Tag Archives: innovation

Great Words About Innovation

I read a great interview today with Ad Age’s Agency Executive of the Year, Bill Koenigsberg, CEO of Horizon Media. It was a glimpse into how he views innovation. It’s a short interview, so I’d encourage you to read it. There were a couple of points that stuck out at me:

1.” The entire media ecosystem has upped its game in innovation, but there is a yellow flashing light and those who innovate are going to win the land grab as we move into the future. And those who don’t will be left behind.”

2. “A lot of people think of innovation as a tactic, but it is a culture, and you need a recipe for it. You need the right people to drive innovation, the right tools and technology derived from insights on where innovation is born, you need the right environment.”

Make no mistake, if you want to succeed, much less thrive as a brand steward, you must always push – push to do something better, bigger, or new from yesterday. Gone are the days of setting and forgetting. It takes a purposeful approach in every aspect of your business. It is risky. It is uncomfortable. It might not always be successful. But these are the requirements now.

CETW Keynote #1 – Driving Customer Engagement through Digital Experiences

Note – this dude is a heavy hitter and brought to life a great way of thinking about this wide, open space that technology and our world has given to us. This is a post that captures many of his thoughts from his keynote.

Brought to us by, B. Joseph Pine, author of Experience Economy & other books – now Infinite Possibility

Progression of Economic Value – goods and services no longer enough, what consumers are looking for are experiences

Commodities > Goods > Services > Experiences

What we need now is innovation in experiences

New digital frontier that changes things today; need a tool to help us explore the digital frontier

The known universe – time, space, matter – in Future Perfect (Stan Davis), he says he wants to give new meaning to time, space and matter. This will require profound transformations in the way we think about these 3.

When you have matter, you have no-matter. Matter is material things, no-matter is about bits.

If there’s no-matter, then there’s no-space and no-time. No-space is virtual places. No-time is autonomous events. This now is a model about what is possible in today’s digital space. This is what he calls the Multiverse.

This is not a plea to abandon reality. But there is a migration going on. More and more, people are spending their time in virtual worlds through screens.

We can access virtuality through screens of any sorts. Virtuality is an experience that you have through any screen.

You can have virtuality without digital technology. Think about books. Just from words on paper, you can create a world in your mind where that is taking place.

Enchantment – close to Engagement

Reality and Virtuality

Augmented Reality – this is the quintessential reality/virtuality example. It augments what you’re experiencing in the real world by giving you information in a virtual environment, typically on your mobile phone. Using digital technology to enhance the real-world.

Showed a lot of examples of AR – Word Lens – real-time translation of your own language that you see, take a picture of. Pop notes – virtual post-it notes.

Think of AR as a virtual prosthetic.

Augmented Virtuality – interact with the virtual world from the real-world. Augmenting that virtual world. Some material substance that is controlling that environment.

Wii. Kinect.

Look into this company – Personal Space Technologies.

He also showed an example of Hallmarks cards that, to me, seem like Augmented Reality (not Virtuality??) He addressed this. So, what’s the difference? Primary experience is either in the real world (reality) or the digital world (virtuality). Interesting. I like it.

Alternate Reality – alternate view of what’s going on in the real-world. Use the world as your playground (ARG’s).

Alternate reality is no time.

World Without Oil – HBR article by the author. We can use Alternate Reality as the new Business Reality.

Physical Virtuality – design experience that becomes real. For example, take a digital picture of a physical space. Then, it turns into a 3D space. Now, use a tool to design how it should look. Then, you can make the furniture. Make it real based on the virtual experience that you have online. Your ideas can become real.

Shapeways. Autodesk. Techshop.

Warped Reality – taking you into the past. Reenactments like the Civil War Adventure Camp. But what about the future? Not reenactment, but preenactment.

Starizon (company) – you determine what experience you want to have happen in the future and then they create it.

Flow – look at this book. “Freedom from the tyranny of time.”

Mirrored Virtuality – real-world experience & time tied into virtual world & time. Anything you can track is an example of this. Look at MLB.com and you can see what’s going on in the game, real-time via your computer. Tweetdeck – no real world component, but it’s mirroring what’s going on real-time in the Twitteverse.

This is the Multiverse.

Some tips as you think about each one of these components in the Multiverse.

  1. Reality – shift marketing from advertising to marketing experiences.
  2. Augmented Reality – use smartphones to bring messages to customers when and where they most need it. Stop bothering them when they don’t need it.
  3. Alternate Reality – use the real-world as your playground for engagement.
  4. Warped Reality – get customers into the flow. Engagement them so much that all time goes away. Or help them envision their future.
  5. Virtual Reailty – shift your marketing dollars from advertisng to virtual marketing experiences.
  6. Augmented Virtuality – use customers own bodies to control what they experience from you.
  7. Physical Virtuality – mass customize your offerings – not just target your messages – to help your customers realize their dreams.
  8. Mirrored Virtuality – help your customers track what’s important to them in your offering category. And then give them a dashboard.

 

The best offerings are those that do not live within one of these categories.

Am I Right About “Innovation” in the Digital Signage Industry?

11th Screen | The Interactive Out-of-Home Blog

When I think of the future and how digital signage plays out and how mobile plays out, here’s what I think:

  1. Digital signage won’t go away. It will have its place, but to what extent – I guess that’s the question. Will it be more like billboards, where it’s primarily push? Or will it be, by and large, interactive?
  2. We won’t need digital signs to interact with the outside world because of mobile phones and tablets and their capabilities. Specifically, their capabilities to “turn anything on” and even more, provide personal experiences on a personal screen.

Mobile technologies will have a profound impact on the future of digital signage. It’s just that simple.

Part of the reason is that innovation is happening in mobile in a short amount of time. For the past few years, we’ve all been talking about whether or not this is going to be the year of mobile. Well, if we weren’t there last year, we’re certainly there this year. One of the ways you can see this is through the innovations brought to life in the mobile world. Tablets. Apps. Siri. Near Field Communication.

And while mobile’s innovations might be young, I think you can feel pretty comfortable that they’ll be around for a long, long time. As we can see in the short amount of time, creating these innovations is not confined to a select few Technorati or business minds – anyone can innovate and get that innovation out in the market place. To me, this is one key development and asset that the digital signage industry does not have yet. Innovation is confined to a few companies. It’s closed to a seemingly few, albethem brilliant in their own right, minds. It’s not the open-to-the-masses platform like mobile is. And perhaps that’s the reason its innovations and, as a result, its place in the market, have not developed to the point to where the industry has been expecting and hoping for, literally, years.

Unlike mobile, I feel like the digital signage industry will ask themselves again, in 2012, “is this the year of digital signage?” Maybe they can take a page from the mobile book and strive for open innovation, that which is brought on by the masses, not a select few.

An Innovation Question for the DOOH Industry, Thanks to Google+

11th Screen | The Interactive Out-of-Home Blog

All we’ve been buzzing about around here, in my world, is Google+. I’m not going to get into all of the opportunities or redundancies that it might or might not bring to the table, but I will say this – here’s what it shows us – even Google, who seemingly has been left behind in the social space by Facebook is constantly innovating.

This is not just another Facebook. It is fundamentally different.

When looking at the DOOH industry, I think we can all agree that there has been its own fair share of innovating, especially in the recent past, as seen here, here, and here. The experiences that occur outside of the home, through technology, is fundamentally different than it was even a year ago. And with new innovations, just as Google shows us, it’s going to look different sometime in the (near) future.

Here’s my question – since the technology fundamentally changes the game, are the DOOH industry and its players poised to keep up?

 

Introducing Inspire Me Crazy

Inspire Me Crazy Tumblr Page

For quite awhile now, I’ve been interested in starting a different kind of blog on a more brief and social platform (like Tumblr or Posterous), but I’ve never mustered up enough time to set it up and get it going. If you’ve ever written a blog (or if you currently do), you know how much of a time commitment it is. So, why in the world would I be interested in starting and contributing to another one?!? I know it’s crazy, but this has been such a fulfilling outlet for me and it doesn’t necessarily seem like a lot of work, so I’m willing to give it a try.

When I started thinking about what would fit in my normal day and would essentially be an extension instead of an addition, it was real easy to decide on a focus. I’m a creator at heart. And as such, I’m always open and looking for inspiration. I’m also passionate and intense about what I do. Some have even said dramatic in the past. Whatever you want to call it, I have a hard time hiding when things make me crazy. So, I figure inspiration + driving me crazy provides more than enough material/content/experiences to explore and document. And it fits right into my normal day. So, I’m happy to announce InspireMeCrazy.tumblr.com – where you’ll find all those things that inspire me crazy.

I wrote a post earlier in the year where I spoke about innovation and creating/providing a forum to be purposeful about that. I can see some of that happening here, but really, I think a lot of it will happen there. At least that’s my hope. I want to share and engage around all of those things that don’t really fit on this blog. Inspire Me Crazy is going to capture short posts, at least one a day, and have a much broader focus. I hope that the focus is wide enough where many people find value in what I share there, and even more want to engage.

I don’t have any plans to dial my contributions back on this blog. In fact, over the past few months, I’ve really become re-energized by experimenting with different types of content here. Everyone has given me lots of great feedback and I’m learning more and more what types of content is valuable to all of you. I hope to hone in on that particular type of content and serve it up more than I have in the past.

Ultimately, you – my readers – have given me the confidence that there’s at least some sort of value in my sharings. So, thank you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. I hope you’ll continue to give me feedback and let me know what’s working and what’s not. This is all an exploration and I’m happy to have you along for the ride.