Copy and Paste Urbanism - New Songdo

Friend and colleague Franz Dill sends along a great article from Fast Company, "Cisco's Big Bet on New Songdo: Creating Cities From Scratch" here.

Having experienced the building and growth of cities from scratch such as Dubai, a key aspect missing in the article is the fact that humans form societies and the societies revolve around culture.  The success of copied and pasted cities will depend on whether the regime or government supporting the effort is autocratic or democratic.  Autocratic regimes will have a higher success rate with copying and pasting.  A democratic environment that will respect individual rights and choices, either perceived or real, will have a tendency to challenge the status quo represented by the product (city) being replicated.

Replicating cities in democracies will need a substantial marketing budget to be successful!

Also, such cities developed in regions where the qualitative and quantitative value to the inhabitants increases substantially, the success rate for a short period of time will again be good.

In the final analysis, if a people or place defining the cities, regions, or nations do not represent a uniqueness or distinction, after the initial uptick the sustainability of such becomes questionable.

Creative Thinking

Sharp designer Raheel Waqar passes along a nice write up on Creative Thinking from Interbrand here.  The article has a few nuggets on brand focused approach to solution development, but it does come across as a pamphlet for Interbrand marketing.

I always refer to Edward De Bono when it comes to "thinking" based ideation, conceptualization moving into analysis and realization of a solution.  See De Bono books on the subject here.

User Centric Design is Dead

Found at Design Sojourn "User Centered Design Innovation is Dead", details here.  Reminds me of a Steve Jobs quote - "You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new."

Istabsir: Reflect and Contemplate

Following is an interesting videographic and photographic view point on the various aspects of life in the UAE in a weekly series started by the Abu Dhabi newspaper The National here.  It also highlights where the nation has come from and where it may be headed.

In-Context Consumer Innovation

Prith Banerjee, Director of HP Labs talks about the importance of innovation in-context of the consumer's environment, from the McKinsey:

"Today, HP Labs is in seven different locations around the world. We are in India, China, Russia, Israel, and all over the place. And the reason we moved to those locations has nothing to do with cheap labor. By moving a researcher from Palo Alto to India—and maybe the cost is half that in India—it has nothing to do with cheap labor.

It has to do with the researchers in India trying to tap into the talent in India. And the researchers in India are actually working on projects that are relevant to that context. So HP Labs India, its mission is innovation for the next billion customers.

I strongly believe that it is not very easy for researchers sitting in Palo Alto to imagine the problems for the billion people in India, the vegetable vendors in India. What kind of cell phones, what kind of PDA devices would they need to solve their day-to-day problems?

Sitting here in Palo Alto, you imagine that the whole world is developed, and it’s not. So the researchers in India are actually working on precisely those problems. They are looking at rich, intuitive interfaces; they are looking at devices, sort of a smart phone for the Indian market. There are a billion people in India. More than 70 percent of the people have cell phones, but only 5 percent of people have PCs, computers, in their homes. So what we are trying to do is to see how we can enable the remaining 95 percent of people in India to embrace computing.

The challenge isn’t that they can’t afford a computer. It’s true, a computer is $1,000. But they are affording televisions. They’re affording cars. They’re affording scooters. So clearly it is not the price, it is the value. Can we bring value to those people in India? And that’s an example of a project that is going on—it’s a project called a value device, a sort of cloud service and a platform environment that they are working on in India. Completely innovative. And those kinds of projects would not have happened from the researchers in Palo Alto."

Economic Forecasts

A valuable quote to remember regarding predictions on economics: "The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable," said J.K. Galbraith, a Harvard economist.

China replaces Germany to become world's largest exporter

Via Tony Tsai - "China replaces Germany to become world's largest exporter; US experts: Chinese companies are not powerful on their own:  China has replaced Germany to become the world's largest exporter in 2009, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing data from Global Trade Information Services. Scott Kennedy, a China expert and political scientist at Indiana University, says that the high volume of China's exports "is not speaking to how important and powerful Chinese companies are on their own" because 60% of China's exports were generated from foreign-controlled enterprises. [ifeng.com, 2010.01.06]"

Media Shows Its Ignorance on Innovation

Good friend Franz Dill shares thoughts on a ABC article on innovation here.

Alcatel-Lucent Seeks Wireless Innovation

Sarfraz Haroon passes along Alcatel-Lucent's foray into the global invention network - "As part of a program called TechQuest, Alcatel-Lucent is seeking applications from wireless / mobile technology experts for applications in the areas of public safety, entertainment, eHealthcare and eLearning".  See details here.  Just don't call it Open Innovation!

The "New" Old Market - Muslim Consumer

Having developed the focus on the Muslim Consumer at P&G at the highest level, it is interesting to see mainstream marketing and communication companies exploring new revenue streams in this consumer sector.  Astute P&G colleague Amer Almomen passes along WPP's thinking around the 1.6 billion consumer awaiting marketing messages, see article here.

Overall, the article shows the early approach to be exploratory while unburdened from cliches about Islam.  Yet, categorization (essential for agencies to develop processes) is nascent - to "touch" the "life" of the "boss" through messaging in the Islamic environment requires minds that have grown up in the environment, or development of large knowledge bases on behaviors created through engagement and intelligence extracted from them.  One such organization is Maktoob Research, recently acquired by Yahoo, see details here.

The Muslim Consumer's diversity from ethnic to economic to geographic is an exciting realm to delve into!  Good luck to all entrants!

American Express - Consumer Analytics and Insights

A little bit old news, yet for consumer research and even quants in the the consumer research and insights field, this is exceptional news:

"American Express is unleashing a powerful weapon: a new unit that will harness transaction data for its 90 million cardholders to inform both marketing decisions and larger strategic issues."

This is transactional data on committed to using their credit card consumers and American Express has always been brilliant at understanding their consumer.  I believe the value here will be exceptional.

See the cached article off Google cache here or search for it on AdAge here.

New Currency on the Horizon for the Gulf

The Dubai concerns and continued global economic fluctuations are resulting in pushing forward the single Gulf Cooperative Council's (GCC) plans for a single currency among the 6 Gulf nations of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.  Read details here.

Interesting to note from the manufacturer and buyers of consumer goods perspective is the fact that the single currency has not been pegged yet.  Dollar? Euro? Gold? Basket?