http://jantervonen.com/merry-christmas
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Alleged rapist and sexual predator Mr. Julian Assange having friends in high places
On 19.12.2011 an article was published in Sydney Morning Herald, which refers to an open letter directed to the Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Mr. Kevin Rudd. It appears that the Minister is being urged to "help" alleged rapist and sexual predator Mr. Julian Assange currently on bail in the UK, where he is waiting to be extradited to Sweden. In the letter, signed by among others numerous lawyers, concerns are being expressed by stating that "... should Mr Assange be placed in Swedish custody, he will be subject to the process of "temporary surrender", enabling his removal to the United States without the appropriate legal processes that accompany normal extradition cases ..." This "concern" is unfounded, lacks any substance and is completely without merit. The relevant Article VI of the supplement to the Treaty for extradition between the USA and Sweden which is applied in any extradition between Sweden and the USA reads as follows: "If the extradition request is granted in the case of a person who is being prosecuted or is serving a sentence in the territory of the requested State for a different offense/ the requested State may:
...
b) temporarily surrender the person sought to the requesting State for the purpose of prosecution* The person so surrendered shall be kept in custody while in the requesting State and shall be returned to the requested State after the conclusion of the proceedings against that person in accordance with conditions to be determined by mutual agreement of the Contracting States."
...
b) temporarily surrender the person sought to the requesting State for the purpose of prosecution* The person so surrendered shall be kept in custody while in the requesting State and shall be returned to the requested State after the conclusion of the proceedings against that person in accordance with conditions to be determined by mutual agreement of the Contracting States."
As anybody (in particular lawyers who went on to sign the above mentioned letter) can see, the so called temporary surrender does not enable Mr. Assange's removal "... to the United States without the appropriate legal processes that accompany normal extradition cases ..." Before temporary surrender can even be asked it requires (i) an extradition request and (ii) a decision granting that extradition. It is not the case, as the letter in question appears to suggest, that with the use of temporary surrender normal procedures could be bypassed. In addition, before that extradition request from Sweden to the USA could be granted, it would require consent from the UK in accordance with Article 15 of the European Convention on extradition concerning so called re-extradition to a third state.
This big publicity campaign for Mr. Assange raises some further thoughts to consider. It turns out, that one could easily draw conclusions that Australia is steered by some kind of double-standards in relation to extradition matters. The above mentioned concerns for Mr. Assange were raised simply because the question is about an Australian citizen subject to extradition proceedings overseas. At the same time, in fact since 2005, an American citizen has been in custody in Australia pursuant to an extradition proceeding to the USA. To cut the story short, in this case Australian authorities together with Dutch and Americans wanted to ensure that the said American individual could be extradited to the USA. As it happened, this American was originally arrested in Holland. However, the Dutch prosecutor advised that his extradition could not be granted to the USA due to statute of limitations. After this, Australian, Dutch and American authorities made an agreement that if he was to be extradited first to Australia, Australia would then extradite him to the USA - assuming, of course, that Holland would grant this re-extradition. Needless to say, Holland granted re-extradition and Australia is happy to extradite him. The case continues.
http://jantervonen.com/alleged-rapist-and-sexual-predator-mr-julianFriday, December 9, 2011
New Twitter leaves some space for your notes!
I just love the new Twitter. Half of the screen is empty - which leaves tons of space for example for your Post-It notes! Great!
http://jantervonen.com/new-twitter-leaves-some-space-for-your-notesThursday, December 8, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson Promotes New Headphones By Way Of Sean Parker
Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson should be hawking headphones. That's why he's sitting in the mixing booth at Engine Room Audio in Lower Manhattan at 9:40 a.m. Instead, though, the Jamaica, Queens-bred rapper is talking about his next Silicon Valley investments--and Sean Parker.
"I think Sean Parker damaged the music business with Napster," Jackson says. "Now he's trying to fix it."
In a charcoal gray suit with a wine-red handkerchief, Jackson looks more Gordon Gekko than chart-topping rockstar. Then again, what's a modern rock star if not a branding machine. For 50's part, he's moved on from hit singles to hit investments. Jackson runs his own label under Interscope Records; he's built successful sneaker and clothing lines; he's starred in movies and video games; and he's injected capital in everything from 3-D glasses startups to energy drink companies. In 2007, an early investment in Vitamin Water-maker Glacéau proved prescient when Coca-Cola bought the company for $4.1 billion, an acquisition that earned 50 Cent a reported $100 million. Today, he's technically here to promote his next business venture, SMS Audio, makers of high-end headphones. "The category is huge," he says. "These headphones are definitely going to be the biggest stocking stuffer."
But first, let's talk about Spotify. Jackson has invested mainly in physical products so far--vitamin drinks, fashion, headphones. But he's looking to invest in tech startups. "I have some ideas now," he says. "I don't want to discuss the deal until the papers get signed because everyone else will get excited--and then we get scattered."
When pressed, Jackson flashes a knowing grin. I ask him whether he's investing in a small music-related startup. "Well, they're really well established companies that I'll end up being involved in," he says. Like Spotify? "Those are the kinds of guys I want to hang out with, down there in Silicon Valley," Jackson answers coyly. He says he knows Parker but declines to go into anymore detail. But clearly he's impressed by streaming services like Spotify, which he says, "are the future of music. The experience with Napster gave them the insight--all the information [they needed]."
Jackson ticks off characteristics that he learned from finding new talent and producers in the music industry and says it's not so different looking for successful entrepreneurs. It boils down to four traits, he says: quality of material, performance, appearance, and personality. It was those qualities that led him to Brian Nohe, founder of KonoAudio, which SMS Audio acquired in August to support its sound technology. "Ultimately the vision is not just a headphone company," says Nohe, now SMS's president. "I mean, 50 wants to create an audio company. You will see us move into laptops, speakers, and home entertainment."
Jackson and Nohe say you might expect them to partner with device makers like HP, but it's SMS's technology (not to be confused with the alternate name for text messaging) that they feel, that will help distinguish them from competitors. Jackson is well aware he's entering a saturated market, introducing yet another offering of celebrity endorsed headphones. Ironically it was 50 Cent's bosses, Dr. Dre and Interscope chairman Jimmy Iovine, who sparked the craze with their line of Robert Brunner-designed Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, from Monster, which led to similar cross-branding deals with Lady Gaga, Ludacris, P. Diddy, Justin Bieber, Daft Punk, and even Quincy Jones and Miles Davis. But Jackson believes SMS's wireless technology will help it stand out--technology, he adds, that's even impressed Dre and Iovine. "It uses Kleer technology, which is a higher level of technology than what's presented with BlueTooth," he says. For his Sync headphones, for example, up to four headphones can be wirelessly synced to one single source, enabling users to hear CD-quality music as far as 50 feet away, be it from an iPhone or stereo system.
Jackson also looks forward to the challenge, especially with his mentor Dr. Dre. "[Dre] is so competitive," he says. "They're not offended by me [doing this]. This project allows me to show you from my perspective what the best quality is. [Beats by Dre] are all over the place. It's just time for a new version."
Finally, he's excited about the new headphones project--not the first time he's been charged up by a new venture. When 50 Cent tweeted to his 3.8 million followers about H&H Imports, a company his G-Unit label owns 30,000,000 shares of, the company's stock nearly quadrupled, earning the rapper an estimated $8.7 million overnight. Trouble is, the self-promtion ran afoul of financial authorities. "I tell you that was a nightmare," Jackson says, laughing. "I had some conversations with the SEC."
Before the meeting draws to a close, 50 and Nohe want me to try out a pair of the new Sync headphones. I slip on a pair, and wait for the music to come on. Moments later, a song begins playing, magically streaming into my ears. It's "Disco Inferno." By 50 Cent.
Clearly he's still capable of some self-promotion.
via fastcompany.com
Assange doesn't want to understand the extradition law
"I have not been charged with any crime in any country," Assange said outside the High Court in London after losing an extradition battle there. "Despite this, the European arrest warrant is so restrictive that it prevents U.K. courts from considering the facts of a case, as judges have made clear here today." (CNN)
It is simply absurd that Mr. Assange is attempting to attack the mechanism behind the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). Indeed, Mr. Assange must be dillusional. Absent retrospective changes in the relevant law, the alleged grounds he is attempting to pursue are doomed to fail. This is primarily because of the differences in the legal systems within Europe it is not a requirement that a person shall be "charged" (in the common law sense) before an EAW is issued. This is how the drafters of the law wanted it to be. Accordingly, any argument to that direction is a moot point. Secondly, it is more common than not that in an extradition proceeding the "facts" are not to be considered by the requested country as that is specifically left for the courts and officials in the requesting country.
http://jantervonen.com/assange-doesnt-want-to-understand-the-extradiSunday, December 4, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
NOKIA SWAN SONG
My relationship with Ms. Nokia lasted for 20 years. Out of respect and as a reminder of those happier times I decided to use the instantly recognizable Säkkijärven Polkka as a ringtone even in my iPhone. Kind of like a swan song - I guess.
http://jantervonen.com/nokia-swan-songFriday, November 25, 2011
"Experts" admit second Mayan prediction of 2012 as end of the world
The so called experts should know better. "He will descend from the sky." should be interpreted as "it will be published", and the references to "end of the world" as "end of the world as we know it". Why this is so? Well, it is obvious that the Mayas were referring to the so called Jesus-phone i.e. iPhone 5 which is coming out in 2012.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Beijing’s Garage Café: Coffee and an Open Office for Startups
via techcrunch.com
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Internet speed at M-bar Helsinki
Somebody asked me if it's true that in Helsinki even internet cafés have very fast internet connections. "Fast" is relative, but this is what I found.
http://jantervonen.com/internet-speed-at-m-bar-helsinkiFriday, November 11, 2011
Picking Brand Names in China Is a Business Itself
Or, if he’s a teetotaler, a bottle of Tasty Fun.
To Westerners, that’s Nike, BMW, Heineken and Coca-Cola, respectively. And those who wish to snicker should feel free: the companies behind these names are laughing too — all the way to the bank.
More than many nations, China is a place where names are imbued with deep significance. Western companies looking to bring their products to China face a problem not unlike that of Chinese parents naming a baby boy: little Gang (“strong”) may be regarded quite differently than little Yun (“cloud”). Given that China’s market for consumer goods is growing by better than 13 percent annually — and luxury-goods sales by 25 percent — an off-key name could have serious financial consequences.
And so the art of picking a brand name that resonates with Chinese consumers is no longer an art. It has become a sort of science, with consultants, computer programs and linguistic analyses to ensure that what tickles a Mandarin ear does not grate on a Cantonese one.
Art “is only a very, very tiny piece of it,” said Vladimir Djurovic, president of the Labbrand Consulting Company in Shanghai, which has made a business of finding names for Western companies entering the Chinese market.
Maybe. But there is a lot of artistry in the best of the West.
The paradigm probably is the Chinese name for Coca-Cola, Kekoukele, which not only sounds like Coke’s English name, but conveys its essence of taste and fun in a way that the original name could not hope to match.
There are many others. Consider Tide detergent, Taizi, whose Chinese characters literally mean “gets rid of dirt.” (Characters are important: the same sound written differently could mean “too purple.”)
There is also Reebok, or Rui bu, which means “quick steps.” And Colgate — Gao lu jie — which translates into “revealing superior cleanliness.” And Lay’s snack foods — Le shi — whose name means “happy things.” Nike (Nai ke) and BMW (Bao Ma, echoing the first two sounds of its English and German names) also have worn well on Chinese ears.
Still, finding a good name involves more than coming up with clever homonyms to the original English.
“Do you want to translate your name, or come up with a Chinese brand?” said Monica Lee, the managing director of the Brand Union, a Beijing consultancy. “If you go for phonetic sounds, everyone knows where you are from — you’re immediately identified as a foreign brand.”
For some products, having a foreign-sounding name lends a cachet that a true Chinese name would lack. Many upscale brands like Cadillac (Ka di la ke), or Hilton (Xi er dun), employ phonetic translations that mean nothing in Chinese. Rolls-Royce (Laosi-Laisi) includes two Chinese characters for “labor” and “plants” that more or less have become standard usage in foreign names — all to achieve a distinct foreign look and sound.
But on the other hand, a genuine Chinese name can say things about a product that a mere collection of homonyms never could. Take Citibank, Hua qi yinhang, which literally means “star-spangled banner bank,” or Marriott, Wan hao, or “10,000 wealthy elites.” Or Pentium, Ben teng, which means “galloping.” Asked to introduce Marvel comics to China, the Labbrand consultants came up not long ago with “Man wei” — roughly phonetic, foreign-sounding and eminently suited to superheroes with the meaning “comic power.”
To introduce Clear dandruff shampoo to young Chinese, who are already inundated with foreign brands, Ms. Lee’s firm decided to focus on the shampoo’s image. “It’s not about where this product comes from; it’s about the benefit it can bring to you,” she said. The ultimate choice, Qing Yang, combines the Chinese words for “clear” and for “flying,” or “scattering to the wind.”
“It’s very light, healthy and happy,” Ms. Lee said. “Think of hair in the air.”
“Clear” is one of a select number of Chinese words that carry unusually positive connotations, and that find their way into many brands’ names. Others include “le” and “xi,” or happy; “li,” meaning “strength” or “power”; “ma” or horse; and “fu,” translated as “lucky” or “auspicious.”
Thus the name for Heineken beer, Xi li, and the many automobile brands — Mercedes, BMW, even Kia — that include a horse in their Chinese names (one Kia sedan is named Qian li ma, or “thousand-kilometer horse,” an allusion to strength).
Precisely why some Chinese words are so freighted with emotion is anyone’s guess. But Denise Sabet, the vice general manager at Labbrand, suggests that the reasons include cultural differences and the Chinese reliance on characters for words, rather than a phonetic alphabet. Each character is a collection of drawings that can carry meanings all their own.
Then again, some meanings are best avoided.
Microsoft had to think twice about bringing its Bing search engine here because in Chinese, the most common definitions of the character pronounced “bing” are “disease,” “defect” and “virus” — rather inauspicious for a computer product. The revised name, Bi ying, roughly means “responds without fail.”
Peugeot (Biao zhi) sounds enough like the Chinese slang for “prostitute” (biaozi) that in southern China, where the pronunciations are especially close, the brand has inspired dirty jokes. And in China, the popular Mr. Muscle line of cleaners has been renamed Mr. Powerful, (Weimeng Xiansheng). The product’s maker said in an e-mail that it had forgotten why.
But it could be that when it is spoken, the name Mr. Muscle has a second, less appealing meaning: Mr. Chicken Meat.
Adam Century and Li Bibo contributed research.
via nytimes.com
Saturday, November 5, 2011
SKI-EXPO 2011 HELSINKI
One wouldn't necessarily attribute hard core drinking to Ski-Expo which is full of youngsters?! However, in Finland that is reality. I guess all the underaged must be taught the alcohol-skiing-connection from as early age as possible, eh? 
http://jantervonen.com/ski-expo-2011-helsinki
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Legs Of Steel - Nothing Else Matters
via vimeo.com
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Kelly Clarkson, the Role Model Next Door
“I am not a schmaltzy type,” said Ms. Travali, who edits an online women’s magazine in Fairfield, Conn., during a phone interview. But as Ms. Clarkson sang “The War Is Over,” she said, “tears were rolling down my face. As someone who has struggled with low self-esteem and body image, I have such a strong appreciation for powerful women who sing their truth. Kelly’s songs are not just about failed relationships with others, but failed relationships with ourselves. Boom! I’m learning here: What did I do to hurt me?”
For a decade, Ms. Clarkson has been belting power-pop hits like “I Do Not Hook Up” and “Since U Been Gone,” and dismissing withering criticism of her weight. As a result, her fans have built a distinctive relationship with her: less that of conventional adulation than of identification and admiration.
“You get a sense that she’s one of us,” Ms. Travali said.
That connection has been reinforced by “Stronger,” released last week, which the singer describes as her own journey of empowerment, addressed directly to fans. On one song, “You Can’t Win,” Ms. Clarkson, 29, sings, “If you’re thin/Poor little walking disease/If you’re not/They’re all screaming obese/If you’re straight/Why aren’t you married yet?/If you’re gay/Why aren’t you waving a flag?”
The bond was apparent Thursday, at a Manhattan taping of “VH1 Unplugged: Kelly Clarkson,” which has its premiere Nov. 18. Ms. Clarkson’s appeal reached across generations of women.
Linda Scott, 52, who traveled with her husband from Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, said that her daughter, 24, was also a passionate fan. Celebrating joint birthdays at the taping were Jolie Rosen, 14, and her mother, Cynthia Kroning (who gave her age as “old enough to be her mother”) of Norwood, N.J.
“Kelly’s not afraid to discuss anything,” said Mrs. Kroning, a fan by dint of driving teenage girls around with the car radio blasting. Referring to a cut on “Stronger,” she added, “ ‘What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger),’ should be an anthem.”
At the taping, Ms. Clarkson’s genial unflappability came across from the get-go. Finishing a bluesy cover of Carrie Underwood’s “I Know You Won’t,” she glanced down at her red body-hugging sheath dress. She laughed and tugged at the top.
“Oh, my God!” Had she been spilling out of her dress the whole time? she asked.
That poise has gotten her through years of sometimes-harsh jabs. On the video for her first single, “Mr. Know It All,” Ms. Clarkson looks skeptically at a wall papered with news clippings that have sniped at her weight, challenged her sexuality and ridiculed her rebellion against music-label executives. Then she tears an opening through her paper wall of shame and jauntily steps into a sun-soaked landscape.
At the taping, she stepped into a powerful “Mr. Know It All,” mother-and-daughter fans bobbing and lip-syncing. Afterward, Ms. Clarkson shook her head, abashed.
“I flubbed the lyrics, damn it,” she said. “And I knew it when I was doing it, too. So why didn’t I just stop? It’s just like my relationships!”
The makeup people dabbed at her face. As they turned away, Ms. Clarkson wiped her lips, mouthing to the audience, “Too much!”
In an interview, Courtney E. Martin, author of “Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters,” said, “There’s so much talk about Taylor Swift being the girl next door” — the role played by the singer in her video for “You Belong With Me” — “but she’s tall and blond, the girl that the girl next door wants to be. But with Kelly, you sense that she really is the girl next door. She acknowledges more complexity than most stars talk about.
“For any woman to not only own her body size at an average woman’s weight is amazing, let alone to own weight gain without shaming and stigmatizing it publicly. It’s a difficult line to walk because Kelly’s private. She doesn’t want to be known as the fat activist pop star. That’s not her mantle.”
While waiting for another stage setup, Ms. Clarkson shimmied in her red dress. “Spanx!” she shouted merrily, pulling back the celebrity Wizard of Oz curtain. “For all you ladies out there, let me tell you: it sucks it right in. You feel like a packed sausage. I feel like I have two pairs on.”
No question that the girl next door has great pipes, but for all Ms. Clarkson’s approachable charm, she wears steely armor. To promote her music, Ms. Clarkson will chatter amiably to any microphone (though she declined several interview requests for this article), but she keeps her private life private.
She lives off the paparazzi grid, both in Nashville and on a ranch in Texas, where her animal-rescue shelter includes 10 horses; innumerable dogs, cats, donkeys and goats, and a llama. She has said she has 12 tattoos (including one behind each ear), owns nine guns (and sleeps with a Colt .45), and will drink Chivas and sing karaoke to Guns N’ Roses songs.
“Female pop stars like Beyoncé, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez all come out of the relationship factory,” dating other celebrities, said Ann Powers, a critic for NPR Music. “But Kelly has stood outside of that. She is not trying to sell herself on the red carpet.”
Her public persona, Ms. Powers added, “has always been the sadder but wiser girl, which has to do with her voice: a dusky alto that veers toward R&B but has a rock edge. That has allowed her to develop a persona of defiance, independence, of seasoned experience. And her actual biography mirrors that.”
Ms. Clarkson has spoken of having grown a thick skin by age 6, when her parents divorced. Her early years in Burleson, Tex., were hardscrabble. She couldn’t wait to see small-town Texas in her rearview mirror. After graduating from high school in 2000, she worked a string of jobs to afford to get to Los Angeles, to distribute copies of her demo tape.
But after more dead-end jobs in Los Angeles and occasional work as a television extra, Ms. Clarkson saw her gambit go up in flames, literally, when her apartment caught fire. She lived in her car and, in 2002, slinked home to Texas. And that’s where she heard about auditions in Dallas for a new music contestant television show, “American Idol.”
Since becoming the show’s first winner, Ms. Clarkson has sold more than 20 million copies of her four studio albums and has won two Grammys. As she hits her promotional whirlwind for “Stronger,” it’s clear that Ms. Clarkson has learned to respond deftly to interviewers’ under-the-microscope questions.
Last month in Australia, talk show hosts eyed her, repeatedly asking whether she had lost weight.
She smiled and immediately replied to one, “No, I have not! Nothing! Everywhere I go, people say that, but nope!”
She refers airily to her small breasts, “I’m sporting a flat now, same as since seventh grade.” Conversely, she told a Canadian interviewer that, unlike singers who can dance, like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Beyoncé, “I keep my pants on because let’s face it: we would scare people,” describing her posterior as “big” and “giant.” She burst out laughing. “That would be a big moon!”
Ms. Powers, the NPR Music critic, said, “Here is someone who was manufactured by the music industry, by ‘American Idol,’ and it’s ironic that she has emerged as one of our most authentic artists.”
Ms. Clarkson is always asked whether she has a boyfriend, with some interviewers directly inquiring if she is a lesbian. Inevitably, she guffaws. “I have a big gay following,” she told an Australian interviewer recently. “If I were gay, I’d probably have more luck.” Women, she added, are far less intimidated by her than men.
Donnette Noel, an adviser to the Dressing Room Project, a girls’ body-image campaign, has been following Ms. Clarkson since her “American Idol” debut. “She was this down-home girl, so sweet and down to earth,” Ms. Noel, 24, said. “You’d expect her to change. But she hasn’t. Her weight fluctuates, and she’s O.K. with that. She became a role model without even trying.”
via nytimes.com
Friday, October 7, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Designer Embarks On 27-Year Project To Rebrand The 10,000 Lakes
“As tourist destinations, lakes themselves are products,” Nicole Meyer says. “Each has a distinct personality, ecosystem, and specialty."
Designer Nicole Meyer was raised near lakes in the suburbs of Madison, Wisconsin, then studied in Minnesota, another state never lacking for shoreline. “Growing up I was basically surrounded by lakes,” she tells Co.Design. After college, she moved to Phoenix and quickly realized how much she missed the watery landscape of her native Midwest. Fact is, she missed it so much, she decided to pay tribute to it: by designing a logo a day for each of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes. According to our count, the project will take about 27 years. Twenty-seven years!
“As tourist destinations, lakes themselves are products,” she says. “Each has a distinct personality, ecosystem, and specialty. There's a big opportunity within lakes for differentiation through better branding.” The idea’s that by playing up these unique features (sailing, say, or fishing, or an odd name) the lakes could potentially attract more visitors. Give Dead Coon Lake a logo with a coon that’s got Xes over his eyes, as Meyer did, and you can pretty much guarantee people will never forget the place.
Her process:
I start by browsing a site that lists all of the lakes by county. Some days a name will inspire an idea right away, and I'll run with it. Other days, it takes more digging and deciding what kind of feeling the name elicits. For each lake, I try to research and learn as much about it as possible, so that the mark will come from as strategic a direction as it can.
Meyer’s project is primarily an exercise: a way for her to flex her design skills and build her portfolio. The point isn't to actually convince the lakes--and the assorted bureaucrats who govern them--to adopt her ideas. Though she says she hopes some of them will follow her lead and rejigger their image (“and I would definitely be willing to help them out with that,” she says).
As of September 25, she had completed 73 logos. Just 9,928 left to go!
[Images courtesy of Nicole Meyer]
via fastcodesign.comDozy baby pandas snooze through photoshoot
There a real handful, but these cubs could help ensure the future of the giant panda population in China / AFP Source: AFP
The cubs nap at a nursery in the research base of the Giant Panda Breeding Centre in Chengdu, Sichuan province / AFP Source: AFP
A DOZEN dozy pandas have made their first public appearance since their births - maximising the cuteness factor in a shared cot.
The pandas were caught napping at a nursery at the Giant Panda Breeding Centre at Chengdu, southwest China.
The research base started with just six pandas in 1987 and now has 108, The Sun reports.
China is this year holding its once-a-decade panda census, trying to determine how many of the endangered animals live in the wild amid continued efforts to boost their numbers.
The census - the fourth since it was first launched in the 1970s - is also expected to ascertain pandas' living conditions, ages and any change in habitat.
The count a decade ago found 1596 pandas left in the wild in China, with 1206 of them living in Sichuan province, AFP reports.
via news.com.au
http://jantervonen.com/dozy-baby-pandas-snooze-through-photoshootTuesday, September 20, 2011
Making People Passionate For Toilet-Bowl Cleaners And Other "Low-Interest" Products
We admit it: We were never passionate about cleaning before we launched Method. But building a belief brand with a social mission taught us that there is no such thing as a low-interest category, just low-interest brands. Anyone can generate excitement about a new cellphone technology or a new beer brand. Attracting attention in a traditionally low-interest category (like soap) takes a bit more thought. This is one of the best benefits of belief brands--they work equally well in crowded high-interest categories and in overlooked categories. Beyond the emotional engagement created by sharing similar beliefs and values with their advocates, belief brands have a philosophy, an attitude, and a story to tell. Their personalities aren't created in some office on Madison Avenue; they're woven into the very fabric of the organization. Below, a few examples of high-interest brands in low-interest categories:
Joe Boxer. By injecting irreverence and controversy into his Joe Boxer brand, Nicholas Graham transformed everyday boxer briefs into a conversation piece.
Dyson. Ten years ago, it would have been difficult to imagine anyone getting excited about a vacuum cleaner. Dyson shook up the dusty category with innovative technology and beautiful design.
Swingline. An unremarkable and ubiquitous tool, staplers were the poster boy of low interest before Mike Judd cast a red Swingline as an object of devotion in his 1999 corporate satire, Office Space.
While we rely primarily on style and substance to inspire interest in cleaning products, we also tap into an often overlooked subset of consumers: people who actually love to clean. You probably even know a few friends whom you consider to be clean freaks. We believe in making the act of cleaning more enjoyable and, if we may say so, aspirational. But virtually every commercial treats cleaning as if it were a huge hassle, virtually screaming promises of convenience and ease. Pandering to women with images of grinning maids in aprons, it was as if taking care of your things was something to be ashamed of, something you'd rather leave to someone else. This is typical problem-solution marketing, in which you set up a problem (mildew in the bathroom) and then present your product as the hero solution (Pow! mildew gone). The problem with this approach is that it forces the consumer to enter through the problem, so your brand will always live in low-interest land. Even if you don't find an ounce of joy in cleaning, virtually everyone loves the end state, a clean home. So we focused on talking about the aspirational end state of cleaning, and we found that, to many people, cleaning is an important part of life. It's the ritual of connecting to their homes and families by putting life back in order. To many, cleaning is a form of caring for their children or pets by providing a safe haven for those they care about most. Seeking to draw out our audience's inner clean freaks, we filled our ad campaigns with young, great-looking naked people in gorgeous, hip homes, using (or maybe just caressing) a rainbow of beautiful Method products. Rather than the "quick and painless" promises in our competitors' ads, we communicated with clever, cheeky messages intended to promote the aspirational idea that cleaning could be cool (gasp!). Flying in the face of decades of traditional cleaning commercials, the ads resonated with people of all ages.
To many people, jogging is a chore. Imagine if Nike ran advertisements featuring unhappy joggers forcing themselves through another grueling early morning routine. Not likely. To the contrary, the brand celebrates every sport it touches, with aspirational imagery. We'd even bet there are some fierce badminton ads out there that would inspire you to Just Do It with a birdie! Nike ties this to its social mission of bringing inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. As Bill Bowerman, track coach and cofounder of Nike, said, "If you have a body, you are an athlete."
Bottom line: If you're struggling to shift your brand from low to high interest, seek to reframe your communications from presenting the problem to projecting the desired end state and wrap that in a social mission.
Excerpted from The Method Method by Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry by arrangement with Portfolio Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc., Copyright © 2011 by Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry.
[Image: Flickr user AllStarsYouth]
via fastcompany.com
http://jantervonen.com/making-people-passionate-for-toilet-bowl-cleaMonday, September 12, 2011
How UGG Got Its Y Chromosome Back
UGG boots, the fuzzy-lined sheepskin boots best known for warming the toes of female celebs as they trot around Aspen and college girls as they trudge from class to class, are trying to recapture the interest of their original customer: dudes.
As UGG Australia prepares to introduce its largest assortment ever of men’s styles for fall, the company has enlisted Patriots quarterback Tom Brady as the new face of UGGs for men. The first commercial spot, called “Steps,” with music by Mos Def, follows three-time Super Bowl winner Brady, wearing a variety of UGG men’s footwear, as he runs with a look of smolder-y purpose on his face through a variety of country- and cityscapes. It airs tonight during the NFL's first Monday Night Football game of the season, featuring Brady's Patriots and the Dolphins.
UGG was originally marketed primarily to the types of outdoorsy, adventure-sports-loving men who shopped in surf and ski shops, though their girlfriends were known to swipe the comfy boots for themselves, or buy them in smaller unisex sizes.
When the UGG Australia was acquired by Deckers Outdoor in 1995, the company shifted its focus to women, who buy more shoes than men and are open to a greater variety of styles. UGG was in the process of repositioning itself from a men’s brand to “men’s, women’s and kids, luxury and comfort,” Constance Rishwain, president of UGG, said, and initially the company's ad dollars were shifted to target women. “When I could only afford one ad, it was Vogue.”
In 2000, after the company introduced women’s and children’s styles, Oprah Winfrey declared the original sheepskin boots as one of her “favorite things,” setting off enormous brand buzz in the way that only Oprah can. UGGs’s subsequent strong female following was cemented after the company introduced pink and baby-blue styles, and made sure Hollywood’s brightest stars--the Sex and the City cast, Kate Hudson, Oprah--were seen in them.
“It was like a bomb went off,” Rishwain said. “That’s where the wait lists started; we couldn’t keep up with it.”
And that’s where the brand’s awareness with men started to lag. While growth in the women’s line has been “explosive,” Rishwain said (2011 will be UGG’s 13th year of double-digit sales growth, she adds), sales of the men’s styles grew more slowly. And public perception of the brand reflected this.
Judging by some of the recent feedback, UGG has a healthy amount of male skepticism to overcome if it wants to reclaim its image as a men’s brand. “I don’t care if he’s Tom Brady, it’s still a dude wearing UGGs,” as one YouTube commenter put it.
But UGG is convinced Brady, a blond California native who you could as easily picture on a surfboard as in the end zone, is the right man to help reposition the UGG name as a brand for men, too. Despite his high-profile marriage to Gisele Bündchen, the fact that he just signed a $72 million contract extension, and his metrosexual crossover appeal to women, UGG says Brady--perhaps because he was an underdog second-to-last-round draft pick who went on to win three Super Bowls--somehow still exudes a “normal guy” vibe that will convince men that UGGs are cool shoes worn by cool guys.
By the end of this year, UGG will have 50 physical store locations worldwide, and despite its recent increases in the number of men’s styles, customers still express some surprise that the offerings aren’t all pink, leopard print, or marketed toward women.
“Men go in with their wives and see men’s products and pick them up; customers are blown away that we have such a large variety of men’s shoes,” Rishwain says. “Going with Tom Brady is going to spread that knowledge that there is a line for men, and to get more of their eyeballs on the brand.”
via fastcompany.com
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
When Is The Right Time For A Product Redesign?
Looking at how and why Apple rolled out Final Cut Pro X--as well as a few notable failures--provides a few rules of thumb.
This is the first post in a series by Victor Lombardi, excerpted from his forthcoming book Why We Fail: Real Stories and Practical Lessons from Customer Experience Failures.
In June 2011, Apple released the latest version of its professional video editing software, Final Cut Pro X, and close to half the reviews on Apple’s App Store read like this:
“Horrible.”
“A Disaster.”
“Heartbreaking.”
To understand this reaction, we need to look back at the history of the product. Apple released Final Cut Pro in 1999. In a world of difficult-to-use software and awkward hardware configurations, Apple's product streamlined it all. By 2001, it was used to edit major films. In 2002, it won a Primetime Emmy Engineering Award for its impact on the television industry. By 2010, it had almost 50% market share.
But the underlying technology was over a decade old. It seems that Final Cut Pro had experienced what I call a “tech-design shift,” a major shift in technology that makes possible--or necessary--a major overhaul in product design. Products that emerge from a tech-design shift can offer us experiences we didn’t have before. In the case of Final Cut Pro X, harnessing 64-bit computer architecture and other new technologies required a wholesale rewrite of the software, which enabled ground-breaking changes like incredibly fast rendering, an open platform for third-party effects, and the seamless use of dozens of video formats, called “codecs.”
The problem is that Final Cut Pro X doesn’t have some features that professional video editors relied on in previous versions, such as the ability to synchronize and edit footage from multiple cameras. This enraged customers who depended on such capabilities, resulting in a public relations problem that threatened to alienate a portion of the product’s customer base.
Shocking Success
But what can look like failure in the short term is actually a successful long-term approach for Apple. If we look back at the company’s product portfolio, we can see a pattern of major design changes, including the recent transition from MobileMe to iCloud or the older Macintosh transition from PowerPC to Intel processors.
Apple moves quickly to avoid stagnation. While such an approach scares other companies, the aversion to change often results in obsolescence. Apple’s customers have to cope with frequent updates, but that’s less disruptive than the disappearance of an entire platform or company. Many customers understand this: Although many App Store users left scathing 1-star reviews, even more wrote raving 5-star reviews, and by the end of the summer, Final Cut Pro was the second-highest-grossing app in the App Store.
Here are three rules that guide Apple-style change:
1. Embrace Tech-Design Shifts
When technology has advanced to the point of enabling new designs and new experiences, embrace it, even if it means a short-term customer disruption.
Nokia's Symbian mobile operating system is quickly dying because it missed the mobile technology shift from keypad to touchscreen interface, specifically the capacitive touchscreen popularized by the iPhone. Symbian market share plunged from 72.8% in Q3 2006 to 36% in Q3 2010. By the time the new Symbian 3 was ready in 2010, it was too late, and Nokia announced it would transition to using Microsoft's Windows Phone as its primary smartphone platform (Microsoft had embraced this tech-design shift years earlier, leaving behind the Windows Mobile operating system to focus on a new, touchscreen-oriented system, even at the expense of breaking backward compatibility).
Looking back further in time, it’s not hard to find more examples of this trend. WordPerfect dominated the PC word-processing market during the 1980s but fumbled the shift from DOS to Windows. It entered the market two years later than the competition with a buggy, difficult–to-install product. Microsoft Word, which had trailed WordPerfect in market share for over seven years, pounced on the weakened competitor and captured almost the entire market.
Conversely, if you don't have a tech-design shift, a drastic redesign may not be justified. Look at Amazon.com, for example: Since 1999, it has gradually updated its website design as the business evolved, avoiding big redesigns, even as it embraced other kinds of tech-design shifts with mobile apps and the Kindle e-reader.
2. Offer a Clear Customer Benefit
If customers don’t feel there is a clear benefit for them, they may reject the redesign.
That sounds obvious, right? But we release products for other reasons. Earlier this year, Gawker rolled out a redesign of its news websites using unconventional navigation oriented around the type of content published, instead of how people wanted to browse, and subsequently faced a firestorm of criticism and lost viewers. They rolled back the design a few weeks later.
Sometimes you won’t know if a new design benefits customers until you try it, and these cases are best treated as experiments. As one of their Labs experiments, Google launched Wave, a new kind of real-time messaging platform. Wave was too radical for most people, and Google discontinued it after less than a year.
3. Avoid Backlash with an Outstanding Ownership Experience
Customers will overlook flaws if their overall experience is good enough. Apple succeeds despite missing features because its products are “magical.” In more concrete terms, they push the limits of industrial design and software design to achieve unexpectedly high usability and aesthetics. The iPhone was long criticized for lacking features other systems had, such as multitasking, but the experience of using the iPhone is so delightful that customers generally overlook what’s missing. via fastcodesign.com
Tokujin Yoshioka Turns Cartier Watches Into Op Art
Tokujin Yoshioka Turns Cartier Watches Into Op Art
A stunning exhibition at German museum turns the inner workings of the tiny design marvels into short, vivid films.
Watches are a feat of modern engineering--a machine that's precise to the second, and so small you can wear it on your wrist!--yet they're so tiny, most people who wear one probably don't have the faintest idea how it works. In Cartier Time Art, Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka uses time and space to explore and explain the craft of watchmaking in a gorgeous installation currently on view at the Bellerive Museum, Ein Haus des Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, in Switzerland.
In collaboration with the French watchmaker, Yoshioka was able to create animations which showcase the tiny faces and innerworkings of the watches. These are projected above the watches using 3-D movie technology, appearing to float on the glass cases. Filming little vignettes that either track a watch's movement or an aspect of fine watchmaking, Yoshioka is able to project the watches at a much larger and more detailed size, allowing the viewer to almost peer inside a watch's tiny technology. It's absolutely mesmerizing to watch the precise ticking of the little cogs, or the minuscule pieces required to assemble a watch.
Among the exhibition's goods are 158 Cartier watches, ranging from a 1874 chatelaine watch in yellow gold, pink foil, enamel, and pearls, to Cartier's newest ID One concept watch, made from super-resilient niobium-titanium and carbon crystal. This newest watch is magnified for public ogling using a rather interesting method: a giant dynamic lens--the same type of glass that covers a watch face, yet a piece that's the size of a human head. It also manages to make a sweet funhouse-type mirror for attendees.
Two years ago, Yoshioka created the installation "Story of..."--Memories of Cartier for the Tokyo National Museum, which gave background to several famous Cartier pieces using a similar projection technique. In a way, this piece is a continuation of that narrative, but it also nods to Cartier's high-tech future. In Yoshioka's own words:
A long history and avant-garde ideas for the future.
Cartier’s unique beauty comes from the merging of these two extremes.
The space, with 3D films depicting the mechanism of the watch, will wrap around the hearts of visitors.
I hope their experience here will implant Cartier’s new timebeat in each life.
Wrapping around the hearts of visitors might be a stretch, but at the very least, people will gaze upon the timekeeper gracing their wrists with newfound admiration. The show is up through November 6. via fastcodesign.com
Thursday, September 8, 2011
How Tumblr Created A Design Culture With No Design Team
Tumblr's about to grow its design staff to two. How can the company be design-centric, when so few designers work there?
Thanks to the Clients from Hell, the Rules for My Unborn Son, and the Sad Don Drapers, the blogging platform Tumblr is about to hit a major milestone: 10 billion blog posts. Yet as its user base swells, Tumblr itself has miraculously managed to stay relatively petite: Only 45 people are on staff, including a surprisingly tiny product team consisting of five people. And for such a design-savvy, image-driven platform, here's the most surprising fact of all: Tumblr's design department consists of only one designer, Tumblr design director Peter Vidani. "It's really just me right now," he tells Co.Design, laughing. "So I direct myself."
That will change in the near future as Tumblr is hiring a designer and reportedly seeking a big round of funding, at a valuation of $800 million. While Vidani declined to comment on any of the financial aspects of Tumblr, he did provide some insight into the company's design strategy -- and what they're looking for in their #2 designer.
Vidani sits at the table with a five-person product team.Where more established tech companies like Facebook and Twitter are just recently starting to attract big-name design talent to bulk up their design chops, Vidani thinks that Tumblr already is, and always will be, a design-centric company. He attributes most of this to the fact that he's at the table with that five-person integrated product team, which he says acts like a "hive mind," bouncing ideas off each other, and making decisions as a group. "If marketing needs something designed, it comes through product," he says." Every facet, every feature needs to be looked at in the same regard."
A key tenet of Tumblr's design aesthetic is obvious from looking at its interface: Simplicity. "We really enjoy seeing a small simple page free of clutter," says Vidani. "If we can get rid of anything, we will." While other blogging platforms might hype their range of constantly growing features, Vidani says, his team does everything they can to minimalize them, or, in some cases, remove them. "We think the users are smart, and don't need things 'sold' to them," he says. "Keeping this in mind gets rid of the clutter, like labels and chatty copy."
Another design goal for Tumblr is the idea of taking away the intimidation of blogging -- you know, the dreaded confrontation of an empty page. This is achieved with with smaller text fields and even a range of non-text options. "We don't want to make you feel like you need to write three paragraphs and post a photo," he says. "You can just post a photo." The reason the "Create Post" button to publish a post is so big and shiny? They want you to feel good about pushing posts out in the world, as often as possible.
This flexible, friendly format has made it a favorite for designers and other creatives, who have praised Tumblr for its visual focus. Tumblr has found a way to evangelize those designers by showcasing the thousands of themes, or customized skins that change the look and feel of their blogs, that designers have created for the brand. Tumblr curates two galleries of themes for their users: Featured Themes, exceptional free themes which are brought to their attention and promoted through the signup process; and Premium Themes, where Tumblr reaches out to talented designers to contribute themes, and they get paid for their work by users who download them. This is a win-win situation. "It's the best way for a designer to get their names on the web in a short amount of time," says Vidani. "And it's to our advantage to give users the best themes and designers we can."
"If we can get rid of anything, we will."Vidani himself started his web-design career designing themes, part of his roundabout career before his arrival at Tumblr, working in post-production for reality shows and then at the homepage manager start.io. He values the kind of experience that might come from working outside of or in curious corners of the tech industry. In looking for designers, he's particularly interested in candidates who have some skills in illustrative and print work. "It's a telling sign that they have experience in art and not just making buttons on the web."
Designers joining the team now could have the chance to build a young but established brand that still has a great deal of freedom. For example, the product team doesn't do A-B testing or polls, says Vidani. Tumblr uses its own built-in audience of beta testers -- its own employees. Of course, with Tumblr's incredible growth has also come growing pains. Users have grumbled about the site's excessive service outages, which have caused downtime as long as 36 hours for the platform. While that's not necessarily a design issue, it's a potential challenge for a growing team.
As Tumblr's traffic skyrockets to over 90 million monthly unique visitors worldwide, according to Quantcast, Vidani has been busy expanding the platform into mobile apps, like the recent release for Android. Several more new features -- top secret, of course -- are on the horizon, but Vidani assures Tumblr fans that even as they continue to grow, design is a prized value for the company, both inside and out. "We always say we're making the best creative tools for the most creative people in the world," he says.
via fastcodesign.comChina Knows It Must Innovate. But Can It?
The country’s economy is booming, but the ecosystem for creativity has yet to emerge.
In 2003, Goldman Sachs issued a report predicting that by 2041 China would vault over the United States to become the world’s largest economy. Since then, China has been on a tear, with annual growth of 9 to 10%, compared to the U.S.’s recent anemic GDP, which has hovered around 2%. Check the shelves of any Walmart--or the country-of-origin label of most of the goods in your home-- and you can see that China’s ambition to be the world’s low cost manufacturer is already a done deal.
Now, we hear, that China has similar goals with regard to those products’ design as well as their construction. In the past ten years, the Chinese have created more than 1,000 design programs, educating more than a million students. In addition, according to Clive Roux, CEO of IDSA (Industrial Design Society of America), who spent a year talking to over 80 people in government, education, and design consultancies, China is investing in hundreds of industrial design parks and cities throughout the country.
“China’s central government wants to shift the economy from being the world’s factory to a modern services economy, and it has declared that the country needs to promote industrial design to help it get there,” Roux says. Does this mean that it’s only a matter of time before America’s design industry goes the way of its manufacturing base? Designers: don’t delete that CAD software just yet.
The concept of user empathy is in its infancy in China.Liu Jun, vice president and chief creative officer of Eegoo Cultural Industry Investment Co., Ltd, and one of the “50 Most Creative Individuals in China,” according to China’s New Ad magazine, has a far less rosy picture of the reality of the design industry in his country than the alarmist press might have us believe. “The reason the Chinese don’t have global companies is that we don’t have a global vision,” Liu told me in a recent conversation at the materials consultancy Material Connexion’s offices in New York. “We don’t see what world markets need.”
Liu says the reasons why his country’s designers lag the West are complex. For one thing, he says, the concept of user-centeredness, so central to Western design, is in its infancy in China. “Chinese designers only think about what pleasures them, not the customer,” he says. “It’s a huge problem.” In addition, the notion of sustainable design is equally embryonic. Liu cites a client who heads a top Chinese consumer electronics company who came back from a 20-day trip to the United States stunned by what he had seen.
“When he got back to Guangzhou, he realized how terrible the pollution was,” Liu says. “So he summoned all his department heads and insisted that they find a way to damage the environment less. ‘We are all on the same planet, but the U.S. air is so fresh!’ he told them.” Liu hopes to open 10 Material Connexion libraries and consultancies in China in the next year or so to introduce his countrymen to eco-friendly materials and Western-style design principles.
That’s a good beginning, but probably not enough, says Daniel Altman, director of thought leadership at Dalberg Global Development Advisors and author of Outrageous Fortunes, The Twelve Surprising Trends that Will Reshape the Global Economy.
While it’s likely that Chinese designers will catch up on the sustainability front, and will eventually master the art of targeting customer needs (as Haier, the big appliance manufacturer, has already done), the country’s ability to design and innovate will continue to be hampered by deep cultural forces that are less easy to change. “China still has corporate structures that are extremely hierarchical,” says Altman. “And there’s an intense respect for seniority that derives from Confuscian traditions that date back thousands of years. In addtion, the Communist party is a parallel structure in all these corporations, making it very difficult for young people to follow through on their best ideas.”
New ideas need to percolate up through so many layers of hierarchy that most won’t survive all the way to the top--or others will claim credit for them along the way, he says. In the U.S., talented but frustrated workers in similar situations have a handy escape hatch: they can quit and start their own companies. In China, that’s extremely hard to do. Indeed, China ranks 151st out of 181 countries in the World Bank’s annual survey of environments for entrepreneurs. “China has a long way to go before it will be anything like US in its ability to foster innovation or entrepreneurship,” says Altman.
The country’s ability to innovate will be hampered by deep cultural forces.Stuart Leslie, president of the New York design firm 4Sight, whose company does a lot of business in the Far East, agrees. “We hyperventilate about a lot of things at 4Sight, but not about China,” he says. As replicators, the Chinese can’t be beat, he says, noting factories he’s toured that were crammed with machines knocked-off from those installed earlier by joint venture partners. A legal system that protects intellectual property is essential for an entrepreneurial culture to develop, he points out, and the Chinese government has been slow to adopt those reforms.
As innovators, Leslie also feels the country’s workforce is constrained by its lack of access to other cultures’ best work. “Creativity requires stimulation,” he says. “You have to fertilize it for it to blossom. Because China makes it difficult for other countries to sell their goods, Chinese designers aren’t being exposed to a wide range of options. The creatives who should be evolving, aren’t.”
Plus, he says, innovation can be messy, non-linear, and not polite. “Innovation is not the path of least resistance,” he says. “It often requires confrontation. Chinese workers have been taught not to confront, to go along as a group. Innovation needs the individual who thinks he’s smarter.”
All these things may change as more Chinese students are allowed to study in the West, or attend Western universities that have set up programs in China. But once these students get into the workforce, they may still find daunting cultural hurdles, says Altman. “These programs might help to bring creative thinking to young Chinese, but there’s still a question mark as to how much they’ll be able to follow through under the current Chinese system, where the best students are mostly groomed for top positions in hierarchical companies or the Communist party. Some of the most dissatisfied students are the ones who have studied outside China and then come back.”
via fastcodesign.comCreating Custom-Made Success
Walk into any 7-Eleven store in Japan, and you'll see shelves and shelves of noodles--much like you would see shelves devoted to soda in a store in the U.S. Noodles are a lucrative business in Japan and they have spawned thousands of well-known brands. Recently, however, a new packaging trend has emerged in noodle marketing, and it might very well redefine the entire fast-moving consumer goods category.
This is what's happening. There are hundreds of thousands of noodle packs on supermarket shelves, each one featuring a portrait. The portrait is not of just anyone, but rather it features a recognizable local chef. What's more, the noodles take their name from the chef's restaurant and the whole pack is styled around the restaurant's identifying colors and typography.
You would be forgiven for thinking that the popular television program Celebrity Chef has taken over the noodle business, but I'm not talking about a handful of cooking maestros. No, what I'm referring to is a very large group of thousands of celebrity chefs. Surprisingly, food corporations are no longer using their own brand names. Instead they have chosen to represent the many different brands of small neighborhood restaurants.
Since noodles are to the East what sandwiches are to the West, thousands of noodle restaurants have over the years developed their own clientele. In addition to the way the noodles taste, the way they are prepared and served also helps create a loyal following amongst the locals. These regular noodle-eaters have no trouble distinguishing noodles from restaurants a few blocks apart. The connoisseurs are equally adept at recognizing a rice noodle from a buckwheat noodle from a potato noodle.
It was this loyalty that a large food manufacturer sought to harness, and affix to their own declining national brand. The company sent out teams to speak to many thousands of local noodle restaurants in Tokyo and Osaka. They convinced the chefs to share their recipes. In exchange, the manufacturer packaged and personally branded the restaurants' noodles with their name and a picture of their chef.
With the help of the manufacturer, many of these small restaurants have now become national brands. They now have their own merchandising line, nationwide distribution, and of course, whatever notoriety that comes with it. Now every restaurateur has potentially millions of customers, even if their 20-seat establishment can't physically serve them. In theory, every consumer has access to even the smallest of restaurants tucked away in the most inaccessible alleyways.
This trend in Japan is at least one step ahead of the most advanced customized brands in the world--names such as Nike, BMW, and Lego. With their concepts DreamtByMe, BuiltByMe, and DesignByMe, Lego has created products that can be individually designed by the customer. Using downloadable Lego software, customers specify their own kit and design the container that will arrive at their front door.
Keeping the Japanese noodle model in mind, it's easy to see how the most popular online Lego designs soon make their way to the retail store. One can only imagine the pride that comes from designing a Lego item online that finds its way into an offline store. You could take this one step further. Why not put an image of the kid who designed it on the box, and name it after them? That would make Lego the first toy company in the world to brand individual kids, and fully embrace them into the Lego family. Imagine how Twitter and Facebook would ignite with the intricate details of such an event.
Perhaps this sounds like I'm getting a little ahead of myself, a bit pie in the sky ... but just possibly you've had a glimpse into a future, a place where the brands of tomorrow will all be personally customized. Let us not forget that there's a whole new generation of consumers emerging who takes it for granted that everyone of a certain age has a personal page on Facebook. This same generation has grown up with brands like Jones Soda who made it possible for kids to have their own label designed for the sodas they'd have at a party. Not to forget NikeID--"You design it. We build it"--was introduced nearly 10 years ago. It allowed the consumer to customize their sports shoe by selecting materials, colors, and peculiarities of fit.
The notion of personally customized brands is beginning to take hold, and the next step along this trajectory seems blindingly obvious. In an environment where the consumer has become more powerful than the brand, and a single consumer disaster can imperil the revenue of an entire company, smart brands out there will systematically align themselves with the consumer.
Companies will embrace their most loyal fans by giving them a real sense of ownership. The Coca-Cola Company did something similar with Vitaminwater. They began by giving ownership to a carefully selected group of celebrities, including Ellen DeGeneres. This ownership is no longer confined to a small group of celebrities. Every Vitaminwater customer has the potential to claim that right.
After all, if a company can enlist the help of its most loyal fans to build their brand, why not introduce payment for the service? It's not likely to ever match the cost of a conventional marketing spend, and the message would be on target to those most receptive. Only one question remains. Who has the courage to take that big step and fully hand over the ownership of the brand to consumers? It's just a matter of time, but once it happens the brand landscape will shift irreversibly.
via fastcompany.com
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Remember when you were thinking you really wish you could film your bicycle courier route so you can watch it again from home to see if you can improve your delivery time? Have at it. Optrix has unveiled the weatherproof HD Sport Mount, which turns your iPhone 4, 4S and iPod touch into an action sports camera. Combined with the iPhone 4S image stabilizing capabilities, Optrix captures “... stunning video in all environments possible, from extreme racing to a relaxing day at the pool.”
And maybe even extreme racing in the pool, if that’s your thing.
The Optrix HD Sport Mount for iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPod Touch can now be pre-ordered for $79.99. Optrix will be releasing accompanying video recording apps that will measure lay speed, g-force, lap-time and more right onto the videos.
Product [HD Sport Mount.