Instantly Obsolete

Last week, David Bliss and I presented at the 2012 Planning-ness Conference.

For those that haven’t had a chance to attend, Planning-ness is described as an “un-conference” for creative thinkers who want to get their hands dirty. Each session is half teach and half workshop where participants put the presented ideas into action. This year a two-day, two-track event was hosted at the Annenberg Community Beach House in sunny Santa Monica.

In our session, we mapped the ever expanding Internet of Things landscape, broke down the “anatomy” of connected objects, and described how personal connected objects have the ability to encourage new behaviors, even increase human potential.

After which we gave the following assignment:

Think of a personal object. Imagine how you might embed sensors, log interesting data and connect it to the Internet for analysis. Consider what insights this new information would bring to light and what behaviors, or ideas those could inspire.

All of the participants embraced the challenge with passion and enthusiasm — generating ideas that sparked imagination, laughter and smart thinking for where the Internet of Things may go.

Check out the results of the work session here.

Pictured above:
Fig 1: Our client, Sony, had an impressive showing.
Fig 2: The new G-Shock with Bluetooth.
Fig 3: The Chambers, by Rza.
Fig 4: Polaroid’s Android camera.
Fig 5: Justin Bieber-bot with Tosy’s mRobo.

I went looking for the future in Las Vegas. From the moment I walked into the first hall of the Consumer Electronics Show I was adrift in a sea of 3D TVs, bedazzled iPhone cases, iPad wannabes and a myriad of lifestyle headphones. “Beats” by Dre have been popular for some time, but have you heard about “Street” by 50? Or, “Soul” by Ludacris? Perhaps you’ve heard of “Chambers” by Rza? Then there was the candy colored assortment from iWave, iLuv and Nixon. One thing is clear — lifestyle headphones are more than a fleeting fad.

We Like to Watch
By sheer quantity, you’d probably surmise that the future is all about TV. Ultra-thin and ultra-big — one was 84 inches! 3D in every flavor — including the new kind with no glasses required. (Speaking of glasses, I saw a TV that up to four people could all simultaneously watch different programs by wearing special glasses with built-in earbuds. I didn’t try it, but I can tell you that without the glasses it could possibly cause seizures).

The 4K and 8K TVs that offer four to eight times the pixel resolution were certainly impressive. Sadly, it may only be an alternate future in which the broadcast industry supports these formats.

For me, TVs that boasted facial recognition and took voice commands showed the most promise. I’m ready to ditch my many remotes and own a TV that knows what volume I like it set at and can pull up my favorite show, based on a verbal description.

“Hey TV, play that episode of 30 Rock when Jack talks to his TV.”

The Evolution of Things
It was the adaption of existing products that did the most to suggest future possibilities. For example, the Bluetooth G-Shock watch that communicates with your phone, Motorola’s smart fitness watch that collects both biometric and telemetric data, or Polaroid’s “smart camera” that runs on Android. There was also a swath of home electronics designed to allow users to control and monitor products and systems via their smartphones — from lights, to security systems, to thermostats, to washing machines and even dog collars. Personally, I loved the Swiss Army knife equipped with a 1-terrabyte drive, demonstrating that even our most basic survival tools are quickly adapting.

“Scissors, saw, sewing needle, screwdriver, bottle-opener, toothpick, all six seasons of Lost and my entire music collection, right here on this handy little pocket knife.”

Meaning in a Mass of Memes
CES does more to surface prevailing trends than to point toward future states. There were loads of replicated ideas, all played out with subtle differences in their form-factor, feature and styling. However, when you looked closely, clues to our future certainly emerged. For me, it was in the things that weren’t prevalent:

Entertainment without interactivity: We may be looking for deeper immersion, but we still love passive entertainment experiences.

Devices without boundaries: With sensors, apps and access to the cloud, smartphones are becoming smart everything.

Control without a GUI: Be it by voice, facial recognition or gesture, natural human interfaces offer wonderful new possibilities.

In my view, the natural human interfaces foreshadow the most interesting future possibilities — suggesting that the emotive connections digital technology can create are far more important than the electronic devices that deliver them.

The Agricultural Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Atomic Age, the Jet Age, the Space Age and the Information Age — every technological era has brought about profound effects on socioeconomic and cultural conditions. They’ve reshaped human behavior and reset reality.

But, before the full effects of each of these technological developments have taken hold and fully permeated the collective understanding, people and businesses undoubtedly found themselves navigating a strange “in-between” time — a time where future visions are uncomfortably mingled with legacy artifacts and pre-existing expectations.

Today, in the Connected Age, technological innovations are bringing about seismic shifts in our reality every day. The dust is far from settled, and perhaps, it never will be. For businesses and brands this uncertain and unpredictable landscape is rot with danger. Red herrings, pitfalls and fruitless dead-ends surround us, while opportunity is elusive.

But fear not, Larry Johnson (Odopod’s Associate Director of Strategy) and I have been hard at work cataloging the common mistakes, collecting helpful techniques and distilling best practices to survive and thrive in today’s in-between times. We’ve compiled them neatly, into a presentation of course, and would love the opportunity to share them with you, our industry friends and peers at SXSW 2012.

But we need your help. Please vote for our SXSW session : Danger is Everywhere: Illuminating common pitfalls of marketing’s in-between times and take a peek at some example slides here.

This preview is just a taste of what’s to come. We promise to keep it short, sweet and useful so send us a vote and we’ll see you there.

I have sampled many fruits from ‘The Apple Tree‘. Many, delicious and sweet. And few, under ripe and a tad sour.

When I’m not trolling the internet for LOL cats and new examples of “digital innovation”, you’ll likely find me practicing virtual consumerism on a style blog. One of my recent favorites is Convoy. Subtitled “An Ever-growing Collection of Nice Things I Like”, it’s clear I share the same taste as some fine Swedish dandy.

By the way, if anyone can identify the model of the Paneri watch above and tell me where I can find it, I’d be greatly appreciative. In the meantime, I’ll run to the corner store and grab a lottery ticket.

It’s here. SoDA has released the 2011 Digital Marketing Outlook. And, it’s packed with data.

In this year’s DMO I edited a section on the digital consumer and contributed the following article. While it was written a few months back, the topic couldn’t be anymore timely. Today at Odopod, as I’m sure many other digital consultancies, we are in the throes of rethinking the shopping experience at retail.  From augmenting  in-store visits and digital coupons, to inventing revolutionary new ways to find products. With it all, the new frontiers seem to lie in enabling “digital” shopping behaviors, and addressing new consumer expectations in these spatial, tactile environments.

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The Last Mile

For well over a decade, e-commerce has been a cornerstone in the growth and development of the Internet. In that time, e-tailing has matured, the experience has been refined, and consumer usage has grown rapidly. In fact, online sales in the US are projected to be over $170 billion in 2010. Nonetheless, while online retailing has experienced phenomenal growth, the lion’s share of consumer transactions still take place out in the physical world. In 2009, that share was 72%.

E-commerce is now ubiquitous and new digital technologies have shifted consumer behaviors and attitudes, encouraging the brick and mortar retailers to find digital means to enhance and augment the customer’s in-store experience.

We’ve seen a great deal of experimentation in this arena in the last two years, much of it the form of conceptual prototypes. But now, with the proliferation of web-enabled, geo-aware mobile devices and state-of-the-art display technology, many new concepts are starting to take shape that are directly applicable to physical retail experiences.

> View the 2011 DMO on SlideShare

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A childhood friend of mine, Xan McCurdy, is the guitar player the popular alt rock band Cake. Perhaps, you remember them from a their older hits, Never There or The Distance?

Obviously, you can imagine my excitement (and surprise) when a mutual friend of ours posted on Facebook that the band’s latest album, Showroom of Compassion, debuted No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Ousting Tyler Swift.

I thought, “I wonder how many albums you need to sell to climb to number one”, so searched the interwebs for the answer.

44,000 albums.

That’s the lowest amount of album sales to ever send an album to No. 1 on Billboard charts in the history of Nielsen SoundScan (which began tracking sales in 1991). Funny enough, the 44K just beat the previous low of 52K, set only the week prior by, yep, Taylor Swift.

Note: Both have more then a long way reach Michael Jackson’s Thriller, which sold somewhere between 70 and 110 million copies.

All of this is yet more indications of the seismic shifts we’ve been witnessing regarding media consumption in the digital age – and, well past the canary in the coalmine for the gasping music industry.

What is abundantly clear is that the CD, and the concept of ‘the album’, are all but dead. Today, it’s all about à la carte song purchases, singles, with digital distribution. Ironically, this is a bit of a return to the good ol’ days, when radio hit records were all singles, and everyone bought those vinyl 45s. I do miss the b-sides (at least now we have Jack White’s Triple-Decker Vinyl).

That said, I would venture to guess that more music is being consumed then ever before – both legally and illegally.  In fact, it’s not clear that Gen Z kids even care about ‘owning’ music (if they can listen to it on demand).

What’s so frustrating is that the music industry just hasn’t figured anything out.

If today’s ‘baby bands’ are finding an audience, it’s pretty much on their own. Some in fact have gotten extremely adept at using the social web to find, engage and transact directly with their fan base.

While MySpace is DOA, there is a glimmer of hope. Burgeoning online music discovery services such as Hype Machine, Grooveshark and Pandora are making inroads. And others like We Are Hunted and The Sixty One are offering a fresh alternative.

But back to Cake… As of right now, they have the No. 1 album in America. That’s pretty freakin’ rad. And what’s more, they self-produced the album and recorded the whole thing their own solar-powered recording studio in Sacramento.

Top that.

The London-based market research firm, TNS, has launched a site that promotes the findings of their global digital consumer study – Digital Life.

They deem it the “the most comprehensive study of the global digital consumer, ever.” And, with nearly 50,000 respondents from 46 counties, I’d have to say that it sounds fairly comprehensive.

The full screen presentation is a bit heavy handed in it’s execution, but it’s stacked with some nice data visualizations and well considered filters for scanning it – including; geographic region, age range, online drivers and lifestyle segments.

Happy sifting.

Visa once boldly declared that their only real competitor was cash. Now, with the rollout of Visa’s payWave product for mobile phones, it seems they’re want to compete with my Clipper Card too.

In a new program, New Yorkers can pay for their public transit with a wave of their “payWave-enabled” mobile phone. It’s only a pilot at this point, but it’s easy to imagine that this may catch on. In fact, it seems LA Metro may be getting in the act next.

Personally, I love the idea of ditching all the plastic in my wallet. But, this innovation could certainly increase the stress of having a low battery – not to mention losing your phone or having it stolen.

Book publishers are experiencing a seismic shift in the landscape. While the establishment is threatened, we may need to go back to Johannes Gutenberg’s introduction of moveable type to find a time with so much promise for the consumer.

Case and point would be Stephen Fry’s (the British actor, comedian journalist extraordinaire) new memoir.

His “book”, entitled The Fry Chronicles, is an impressive example of how creative thought leaders are using technology to turn a stagnant industry on it’s head. In a good way.

Of course the book available in hard back, and it’s also available as an eBook, audio book as well as an iPhone app, called myFry.

What’s intriguing is how media is adapted to medium. Making the content experience contextually unique and appropriate (meeting user expectations) for the channel.

The digital content includes author videos discussing events and photos that appear in the book. And, the app allows readers users to navigate content sections with color-coded categories, including people and subjects.

We’re already seeing this concept of transmedia publishing apply to the likes to magazines, music, games, movies and TV. And, I’m excited to see how, and where, it develops.

8/21 Update:
On the subject, IDEO share their vision/prototype for the future of reading materials. “Nelson” and “Alice”.