PSFK, you might know it as one of your sources for creativity and ideas, has done a nice study on the future of retail. They identified 10 major trends that will determine the success factors in retail for the next few years. The key trends in the PSFK presents Future of Retail report:

* World As Retail Experience
* Pre-view Shopping
* Tablet Enabled Service
* Selling The Ideal
* Every Store As Flagship
* Complementary Curation
* Revolving Decors
* Taking The Store The Customer
* Instant Show & Tell
* Group Clout

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• The evolution of the retail experience (with one bold statement) (adaptivepath.com)
• The Frightening Future of Augmented Shopping [Retail] (gizmodo.com)
• The Future of Retail by PSFK (core77.com)

Yesterday Steve Jobs was a speaker at the All Things D conference. Mr. Jobs is notoriously secretive about Apple’s ideas, but he has been speaking up in very clear terms lately, and his performance at D8 is no different.

It is really interesting to see the CEO of the most closely watched company on the planet (except for maybe BP) be so at ease and candidly answering questions from the audience.

I wish more businessmen would be able to do this, but unfortunately most of them turn into mumbling balls of boring (or worse, this) when speaking publicly.

As with his presentations, it merits taking a cue from Mr. Jobs. See for yourself:

If you live in the US, this is going to be old news. If you are in Europe, this may be quite new to you: Siri.

Siri is a company that provides a Virtual Private Assistant – it let’s you say a question into your phone and finds an answer or arranges your request. Much like a real assistant would, only digital, so it’s cheaper, and arguably quicker. The makers would have you use it to make restaurant reservations or find concert tickets, so it’s not a search engine, but more of a ‘do engine’.

Robert Scoble called Siri “the most useful thing I’ve seen so far this year”:

It is the best example of what the web will be.

Let’s go back.

Web 1994 was the “get me a domain and a page” era.
Web 2000 was the “make my page(s) interactive and put people on it” era.
Web 2010 is the “get rid of pages and glue APIs and people together” era.

Siri is the best example. First, it’s not a website. It’s an application you put on your phone (today iPhone, soon others like Android and Blackberry). Second, it isn’t a search engine, those are so 1998. It’s a system that assists you in your life.

Siri is based on research from SRI and has been in development as a company since 2007. The cool thing is that it’s not so much a website (like twitter, facebook, etc.) but a system that ties other systems together, and interfaces it with a (arguably very complex) voice-interpretation system that makes using it super easy, semantic so that it’s more human than your average search engine.

It’s really ‘high tech shit’ that’s used to make something quite complex very easy. An innovation if you will.

Scoble also recently reported that Apple has bought the company, arguably to strengthen their position in the web space that’s not about media, advertising, or entertainment. And of course because this would also make a great app for Android based smartphones ;-)

Here’s a video from the company to explain to you how it works:

Obviously this is not in Europe yet, as usual we’ll be the last to get something great like this; since the system requires quite a bit of an ecosystem of partners to work I would think that rolling out in new markets will be a considerable effort. And now that Apple owns it, who know’s what they’ll do with it. And the business model isn’t entirely clear (also because the company uses a technology license from SRI) but you’ll agree with me that this is the kind of thinking that will make internet a truly useful place.

Here’s another vid, taken at AllthingsD, where the CEO does a demo and shows how much easier this works than keyword based searches:

We came across an inspiring blogpost by Joost Galjart. he has a blog called TWIO (the world is on) on which he posts anything that catches his attention concerning branding, design & innovation. This week he wrote a nice posting on living logos and iAd. Both rather new for me and I guess for more readers of Klatergoud.com. That’s why I’m pleased that we can share his article here on Klatergoud. Read and enjoy.
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Will iAd (& the Ipad) boost the arrival of living logos?

LivingLogos are logos which live in there own (created/designed) brand world. As in our real world, the LivingLogos are bounded to the ‘physical laws’ of their brand world. Laws like gravity, space (x,y,z axes), time but also some variables.

For print you will/can use photos (‘screenshots’) of this world.

Two interesting new dimensions with LivingLogos are:

• Time: By adding time into the mix you can add a lifecycle/storyline to a logo (a place where you can add strategical power) and combining it with the space dimension means of course movement
• Interaction: You can let the brand world connect/interact with external variables/forces (like a database: weather report or stock exchange) but most important of all: human interaction/intervention

Spectrum of types of Logos (from static to LivingLogos)

So LivingLogos live and grow/evolve in their own brand world.
There are three degree in type of brand worlds:

I’m a strong believer that in the future these LivingLogos will take the overhand in the branding game. I even dare to say that in the future brands (as we now them now) will only be a ‘endorsment brand’ of the brand worlds (but more on this statement later).

The arrival of these LivingLogos depends on the pass in which all consumer touch points become interactive. One of the most important touch points are our mobile devices, because they are always within our grasp and of its interactive capabilities.

Now with the arrival of the iPad magazines become interactive but more important the ads also can become interactive (really cool how they redefined how we make and read our future magazines). But much more interesting is the arrival of iAd on the iPhone and iPod touch because they sold already 85 million of them. iAd makes it possible for app developers to integrate high standard/end ads that not only can look good but also delivers the best of the deverent media types: Interaction + emotion (and sometimes even functionality).

I (and my friends @BR-ND) believe that truly appealing brands touch us both in our minds and hearts. I think (and hope) that this platform (iAd) will stimulate brand owners to start creating appealing brand worlds where LivingLogos finally run free to live up to their maximal potential!

Here the examples of what I call controled loops:

I’ve started out writing this as a reply to Rik’s ‘Innovation vs. Advertising’ post, but soon I stumbled on a interesting insight that I want to share with you all.

See, for starters: it’s funny to see that Rik and I share the same view. Recently I had a discussion about the iPad with a good friend of mine, whom with all respect I regard as a ‘geek’. I tried to defend a point about the iPad being a useful product as he would demolish this view by saying it is just a giant iPod that looks like a tampon (referring to this funny spoof right HERE).

Anyways – I think there is something bigger going on here: a quick peek into Apple’s future businessmodel.

Thing is that after numerous of killer new Apple product launches targeted at ‘innovators’, we came to think of Apple of being such a brand: an innovator’s wet dream. Think about it: the iPod, iPhone, the integrated design of the iMac, the reliability and speed of its OS X and the simple and ‘to the point’ pay-offs  all destroyed the status quo and conventions held sacred by its competitors. Apple made the ground shake!

But is it really? I mean, is Apple really an innovators wet dream (still)? They current have  a penetration of 75mln users of its iPhone device, millions of iPods sold, the biggest online store for applications and music (iTunes Store), Apple is ready for the next step: to become everyone’s tech solution (including your mom! – thanks for this insight Rik).

When the real innovators and geeks are disliking a products like the iPad, it’s often is a sign that the laggards or better : the fast mayority would  love it.  For the first time ever a company came up with a mobile device with a totally intuitive interface available for your mom, the tech analfabet or your grandparents!!!  An welcome benefit is: that there are millions of people (75 mln iPhone users) who are familiar with the interface already and able to explain to this new consumer group.

It’s brilliant once again: a goldmine! Well done Apple!

So you’d better expect more of these ‘innovations’ from Apple in the coming years/ months, which is bad news for me and other (late) innovators alike. We are now on the lookout for the next brand that is able to WOW us, because its not cool when mom is using the same stuff you are using. Time thus for a brave new brand to step up – who’s next?

…and for the guys at Microsoft – move over and make room for this new born Apple Dinosaur.

There is often a thin line between a real innovation and a lot of advertising talk.

Case in point?

iPad.

As a certified Apple fanboy I, like the rest of the world, expected an iSlate or whatever to be announced. There were two options: a big iphone with a killer business model behind it, or a next-gen game changer device.

When I saw the keynote and the product video, I was very much underwhelmed. My initial thought was, “yup, that really is just a big iPhone.” Dave Winer explains it all really well in his prognostication piece and follow-up: “Ridiculous product. Absolutely completely ridiculous.”

Ouch.

So, not exactly ‘magical’, cf. “when something exceeds your ability to understand how it works, it somehow becomes magical. And that’s exactly what the iPad is.”

I can easily make the exact same case for your average €250 Dell laptop. Or canned soup. Most of us don’t know how it got to be or how it works, but that don’t make it magical. That’s just spin.

Why is this important?

Well, to come back to my initial point: it is hard to discern between the two. Because what you say means one thing to this person and another to someone else. iPad is no big deal for the geeks, but it just might be the best possible computer for your mother.

So it really isn’t the question “what’s an innovation”, it’s “who are you talking to?”

Think about this next time you stand to make a pitch for a new product or idea. (This post was actually inspired by my spending some time writing copy for some new products.)

It’s always pretty cool to see the rumors around new Apple products. The talk of the moment is about the iSlate, the presumable Apple tablet. It may be officially announced on January 26th, but from everywhere and nowhere documents and information turns up. It should ship in March, product specifications have ‘surfaced‘, confusion breaks out in the already confused market and arguments start on how it will battle with Microsoft.

What I like is how readers react to these topics. Apple has build up such a strong base of fans that the discussions on these topics almost always are very furious. The rumors are not true, this is wrong, that is wrong, Apple would never say it this or that way, etc. etc.

And although Microsoft still sells so much more operating systems, I’ve never seen a Microsoft fan that seems offended when some Microsoft news ‘leaks out’. On the other hand, there are so many people that are just in the grey mass…

Oh, apparently that’s also me. I’m running Microsoft. It just works. I’m not a fan.

A real shame. Happy I do now.

Read about him, be inspired and note that he’s a Sir* now.
Sometimes greater good will come from someone just believing in you and see what you really are all about.
Thank you mr. Jobs! Thank you for believing in Ive – and Ive, thanks for my iPhone!

*it’s a shame Cnet.com doesn’t really care about that anymore.

Success comes at a cost of others. Apple, Blackberry, Microsoft, Google’s Android etc they all fight for the same piece of the pie. All fishes swimming in the same bloody red ocean. They compete for that same share of voice and market.
They adverts clearly show this.

In advertising there’re certain strategies one can choose to compete and try to convince others yours is the superior product. A good start would be believing in your own power and potential and not play the loser’s game which is: accepting the role and position of the market leader and then go around and saying the leader is wrong because… It just costs a lot of energy and budget to keep fighting this game. Stop fighting it – instead change the game!

You all know the adverts I’m talking about: Mac vs PC, I’m a PC and even this new one from Google’s Android fits the profile. Sure, they are entertaining but if you’d keep this quote of  Dale Carnagie in mind:

“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain – and most fools do.”

You would see there’re still alot of opportunities out there to really gain and keep a competitive market position.
Alfredo

My favorite? This ones, funny enough they are consumer generated: