasing and carrying behaviours of taboo products - people are more likely to buy items like this at their destination rather than risk discovery. An unfortunate personal example from Helsinki here.

Eggs used in Indonesian street vendor tonics to cure all ailments and enhance libido here.

Raising the red lantern during a recent trip to in Oman.

The role of design of libido enhancer packaging in China.

Continuing on the lonely, well trodden path that is male pleasuring devices - the all-time most popular Future Perfect post remains the Tokyo Design Week chandelier made from penis pleasuring-device inserts. I just post it - it's you dear reader that makes it popular.

And to end things on a more wholesome note: the use of colour coding to denote which eggs are boiled and which are not from Afghanistan here.

Kinder. Surprised? They probably would be.

Digital/Physical Monies

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:12:04 +0900

Monk counting donations at the end of the day - the notes are tucked into, and placed on religious artifacts by worshippers. We can design systems to make it all digital, but there will always be contexts where the physical is preferred.

Thought for today: physical artifacts representing value in a world that has only ever known the digital.

Photos: from Lhasa.

Custom Body Measurement

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 13:15:24 +0900

I'd rather face a night stuck in Kathmandu airport than walk the floor of a trade show, so it was with much chagrin that I forced myself into the Adult Entertainment Expo before making a sharp exit from Las Vegas.

The photos show custom male pleasuring device heads featuring the vaginas and anuses (or should that be ani, anii?) of a number of female porn stars. The future perfect link in all of this is: in mainstream society today what body parts are by default measured? And why? And as technology becomes increasingly wearable what other body part measurements are we likely to see mainstreamed - beyond feet, eyes, ...? What value added services might the known measurements of celebrities, porn or otherwise then enable?

For example is there a time when custom molded ear pieces become mainstream? And in turn how will this affect usage behaviour such as device sharing, and demand for personal ownership?

CES Notes

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 13:01:01 +0900

Enjoyed a walk-on part in a Sin City morality play today - delivering a short segment in the guvnor's CES keynote. There's only so much you can or want to cover in such as short time but given follow up new readers might like the following links:

an example of the research, exploring mobile transactions here
life on the road looks something like this
the street hacks thread covers grassroots innovation
see only photos from Afghanistan, Mongolia, India or China
a short essay on 'fakes' in China here

And/or follow @janchip.

The dual-sim, and chinese gent spooning rice photos in the presentation were taken by Younghee Jung. Photo above: the CES Hilton Theatre in a quieter moment.

A Gauge, Annotated

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 02:17:17 +0900

Motivations behind the annotation of physical measuring devices? Someone has written a date on the gauge's backplate.

As new forms of digital augmentation emerge and eventually go mainstream we're increasingly going to see traces of the digital cross over into the physical - with new guidelines, markings, colours added to the easy to recognise & augment shapes already prevalent in our towns and cities. Think service driven tagging.

The augmented reality thread here, common urban shapes here and here and my personal favourite example of augmented reality already prevalent in Japan here.

Photo from a Sunday spent trawling through Kashi, China.

Suit Display Norms

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 02:17:16 +0900

Suit trousers protected from the dust swirling around the floor of Kashi market through the use of bags, that also double up as advertising hoardings.

New Interactions for the American Urban Vocabulary

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 06:37:38 +0900

The little neighbourhood of Los Angeles that I currently call home includes a 7/11 store that ebbs and flows to the rhythm of the local community: early morning commuters picking up their drive-to-work breakfast; the late-afternoon latino highschool kids alternating between preening and munching Doritos; a late night beacon for some of the many, many homeless who live around these parts. The 7/11 also includes an increasingly familiar site in the US of A: a redbox video vending machine. It looks innocent enough and sure I've walked past it enough times with nary a glance, but its modest frame belies its impact on our future perfect.

If you shut your eyes and listen carefully you can hear the sound of a machete cleaving its way through the neck of a dying, bloated cash-cow by the name of Blockbuster. That roar? That's you and you and you and me standing by the sidelines cheering in relief at knowing we're never going to put up with that kind of experience again. redbox's parent company, Coinstar who modestly pitch themselves as 'the world's leading supplier of valuable services that make life easier for consumers' has reinvented the rental of tangible media through destination site big-box video stores and consumers are lovin' it. And that sharp intake of breath? That's the major studios compelled to watch the slaughter from the side lines but who are now wondering how they are going to pay for their dry cleaning bill from blood splatters.

American customers can browse titles in any given vending machine and make a reservation online - try it here (non-US readers might want to start with the zipcode 90210). Since one vending machine holds up to 500 DVD units you're not going to find Delicatessen or Vanishing Point but that misses the point - it's like complaining that the Flip is too simple to use. All of their movies including new releases are offered at flat cost of $1 + tax for one nights rental. Interaction is minimal - the vending machine has a touch screen, one slot for receiving/returning DVDs and a credit card swiper. Without the need to hire in-store staff, their HR needs are focussed on customer support; keeping vending machines stocked with the latest releases and updating the advertising poster. The niggly issue of cleaning the DVDs is passed onto the customer - and I suspect scratched media is one of their biggest headaches.

Whilst their vending machines have prime placement next to the entrance of many 7/11+ stores - the cost of renting this space is likely to be discounted because DVD rental encourages footfall - a video watched one day is likely to be returned the next. By being able to browse titles online the time-consuming guesswork is taken out of the rental process and with ~19,000 machines in the US and growing they are becoming ubiquitous. Whilst humans are creatures of habit and are likely to return the DVD to the same machine it was rented from the model also supports the convenience-psychology of 'DVDs can be returned to any redbox'. Props to redbox for making movie rental process as convenient as nipping down to the corner store to buy popcorn to snack on whilst you're watching the movie. By, golly the coders amongst you are enjoying the infinite loopness of it all. They've delivered up against nimble competitors such as NetFlix and the Brother's Torrent.

For those of you glancing nervously into the future perfect redbox's real impact goes far further than merely renting out DVDs: they have introduced new forms of interaction into the American urban landscape making it more acceptable to use touch screens to browse content in high-footfall, outdoor public spaces; it introduces non-beverage/non-snack vending machine use to a new demographic; and most importantly the value proposition provides sufficient pull for customers to take out a credit card and swipe to authenticate (for rental pick-ups) and complete transactions. Yes - this swiping behaviour is the mainstay of petrol/gas stations on this side of the pond, but the physical distance between customers and passers by is that much less with a redbox, the process is that much more observable. Lovely stuff. In years to come, the more reflective amongst you will recognised this as an important evolutionary leap for American consumers, so often global 'technology' laggards.

Some trends to consider before we leap into 2010: as our abilty to track objects, people and their preferences is continually refined - how small can the marketplace/vending machine for tangible media and other goods go? Why doesn't every apartment block have it's own redbox equivilent?; what value added services might be introduced to add convenience - the obvious being neighbourhood delivery and pick-up, and given that this hasn't yet evolved in the US of A in which cultures is it more likely occur? For people and communities with limited access to high-speed connectivity this could be the platform to extend the internet.

And at what point can a similar infrastructure support the just-in-time creation of other tangible objects? The obvious is to burn content onto a DVD/SD/... for pickup, but with 3D printers new, valued forms will emerge. Don't think of it as a vending machine but a platform through which to support the time-shifted exchange of tangible objects.

What does a company with prime, interactive, transactional real estate do next? A space to watch.

Wall Street Journal has a litle write up of RedBox versus Blockbuster Express here and more on micro-markets here.

Way, way too long to be writing on a day like today - mountains + pain beckon.