Being a musician who also recently released a new record, I can fully understand the need to try and separate oneself from the pack. However, this just seems like a feeble attempt to make himself relevant in the ever-changing musical landscape. A landscape that is a constant, uphill and sometime demoralizing battle forged by almost all artists trying to carve out a niche for themselves. Some artists, like Radiohead and NIN have been truly innovative in recent years and have helped reshape how some (many) people view music and the industry. They are, however, some of the biggest names on the block, with some of the most devoted fans (kudos to them for all of the years and years of hard work they put in) and can actually profit from opening up their new releases for free download.

Prince’s new release may be his “best effort since Purple Rain”, but does his recent internet bashing episode belittle it? At the end of the day it should be the music that helps the record rise to the top. Ha, imagine that, a good record doing well just because it is superbly written and impeccably recorded…now that would be a great time to be a musician.

This leads me to the following question, are multidisciplinary firms functioning as an extension to the educational body to train the classic designer, researcher or scientist in order to get them ready to take on a project and be able to work interactively with other team members?  Moreover, what about taking a liberal arts approach to looking at our problems and focusing on subjects such as humanities and anthropology that are traditionally associated with liberal arts. What does a new multidisciplinary approach look like? It means a deeper understanding of global and historical contexts and perspectives, a future-oriented focus, one that incorporates social responsibility.

Companies like to train people narrowly so that they do one job really well and they usually don’t like the idea of a “jack of all Trades”. However, there is a new meaning to the phrase when there is need for more emphasis on multidisciplinary perspectives.  The crack really starts to appear when a scientist or engineer comes on board. It is probably for this reason that most design studios “collaborate” with an external party to run the technological/ scientific part of their project.

If the industry has accepted multidisciplinary work as a natural shift from the conventional methodology of execution, educational institutions should take their role in training the “renaissance men” who can smoothly position themselves in collaborative environment and be prepared to face multifaceted projects that they may have not been exposed to. Multidisciplinary design will only be successful in the real world when cross-disciplinary research is promoted in the body of the education.

During my undergraduate studies in Aerospace Engineering I was repetitively told to not waste time thinking about alternative projects and to focus on my tedious schedule and deadlines- I complied. It wasn’t until when I decided to apply for graduate studies that I realized how rigidly our educational systems are designed. The application forms often ask the potential applicants to choose a department and under every department there are distinctive disciplines that you can choose from. But, I was looking for something different.

My wide variety of interests was often pointed out as a weakness during my teenage years and so they would say, she is a “jack of all trades”. Therefore, I decided to follow one of my interests at undergraduate level, which was Aerospace Engineering. Longing to become an astronaut since childhood kept me going during the tough times as engineering student but the experience taught me that being a really good engineer would only take me as far as managing directing engineers who are equally good at what they do. I often found it painful to focus on one small aspect of a very large project with no connection to what the others were doing. Whether it was calculating the size of a fuel droplet that leaves the jet engine or analyzing the seismic loads on a reactor’s structure, I did not have any real perspective of how my work would impact society, who the end users were, or how my work was related to the overall goal of the project.

I was lacking the vision and the interaction between what I was practicing as an engineer and the connection with the outside world was lost. I was frustrated by the rigidness of how scientific knowledge is transferred to the educators in the university as well as the isolation I was experiencing in the work environment- the cubical layout of most of these environments didn’t help either. Group work usually meant completing specific tasks on an individual basis and when reports were due, the “isolated creatures” would come out of their nests and go into meeting rooms to report the outcome. I was intrigued how most people wouldn’t questions the way things were going for more than 15 years. The answer was in the way engineering has been practiced in the academia- a linear methodology that is heavily based on lecturing students and examining them. The question is handed over to the students and they are rarely asked to identify the problem themselves, or to challenge the question they’re given.

With emergence of new science and disciplines, the educational community has been trying to cope with a lag for the past few years. This is evident when one looks at new disciplines that didn’t exist in the educational system twenty years ago. (i.e. Nanotechnology, Interaction design, etc). What’s surprising however, is the sluggishness of the academia in shifting from the traditional divisions and departmental sections to multidisciplinary work that’s being practiced on daily basis outside the classroom.

I don’t think anyone would disagree with me in that there are no problems in the world (no matter how small, or specialized the problem is) that deal with one field of study and therefore can be isolated in one discipline. Even the most rigorous processes are affected by human factors when applied in real world situations. It is therefore, clear that engineers, as problem solvers, will need to be able to adapt themselves to the plasticity of world’s problems and be prepared to apply a new way of thinking when it comes to unfamiliar situations that they haven’t been exposed to. In my opinion, this only happens when problems are contextualized beyond fields of studies and people with specialties collaborate together without isolating the problem at any stage. We need more “jack and Jane of all trades” in order to accelerate a positive influence on our world.

I hate the word “consumer.” But I’m not sure what to do with it.

It drives me crazy when clients talk about “the consumer” like they’re some kind of other species out there foraging for nuts and berries in Wal-Mart, Rite Aid or the shopping malls of America. If only they could find the perfect combination of nuts and berries in their business offering they’d be able to lure “the consumer” to their section of the aisle.

It saddens me when clients profess an understanding of this other species based on some “quant-qual” they’ve done. Tossing around methodological pats-on-the-back like this bolsters their confidence that systems of knowing “the consumer” are (here comes another bad word) robust.

And it makes me scratch my head when members of the C-suite worry aloud that they’ve become too distanced from “the consumer” and that’s it’s time to roll up their sleeves, get on to the street and meet this other species.

Maybe it’s the cultural anthropologist in me. Anthropology long suffered from a similar disconnect from the humans it wondered and wrote about. It has wrestled with various ways of qualifying or quantifying the behavior of those humans. And one of the foundations of its ethnographic process is a meet and greet with the natives in the places and spaces where they live, breathe and experience the world.

The epistemological angst is much the same. The critical difference is that the scholars have acknowledged their obstacles, shortcomings, histories and such while the business world has not. One obvious reason for this is that most of the people populating the cubicles of the world’s big corporations are interested only in, capable of or too busy to digest little more than the PowerPoint version of the social universe. Another, related to this, is that many in the business world live by methodology alone. Theory, and a discussion of it, is – as they say – out of scope.

As a result, most of the big business world has never reaped the rewards of post-modern or post-structuralist thought – at least not on the level of public discourse. Certainly, strategists, consumer insights folks and others come home from a busy day at work, have a beer and reflect on their day, tasks, projects, challenges and such. But in the face of corporate silos, jockeying for jobs and the many tactical barriers to real innovation at any level, questioning the way organizations think, act and talk is bitching-based fodder for the water cooler rather than something that is perceived as possible to change. And so we have “the consumer,” the business world’s equivalent to anthropology’s primitive Other.

Where anthropology’s Other was exoticized as sexual, violent, magical, natural, primitive and savage, the business world’s Other is quite mundane. Consumers, or so I hear, aren’t that smart. They’re simple, not very sophisticated. They have fixed daily behaviors and preferences that can be tracked with surveys. They’re easily led to new, or refashioned old, nuts and berries with a spin or words, colors, stories or loyalty programs that will entrance their lesser minds. And they live in odd little communities called personae or segments.

If it sounds like we’re still living in the era of Mad Men, maybe a little Sapir-Whorf hypothesis can lead us into the present. For those living La Vida PowerPoint, the short version: how we talk about things influences the way we see those things and the world in general. Colors, numbers, spaces, people, relationships and the other ingredients of our world all appear to us to be what they are as fact based, in part, on the ways that we name and talk about them.

The application should be relatively clear. In always referring to the people who buy your products and services as “consumers,” you (the client) and you (the agency guy) have erected a first obstacle in your quest to understand and leverage your insights for competitive advantage. You have constructed a linguistic framing of “the consumer” as the Other in which they are not you and you are not them.

Put aside, for the moment, the fact that, unless you get your groceries and gas for free (and even then we’re in questionable territory because there’s the issue of where you choose to redeem your coupons), you, too, are a consumer. Then consider the following: this linguistic framing of “the consumer” as Other is an infection that courses through the blood of the C-suite, Strategy, Insights, Design and other organizational departments. It paralyzes action. It distorts vision. It leads to lethargy. And, in the worst of cases, it drives businesses to abdicate its role in work processes to the opinions, attitudes and ideas of this “consumer.”

How? It reinforces other barriers to knowing that previously existed (before the birth of the Consumer Insights department) between social categories of humans: if you live in New York City, the people living in Idaho might as well be in China; if you’re rich, the poor are another world; if you’re a man, women are a mystery; if you’re straight, the gays have all this disposable income.

Enter segmentation, psychographics and the persona. Engaging with the Other in tidy groups based on age, gender, race, economic status, education, geography, attitude, behavior and other, more brand or product related distinctions certainly makes some feel like as if they are getting closer to a more granular version of the consumer. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren’t.

Is the Active Mom, the Early Adopter or the Social Butterfly really a more accurate drilling down to the core of the “consumer”? Or are those terms just another way to make us feel like we’ve cracked the behavioral code of the species, another organization mythology we subscribe to in order to make our jobs more simple and efficient?

Some bullet points I know many who’ve made it this far wish had been put up front:

• Refer to “consumers” as “people (who buy our stuff or who might buy our stuff)” and you’ll be a hop, skip and jump closer to cultivating stronger insights

• Chill out the fantasy that methodology will answer your questions. It won’t.

• Ask yourself if you’ve even asked yourself the right questions.

• Stop pretending to be so objective. You’re not. It’s an illusion.

• Be more subjective. Ease up on the boundaries between “you” and “them.”

• Cast a wide net. Segmentation has its value, but so do warm bodies like yours.

• Explore first, validate much later. You’ll be surprised at what a little wondering can do.

• Co-creation is not asking the “consumer” what she wants. That’s a focus group.

Consumers who were previously buying marks such as Honda, Nissan and Toyota now have now made a switch to the Korean automotive manufacturer who has become known for delivering truly innovate and compelling products that offer both fresh aesthetics and solid engineering.  Considering the Korean automakers initial foray into the automotive world 20 years ago, this is quite an accomplishment.  It is even more remarkable considering that Kia and Hyundai actually gained market share during the economic declines between 2008 and 2010.  One of the ways that they were able to accomplish this was from an investment that was made 10 years ago that went directly into innovation; research and design.  The South Korean government had acknowledged back in 2001, that from an industrial standpoint that they needed to invest in Design to drive future revenues.  They understood that becoming competitive only was not enough, and that in order to become leading in class with their products, they would need to recruit top talent in both engineering and design.  This has certainly worked to their advantage so far.

This may get a little technical, but to put this into perspective a 1Mbps connection being used 100% for 1 day is roughly 10GB (really 10.8GB). So 1Mbps connection for a month is roughly 300GB (technically 324GB). Now if you used a 25Mbps connection for an entire month it would utilize approximately 7,500GB. Yea, that is a whole lot of data to be transferred. The issue is that Bell’s limit of 75GB is almost exactly 1% of the capacity of the connection. So in essence Bell is saying that you can use your 25Mbps connection at full speed for 7.2 hours.

This just doesn’t make any sense. With the sheer volume of TV watched on a monthly basis (~153h/month) and a growing shift of these viewers looking to the internet to watch their favorite shows 7 hours is just not going to cut it!

Some people might say “25Mbps is more than people need”. Well here are the bitrates for video (without compression)

• DVD – 5Mbps
• HDTV – 8 to 15Mbps
• Blue-Ray – 40Mbps

We are on the cusp of the needs of video for consumers. Keep in mind this only takes into account the current state of technology. These numbers are only for 2D video. What happens when we have streaming 3D video (remember Avatar the largest grossing movie of all time?). I’m sure that 3D video will require even more data to be transferred.

The reason this really bothers me is that Canadian ISPs are setting up a culture that stifles innovation. I can remember (albeit a long time ago) when Internet providers loved to see what their bleeding edge customers were doing to push the barriers of their technology. Complicated caching and compression technologies were invented, modems were bonded together (to get you 128Kbps!), communities would even bond together to deploy ad-hoc networks- all of these things helped push the technology further. My worry is that new entrepreneurs or hobbyist trying to create the next generation of consumer video services will not even get started (in Canada) if they see that they can only deliver service to customers for 7 hours.

Strangling Innovation

The argument that ‘most’ people fall under these limits infuriates me. This is like saying ‘We have invented this new car. Its best feature is that it can go 180kph. But most people don’t drive over 90kph so if you buy this car it can only drive 180kph once a month’.

I do think that there should be some realistic limits in place for internet usage. I just don’t agree that 1% is that limit. The ideal business model for telcos would be to either charge for the amount of data you transfer (Gigabytes) OR by pipe size (Mbps). Charging for both is double dipping. If the business was based on Gigabytes (which is more in line with the old per minute long distance model) then it would be in their best interest to provide you with the largest possible pipe at all times so that you can download more data.

Traditionally a Design work within an OEM studio (original equipment manufacturer), will spend most of their time and energy on identifying target markets and selecting themes to develop further, and then translate a theme into physical properties such as clay models and digital models. Within this system of theme development, production programs can be started, postponed, shelved or eliminated all-together based on decisions from senior leadership.  The remaining amount of time is generally used to identify more closely with the potential consumers’ mental and aspirational mindsets.  Part of our design work is dedicated to selecting key words, phrases and  images that bolster the theme development for an existing brand.  Identifying future consumer’s unmet needs as market opportunities can be very challenging, because the process and tends to be disconnected from real-life consumer insights.  The reason for this is because most of the attention and still spent on the day-to-day business operations.   When we as designers try to create sketches for vehicles and conceive scenarios that are 10, 15 or even 20 years into the future for our companies, things can quickly go astray.  Sometimes this vision models can get weighed because of all the layers of bureaucracy and legacy costs that are associated within an organization, and other times it may be difficult or nearly impossible to move swiftly on opportunities when because you are working within a large and constrained system.  This is the primary reason that why consultancies can provide such valuable insight and fresh perspective, because they have more flexibility to showcase new ideas and explore unknown product/service/experience territories.  Some car companies have an ability to overlap this with their branding strategies, yet most do not.  The opportunities which may exist outside their specific product realm could be more about services or more about delivering an experience and  in this case, the innovation and branding strategies fall short in helping to identify a key innovation.  The territory of traditional automotive design thinking has always been about proportions, stance and quality of execution on a theme.  This is one of the reasons why I chose to join Idea Couture because I wanted to share this process on their projects and at the same time combine my experience and knowledge of foresight strategy to facilitate the innovation and business side.

It was my participation in the foresight strategies and futures workshops that helped guide me to Idea Couture.   My prior experience working with the Advanced Design studio provided me access to an experimental team comprised of designers, engineers and manufacturing innovation experts.  Through foresight study, we reached a new level of understanding in regards to identifying unmet market needs, values shifts, societal changes, technology advancements, environmental concerns, economic forces and political pressures.  Each of these topics have an affect on the business planning and product development strategy, and it was in this field of study that I was able to capture a sense of innovation and an opportunity mapping that gave me an ability to correlate my ideas abou the future with Idris regarding transportation, personal mobility and fashion synergy.

In December of 2009 I traveled to Shanghai for a round interviews with potential employers.  I visited with brand name car studios, international consultancies and I was also able to meet with Idris after an exchange of information on Linked In.  We discussed some potential synergiesbetween his company and myself, even though at that time  I did not have a clear picture or prior knowledge of the backgrounds of his experienced professionals who worked with his team.  My only thought was that there would be a positive benefit for both of us by working together and that by bringing in my capabilities and combining it with their business thinking we could better deliver innovation for clients.

Working for Idea Couture has offered me a chance to build a framework of challenging old ideas.  Based on deep insights and a multi-disciplinary approach, I am fortunate again to be able to work with a group of such diverse and qualified business people, and experts to rely upon as we face the challenges of innovating new products and services at Idea Couture.   I can think of no better opportunity for using my experience and skills than with this team.  We will make a positive difference by way of delivering innovation to companies that rely on us to more effectively relate to the people that we all depend on the most, the consumer.

On a related note about karma, BP is at the top of the bad karma list for sure for its oil spills in the Gulf. During moments like this, it’s usually the true test for the public relations department to come out and perform some kind of crisis management or publicity “clean-up”. Check out @BPGlobalPR on twitter – after reading a few tweets I realized that their PR strategy is to be truly honest. In fact, BP is admitting that they are the bad guy and they are also selling “BP cares” t-shirts to benefit healthygulf.org.

If twitter activism is not enough to keep you informed and entertained, JESS3’s oil spills Firefox plug-in will certainly put a smile on the face – If you visit the site, your screen page will be covered in oil whenever the word “BP” appears. While the above mentioned might not have immediate impacts to the act of bad karmas, it sure is a great outlet for more public awareness and engagement.

Mobile Location Based Services: You’re tired and cranky after another distressingly long subway ride to an unfamiliar part of town. Your mobile senses this and recommends you take a break at a nearby coffee shop. The device points the way, checks the complex menu and suggests three items best suited to helping you relax and restore your physical-emotional balance.

Fashion/Apparel: You’ve purchased the latest Under Armour Sport Tactical Vest for the players on your team and linked them to the coaching staff’s integrated performance optimization system. The system monitors individual and collective bio-emotional and physiological stats while sending just-in-time haptic ‘coaching cues’ to players during practice.

Navigation & Browsing: You become eligible for a cable or Internet service upgrade and decide to have your provider install the latest integrated multi-touch bio-emotive program guide. You ‘surf’ like never before as the system recognizes and establishes a personal, empathetic connection between you and your preferred content.

Health & Gaming: You join a specialized yoga class called Meditation for Longevity and Gaming where you learn not only to identify and control your thoughts and emotions for personal health reasons but also to improve your mastery over new, multi-modal gaming consoles that demand the integrated use of body, spirit, and mind.

Tele-Intimacy: Your spouse moves abroad for several months on contract work and the separation puts a great deal of emotional stress on your relationship. You decide to purchase a tele-intimacy kit made by Philips that includes home-based applications designed to help the two of you connect and feel each other’s presence in…more ways than one.

To take advantage of this sense-rich paradigm early enough to prototype the kind of disruptive products and services that offer competitive advantage, brands and businesses need to understand the intersections between future technology and evolving humanity. That first requires a more robust, competitive R&D process. The research, design and development of multi-modal feelback systems and their successful incorporation in products and services will rely on multi-disciplinary teams drawing on very specific and specialized areas of knowledge, experience and expertise in and around the affective domain of ‘feel’.

Because the layering, combination, and re-combination of a wider spectrum of input/output modalities will create a host of new usability problems- one or more critical collaborative R&D areas will need to cultivate the space between Human Factors, Anthropology and Industrial Design. Standardization issues surrounding multi-touch input languages – where the function and meaning of finger gestures varies greatly from one device or platform to another or, equally important, from one group of users to another, will be solved only through research on product prototypes and users in action and in context. Otherwise, the social, cultural, cognitive, physical and performative are all potential glitches waiting to trip up organizations that fail to recognize, appreciate and design for human diversity. Like the pictures Wolf pulled yesterday on the big screen, those organizations will quickly become old news.

It requires that we put ourselves on the same streets of the people we would like to offer new services or products to.  We cannot simply sit behind a desk and target potential consumers with ideas which are created in a vacuum.

Corporations are more comfortable when they are able to absorb information that is presented in un-ambiguous volumes of information such as with infographics, data plots, matrix charts and/or clear examples that illustrate the archetypical consumers mated to a given technology.  See Ford’s Antonella, a Computer Generated personas used in development.

However here is where the problem arises, because most companies are too focused on their day-to-day production to really see any greater potential for other adjacent services, similar markets or entirely new opportunities thus limiting their capability to even begin thinking about taking a ‘calculated risk’.  Identifying and developing an entirely new product, experience or service requires a Re-Think, Re-imagining and Reset of business as usual.

Most companies already know who they want to target and what they are willing to spend, but what they don’t know and don’t have, are all the cultural points of reference, the interviews, the video-diaries,  the deep insights that come from knowing and understanding their ‘target market’ intimately.  Companies can literally get stuck when it comes to identifying new social classes that are yet to exist 10 years (even 15 years +) from now into the future.  Experimenting with branding techniques and products that aren’t really connected or based with anything that is current quickly loses relevance, authenticity and meaning.   Internal Design studies and Innovation work really start to break-down because no one actually knows who these future consumers really are.  Again, this is not an Engineering issue, it is an Anthropology study, also a Futurist’ scenario and a Qualitative research issue.

This is why a consultancy such as Idea Couture make sense for companies who wish to understand, utilize and implement foresight strategy that take responsibility for identifying, examining and creating innovative solutions for future target markets.

This issue is often referred to as a ‘wicked problem’, which is to say that the solutions are not obvious, nor are they transparent or easily recognizable upon initial inspection. The real answers are not known only until after someone has solved it.

Furthermore, if any attempt is made to solve a particular issue as an individual part of a wicked-problem, then it could potentially do more harm than good.  To ignore the over-lapping of adjoining issues for products and services is like to going into a field of land mines blind-folded.  You need innovation that that allow you to navigate the most effective  way through using the right tools and taking the right steps.

The opportunities to solve these issues cohesively, requires groups of different and complimentary minds (that do not have a conflict of interest in developing solutions) to work together as a team to create points of cultural reference, identify weak signals, map out scenarios and if need be engage even more raw ideas from un-biased participants.  This synergy-approach eludes most corporations primarily because each node of expertise comes from completely different and diverse set of backgrounds, which is normally not associated with human resources that are  available within an established organization.  What ultimately facilitates desired outcomes for Idea Couture clients is essentially our diversity and key competencies within our respective areas of expertise.

However, striking this balance in the modern world, and more importantly the emerging world must take on a different meaning.  As the old notions of luxury are challenged, they must make way for a new set of user dynamics and offer solutions to the people who live in the growing Megacities (cities with populations over 10 million).

In 2000, there were 18 megacities – conurbations such as Mumbai, Tokyo, New York City, and Mexico City had populations in excess of 10 million inhabitants. Greater Tokyo already has 35 million, which is greater than the entire population of Canada.  (source: Wikipedia)  2015 and beyond will also  see cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, added to this list to name a few.

Transportation on the whole is beginning to splinter into many different value streams such as delivery-on-demand, hub-to-hub services and deliveries, international condo cruisers, executive coaches, virtual garages, post-materialistic neighborhood eco-cars, shared-public vehicles, super-budget-sub $3000, and also new derivatives of personal mobility leading to even more avenues.

As Mega-cities become the norm, consumer attitudes will shift further away from the traditional aspiration of commuter vehicle ownership.  The costs associated with owning, insuring, driving, navigating, re-fueling, re-charging and parking will begin to unravel the notion of investing in one single mode of transport.  In its place, we will see more services based types of transportation.  All it will take are a few entrepreneurs who can splice together on-demand services with real-time users who consumers who are looking for more than just a taxi.

We must search out new ways of mobility, in terms of prestige, convenience, adaptability, affordability, dependability, the “raison d’etre” …… and we must find them quickly.  For consumers, they must be offered some form of tangible incentive, be it joy from the sheer act of being mobile, entertainment, price or convenience.

In terms of Engineering and Design, there are studies currently taking place around the use of robotics in the transportation industry; GM EN-V is one example of a technology demonstrator, and is now on display now at the Shanghai World Expo. The EN-V operates on technology borrowed from Segway, and the entire vehicle is half the size of a Smart car, fully electronic, has a top speed of 25 mph, and is capable of making turns 360 degrees in-place.Another example is the T.25 concept from Gordon Murray (Designer of the famous supercar; McLaren F1), which demonstrates foresight for government regulations, and fuel economy mandates, which are expected by the year 2020.

Transportation technologies have the ability to facilitate change, but ultimately adoption of this will rely completely on the behavior of how humans move about.  Metropolitan cities are more fashion conscious, and urban dwellers are more interested spending money on others things rather than to automobiles.  These people have other desires for items; shoes, purses, headphones, jackets etc…  But human behavior is not an engineering subject and neither is fashion. Therefore, the future scenarios of personal mobility will be less about pure Engineering, more about Ethnography and Designing towards consumer tastes and their unique interests.

Soon, consumers will not care so much about who manufactured their product, but instead they will be more interested in what Designer, Stylist, Co-creator or Theme Artist customized their mobility.  As this scenario evolves it will begin to see an over-lapping of transport services that combines with fashion design, product design, and experience design.