8th Idea » psfk

Phone Phorm and Phunction

jakeybro — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:52:00 +0000

While I’m a proud iPhone owner and a lifelong Mac fan, I really respect what I keep seeing coming from the design team at Nokia.

PSFK pointed out a cross-cultural, international study that Nokia conducted recently about how we carry our phones. It also qualitatively measured the differences in the different ways we “carry” other essentials.

One of the key insights for me is the notion that there are three primary things we all carry:

• keys
• money
• phone

Keys and money connect us to safety, security and sustenance. A phone allows us to “transcend space and time.”

For my b2b clients, my non-profit clients and my healthcare clients — are there similar “essentials?” What are they and how can we create experiences that complement these artifacts?

As I continue to navigate these personally uncharted waters, I continue to be amazed at what I have yet to learn. So many questions to answer.

Check out the slideshow that Nokia prepared. Let me know if you find other insights worth mining. I’d love to discuss them.

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What’s in a name?

jakeybro — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 13:59:00 +0000

PSFK has a post this morning regarding the conference in Los Angeles. At this conference, the group has agreed to drop the term “marketing” from the agenda. The reason the article cites is that the PSFK team and attendees believe marketing is too limiting a descriptor. The conference is about ideas and trends.

It brings up an interesting point for me. For the last five years of my career, I’ve wrestled with this same issue. In the two years I’ve been with GCG, for example, we have described ourselves as a “full service advertising agency with special expertise in (healthcare, business-to-business).” However, we do so much more than just advertising and design. We are consultants. We help write business plans. We create sales tactics. We write software solutions.

Seems to me, at the end of the day, we are about solving problems. It just happens our training and experience is filtered through a lens of creative communications.

What is a succinct way to describe what we do when talking with current clients and prospects? What is the cocktail party description? Any suggestions would be more than welcomed.

Technology is a swingset?

jakeybro — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:28:00 +0000

PSFK had a link to a Reuters article this morning about how the ubiquity of technology has caused most kids to not even acknowledge the innovations that package their lives and drive many of their social interactions.

The comparison of today’s digital devices to the swingsets of my youth as a force in socialization was an interesting way to frame the perspective.

In addition, it brought to mind the virtually inseparable divide between religion and daily life in certain cultures. My family (and culture) saw life and religion as two separate things. My wife’s family (and culture) can’t distinguish between where faith starts and family begins.

Does anyone else know of any knowledge base highlighting the connection between culture and technology? Are there other non-technology comparisons that come to mind?