Category Archives: Muse

Engadget vs Gizmodo

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engadget-vs-gizmodo

(Pic: Ryan Block leads Engadget (left), Brian Lam leads Gizmodo)

If you’re a gadget/design person (like many industrial designers are, I’m sure), you’d certainly have come across Engadget and Gizmodo, the twin titans in the consumer gadgets arena. And if you’re a frequent visitor, you’d certainly also notice a less-than-friendly relationship between the two blogs, as in any good ol’ fashion rivalry, with each blog racing to bring the latest and juiciest in gadget-o-dom. But just how bad (good?) is it?

Wired has a rather comprehensive and interesting look behind the scenes, outlining how much the bloggers do to get an edge over the other. In a battle for online eyeballs lusting for gears, speed and exclusivity is indeed critical – many times it can really boil them to a matter of minutes for one blog to earn the bragging rights for being the first to cover major product releases. Much like high-school fraternity rivalry, perhaps.

Describing the ‘war strategy’ for Gizmodo during the Consumer Electronics Show (the SuperBowl equivalent in Gadget-dom) coverage, for instance:

No wonder Lam has been devising his CES strategy for the past 12 months. As soon as the 2007 show ended, he made a 2008 reservation at the Hilton, the hotel closest to the convention center, to serve as Gizmodo’s war room and “infirmary” for bloggers needing a midday break. He also reserved a block of rooms at the Imperial Palace because it was close to the Las Vegas monorail. That meant his writers could avoid the hour-long taxi lines that have come to define CES. And, of course, Lam expects his staff to sacrifice for their art. “In Thai boxing, the trainers don’t allow their fighters to have sex for two weeks before a match,” whispers Lam, a onetime kickboxer, “and the trainers can tell if they have, because it makes them lazy.” He shakes his head and pokes an accusing finger at one of his bloggers.

Head on for the full article.

Interesting Economics

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If you’ve enrolled in an average Economics 101 classes,  you’d probably be spending time on (deceptively) simple-looking graphs and chanting mantras like ‘quantity demanded falls as price increases’ and such. But questions like those below are what (I think) makes the subject much more interesting:

  • Why do women endure the discomfort of high heels?
  • Why is milk sold in rectangular containers, while soft drinks are sold in round ones?
  • Why are DVDs sold in much larger packages than CDs, even though the two types of disc are exactly the same size?
  • Why do shops put up signs in their windows saying that guide dogs are permitted inside?

Robert H Frank, an Economics professor at Cornell University hands off this assignment to his students :

Use a principle, or principles, discussed in the course to pose and answer an interesting question about some pattern of events or behaviour that you personally have observed.”

In addition, they were not to use academic buzzwords (which I personally think Economics have too much of). “Imagine yourself talking to a relative who has never had a course in economics. The best papers are ones that would be clearly intelligible to such a person, and typically these papers do not use any algebra or graphs”.

There are some rather interesting results from the assignment, as students attempt to explain the apparent paradoxes of life using economic lenses. Not sure how much of them are really true – but interesting perspectives nonetheless, I think. Here’s the link to about 15 examples.

No More URLs!

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japan-advertising-keywords

There’s a rather interesting observation by Cabel in Japanese advertisement panels – many of them have decided to abandon showing the URL, but instead recommending the keywords to search for. Keywords are probably shorter and more directly relevant to the promoted products, and it could also be more wieldy especially for a nation where some are perhaps still less familiar with the Roman alphabets. I suppose the advertisers would have to be really good in making sure their sites are the top returns in search engines.

Cabel also has an interesting question:

But, I ask you: could this be done in the USA? Wouldn’t search spammers and/or “optimizers” ruin this within seconds? I did a few tests with major name brands and they’re almost always the top hit on Google (surprisingly, even Panic). But if Nabisco ran a nationwide ad campaign for a hot new product and told users to Google for “Burlap Thins” to learn more, wouldn’t someone sneaky get there before they do?

The trend towards $0.00

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free

WIRED has a rather comprehensive overview on the trend towards free products, especially in the services/products over the Internet. As a young person who basically grew up surrounded by free online products/applications – from my first Hotmail account, to Yahoo! search, to Google, to Netvibes, to digg, to Firefox, to this very blog – basically my entire online existence) , I’d say I’d have to agree – perhaps more accurately – expects and demands that great quality product remain free:

It took decades to shake off the assumption that computing was supposed to be rationed for the few, and we’re only now starting to liberate bandwidth and storage from the same poverty of imagination. But a generation raised on the free Web is coming of age, and they will find entirely new ways to embrace waste, transforming the world in the process. Because free is what you want — and free, increasingly, is what you’re going to get.

It’d certainly require a shift in our paradigms – how can I make money if I have to release my products as free? It’s certainly a wild shift from the more traditional brick-and-mortar operational model (and even then, my mobile phone is “free” with suscription plans). In the traditional model, I buy something, money changes hand, and then I get to use the product.

The ‘freenomenon‘ model works more like this: I get something for free, uses the product, and the seller hopes I’d eventually hand him some money. In a way, this means your free product has to be even better than the non-free ones: because you need to compel him to want to support and give you money, and your product’s value is evaluated over an extended usage time (e.g. a user will probably only upgrade to ‘pro’ accounts after a long period of testing/usage). This is certainly different from traditional marketing models where all you need to do is to convince the consumer at the point-of-purchase: at least you’ve won the profit for that transaction already.

So, I’m certainly looking forward to even more freemium products – it’d certainly be interesting to see this concept apply to non-tech sectors – like the free photocopying in some Japanese universities (subsidized by advertising on the reverse side). How else can it be? In what more forms can it take?

Japanese Economy Forecast Indicator

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japanese-woman-cutting-hair

This is a picture of a young Japanese woman getting her hair cut. The title of this post is about forecasting the economy.

So where’s the beef? Interestingly, researchers at Kao (the Japanese personal care products giant) claim that there is a correlation between the length of hair on Japanese women and the economy. According to the Reuters article:

Economic forecasters beware: Japanese women are cutting their hair again.

Women tend to wear their hair long when Japan’s economy is doing well and short when there is a slump, the Nikkei business daily reported, citing a survey conducted by Japanese cosmetics company Kao Corp.

As for Japan’s future economic performance, the Nikkei pointed to expectations for a trend towards shorter hairstyles.

Looks like the average Japanese woman also know a thing or two about holding a short position on the market aye?

Ideas = Multiplier of Execution

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This original post by Derek Silver was from several years ago – but I stumbled upon it recently and thought, “Great Reminder!”:

To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.

Explanation:

AWFUL IDEA = -1
WEAK IDEA = 1
SO-SO IDEA = 5
GOOD IDEA = 10
GREAT IDEA = 15
BRILLIANT IDEA = 20

NO EXECUTION = $1
WEAK EXECUTION = $1000
SO-SO- EXECUTION = $10,000
GOOD EXECUTION = $100,000
GREAT EXECUTION = $1,000,000
BRILLIANT EXECUTION = $10,000,000

To make a business, you need to multiply the two.

I think as designers we are naturally protective of our ideas – and probably tend to overestimate an idea’s value. Of course, ideas are valuable and sometimes they can be the difference between success and failure. However, to think that “idea is everything” is certainly very myopic. Eventually, what other see is the final embodiment, which are synthesized from a whole long process after the idea’s been generated – to develop it, to refine it, to test it, to rework it, to market it, to publicize it, to distribute it, etc.

Also, I think it is very important for designers to be able to ‘release’ the ideas – to discuss them, share them, get it out of the system somehow – unless you are working towards patents and such. This means ‘getting over the idea’ – in some ways, to no longer be convinced that the idea is the ultimate, unbeatable best-in-the-world thought that man can ever muster. The process of ‘releasing’ the ideas is also simultaneously releasing yourself from the idea, so that you are not overly tied down by that single idea, or become paralyzed as you bask in the glory of the idea. This way, it leaves much more mental space that (almost always) lead to even better concepts and developments, which might lead you to wonder ‘why did I shackle myself to that idea for so long?’

Design is indeed the business of creating ‘multipliers’.

Comments + Critique Time

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You might’ve missed a rather interesting discussion in the comments of one of my earlier posts – about the patent and novelty issues on the MUJI winning entries. Scott, a designer-engineer-patent-agent hybrid brought up some interesting perspectives, and in our conversation I thought it’d be a pity that we don’t get to see the other entries.

The first one is called Postie. “It’s a simple bent structure that offers a day-of-the-week platform for POST-IT’s to help organize the THINGS TO DO and various meetings, etc per week. As you know, the mind works well graphically and this simple structure should help the worker visualize what needs to be done and by when.”

postit-stand

The other idea is the Tackie. Scott: “This one is a two-pin thumb tack that is designed like a coin (better grip) and further includes a curved slot that can receive a card for advertisement. I know using two pins for thumb-tacks is known, but not the combination of two pins and a coin-like handle and the slot. The thumb-tacks are also stackable for cleaner and safer storage.”

pin

muji-01-sheet-2-copy

Personally for POSTIE, I liked the idea of using Post-Its as a medium for activity planning. Them being spontaneous and convenient gives a more flexible approach to laying out your schedules – adding an appointment simply means tacking on an extra note in the relevant space. However, the design solution felt rather clunky (despite it being collapsible) – it seems too much of a material structure for the sole purpose of delineating days. Could the same purpose have been achieved not by a metal product but maybe by graphics, especially as MUJI is rather particular about clutter.

As for the Tackie idea, I definitely agree on the easier-and-safer to store part. Most pins are cluttered in boxes which can be difficult/’prickly’ to retrieve. I was mentally trying to search for applications for these pins though – what are the wider applications apart from the notice board (which seems rather niche). Aesthetically, I think MUJI has a rather particular ‘fetish’ for being simple and not overtly attention-seeking. Maybe something like this?

pin-suggestion

Permutations for Obama’s Logo

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obama-logo

A while ago in my post ‘Visual Branding – More than a Mark’, I mused about the changing nature of a (company’s) branding identity. While the traditional notion of branding is a strong, iconic but static symbol, we are starting to see much more versatile branding identities that leave room for permutation and re-interpretation. An extract from that post:

They are often just as strong and iconic (if not more), but they have an added dimensionality and freeplay that allows for creative interpretations of the symbol, rather than just a static stoic symbol.

…

It’s great though to see brands getting more alive and versatile. With the new mediums of expression (cellphones? Google Earth views?) and the Web2.0 culture of hacking and mashing, a versatile logo allows the audience not only to receive but also to actively reciprocate and reinterpret what these brands mean to them …

Shown above are Barack Obama’s campaign logos. While the top one is the official icon, there’s also a whole range of other icons that were tweaked to cater to the various niches while retaining the strong and very recognizable primary branding. The free-exchange nature of the Internet has definitely encouraged ‘mashing’ of different elements for customization. As a nod to the web culture, these logos are even available for download on his website, and at 96×96 pixels they seemed to be precisely targeted at web-uses such as online avatars for forums and instant messaging services.

If your company’s logo isn’t versatile enough to accommodate re-interpretation and transformation (hey, even politicians have done it), you might want to consider some change as well!

Million Dollar Homes

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It’s a new year – and it’s the time for resolutions and such. For many, getting richer could be one of the targets this year, and being a millionaire is still many people’s dream. That magical milestone will still be elusive to most – nonetheless it’s a financial goalpost (or dream, if you’re less optimistic) for many to strive and aim for. Yet, it seems being a millionaire perhaps isn’t all that ‘rich’ anymore in the real sense.

Forbes did a scan of what a cool $1million can buy in terms of real estate properties across the world.  In most of the major cities in the developed world, a sub-1000 square-foot apartment is probably all you’re gonna get. It’s only when you shift to the developing world (or a much less prime location) that you’re going to have some land under your feet.

In London you get a 1-bedroom 1-bathroom apartment at Primrose Garden. It’s the same story in New York, you might settle for a 650 square-foot condominium in Turtle Bay Manhattan. You could get some land in San Francisco – if a 1900-vintage Victorian-style home is your taste. But to get some real footage – like the villa or bungalow that you might envision yourself living in when you’re a millionaire – you’d have to venture into places like Kenya or Egypt. (Million-Dollar homes – from top: London, San Francisco, Egypt respectively)

million-dollar-homes

So – two choices. One – realize that being a millionaire perhaps isn’t really that jazzy or *gasp* rich anymore. You probably can’t really ‘live it up’ for your life with that – and decide to work really hard to become a billionaire (now we’re talking). Two – realize that there are in fact more things to life than big (or even, small!) homes in prestigious addresses, and so decide to still work hard and achieve financial and other dreams, but keeping them still in rational perspectives.