Contagious ideas by PSST : spreading 2.0 innovation (editor = jérémy dumont, strategic planner, france)

The challenges of marketing innovation for a better sustainable development. By Cisse Daouda

  

 Copyright - Google Images

INTRODUCTION

Marketing is about selling people more. So can sustainable marketing really work?

- Marketing comprises a set of skills that generally enable companies to sell more stuff to more people to get a greater share of the market. These skills are usually portable: it doesn’t matter what’s being sold to whom in what marketplace. The social and environmental impact of the stuff that’s being marketed remains, for the vast majority of people in marketing, until recently, largely irrelevant. The idea of sustainable marketing is inevitably sort of ridiculous.

- Sustainable development comprises a set of ideas, principles, values, mindsets and practices that enable individuals and organizations to improve their quality of life in ways that simultaneously protect and enhance the Earth’s life-support systems, in other words, without destroying the planet. At the very least, it can mean consuming in more environmentally and socially responsible ways; for some, it means consuming less.

The idea of sustainable marketing is, therefore, sort of suspect. The marketplace is greener now than ever before and will become even more responsive to products and services promising environmental responsibility well into the 21st century. The reasons are many. People are worried. In the 1980’s, environmental calamities dominated the news. Almost daily, headlines trumpeted oil spills, toxic-waste dumps, and nuclear meltdowns. A hole punctured the ozone layer, a garbage barge searched in vain for a dumpsite; apples were not considered safe to eat. The issues were no longer in someone else’s backyard far-away, but in our own. The environment rose to the top of the public’s worry list.

MARKETING INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABLE MARKETING

Nowadays, businesses that fall short of developing effective value propositions have difficulties in taking advantage of market opportunities that are characterized by uncompromising market forces such increased competition, shortened product lifecycles and more sophisticated and variable customer demands. It is a disconcerting fact that many, if not most, businesses struggle to develop sustainable, innovative value propositions that help them sustain their market positions.

Marketing innovation and sustainable development are today’s hottest topics of our planet among intellectuals. Why not harness the creativity and innovation of one of the oldest professions there is to move forward our societies onto a much more sustainable footing? Humanity has been known to tackle far more challenging tasks, anywhere from placing a man on the moon, to persuading people to buy aloe vera toilet paper, as Steve Hilton from Good Business often illustrates. Surely, therefore, bringing together these innovators and persuaders needed to make the world more sustainable should also be possible.

Will we assist to less growth with marketing sustainability? Not really. I think if it is well done, it could mean better, smarter and much more efficient ways of buying and making stuff. What if marketing sustainability is just a pipe dream when consumers are largely ambivalent about the green credentials of the products and services they buy, and certainly find it difficult to pay ‘green premiums’? We don’t think it will be. If done properly, it will appeal to personal values and allow that twinge of “I would really like to do something”.

However, I have to notice that efforts by the odd responsible company are not nearly enough to make producer and consumer change stick. A much wider collective effort is needed if we are going to be successful at reversing unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, considering most of us are not willing to sacrifice Aloe Vera toilet paper for banana leaves. If marketing can turn “lead into gold”, then it has the potential to make sustainable development a household word, a universally recognised way of adding both social and economic value. Marketing can create, influence and change target audience attitudes, beliefs and perceptions. In a nutshell, marketing works; that’s why companies do it. A more interesting question is how can it be used to reinforce sustainable development?

I have to mention that although sustainable development and marketing innovation are the 21st century most discussed topics, they are conflicting concepts. Today’s evolution about these topics is to set a challenging sustainable development benchmarks for every element of the marketing mix and build intrinsic brand value in and through sustainable development. Through engaging companies from a range of sectors that are both already active in sustainable development and have high brand awareness, as well as leading media and communications agencies open to new opportunities, we hope to build wider competencies in sustainable marketing within the profession and more broadly in businesses.

 MARKETING INNOVATION

Much of the discussion about marketing and sustainable development focuses on developed markets; on the levels of consumption amongst the world’s richest people and the changing nature of their preferences. Companies face fierce competition for growth in developed countries whilst, in contrast, the most disadvantaged people in the world represent a market with enormous potential. And if the world’s population expands in line with current predictions, over 90% of people will be living in (what are now) developing countries within 30 years. It is no surprise, then, that marketers are increasingly interested in the opportunities amongst the world’s poor, which may involve addressing their basic needs. But is this wishful thinking, or are there compelling commercial reasons for business to pay attention to developing markets? As the term sustainable development enters the business mainstream, the responsibility for managing social and environmental issues is slowly shifting from the corporate fringe to an important business function.

The implementation of communication strategies is a marketing innovation. Not only does the company inform the general public of its efforts to reduce its environmental impact, but in addition, it listens to its clients and tries to gain acceptance of its employees. A sophisticated form of the communication strategy consists of taking part directly in the development of restrictive measures (emission standards, branch agreements, etc.). This effort seems to show a proactive approach to companies on the environmental question, but on the other hand, it could be a way to impede environmental progress by means of a lobbying policy.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a company in possession of a good (or poor) fortune must be in want of innovation. Yet, by all accounts, some 40-90% of innovations fail in the market. In this elective we examine the drivers of market adoption, taking the perspectives of both ‘objective reality’ and the ‘perceived reality’ of the players in the decision. We then offer some suggestions for bringing innovations more successfully to market.

Invention and innovation have proven to be crucial components for the development of modern societies. However, 1.3 billion people who currently live on less than a dollar a day do not enjoy the benefits that many modern inventions have brought. At the same time some key new technologies are known to have caused enormous damage to the global environment.

SUSTAINABLE MARKETING

Increasingly, business is investing in sustainable development strategies, often not fully embraced by their marketing departments.

The result of this means that mixed messages are being transmitted to shareholders and stakeholders alike. There is a real need to join sustainable development business strategy with the marketing departments that drive that strategy forward.
Because marketing influences the development of products and services, as well as the communication methods used to influence consumer behaviour, it is at the axis of one of the most challenging issues facing business today: addressing the current unsustainable levels of production and consumption in an uncertain world.

There are two key approaches to marketing and sustainability. One seeks to embed sustainable development within a company’s core marketing strategy from innovation to the market. The other aligns opportunities for marketing and advertising with the values of sustainable development, either overtly or covertly.

Why is it now that people think about sustainable marketing?

As mainstream marketing is changing and as we enter a ‘third age’ of branding, the context for brands is changing irrevocably. The first age of branding was the age of functionality, where product purpose was legitimised through trademarks. The second age was the age of aspiration, meaning brands served a self actualising purpose. The third age of branding is the age of reconnection, that is, solutions-oriented branding. Empowering consumers to make the world a better place through the products they buy.  For example, if we take the case of the refrigerators, we can say that in 1950’s, somebody could easily be convinced to buy a refrigerator just because it looked cool in his/her eyes, but in today’s uncertain world, we might ask ourselves about the impact of the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that our refrigerator is emitting and demand a more environmentally friendly refrigerator.

So, if today’s successful marketing is about appealing to personal values and delivering consumer empowerment, then surely the time is right to inject sustainable development into the marketing mix to help address some of the gritty issues currently facing our planet.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Today’s fast technologies innovation and invention have made people worry about their living environment. Although they need improvements for the household equipments they are daily using, they started asking themselves about the future of the world. Based on this, we have to mention that marketing innovation is developing with consequences for humankind. In this 21st century, sustainable development remains a term which many marketers have become accustomed to hearing alongside jargon such as stakeholder engagement and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Sustainable development is a compelling idea for many people. It is concerned with how business can contribute to some of the most significant challenges that the world faces today; from climate change and biodiversity, to working conditions and health amongst the poorest in the world. But marketing managers have struggled to translate these ideas into viable commercial propositions into marketing strategies that create competitive advantage, build trust or develop new business opportunities.

Moreover, marketers have often faced criticism for being part of the problem for pushing the consumption of unsustainable products and lifestyles.

Sustainable development is becoming a key strategic issue for companies. With growing pressure from global warming, natural resource depletion, widening social gaps, legislation, societal pressures, and the evolution of consumer expectation, the role of marketing within an organization is changing dramatically. Consumer demand for “ethical” products and services is increasing and the marketing is a lever for innovation to answer to this new demand. Social and environmental values are now elements of a brand, marketers need to tackle these issues. Sustainable development is the practice of protecting the environment while improving living standards for all, and invention and innovation is key to its success. Invention and innovation for sustainable development isn’t just about developing new technology, but includes new processes and new ways of solving old problems. Creative thinking is the rubric. Creative thinking has always been integral for improving well-being.

Despite the fact that people everywhere have an innate ability to be creative, rich countries are not doing enough to stimulate and harness invention and creative thinking, and poor countries tend to stifle innovation and creativity outright. This is typically due to a combination of factors: insufficient financial resources, lack of role models, education systems that don’t inspire or value creativity, and social/political environments that discourage creativity, invention and entrepreneurship. Sustainable development has different meanings and implications in different parts of the world. Julia Marton-Lefèvre, executive director of LEAD International, an organization dedicated to leadership for environment and development in a workshop on “invention and innovation for sustainable development” held in November 2003 said to understand the challenges and ramifications “not only in London and Paris and New York, but also in tiny villages in Nigeria and Indonesia and China.” Sustainable development is for all countries, not just developing ones. Based on what she said, I can mention that while rich countries need to develop alternative sources of energy and other technologies that reduce their own impact on the environment, poor countries need to develop their own innovation capacity, in order to address their own particular needs.

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 SOURCE : creativeheadline.com  PAR: alexis mouthon  ACCÈS DIRECT A LA PLATEFORME: PSST.FR

 UNE INITIATIVE DE: POURQUOI TU COURS?  AGENCE DE PLANNING STRATEGIQUE 2.0  DIRIGÉE PAR: Jérémy Dumont

Social Media at the Annual Meeting in Davos 2010. By Matthias Lüfkens

 

 Copyright by World Economic Forum - swiss-image.ch - Photo by Gian Vaitl

The World Economic Forum is once again making full use of the major social media platforms at the upcoming Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland giving unprecedented access to the wider public. The general public can actively participate in a number of sessions through video submissions, blog comments, tweets and quick polls.

Twitter

We will live tweet the most salient quotes from the key sessions on the Forum Twitter account: http://twitter.com/Davos which now boasts over 1.5 million followers. Over 250 participants are on Twitter including Queen Rania of Jordan,Bill Gates, Jens Stoltenberg Prime Minister of Norway and Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, President of Mongolia. You can follow their tweets by subscribing to the officialTwitter list: http://twitter.com/Davos/WEF2010. For news junkies there is a specific list of media organizations and journalists covering the meeting:http://twitter.com/Davos/WEFMedia.

For the first time participants are invited to leave their comments on a dedicated Twitter account: http://twitter.com/Davos_2010. The official hashtag of the meeting is #WEF. The short URL to the Forum’s meeting website is http://tr.im/Davos10. To show your support for the Forum why not put a Twibbon on your Twitter avatar:http://twibbon.com/join/Davos.

 

The Forum will also microblog in Chinese on Sina.com:http://t.sina.com.cn/davos. And finally, you can get all the feeds by subscribing to the Forum on FriendFeed http://friendfeed.com/worldeconomicforum.

Blogging

Key sessions will also be blogged on the Forum’s blog http://www.forumblog.org. All the blog posts about the Forum are aggregated it in the Davos Conversationhttp://www.davosconversation.org on Netvibes. The programme of the Open Forum is on the blog http://www.forumblog.org/openforum and you can send comments which the moderators will integrate in their respective panels.

 

Facebook

The Forum recently released a report on Faith in the Global Agenda based in large parts on polls conducted on Facebook with over 130.000 respondents. In selected sessions in Davos, we will once again tap into the collective wisdom of the onlinrowd through these “pulses” on Facebook. The pulses allow us to capture the opinion of several thousand Facebook users in a matter of minutes. Their views will be fed back into the panel discussion at specific sessions. If you are on Facebook why not become a fan of the Forumhttp://facebook.com/worldeconomicforum.

 

MySpace

Sloane Berrent has won the MySpaceJournal competition organized by MySpacein partnership with the Wall Street Journal. The 30 year old will report from Davos for the global MySpace community. Watch her winning video entry below:

Sloane Berrent MySpace Journal Davos Submission

Sloane | MySpace Video

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 SOURCE : forumblog.org  PAR: alexis mouthon  ACCÈS DIRECT A LA PLATEFORME: PSST.FR

 UNE INITIATIVE DE: POURQUOI TU COURS?  AGENCE DE PLANNING STRATEGIQUE 2.0  DIRIGÉE PAR: Jérémy Dumont

The interesting question is how you separate interaction design history from the broader scope of computing history in general. User experience people gravitate toward the history of hypertext and the graphical user interface. By Karen McGrane.

What is Interaction Design History?

Image Credit: Columbia University Computing History

Learning more about computing history is a sort of professional hobby of mine; I have a fetish for pictures of old mainframes and this research lets me indulge my proclivities. When I tell people in the user experience field about my studies the most common response I hear is “I don’t know anything about the history of computers.”

I think that’s sad. Practitioners in other design disciplines—architecture, graphic design, fashion—would be expected to have some grounding in historical movements and trends. But most people have no formal education in interaction design, and so they’ve never learned the roots of the discipline. I taught a short course in IxD history in the MFA program in Interaction Design at SVA, and I hope that the students in the program know enough now to at least recognize key people and events when they come up, even if their introduction was a whirlwind 5-week tour.

The interesting question, to me, is how you separate interaction design history from the broader scope of computing history in general. User experience people gravitate toward the history of hypertext and the graphical user interface, direct manipulation and the mouse, the work done at Xerox PARC and Apple. In many people’s minds, that era marks the dividing line between the “us” of the design community and the “them” of computer scientists, because it’s the point at which it became possible to draw a separation between the work that was done to serve the needs of the machine, and the work that was done solely to meet the needs of the user.

I’m fascinated by the earlier history of punchcards and mainframes, green screen CRTs and command line interfaces, precisely because that process of shaping the machine to think and talk more like we do was more formative and more raw. And while many (if not most) of the decisions that went into the design of early computing systems were based on the memory and processor requirements of the physical machine, engineers were also making decisions aimed at making the device easier to use. Separate out the aspects that are focused purely on hardware limitations, and the history of punched cards, programming languages and mainframe operating systems is as important to the history of the discipline as the mouse, the GUI, or the touchscreen.

---

I’ve finally got around to uploading my classroom presentations to Slideshare:

Week 1: Course Overview

This was intended as a high-level flyover of some of the people and topics I covered over the next three weeks.

Week 1 IxD History: Course Overview

View more presentations from Karen McGrane.

Week 2: Interaction Design before Computers

Make no mistake: my definition of interaction design is squarely focused on how people communicate and interact with machines. (I know it’s fashionable to talk about interaction design as influencing human behavior, regardless of medium, but that’s an awfully broad scope for a history class.) Of course, people were imagining or using complex information processing devices even before there were computers.

Week 2 IxD History: Interaction Design before Computers

View more presentations from Karen McGrane.

Week 3: Computing Technology in the Workplace

My favorite section; I wish I could spend more time on this era, exploring how early programming languages and operating systems made it easier (and yet harder) to use a computer—in fact, what it meant to “use” a mainframe. This quote always kills me:

Not only would a programmer hardly ever see the computer, he or she might never even see the keypunch on which the programs were entered into the mainframe.
—Ceruzzi, A History of Modern Computing

Week 3 IxD History: Computing Technology in the Workplace

View more presentations from Karen McGrane.

Week 4: Personal Computing

Seems like everyone has at least a passing familiarity with the history of the graphical user interface across Xerox PARC, Apple, and Microsoft. Equally interesting is the cultural shift from mainframes to personal computing, regardless of the interface metaphor.

Week 4 IxD History: Personal Computing

View more documents from Karen McGrane.

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 SOURCE : karenmcgrane.com  PAR: alexis mouthon  ACCÈS DIRECT A LA PLATEFORME: PSST.FR

 UNE INITIATIVE DE: POURQUOI TU COURS?  AGENCE DE PLANNING STRATEGIQUE 2.0  DIRIGÉE PAR: Jérémy Dumont

The history of the visual design of user interfaces can be described as a gradual change towards more realism. As computers have become faster, designers have added increasingly realistic details such as color, 3D effects, shadows... By Lukas Mathis

Realism in UI Design

The history of the visual design of user interfaces can be described as a gradual change towards more realism. As computers have become faster, designers have added increasingly realistic details such as color, 3D effects, shadows, translucency, and even simple physics. Some of these changes have helped usability. Shadows behind windows help us see which window is active. The physicality of the iPhone’s user interface makes the device more natural to use.

In other areas, the improvements are questionable at best. Graphical user interfaces are typically full of symbols. Most graphical elements you see on your screen are meant to stand for ideas or concepts. The little house on your desktop isn’t a little house, it’s «home». The eye isn’t an actual eye, it means «look at the selected element». The cog isn’t a cog, it means «click me to see available commands».

Details and realism can distract from these concepts. To explain this, I’ll take a page from Scott McCloud’s «Understanding Comics», a book which should be required reading for all designers.

The image on the left is a face of a specific person. The image on the right is the concept «face»; it could be any person. When designing user interfaces, we rarely ever want to show a specific entity; typically, we want to convey an idea or a concept. Details can easily distract from that idea or concept.

At the same time, it’s obvious that some details are required. Too few details, and the user won’t recognize the idea at all.

The circle on the left clearly shows a face. The circle on the right isn’t recognizable as a face anymore.

Let’s look at a symbol we actually see in user interfaces, the home button. Typically, this button uses a little house as its symbol.

The thing on the left is a house. The thing on the right means «home». Somewhere between the two, the meaning switches from «a specific house» to «home as a concept». The more realistic something is, the harder it is to figure out the meaning. Again, if the image is simplified too much, it’s not clearly and immediately recognizable anymore.

The thing on the left is a home button. The thing on the right might as well be an arrow pointing up; or perhaps it’s the ⇧ key.

Let me explain this concept using an entirely unscientific graph:

People are confused by symbols if they have too many or too few details. They will recognize UI elements which are somewhere in the middle.

The trick is to figure out which details help users identify the UI element, and which details distract from its intended meaning. Some details help users figure out what they’re looking at and how they can interact with it; other details distract from the idea you’re trying to convey. They turn your interface element from a concept into a specific thing. Thus, if an interface element is too distinct from its real-life counterpart, it becomes too hard to recognize. On the other hand, if it is too realistic, people are unable to figure out that you’re trying to communicate an idea, and what idea that might be.

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 SOURCE : ignorethecode.net  PAR: alexis mouthon  ACCÈS DIRECT A LA PLATEFORME: PSST.FR

 UNE INITIATIVE DE: POURQUOI TU COURS?  AGENCE DE PLANNING STRATEGIQUE 2.0  DIRIGÉE PAR: Jérémy Dumont

Interaction Design’s Early Formal Education & Beyond by David Malouf

There are many interaction designers like myself whose growth into the field was a feat of organic if not chaotic chance. Our community of practice was born out of the convergence of people who did not have the option to be formerly trained in interaction design in almost any way what-so-ever. So we educated ourselves - sometimes alone and sometimes with the support of peers and mentors. It is a common presumption that because we did it this way we have to somehow hold out a universe where that path continues to not just be an option, but to be a viable one; and one that we even laud over other more formal ones.

I believe that there has been a huge paradigm shift in the very nature of design practice and a growing shift in its education. If we do not acknowledge this shift at the core of education and career development we are doing a disservice to those who are interested in coming up the ranks as young interaction designers today. At the core of these issues is the belief in the separation between form and interaction. This myth can no longer be maintained - definitely not in education.

We can look at a definition of Interaction Design like this one by Robert Reimann: “a design discipline dedicated to defining the behavior of artifacts, environments, and systems (i.e., products)”. Therefore it is concerned with “anticipating how use of products will mediate human relationships and affect human understanding”. It is easy for us to stop there. But what is also true is that all interaction design is embedded in form (even those areas of IxD like gesture). And it is my belief that interaction design lives in these areas of communicating possibilities for action and responses to actions, surrounded by forms.

Core understandings

I have often held the ground that our discipline has a place next to other design disciplines like graphic design and industrial design in the area of practice.  We have done well as an emerging user experience culture and community to do just that along with usability testing, design research and information architecture (to name the most prominent). Due to the ways they built up UX teams this model seems to be working for many organizations. However, I would challenge that to have “design” separate from “user experience” - as many creative agencies have done; or having “user experience” be the name or structure of your “design organization” - does neither scenario any long term use and this is the basis of this article.

one of the core understandings behind IxD and even UX as a whole is to design from the point of view of the human being(s) who’s lives we want to impact through our designs

If we are to understand that one of the core understandings behind IxD and even UX as a whole is to design from the point of view of the human being(s) whose lives we want to impact through our designs, then we must also agree that it is the tone of our voice - the expression of our products & services through the various mediums that make that up - that is our ultimate tool. Thus, any true practice of design with a human focus has to be built on a foundation of traditional design that focuses on the the craft & design of perceptual mediums using methods & practices of design from the root of art over science.

Human-centered education

As a professor of interaction design at the undergraduate level, I truly believe that an education in human-centeredness is a requirement of EVERY designer, regardless of medium of interest. Each medium would have its own distinct way of looking at how to integrate the philosophy and methods of practice to work from a human-centered perspective. As I look at my courses in interaction design that I teach for our undergraduate minor, I am always stuck on either of two sides of a problem: I either need students who already know the rules and tools of interactivity; and/or I need students who are experienced in prototyping 3D forms & functions.

Since a minor is supposed to be open to all students throughout my college (SCAD.edu), it is hard for me to really cross departments effectively and efficiently. Despite this problem - which I’m working on fixing in future iterations of the curriculum coming soon - I think that the addition of an interaction design concentration is the right direction for undergraduate level education. This allows enough lower level support courses to be available to primary form-giving design programs whilst giving the opportunity to those students who wish greater depth of understanding of the particulars of interaction design. But what is ultimately true is that it is impossible to teach IxD without virtual interactivity, which means that there is always an addition to every non-graphical medium. All designers need to learn 2D interactive prototyping.

I truly believe that an education in human-centeredness is a requirement of EVERY designer regardless of medium of interest.

Growth path

This issue isn’t just related to undergraduate education, but also about early professional practice. Here is where the real controversy kicker is going to come in. Anyone with less than five years experience under their belt should not be working in a purely UX capacity. By “purely” I mean doing structural and behavioral design without also directly owning the forms within which they are embedded. What’s worse is that many organizations will not even hire entry-level designers, thus sidestepping this part of the growth path.

If I were starting out today here is what I would do:

1. Find out which design medium I like the most: interactive, industrial, architectural, graphic, interior, fashion, etc.;
2. Find a school that teaches courses in the medium I like and has either separate UX support (electives) minimally, but ideally has concentrations in UX generally & IxD specifically;
3. Intern at trans- or converged design organizations (hard to find but they exist);
4. Find a job at the same type of organization, but different.

But it doesn’t end there, right? What happens then? What happens after my fifth year? Where do I go? What do I become?

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 SOURCE : johnnyholland.org  PAR: alexis mouthon  ACCÈS DIRECT A LA PLATEFORME: PSST.FR

 UNE INITIATIVE DE: POURQUOI TU COURS?  AGENCE DE PLANNING STRATEGIQUE 2.0  DIRIGÉE PAR: Jérémy Dumont

Social business innovation: Efficiency and transformation through the use of social tools. By David Cushman

Announcing: Social Business Innovation Awards

Social business innovation: Efficiency and tranformation through the use of social tools.

We have the best set of tools in history for people to find each other and act together to create and improve on the things that matter to them.

What are we doing with them?

Some businesses and organisations are grasping them to wikifix their products and services, to deliver best-fit R&D and NPD and join in waste-free people-powered communications and marketing. The wikifixing of the world has begun.

Those engaging in the process reach new levels of efficiency thanks to an ever-better fit with the needs of their partners - those formerly known as the customer. (By way of disclosure, that's what we at 90:10 Group help organisations with).

I hope you will join with me to celebrate the best of them - and through this find a path to the communities-of-purpose-driven future of the organisation.

So each month this blog will host a Social Business Innovation of The Month award, nominated by you and voted on by you. The format is very much inspired by Neil Perkin's ThinkTank.

The awards are to recognise great work in open/social business/organisational design/innovation/tranformation/efficiency using social technologies.

The winners will enter a case-study Hall of Fame to be shared with all - and in which the winners can revel in the glory of their peers' admiration ;-). More importantly, we can all get inspiration and guidance.

We'll have some (digital) badges for nominees and winners too (logos etc in production, and if you want to contribute ideas/creative talent please drop my90:10 colleague Ilkut a line. Make them better than my hastily assembled effort.)

I'm less concerned at this stage about the niceties of defining specific rules (they will emerge), more with encouraging your participation - and that of those you know will care.

So at this stage, let's just nominate what we think is great from anything that's been done right up until now.

I hope one of the side effects will be discovery for those of us working, or planning on working, in this space, too.

But, before we get a chance to vote, we need some nominations.

Just post yours as a comment with a link to anything relevant (slidedeck, blogpost, video etc) and at the end of January we'll open the voting.

Please share with those who will care.

More informations

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 SOURCE : fasterfuture.blogspot.com  PAR: alexis mouthon  ACCÈS DIRECT A LA PLATEFORME: PSST.FR

 UNE INITIATIVE DE: POURQUOI TU COURS?  AGENCE DE PLANNING STRATEGIQUE 2.0  DIRIGÉE PAR: Jérémy Dumont

Trends 2010 - Ten ways social media will change in 2010: cohesive experience, not limited by technology, mobile, battle for the content, ROI, Online-Offline integration, women will rule social media, new domains... by Ravit Lichtenberg

10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010

This time last year, I wrote about the 10 ways social media will change 2009, and while all predictions have materialized or are on their way, it has only become clear in recent months how significant of a change we've seen this year. 2009 will go down as the year in which the shroud of uncertainty was lifted off of social media and mainstream adoption began at the speed of light. Barack Obama's campaign proved that social media can mobilize millions into action, and Iran's election protests demonstrated its importance to the freedom of speech.

This guest post was written by Ravit Lichtenberg, founder and chief strategist atUstrategy.com - a boutique consultancy focusing on helping companies succeed. Ravit authors a blog at www.ravitlichtenberg.com.

Today, it is impossible to separate social media from the online world. Facebook reached 350 million users last month -- 70% of whom are outside the US -- and it accounts for 25% of the Web's traffic, according to Pew nearly one in five people on the web use Twitter or some other service to check status messages, and 94% of enterprisesplan to maintain or increase their investment in enterprise social media tools. The social media conversation is no longer considered a Web 2.0 fad -- it is taking place in homes, small businesses and corporate boardrooms, and extending its reach into the nonprofit, education and health sectors. From feeling excitement, novelty, bewilderment, and overwhelmed, a growing number of people now speak of social media as simply another channel or tactic.

So what will social Web bring next? What will "being connected" mean? What will the next experience be for the 2 two billion people who are connected to the Internet? Here are 10 ways what we've called social media will evolve in 2010.

Social Media Will Become a Single, Cohesive Experience Embedded In Our Activities and Technologies

By this time next year, social media will no longer be "social media" -- it will be an integrated, unquestionable component of your online and offline experience. Last year we spoke of cross-platform integration across media sites. Open APIs and OpenID made that possible, and even LinkedIn announced last month that it too will finally open its APIs. 2010 will be about integration and a single, cohesive experience across platforms as well as across products and devices -- Web, mobile, TV, and video -- will become near-inseparable experiences.

Users will access content from any device or platform, co-create and mashup their photos, videos and text with traditional content while interacting with each other. Publishers will create new kinds of content for the connected world, and the last years' lull in good entertainment will finally be lifted. This trend will cut across all of our activities -- from playing games to shopping to emailing and texting -- nothing will be lost; everything we do will be gathered and streamed together, allowing people to view their world of activities as if it were projected in front of them, open to change, review and input at any point in time from any device or online tool.

Social Media Innovation Will No Longer Be Limited By Technology

With Web technology maturing and the near-elimination of previous barriers such as closed platforms and discrete logins, companies will now look to innovate the way they use existing technology, rather than focus on technology enhancements themselves. We will see a move to leverage existing assets -- content and capabilities -- in new ways, turning information to wisdom and insight to action. Whereas once user research required focus groups and usability tests, companies will utilize the Web's capabilities to achieve the same. Naturally occurring conversations will be utilized in product innovation and design, and companies will create incentives for people's attention and engagement while repurposing and analyzing content and engagement in new ways that will deliver valuable input.

Mobile Will Take Center Stage

Worldwide, the iPhone alone accounts for about 33% of mobile web traffic and IDC predicts the number of mobile web users will hit one billion by 2010. As the technological barriers come down, people will increasingly use their phones on-the-go to access social networks, search, read content and find location-based information. Our phones will be used as a central hub and beacon -- enabling a slew of new capabilities and experiences.

Expect an Intense Battle As People and Companies Look To Own Their Own Content

2009 marked the year of open Web, and divergence of content, making content available anywhere, anytime, by anyone and to everyone; it was the year content exploded across the web, platforms and devices. The issue Google solved so magically -- content find-ability -- will become all but moot in the coming years. Instead, content relevance and quality will become the key focus. In 2010 we will start to see convergence as companies take measures to own their own content, its location and its cost. Last month, Rupert Murdoch announced he may opt News Corp out of Google, instructing it to de-index its publications from the search engine and giving exclusive rights to Bing for a fee. This means that content publishers will be able to determine where they make their content available and at what cost.

With the growth of user generated content and the dwindling relevance of search results, people will gradually shift their trust from large aggregators like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and move to searching and finding content at specific locations and, eventually, creating and integrating their own content hub into the rest of their personal digital experience. "People don't realize that everything they do -- on Facebook, Ning, Google and with their credit cards -- is being collected, tracked, analyzed, owned and monetized by these companies who provide (so-called) free services. It's not a healthy model." Says John Faber, COO of af83, a Drupal development house and co-founder of the upcoming DrupalCon.

Enterprises Will Shape the Next Generation of What We've Called "Social Media"

It was easy to forget that enterprises and large institutions are the originators of some of social media's pillars: listservs, forums, intranets and collaboration tools. As social media became a public domain, enterprises have been cautious participants, predominantly in the product space, with few visionary leaders like Zappos, IBM and Dell. But cautionary they are no more. With a reported average of 25% increase in funds allocation toward social media activities, in 2010 we will see a surge in adoption of social media across product, services and solutions companies.

Having the need and the funds, enterprises will determine the next generation of social experiences. They will push enhancements that meet their needs, specifically around monitoring, automation, alignment with the sales cycle and integration with existing systems, expanding social "media" to encompass the ecosystem of social computing across solutions, and making them actionable for the company. Jive, blueKiwi, Remindo and Sharepoint support companies internally. Most recently, Salesforce.com released Chatter, designed to turn the corporation, and CRM, social. With its APIs opening later this year, "Chatter can become a new layer over its Force platform, already being used by 68,000 customers, enabling companies and developers to leverage the Salesforce infrastructure in a secure environment," said Bruce Francis, VP corporate strategy Salesforce.com.

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Photo by Francois Bouly

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 SOURCE : readwriteweb.com  PAR: alexis mouthon  ACCÈS DIRECT A LA PLATEFORME: PSST.FR

 UNE INITIATIVE DE: POURQUOI TU COURS?  AGENCE DE PLANNING STRATEGIQUE 2.0  DIRIGÉE PAR: Jérémy Dumont

A free teleseries called Women on the Edge of Evolution: Awakening to the Power to Co-create our Lives and Shape our Collective Future. By Siona van Dijk

Gaia Community Announcements News and an Invitation: Women on the Edge Copyright - Google Images Hello beautiful Gaians...    Last October, Gaia partnered with Claire Zammit and Katherine Woodward Thomas--two women very near to my own heart--to bring into being a free teleseries called Women on the Edge of Evolution: Awakening to the Power to Co-create our Lives and Shape our Collective Future. It's been an honor to support, and incredible to witness this unfold; within the first couple of months of the series, over 35,000 women gathered to create a space to engage the biggest questions facing women today.  So far we've explored topics of feminine power and strength, intuition, creativity, and voice, and the relationship between our inner transformations and the future of the world. We've been transported by Jean Houston's incredible gifts of imagination, and listened to Jean Bolen on the power of circles. The women who've spoken so far have been just incredible--inspiring, compassionate, and magnificent in the generosity of their visions--and it's rare that I didn't leave a call with a full and grateful heart.  So I'm delighted to share that we’ve added a whole new line up of speakers, including Marianne Williamson, Joan Borysenko, Alanis Morissette, Vicki Robin, Rickie Byars Beckwith, Kathlyn Hendricks, Arielle Ford, and Melissa Etheridege.    Even better, after each call you’ll now have the opportunity to participate in the “Evolutionary Women’s Café,” engaging in intimate conversation about the day’s topic over the phone in a small group with other women from all corners of the globe. Again, this is a completely free event, and all you need to participate is a phone (and / or a computer).  The calls are each held on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings, and you can either listen live on the phone or online, or, if the timing is inconvenient, download the recordings later to listen at any time. .

    I do hope you'll join us, and that, if you've already been listening, you'll join me in helping to spread the world!     All of the women leaders have generously volunteered their time and their wisdom so that as many of us as     possible can come together to awaken our power to shape the future, and the more hearts we can reach, the     better. Invite your sisters, your mothers, your daughters... because the future includes us all. :)

    To our evolution, awakening, and ever-expanding awareness and care...

    

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 SOURCE : gaia  PAR: alexis mouthon  ACCÈS DIRECT A LA PLATEFORME: PSST.FR

 UNE INITIATIVE DE: POURQUOI TU COURS?  AGENCE DE PLANNING STRATEGIQUE 2.0  DIRIGÉE PAR: Jérémy Dumont

13 Most Creative Tea Bags

1. There is a bird in my tea!

2. Outdoor sports attached to the tea bags strings  as advertise to House Café in Istanbul, Turkey.

 

4.  Hang Me Tea Bags by designer Soon Mo Kang

5. Maum tea bags collection by WDARU design studio:

Swimming Pool Tea Packaging

School Bus Tea Packaging

Christmas Tree Tea Packaging

Sexy man in my tea

6. Rebranding The Traditional Teabag Usage - inspired by Japanese CHASEN (Loose leaf tea stirring equipment), ” tea bags are attached inside the teastick so there is no need of using sticks separately for stirring nor to throw away the tea bags.” 

 

 7. T-bag: Designed by Felix Reinki, it’s truly a ‘t-bag’, it anchors itself firmly on your cup.

8. tPod by Elisabeth Soós – small paper boats attached to tea bags, while sort of an anchor is made out of tea.

9.  Ineeka Tea Bag - pour the hot water directly onto the leaves without them scattering. The leaves float around in the open bag and paper arms and the sides hold the bag.

10. Tea Stick designed by Allesandro –  made with compostable materials and contains a single serving of tea.

11. World’s Most Expensive Tea Bag studded with 280 diamonds worth £7,500 and was made by a British jeweler in 2005 to celebrate the 75th birthday of PG Tips.

12. Tea Forte- Packaging from designer P Hewitt is a tall polyhedral shape with a cute tiny leaf on top.

13.  Tea Bag Lighting by Korean designer Wonsik Chae – spread light all over your drink

 Source : 1designperday

 POSTED ON CONTAGIOUS IDEAS : 2.0 strategic planning   BY :andreea_hirica  THE BEST OF OUR BLOGS  PSST.FR

 AN  INITIATIVE OF POURQUOI TU COURS ?  2.0  STRATEGIC PLANNING AGENCY    jérémy dumont DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC PLANNING

One possible concept for the future of Magazines

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

 Source : Wenovski

 POSTED ON CONTAGIOUS IDEAS : 2.0 strategic planning   BY :andreea_hirica  THE BEST OF OUR BLOGS  PSST.FR

 AN  INITIATIVE OF POURQUOI TU COURS ?  2.0  STRATEGIC PLANNING AGENCY    jérémy dumont DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC PLANNING