Girl made, girl approved

An interesting article in Business Week about a design company called 3iYing, new design and marketing firm which does girl-market insights (founded by Heidi Dangelmaier).

Dangelmaier's young team has come up with radical ideas on how to design and sell everything from condoms and lingerie to food. They call these ideas "Girl Made, Girl Approved." The teens started by leafing through dozens of girl magazines and analyzing the advertisements. In the process, they found that most brands are out of touch with the 21st-century girl and her desires. (...) Once the girls identify products they believe are either ill-designed or poorly marketed, they survey their worldwide network of friends via e-mail, or in Internet communities like MySpace.com. They come up with a list of what girls really want and what appeals to them about the product. Then the team redesigns the product and comes up with a marketing campaign that resonates with their age group.

Why do I blog this? what at I think is interesting here is the way it might impact the design of new products; It's connected with the 'co-creation' trend we have today: the integration of conversation with customers into company's business.

New blog: ballpark

Just to make people aware of it, I also blog on ballpark.ch now, along with Laurent. It deals with innovation, internet strategies, tech usage, collaborative and social technologies.

Art + Science in Collaboratory

Last week, there was a very pertinent article in the NYT: Researchers Look to Create a Synthesis of Art and Science for the 21st Century by John Malkoff. The article's take is the fact that artists will be central to the future of computing technology. It exemplifies this thesis through different examples liek Calit2 or MIT. Some excerpts I found relevant:

"Part of the artist's insight is to be able to interpret the future earlier than anybody,", "We regard the artist as fully equal with any scientist at Calit2." (says Larry Smarr, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, or Calit2, a $400 million research consortium.

That idea, which is anathema to some in the engineering-driven world of science and technology, influenced the thinking of the building's designers in the San Francisco office of NBBJ, the international architectural and design firm.

"We put the clean room and the media artists as close as possible so we could see the artists talking to the physicists and telling them what to do," [physical proximity rules! -nicolas]

Why do I blog this? First because as Regine I agree that artist can pave the way of technological innovation by bringing out different viewpoint, ideas, content and connections (whereas scientists may zero in pertinent ideas). Besides, I really like the concept of artist in residence in a R&D structure, especially if some collaborations occur! An interesting issue would be how to make both researchers and scientists benefiting from this?

Connected pasta see this article I blogged about + what Regine thinks about it.

More about the tech conference we organize

As already mentioned here last monday, Laurent, myself and others are working on a Lift (Lift06). There will be plenty of interesting persons like Cory Doctorow (Electronic Frontier Foundation), Robert Scoble (Microsoft), Euan Semple (BBC), Xavier Comtesse (Avenir Suisse), Régine Debatty (WMMNA), Jeffrey Huang (Harvard), Matt Jones (Nokia), Pierre Carde (Lyon Game), Chris Lawer (OMC Group), Stefana Broadbent (Swisscom Innovation), Michel Jaccard, Thomas Madsen-Mygdal (23), Stefano Mastrogiacomo, Emmanuelle Richard, David Galipeau (UNAIDS), Aymeric Sallin (Nano Dimension), Paul Oberson (DIP/CICR), Jean-Luc Raymond (Microsoft), Pierre Dillenbourg (EPFL). And even though Regine did not mention it, she will give us a talk ;)

The point of this event is that there is a need in Switzerland/Europe for events that addresses technology usage from different points of view: business, research, geeky. We wants this to be a forum in which people could meet each other to be aware of what's going on in the field of emergent technologies used in various domains (humanitarian/NGO, interactive art, e-learning, web, security...).

Today we had different meetings about it with a swiss think tank + local online news website + a local newspaper that we want to be a partner for the events. The communication is starting smoothly

French book about innovation

"Objectif Innovation : Stratégies pour construire l'entreprise innovante" (Jean-Yves Prax, Bernard Buisson, Philippe Silberzahn)

A great book (in french) about the concept of 'innovation' which summarizes the most important (and recent) theories about it (Christensen, Moore...). It's very well presented and the approach is very pragmatic; I appreciated the part about the paths to innovation, with plenty of insighful questions to think about.

I just missed two dimensions:

• Even though there is a part about the networked economy, I think it's too limited, the authors do not tackle that much the issues like the new way to collaborate, the open innovation model or the co-creation. For instance I miss what's in this IFTF report: Towards a literacy of cooperation
• The forecasting + R&D dimension which is not really addressed here but the authors mentions this drawback in the introduction

Besides, the authors have a good blog here.

We will deal with these issues at our Lift conference.

Tech Conference in Geneva!

Tonight, we unveil a new project: Lift, a conference about technology usage that will happen in Geneva on february 2-3nd, 2006. It's organized by Laurent plus others like myself.

In two words:

Lift is about sharing and expanding the ideas of technologies, how they impact our lives and organizations. What changes are ahead? We will try to answer this question via presentations of some of the most influential thinkers and observers of the moment. The goal of the event is to give the opportunity to Europeans and Swiss people to network and raise awareness on some important ideas we will have to cope with in the near future (copyright-less economy, blogs, emergence of asia, technology overload, mass customization,direct marketing, social software, etc...)

Some of the most talented observers, explorers, and builders of the moment will gather in Geneva to share their passion for technology. You are invited to hear the likes of Cory Doctorow, Robert Scoble, Euan Semple, Jeffrey Huang, Xavier Comtesse, and a lot of other amazing speakers talk about the important topics of our changing world. The Internet, emerging technologies, global solidarity, design, and big ideas, be prepared for two days of intense ideas sharing and networking.

Feel free to visit the lift06.org website, check the speakers roster, the program, and sign up! It is only 295CHF (195 for students) for both days.

I hope to see you there!

Technorati Tags: lift, lift06, geneva, puppy

SUN and MMORPG

An article about how SUN's work with MMOG in Business Week. It tackles the versatile and scalable MMOG middleware they are working on. What's interesting is that it presents SUN's vision:

Sun's chief gaming officer, Chris Melissinos explains, "I argue that we've been the principle architect of the largest massively multiplayer online game in the world. It's Wall Street. If you took a look at all of the mechanics that go in to building an online trading system, they're almost one-for-one, the same functions needed to build an MMOG. Except we've done it with more redundancy, reliability and scalability than pretty much anyone else" (...) "The difference you see between a lot of the technologies today (say, for example, Big World) and ours is that not only do we offer the scalability that they do, but I can take multiple games of different types, running across different hardware clients and run them simultaneously on the same stack of hardware." (...) "So what you can do is rather than building an infrastructure to handle a particular game, I can go to an operator that has built an infrastructure to handle 5 million concurrent players. I don't care if it is one game running 5 million players or it's a 100 games handling 50,000 players each or 1,000 games running 5,000 players each. It's the first solution that's able to do this.

The added value is then:

"Because you don't have to invest in any of that [hardware], we now providing a viable business model for a small developer and allowing him to take advantage of economies of scale that a utility model can provide. Because I can now build a single infrastructure to handle millions of people, I can now leverage a utility model, exactly like power companies or water companies can.

Stanford University to provide access to audio content via iTunes

According to this news, Stanford University is debuting a project called "Stanford on iTunes", providing Stanford-related audio content via the iTunes Music Store:

Stanford on iTunes will provide alumni—as well as the general public—with a new and versatile way of staying connected to the university through downloads of faculty lectures, campus events, performances, book readings, music recorded by Stanford students and even podcasts of Stanford football games. (...) In addition to content targeted at alumni, the project includes audio related to academic courses exclusively for Stanford faculty and students. Instructors in Stanford's Introduction to the Humanities program began using the tool last spring to distribute course audio such as lectures, music and readings to students. (..) Also starting today, the general public will have free access to the same audio content at http://itunes.stanford.edu.

Dave Winer on invite-only Google Zeitgeist conference.

A pertinent rant by Dave Winer about invite-only Google Zeitgeist conference. What is interesting here is not the event per se but the 'invite only' thing:

How ironic that a conference called Web 2.0 was invite-only. It's so un-weblike to say who can come and who can't. That's not what the web says. It says anyone can come. (...) Take a step back and ask what the goals of the conference are. How do you know who the right people are? Are you sure you do? Maybe it would be better to let the universe decide who should be at the conference.

Then he reflects on his experience:

My experience with these shows is that if you trust the universe, it will take good care of you. In all three cases, exactly the right number of people showed up. Every seat was filled, a few people had to stand, there were enough lunches, lively discussions, all the goals were achieved. Now we didn't get people who only come when an event is invite-only, but I say that's good! Those people don't come because they love ideas and want to learn and share, they come for other reasons and they change the character of the event, not in a good way, imho.

And this is also interesting:

You come because this is the good stuff. You come because this is totally 1.0. This is why I came to Silicon Valley in 1979, when I was 24 years old. (...) Like an open conference, I needed to give something up to get there. But there was no gatekeeper at the door to Silicon Valley telling me I needed an invite. The door was open because not only is that a value of the web, but it's also a value of Silicon Valley, even if some people usurp that.

Why do I blog this? first because I really believe in (and appreciate) the openness of Silicon Valley, I'm sure that it plays a really positive role in sustaining innovation there. Second, since I'm helping laurent organizing a conference about emerging technologies here in Geneva, I can fairly see that we have to think about those issues.

The Economist special issue on patents and technology

There is a good piece in The Economist's special edition about patents and technology. The article entitled "An open secret" (registration required) in particular; it's about the fact that sharing intellectual property can be more profitable than keeping it to the company:

Why would a firm that cares so much about intellectual property want to give it away? [about IBM which pledged 500 of its existing software patents to the open-source community]

“It isn't because we are nice guys,” explains Mr Kelly, the head of the company's intellectual-property division. The company's motive, he says, is fear that patent rights have swung so far towards protection that they risk undermining innovation. The patent commons is meant to help restore the balance. “If this balance goes too far in one direction or another, this industry will not survive and our company will not survive. It is really that fundamental to us,” Mr Kelly says. Since then, some other companies have taken similar initiatives. (...) The trend towards open software code is an example of a bigger development in the technology industry: a new approach towards collaboration and “open innovation” that at times seems to work around the traditional intellectual-property system, and at times is directly fostered by it. “People think this is all a sort of flaky, radical, pinko strategy not related to the competitive marketplace. Au contraire! This is about how to kill your competitor,” says Don Tapscott, a management expert who studies innovation. “And you kill your competitor these days by identifying the need to innovate yourself, but also opening up that innovation; by owning IP, but also sharing IP.”

I also find that the metaphor used as a conclusion is nice:

Because open-source is non-proprietary, customers are much less locked into the firm supplying the IT systems. Its interfaces are open. Software interfaces are the digital equivalent of plugs and sockets. They require little intellectual endeavour, but are treated as intellectual property to keep rivals out. Opening up an interface means new software can easily be written to plug into it, increasing its value to users.

This open-source phenomenon now interestingly shape the future of big companies like IBM, Nokia or Sun. Like a bottom up phenomenon, blue chip are turning to it after small companies and individual. The next move is for media companies, which are dead reluctant to adopt this model...

Korean electronics company and innovation

When the cutting edge frightens the customers is a clever piece on innovation in the FT. It's about Korean electronic company and they way they're thinking about new products:

both companies are now at a critical juncture as they face a fundamental contradiction: they are concentrating on high-end products, particularly in mobile phones, but ever-smarter gadgets are becoming more intimidating and difficult to use for the average customer. These markets are also becoming saturated and new growth is to be found at the low end. So how do Samsung and LG, number three and five respectively in the global handset market, avoid a Sony-style post-Walkman product crisis? (...) “Sometimes it’s difficult to do market research because often consumers don’t know what they want,” says Lee Hee-gook, chief technology officer at LG Electronics, best known for home appliances, mobile phones and flat screens. (...) No product exemplifies this dilemma better than the mobile phone, analysts say. “They are developing these all-seeing, all-doing handsets that can do everything but shine your shoes, but does the phone-using public really want that level of capability?” asks Mr Morris. “And more importantly, will they pay for it?” (...) Over at Samsung, Mr Yun laments this conundrum. Samsung and LG have both built mobile phones with practically flawless television capability, but as Mr Yun puts it, the “unknown question” is how many people want to watch TV on their phones. [I don't believe in this -nicolas] (...) “The question is, how well will they use these things? People’s needs are different so we need to think about what is the device that is going to enable them to watch or utilise whatever device they need,” Mr Yun adds. [ah finally! this is the crux issue -nicolas] (...) “At any point you have to get realistic and check that what you’re doing makes sense.” [nice quote! -nicolas]

Why do I blog this? cell phones nicely exemplify how innovation is a tough issue. It's interesting (with regard to my work) how companies innovate and at what point they integrate the user-experience issue.

"The adult's product and the child's are often one and the same"

In the NYT/IHT, there is a good article about As gadgets replace toys, what's in it for kids? By Michael Barbaro. It's about an important trend: adults' and kids' artifacts like high-tech gadgets are now tending to be the same.

the push to sell consumer electronics to preteens is touching off an animated debate about whether the products qualify as toys, as manufacturers contend, and whether it is wise to break down one of the last barriers between children's play and adult technology. Â For decades, toy makers have designed products that allow children to mimic adult behavior, but it was, in the end, always make-believe. No matter how many electronic bells and whistles the latest toy truck had, it was still a toy. But with the latest crop of electronics for children 6 to 12, there is little pretending. The adult's product and the child's are often one and the same.

Why do I blog this? this trend is interesting, artifacts like cell-phones, digital video camera, DVD players are now used by both; how this is reflected in their design? and what would be the impacts of this: will kids drop kid-centered design and prefer the adults version?

Developing technology interventions to activate community spaces and public life

It might be a good talk (at the Future Design Days): "Play and the Everyday – Developing technology interventions to activate community spaces and public life" by Margot Jacobs.

Whether one lives in the city, its suburbs or a small town, the changes affecting everyday environments and their public spaces are vast and significant in our lives. In light of this, the usefulness of analyzing and understanding this phenomenon becomes quite evident.

The key question is no longer how to use technology to support work-oriented tasks or how to be more effective. Instead, the focus has shifted to how technology can support what lies beyond utilitarian demands, exploring for instance emotionally driven human needs such as supportive social systems, sustainability and even desires, such as expression, communication, and reflection. In this era, we should explore new design philosophies, combining information technologies with values of a more aesthetic nature, subtlety, and personal meaning that support happy accidents, serendipitous interactions, and the ebbs and flows of our evolving lifestyles. In sum, the play in the everyday.

‘Public Play Spaces’ was initiated at the Interactive Institute as a means of investigating the surge of computing technologies in the public arena and what the implications are for our society and culture. Essentially, ‘Public Play Spaces’ is a platform for creative work exploring the playful, emotional and appropriate incorporation of technology into everyday public life, focusing on developing both innovative design methods and experimental prototypes for social interventions in public space. Within this framework, we have taken the opportunity to reflect on, question and reexamine places, relationships and qualities for the design of technology in the public sphere. This requires that we ask different questions, apply new methods and try alternative means of prototyping.

During the Play and the Everyday workshop we will walk through a design process with a focus on a particular public space drawing on the approach and methods used within the ‘Public Play Spaces’ platform including rapid prototyping and public interventions. The purpose will be to explore new tactics for how technologies might offer critique, breaking down current accepted technological practices and challenging people to reflect as well as to add new layers for expression and participation. Outcomes will include prototypes, conceptual design proposals and use scenarios.

Digital culture and mainstream innovation

A very relevant article in the last issue of IEEE Multimedia is entitled "Digital Culture, Art, and Technology" by Andreas Broeckmann, the Transmediale art director. Very close to regine's point (as she presented in various places like reboot) which was "Why executives should go to media art festivals". In this article, Broeckmann tackles this very issue:

how the artistic work that engages technological developments has moved from the margins of society to being intricately linked with systems and themes that are economically, politically, and socially important. Multimedia itself has seen a similar shift (from specialized to general users), but is the way multimedia technology is being developed tightly linked to social and cultural issues? Or are technical researchers and developers still working at the margins of society?

Why do I blog this? I am also a proponent of this approach and it's interesting to see that more and more voices are supporting it.

XXIst century institutions

Browsing improbable websites, I found this interesting quote (there):

« My ideal XXIst century institution would appear less like an “institution” as such, than as a constantly evolving and flexible organism, or a network connecting people on a “global” mode, people who have ideas and people who act. It should be able to respond to the most varied forms of thought and media, and more precisely, to face the challenge represented by the new complexity arising from the merging of new forms of social emergency and new technologies. And while it develops it should also take in account the emergence of this other fact : the collapse of the centre of the world. » Hou Hanru : curator indépendant in "Qu’attendez vous d’une institution artistique du XXI° siècle ?" (What do you expect from a XXIst century art institution ?). Ed palais de Tokyo

I agree with this and I think this is also an ideal structure, however it seems that this kind of definition is more applied recently to private companies in our supercapitalist days; it's interesting to see that the rhetoric shift in organisational sciences (oldschool organisation --- new structures more felxible) now refers to every structures be it arty/for profit/squat-related... Will private companies be organized like art groups? interactive labs? Or is it the other way around? I am lost. Well we don't know but the main word here are 'flexible and 'evolving'.

FT on open-source and innovation

An interesting account in the FT of how the 'open-source' movement is now nurturing the innovation processes. It's called 'How open source gave power to the people':

In the internet age, it seems, the next big idea to change your industry may come from an unexpected direction. (...) Sophisticated tools that let individuals take part in the process of creation, the internet as a means to draw together communities of like-minded people, a willingness to share ideas for the common good – these are the basic ingredients of a new approach to innovation. (...) Even corporate giants are starting to learn from this. Microsoft, for instance, may take issue with many of the claims made for open source products but it does not dispute the power of some of the new working practices that are bringing them about. (...) To outsiders, the prospect of loose communities of innovators sharing their ideas can seem counter-intuitive. Why would creators of valuable intellectual property freely hand it over to others to exploit? (...) A growing body of literature, along with the experience of industries such software, provides some explanation. By building on work already done by others, companies can use their scarce R&D resources more efficiently. (...) Customers, meanwhile, contribute ideas because they can lead to products that more closely meet their needs. Or, suggests Mr von Hippel, they do it for the recognition they get from their peers – something noted** by Eric Raymond, one of the first chroniclers of the open source community – or just for the fun of it.

Why do I blog this? I am interested by this trend and feel like that the future is clearly a mix of open-source behavior, co-creation, analogy-based industries (transfering ideas from other fields as described in the article with the kite-surfing example), 'consommacteurs', 'minipreneurs'...

Valuing experiments for Design

Very smart article in Business Week about innovation, companies and the value of experimentations/tests. The author's point [Tim Brown who is IDEO's CEO] is that "successful organizations need to experiment with new concepts in order to actively shape the future instead of waiting for it to shape them".

how do you make change predictable? How do you anticipate the impact of disruptive new ideas, new technologies, and new innovations that you or your competition might discover?

Experimentation is well understood in the R&D laboratory, where scientists and engineers test hypotheses and translate their observations into possibilities for the rest of the company. And every executive appreciates the value of controlled tests to evaluate the market potential of a new offering or direction. (...) Experiments let you take your ideas, speculations, and hypotheses, and put them into tangible and testable forms. They enable you to practice the future before you get there. They can inspire both organizations and their customers to head toward an exciting, profitable future that they can influence.

We expect every experiment to produce an output we can communicate or experientially evaluate in some qualitative way. The result might take the form of a tangible prototype or a storyboard or video that lays out a future scenario. Or the experiment might simply provide new insights, such as a novel framework or new principles that can constitute a platform for innovation.

Managers should aim to have a balanced portfolio of experiments: some short-term and intended to create new ideas, some medium-term designed to take your company in new directions, and some long-term that will deliver new insights about the future.

Why do I blog this? I fully agree with this, it reminds me the artifact-oriented forecast Jason Tester do at the IFTF, trying to embed news ideas and concepts into something physical to make the forecast more concrete.

Lego Digital Designer

(via), LEGO (from the Danish phrase leg godt meaning "play well. according to Wikipedia) just released a new tool: Lego Digital Designer which is described by Metropolis as "a three-dimensional, computer-aided design (CAD) program that allows users to create virtual models from a near endless supply of bricks in different shapes, sizes, and colors." You can download it (pc or mac versions) here What is interesting is this:

You can save your finished LDD design as a .jpeg, E-mail it to a friend, post it to the gallery, or purchase it. If you choose the latter, LEGO's fulfillment center in Enfield, Connecticut will send you the necessary components to build the design and prepare step-by-step instructions (available online as a PDF or three-dimensional file); the pieces will arrive in a customized box with your name, a picture of the model, and a few extra bricks, just in case. The special-order option is currently only available in the U.S., although LEGO plans to introduce it in Europe in the near future. (...) The company is betting that a broad market exists for customizable children’s toys, and that parents--and adult enthusiasts--will pay a premium for them. LDD made-to-order construction sets will cost more than standard versions, with pricing determined by the size of the model and the components used.

Why do I blog this? it's interesting - in terms of innovation management - to engage consumers in new ways of appropriation of the product; it's no longer a matter of delivering bricks for Lego, it's now time to innovate by giving more powers to the users/consumers.

Technorati Tags: game, innnovation, lego

R&D in 2005

Technology Review has released a scorecard about R&D indexes. Interesting to see the big players. In addition, there is an article about this.

The 2005 edition of the TR R&D Scorecard shows that worldwide corporate spending is picking up, but that the gains are unevenly distributed. The biggest advances are in the life sciences, which also happen to be among the most research-intensive industries: 2004 R&D spending among the biotech companies on the list shot up by an average of 69 percent over the previous year.

The results are (quickly summarized):

Four industries--biotech, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals/medical devices, and software--spent significantly more on R&D, proportionally, then the others.

Research budgets at biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and computer software companies grew the most last year.

The overall Innovation Index rankings of six industries, including semiconductors, computer hardware, and telecommunications, improved in 2004.

Meeting at a swiss think tank

I had a refreshing meeting with people from Avenir Suisse (a swiss think tank working on the social and economic development of Switzerland). The point was to find and motivate some speaker for our january conference about Internet/Technologies. This lead us to an interesting discussion about innoavtion, creative class, consumer-based economy, 'consommacteur' (a french neologism that express the fact that consumer are now 'actor' of the system, e.g. for Amazon.com in which people's review give more and more power to the platform).

Avenir Suisse defines relevant issues at an early point in time and shows where action is required. The think tank adds new impulses to the discourse and offers possible solutions. Avenir Suisse defines relevant issues at an early point in time and shows where action is required. The think tank adds new impulses to the discourse and offers possible solutions. In order to carry out this task Avenir Suisse cooperates with scientific institutes inside and outside Switzerland, employs experts to carry out specific investigations and organises conferences and debates on various topics. By communicating the scientific results in clear cut terms to a larger public Avenir Suisse enhances the circulation of relevant facts and stimulates the public discourse. (...) Avenir Suisse is independent in its work. The sponsoring companies have fixed their financial contributions to the think tank ahead, and the scientific counsel watches over the independence of the output and guarantees the quality of the products. Avenir Suisse does not oppose or back any political party in Switzerland, but is open towards all forces that constructively work on the issues of the future. (...) The operative team of Avenir Suisse is made up of academic project managers from the fields of economics, sociology and political science, supported by communication experts.

Why do I blog this? the meeting was interesting, I often have relevant discussion with people from think tank; moreover it's a good node in the swiss network.