Blog Post by Matt Plested, Director, Alloy
We returned from our annual NY trip to Vegas a week ago, and as always the studio wanted to know what was cool, interesting and over hyped..
Where to start ? – well that’s the first problem of CES... It has always been big, but convergence has just stretched it.. Too far ? Well Microsoft seems to think so.
CES reflects ‘the industry’, well it did, until what defined the industry was broken. CES sits at the heart of how we will live, move, work, create and maybe even die… CES covers everything from advanced healthcare and 100” flatscreens to .20c accessories. It also covers in car entertainment, oh and now cars too. In fact the NCAA show in Detroit was showcasing how well the auto industry was reclaiming hype and excitement back from the latest smartphone / laptop launch. Except it wasn’t. The major announcements from the large auto brands seemed to centre around how they had improved integration of in car comms and content.
Super Hero Celebrities
Just like the comic books, we like to think that when we are in real trouble there is someone we can call on. Yet again, CES was packed with celebs of all kinds showcasing how much they were inspired by (jnsert random brand here). There is nothing new or exciting there, but it does get interesting when endorsement grows into ‘collaboration’.
HP felt the need to issue a superhero call a year ago, and hired Will.I.Am as a creative director. Within 12 months they had abandoned WebOS and the consumer market – quite what HP hoped they would achieve is still a mystery. The same was also true with famous (photographer) Lady Gaga & Polaroid.
Celebrities are brands, and are increasingly channels too (Stephen Fry has a greater readership than all UK tabloids combined). Dr Dre showed that linking premium audio quality to his ‘brand’ was successful. He helped to develop the devices and create market leading products. To see the trustees of Bob Marleys estate thinking that sticking his name on devices is enough was like a trip back to the bad old days. Unless I am mistaken, I don’t think (Sir) Bob had much role in their development, and I don’t think it will be as successful as Dr Dre.
Converge & Diverge
The impact of the convergence (standardisation) that has taken place for the past few years is now clear for all to see – mobile phones are now central in how we consume and communicate to a point where the best other manufacturers from auto to medical can hope to claim is the level of integration with mobile platforms.
What CES’12 showed was that we have come out of the other side – that convergence is now driving divergence. One of the most powerful things we saw was the volume of ‘i-suppliers’. An enormous collection of cases, stands and general accessories from companies you have never heard of - all supplying the personalisation / protection needs of the smartphone & tablet markets. More importantly alongside the cutesy cases were medical monitoring and other complex electronic accessories, many of which were from new companies. Whole new industries have sprung up to supply the divergent (specialised) needs of users. What this suggests is that users are increasingly the architects of the devices and services they use – we now have platforms onto which we attach content, connections and control.
MVP (Minimal Product Value)
The success of platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Android demonstrate that huge value lies in the ability to create an open platform that connects with other platforms. More importantly, their value stems from not being a ‘complete’ experience, but enabling the user to integrate their own data streams into them. This is almost the exact opposite of classic tech innovation, where companies competed on feature lists (mines longer than yours !), they now compete on how they each add to the overall user experience.
The term MVP was created to define this new approach to innovation, and we can see how even a closed ‘ecosystem’ like Apple provides huge opportunity for companies to grow around them. This is a wonderful opportunity for new entrants to the market, but it has been a challenge for the established brands like Sony, Panasonic et al – the behemoths of the ‘closed’ innovation movement who now find themselves left behind or sidelined in the race to provide the connected, ubiquitous lifestyle.
The battleground this year looks to be TV, or rather how the big screen in your home becomes part of, and then central to a connected lifestyle / home
Bezels, pixels, inches yada yada yada..
While the latest sets all boasted incremental improvements on 2011 models, the really interesting innovations looked to how they could integrate other forms of content into the TV experience. Right now this is a hugely fertile area – current attempts seem to think that simply putting 2 different forms of content and interaction archetypes on the same screen will be the answer, instead it seems to produce some kind of mutation that is neither man or beast.
That is perhaps being a little unkind, clearly we are only seeing V1, by the end of the year I expect to see products, apps, services and mash-ups of the 3 that really add to the experience.
Digital to Physical
‘Open’ innovation is as much a philosophy as a process. While it is typified by the open software movement, it is now extending to open hardware. (We highlighted this last year in our report for CIKTN seen here.
CES debuted a number of simple kits of sensors, controllers and 3D printers that enable people to become designers and manufacturers in their home. All manner of collaborative platforms exist to connect the users / creators. Exactly what impact this will have on the devices we use in the short term is still up for debate. What is much clearer is the long term impact such behaviours will have on how we choose, make, buy and share devices and artefacts in the future. – In other words, it has the potential to redefine what brands stand for, how we will manufacture, retail and a whole lot else.
So, not much happening really !
We will post another blog after our visit Barcelona for World Mobile Congress where we will be speaking and helping to judge the UK's most innovative company for UKTI.
If you want to catch up there, feel free to get in touch
No comments:
Post a Comment