Innovation feeder


Go judge a book by its cover
June 23, 2008, 10:27 am
Filed under: FMCG innovation, Food trends & info, Innovation, Innovative Design, Innovative designers, Innovative marketing, Innovative products we like, Innovative promotions, Innovative stimulus, Marketing, new product development | Tags: , , ,

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.

2 Comments


The next frontier: Design Thinking
March 19, 2008, 3:55 am
Filed under: FMCG innovation, Food trends & info, Future of Work, Innovation, Innovation Companies, Innovative Design, Innovative Research Methods, Innovative Work Practice, Innovative designers, Innovative stimulus, Looking for insights, new product development | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Here’s another little ditty from Andrew Tan’s blog WhatIf which covers innovation & design from an Asian perspective. And no, he’s not part of the global outfit Whatif Innovation, he runs his own innovation company and this is his personal blog.

Design thinking is tnanobiker1.jpghe latest and hottest methodology talked about to help a company innovate. GE calls it CENCOR (calibrate, explore, create, organize and realize). The Mayo Clinic calls it SPARC (see, plan, act, refine, communicate). Andrew’s new company calls it GIP (Gather, Ideate, Prototype). Its most obvious and direct power is in the creation of new products and services. Design thinking allows an organization to differentiate its products and services in an avenue other than pricing.
Andrew’s method is not dissimilar to the IDEO method of industrial design, one which has nurtured some of the most popular innovations of the past few decades. Apple’s first mouse. Prada’s ultrahip Manhattan store. Stand-up toothpaste tubes that don’t get icky. The Palm V.
In the Ideo universe, great design doesn’t begin with a far-out concept or a way-cool drawing. It begins with a deep and empathic understanding of the human condition. The first step for any Ideo team on any project is to try to empathize with the people who might use whatever product or service that eventually emerges from its work. Ideo has crafted a set of systematic research methods for understanding what the firm calls “human factors.” It then goes on to develop ideas and from those ideas, prototypes which can be tested for real responses on real people.

(more…)

0 Comments


Hands up if you hate Microsoft
February 6, 2008, 5:31 am
Filed under: Digital Strategy & Techno-culture, Future of Media, Geek stuff, Social media, geek, new product development | Tags: , , , , , , ,

shitr.jpg

Flickr users are making their opinions known about the potential takeover by Microsoft. Check out the visual protests by users here. Thanks for the tip Charlie.

0 Comments


Beta goes meta: From innovation to trend in a heartbeat
January 31, 2008, 11:20 pm
Filed under: Brand, Community, Digital Strategy & Techno-culture, FMCG innovation, Future of Media, Geek stuff, Innovation, Innovative & emergent media, Innovative Design, Innovative Work Practice, Innovative marketing, Lifestyle trends, Macro trends, Social media, Social networking innovation, Thinking & Planning, beta, content communities, creativity, geek, neophiliac, new product development | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
A great post by CNET blogger Tim Leberecht taken from Matter/Anti Matter.
Innovation isn’t limited to R & rooms anymore. The Web 2.0 movement–powered by start-ups such as Twitter, Malhalo and even YouTube, has proven that innovation often happens in iterations. Build, launch, tweak, measure, repeat. Digital experiences seem to be ‘always in beta’–learning and evolving along the way.
beta cultr

The idea of being in beta has become a broad cultural phenomenon. Many new products never make it beyond trial stage, and the trial and error beta-approach that helps Google and other alpha innovators to out-fail and thereby out-innovate the competition, is as much an attribute of successful organizations as it is a sign of our time.

But it’s not only analysts and conference organizers who are switching instantly from micro to macro, picking up nascent trends and elevating them to a must-deal-with core competence that transcends the current fad (just see all the Facebook conferences that are mushrooming right now). What I find even more interesting is how the media and blogosphere deal with it. If everything’s in beta, the public doesn’t have the patience anymore to wait for the alpha. As the media are increasingly forced to immediately widen the scope and view every innovation in a larger context as it occurs, the boundaries between reporters and commentators, bloggers and industry analysts are fading.

Some examples: Not too long ago, Twitter was all the rage, and it was stunning to see that just shortly after the initial coverage during SXSW in March, reporters were already elaborating on the concept of micro-blogging, wondering what the new “radical transparency” meant for business. Nowadays, there is a great chance that you will stumble upon a Facebook story when you open just about any publication: It’s Facebook vs. MySpace, the implications of social networking on the borders between work and personal life, reflections on the “Facebook economy,” Facebook vs. iTunes, and maybe a philosophical piece on Facebook “as a post-modern book” or the future of social networking, which, for TIME, equals the future of the Internet. It is only a small step from MySpace to the “MySpace generation,” and from Facebook to the “Facebook generation” and then to the “Fakebook generation.” Similarly, the recent buzz around Radiohead’s “pay what you want” online release has instantly led to the coining of a “Radiohead Generation” and praise for the band “as a pioneer of the digital revolution.” And there are hundreds of articles discussing if Radiohead’s decision ushers in the definite end of the record industry. The stories about the radical distribution model appear to eclipse the actual music on the album–in this case, too, the reviews are in before the story is told.

Evidently, the media need to cope with the current while also putting forward a vision for the up and coming. The time between observation and conclusion, between description and prediction, however, has shrunk to almost zero. There are no more lapses between news, analysis, background story, industry trend story, and intellectual dissection; they have become one and the same, at the same time. Not only is beta the new alpha–beta has gone meta.

0 Comments


Playyoo Mobile Gaming Content launches in beta
January 23, 2008, 11:29 pm
Filed under: Community, Digital Strategy & Techno-culture, Future of Media, Geek stuff, Innovative & emergent media, Social media, Social networking innovation, content communities, moblogging, new product development | Tags: , , , , , , , ,

playoo.jpg

Playyoo a brand new site based out of England has just launched in beta this week. Billed as a ‘YouTube for mobile games’ by Technorati, the site offers users the chance to create, share & download games & game content for their mobile. It allows users to create their own content, interact with others and even get recommendations based on their user preferences.

This is an interesting space, especially beyond just mobile gaming. Mobile social communities and mobile blogging communities are increasing in numbers. According to the Wireless Federation Research there are currently over 45 million members engaged in ‘mobile social communities’ worldwide (including mobile gamers gamers), a number that is expected to reach 175 million in 2012.

These communities also have the potential to generate big revenue. A new study by Jupiter Research states that revenue from user generated content is projected to increase from $572 million this year to $5.7 billion by 2012, about half of which will be coming from  social networking. Moreover, membership of social networking sites is projected to grow from 14 million this year to about 600 million by 2012. Perhaps mobile content management & social software will be the next killer apps.

So what is “moblogging” exactly? Well, mo-blogging is blogging via a mobile phone, or a PDA via a mobile connection with a real IP - GPRS or 3G. It’s friendly cousin “Spot-blogging” is mobile also, just not via a mobile phone. “Spotblogging” refers to blogging via a PC through WiFi. It’s called SpotBlogging because you need to be tied to a hotspot of some sort, whereas real moblogging can be just about anywhere.

Anyhoo, Playyoo is an interesting site - check it out here

0 Comments


Here is Something To Talk About
January 16, 2008, 7:52 am
Filed under: Future of Work, Innovation Networks, Innovative Research Methods, Innovative Work Practice, Innovative companies, Innovative marketing, Social media, creativity, new product development | Tags: , , , , ,

Not quite a year ago,  two men (one from Sydney and one from Iowa) asked people a question — would they like to write a business book. And over 100 people  responded from all over the world … contributing 400 words each to the book Age of Conversation.

Now they’ve decided to go ahead and do it again in 2008. They’re now looking for contributors for another collaborative publishing project.  They’ve come up with a short list of topics which are open to user voting:

  • Marketing Manifesto
  • Why Don’t People Get It?
  • My Marketing Tragedy (and what I learned)

You can go HERE to cast your vote (you have until the end of January to vote) or find out more about it through either Gavin or Drew.

0 Comments


Time for a new mobile handset innovation?
September 6, 2007, 1:54 am
Filed under: Asia, Digital Strategy & Techno-culture, Geek stuff, Innovation, Innovative designers, Innovative products we like, Innovative retail, Telco research, new product development


Korean handset manufacturers are losing overseas market share. “Ask Korean cell phone makers why they’re losing their market share overseas, and they will tell you it’s because of their focus on top-end products or the strong won”, JoongAngDaily reports. “Some industry analysts, however, take a different view. According to a report released by the research institute of LG, Korean firms are falling behind because they are oblivious to changing consumer demand and because excessive diversifying is eating into their cost competitiveness. The institute noted that today’s consumers are more interested in the “emotional” characteristics of cell phones such as the brand, design, and how the phone feels to the touch, whereas Korean firms are preoccupied with adding new functions. The think tank also criticized Korean firms for having too many models.

Above Story lifted from here

tal00l.jpg In 2003 Marc Newson designed The Talby for the Japanese market. A stunning handset that looked absolutely beautiful. I remember it because I wanted one so badly. Given the Japanese obsession wtih hyperfunctionality, it was no doubt, crammed with geek goodies. But gee it’s a good looking piece of equipment.

With mobile phones moving further and further down the functionality spectrum, bigger cameras, better screens, more WAP, IMS and other fancy acronyms… when will they stop? I’m looking for a new handset now to replace my Motorola Razr and can’t find any phones that don’t have the fancy bits. For every trend there’s a counter trend, LoFi mobile handset anyone?

0 Comments

previous »