Filed under: Digital culture, Innovative stimulus, Social media, Thinking | Tags: Digital culture, Google, lynete webb, online
For those of you who don’t know Lynette Webb, the insights manager at Google – you can read the previous posts here and here. For those of you who do, here’s another doozy:
“The idea for this slide came from a recent article in the NYT about how the internet is impacting literacy:
“Clearly, reading in print and on the Internet are different. On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author’s vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and, in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends. Young people “aren’t as troubled as some of us older folks are by reading that doesn’t go in a line,” said Rand J. Spiro, a professor of educational psychology at Michigan State University who is studying reading practices on the Internet. “That’s a good thing because the world doesn’t go in a line, and the world isn’t organized into separate compartments or chapters.”
It’s a nice thought. When you think about how you read, surf, scan, think and communicate online . . it’s anything but linear. In fact, there’s a sense in which much of the activity that happens online is about joining the dots and redrawing them, than it is reaching some tangible end or defined goal. I like Lynette’s pics because they also pick a poignant point and sum it up perfectly with a great quote and an emotive image. She’s a great resource for inspiration stimulus if you want to get people thinking differently, especially about the impact of the net.
Check out the live link here
Filed under: FMCG innovation, Innovative stimulus, Nice Design, Nice products, new product | Tags: innovative packaging
I know it’s not fashionable in this eco-ridden-hessian-wearing-let’s-eat-organic-and-recycle-the-packaging-and-omygod-didn’t-you-bring-your-own-shopping-bag age but..I love a bit of fabulous packaging.
Don’t get me wrong I care about the planet and try to do the right thing. I have for instance a total of about 35 Coles eco shopping bags sitting in my kitchen as we speak [I keep forgetting to bring them so I buy more each time I go] which I get isn’t the point by the way, but even just walking to the car with those cheap plastic bags which are so eco terrible makes me feel less whole some how…
But I digress. The point here is that there is beautiful packaging in the world. You wouldn’t know it at Coles in Surry Hills and it sure isn’t on the shelves in my local Woolworths either but for those of you who are very much into package design, here are a few of my favourite links.
The DieLine site is without a doubt the best site I’ve seen for packaging porn. Look at the image above, who ever thought butter could look so good? Check out the sites and bookmark them for the next time you’re looking for a little eye candy or perhaps some stimulus for a preso or a workshop.
The DieLine is brilliant, full of good res packaging design images [free to search]
Global Package Gallery is another one full of product examples from around the globe [free trial then subscribe]
Another site is Under Consideration although not as good as DieLine [free to search]
Filed under: Borrow this, Innovation, Innovative stimulus, brainstorming, creativity, new product | Tags: brainstorming, Five Buck Brainstorms, Starbucks
Saw this and had to smile. This guy has been selling five buck brainstorms online – give him the brief, slip him a purple and he’ll send you back a brainstorm bonanza.
Now he’s not necessarily going to crack your number # 1 internal business problem but if it’s just a fresh perspective or mass market idea you’re after, there is something to be said for quantity over quality, at least to get the juices going.
Watch out innovation gurus, Don the Ideas Man is coming to a site near you.
He also sells “Beanstorming” [brainstorming for an hour over a coffee @ starbucks]. Check it the Idea Barista
Filed under: Futures, Futurists, Geek stuff, Innovative stimulus | Tags: Accelerated Studies Foundation, augmented reality, future of the metaverse, futurist, Gerontology Research Group, jazz diet pepsi, lifelogging, midwest airlines, mirror worlds, scent marketing, sensory marketing, supercentenarians, The Singularity, thomson holidays, virtual worlds
I’m just flicking through the latest issue of The Futurist Magazine which arrived this morning and I thought I’d share with you the highlights of this latest treasure:
* Scent of Success
Apparently Jazz Diet Pepsi was promoted via black cherry scent strips in magazines, Thomson Holidays put smell strips of suntan lotion on their windows to remind people they could escape the cold weather and Midwest Airlines put cookies in the oven after take off to calm nervous passengers so that the smell of cookies wafts through the cabin as the plan reaches altitude. Did you know that unlike other senses, scent travels directly to the brain’s emotional centres and produces automatic feelings in the receiver? Whereas perceptions registered by other senses travel first through interpretive brains centres before they reach the emotional centres. So the quickest way to reach emotions is through smell . . . So what would a successful agency smell like? Or a good doctor? Will the next widget on the market be customisable Glade plug ins? I wonder…
* Supercentenarians – The secret to a long life
There’s just been a study done on predicting which of us will make it to triple figures and why . . The good news is that women make it to the top of the list, women are much more likely to outlive men when it comes to supercentenarians and can I just include this quote from robert Young of the Gerontology Research Group who says “Women are statistically more likely to survive . . women are designed for endurance whereas men are designed for peak strength . . “. Anyway the big news is that you’re more likely to live longer if you…
1. Social Support - . . have social interaction, chat on the phone and keep in touch
2. Anthropometrics - . . have a lower body to fat ratio and higher waist to hip ratio
3. Cognition – . . keep your mind active & keep working on your cognitive abilities
4. Eating Habits – . . eat breakfast regularly & consume substantial amounts of vitamin A & carotenoids
So there you go, you can throw out your overpriced Goiji berries, get back on the treadmill and make the crossword part of your daily routine. Having said that, Jeanne Calment (122 in the Guiness Book of Records) smoked until her 120th birthday so go figure…
Credit for this image to Vermin Inc@ Flickr
* The Singularity
Many scientists , researchers, culture watchers and futurists believe that in the next 4 decades we will enter a phase of rapid & unprecedented technological progress, caused in part by the use of machines to improve themselves using artificial intelligence. The Acceleration Studies Foundation refers to this future period as The Singularity. It will be exciting and absolutely unlike anything humanity has experienced before.
Ok admittedly this sounds a little Matrix-like but it’s a fascinating overview of the future scenarios which may play out in the metaverse space. It basically explores 4 possible scenarios [not dissimilar to the traditional 4 box method of scenario planning - forcing yourself to think through four distinct scenarios based around key themes of impact].
The article explores:
1. Virtual worlds -where humanity spends more time in virtual settings because digital worlds are supremely compelling & seductive or because the real world has suffered widespread collapse.
2. Mirror Worlds – readily accessible data about places and objects creates an ever more sophisticated digital world that mirrors our own.
3. Augmented reality – The tools & technologies of the Mirror World become more personal. Up-to-minute data about people, places and objects enhances our perceptions and deepens our understanding about what’s going on around us.
4. Lifelogging – Digital surveillance, info technology and sensing technology combine to record almost every moment of our lives in a variety of ways. This info is either helpful or hurtful depending on who controls it.
Check out the Accelerated Studies Foundation for more geek treats
Filed under: Innovative stimulus, Marketing | Tags: advertising to children, cigarette advertising
Saw this Kiddie Retail stand in Indonesia over the break and had a small chuckle. Presumably it sells icy poles and sweets along with the cigarettes. Nice placement. Great advertisement for Marlborough too.
Filed under: Innovative stimulus, Lifestyle trends, Nice Design | Tags: luxury trend, rough luxe
The holidays are over I can’t believe it. It seems like only yesterday I was scrambling to get everything finished for Christmas and now here I am sitting at my desk ready to start another year. I do however feel significantly more energised and excited about the year ahead than I did a few weeks ago. It’s amazing how good it feels to run away from grown up life for a while and let the engine cool down and in some cases, switch off entirely.
There’s a couple of things caught my attention which I thought I’d share with you, the first off is an interesting new hotel in London called Rough Luxe.
A couple of my mates were heading back to the UK for Christmas to spend it with family & showed me this odd little hotel they were planning to stay at in London. It’s called Rough Luxe and the idea behind it is A little luxury in the rough part of London. The hotel itself looks like it’s a mixture of old pieces, statement art & design alongside bibs & bobs that have been collected from round the traps. The idea basically is to push the idea of luxury beyond fancy pants ownables and into all things luxury – time, emotion, considered architecture & design.
They describe it on their site as :“Rough Luxe is a new way of looking at luxury as part of time and not only part of an object of consumption. Luxury is an enriching personal experience and not only an ownership or consumption of an expensive object. Therefore, the Rough Luxe definition of luxury is: time for reflection, personal encounters with people, nature, architecture and environment as well as food and social and cultural experiences linked to geographic locations.”
The hotel is part of a wider Rough Luxe Philosophy which can be applied across hotels, restaurants, retail and distribution businesses [or so they're hoping].
I’ll try & get some photos from the peeps who stayed there and post them here. In the meantime, check out the hotel here
Filed under: Innovative retail, Innovative stimulus, Marketing to women, new product | Tags: beauty, beauty industry, cosmetics, Innovation, innovative services, Marketing, women
borrowed from Mark Drasutis @ Flickr
Ladies’ beauty salons are all the same - they talk about the miracles of some facial treatment or other, offer a variety of backrubs, take care of a bit of hairy leg action & generally try & flog you a bunch of product
with anti-aging properties that don’t work but will somehow help you to retain that special glow. Yawn…
When you take a squiz at teen products on the other hand, you’d think that a 16 year-old’s life consists mainly of acne, smelling good & well…acne.
Oh and everybody’s capturing the essence of pomegranate or some made up patented ingredient but just quietly, we think the beauty industry needs to lighten up…
We’d create a beauty salon just for teenagers because when you’re 15 & you’ve just been dumped via SMS, the best revenge is to show up at the next pashfest looking like the cat’s meow.
We’d offer a range of chick only services like::
* The – I’m so over him – facial
* The – I’m gonna get me some action – make over
* The – omigod it’s my first wax – waxing menu
* The – at least my nails look good – manicure & pedicure
Is there another part of the market your business is not personally servicing? If you put yourself out on a limb & went after one new target – how would you woo them?
Filed under: Borrow this, Digital culture, Emergent media, Future of Media, Future of Work, Futures, Google, Innovation, Innovative stimulus, Looking for insights, Macro trends, Social media, Thinking, Trends stuff, creativity, open source | Tags: Advertising, Clay shirky, Google, Here comes everybody, insights manager, Lynette web, Russell Davies, the future of media, THe power of organising without organisations, typepad, UK
Another good piece of innovation stimulus from the lovely Lynette Webb, Insights Manager at Google who created a Flickr site called “Interesting Snippets”. I’ve profiled her before and this is the latest image to her collection. It comes to us with a great quote from Russell Davies’ blog entry about Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody.
For those of you who haven’t heard about it, Clay’s book is about what happens when people are given the tools to do things together, without needing traditional organizational structures. When the traditional obstacles are broken down and we can all connect, engage and speak freely. What does this mean for the way we interact? For the way media publishers direct content? What happens when our unrestricted right to access, to connect and to speak is not only realised, but assumed?
It’s worth checking out Russell’s post on the book here
And if you haven’t read Clay’s blog you should definitely wet your whistle with a little of this
Filed under: Designers, FMCG innovation, Food trends & info, Innovation, Innovative marketing, Innovative promotions, Innovative stimulus, Marketing, Nice Design, Nice products, new product | Tags: FMCG, Innovation, innovative packaging, new product
While you can’t judge a book by its cover, we often judge food by its packaging. One dollars worth of spaghetti sure looks a million dollars with a bit of fancy pants wrapping doesn’t it…Never underestimate the importance of appearance when it comes to food, or anything for that matter…
Why do pet care companies always put an animal on the front of their pet food? The dog can’t read but the owner can. Why are we packaging pet food for the pet? They know what dogs look like, talk to them in their own language.
I’d take a premium supermarket pet food brand & stick it in a stylish black tin with silver labeling & discrete branding with no visual reference to animals. Risky you say? I doubt it.
And another thing… why do washing detergents all use bright colours & show water or clean clothes? We make our decisions on what detergent to buy on the perceived quality of the brand. In the absence of any
laundry powders which don’t present pictures of clouds or water gushing through logos, let’s be honest, we pick the one we think looks more sophisticated or innovative or expensive than the rest.
Why not take washing powder & stick it in a metal canister that sits proudly on the laundry shelf instead of embarrassingly in the cupboard? Or better still, cook some good looking detergent granules &
put the stuff in a stylish transparent container.
For a fresh spin on packaging, make it design-orientated not product-orientated. Just because you’re selling pasta doesn’t mean you need a fat Italian & a bunch of tomatoes on the front. Lord, this is 2008.
