An experiment in light expression

via Popular Science, a vintage 1878 piece by Charles Peirce on ‘How to Make our Ideas Clear’.

The article ends thus…“How to give birth to those vital and procreative ideas which multiply into a thousand forms and diffuse themselves everywhere, advancing civilization and making the dignity of man, is an art not yet reduced to rules, but of the secret of which the history of science affords some hints”.

I’m looking forward to Pangea Day - a striking and timely concept in a fragmented and scattered world.
Starting at 18:00 GMT on May 10, 2008, locations in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro will be linked for a live program of powerful films, live music, and visionary speakers. The entire Pangea Day program will be broadcast in 7 languages  to millions of people worldwide through the internet, television, and mobile phones.

The 24 short films to be featured have been selected from an international competition that generated more than 2,500 submissions from over one hundred countries. The films were chosen based on their ability to inspire, transform, and allow one see the world through another person’s eyes.

Pangea Day was conceptualized by Jehane Noujaim after she won the annual TED prize.

I have been doing a bit of reading on the current state of renewable energy or clean tech as the buzzword goes. One of the interesting areas of research within clean tech is the generation of electricity through an understanding of one of nature’s most potent phenomena - Photosynthesis.

There is of course the traditional area of photovoltaics which deals with the science and engineering of artificial devices such as solar cells. However, solar cells can still utilize only about 10-15% of the light energy as compared to the 98% utilization that nature has perfected over billions of years.
What about generating electricity directly from nature - say from a tree? I had this surreal hour long conversation with my good friend Babloo on this subject and then decided to do a bit of digging  on the state of this particular question - is it possible to generate industrial grade electricity directly from within nature instead of through solar cell like devices?

Turns out it is! MagCap Engineering in Massachusetts recently revealed that they have developed circuitry that converts the natural energy from say, a tree, into useable DC power capable of sustaining a continuous current to charge and maintain a battery at full charge.

Some researchers are trying out different tricks including the oldest one - mimicking nature by creating artificial leaf-like systems from bio materials instead of silicon. Others such as Barry Bruce of the University of Tennessee are of the opinion that you can grow electricity within a natural setting - what he calls akin to growing a power plant in a green field.
I also stumbled upon the New Energy India group, a non-profit organization dedicated to the field of renewable energy in India - I hope to get in touch with them and find out more about interesting developments in this field in Bangalore, and India.

Via Outlook Business - a somewhat critical view of whether the Barcamp unconference phenomenon in India needs to revisit its entrepreneurial roots to avoid imploding upon itself.

A related article notes notes that events such as proto.in and headstart.in seem to be making more headway because they are more self-selective in nature:

My experience in organizing Dcamp Bangalore last year was that it is indeed difficult to get the balance between top down structuring (which you need a bit of to get the event off the ground) and bottom up collaboration (which is sort of the whole point).

That being said, I remain a firm believer that unconferences (even if somewhat directed) have the potential to start radical conversations, are a very democratic form of dialogue and are evolutionary and emergent in nature - which makes them much more interesting than top down events. Unless of course its something as interesting as the World Debating Championships : - )

Business Today recently released a BT-Monitor group study on India’s most ‘innovative’ companies. This is a timely study and it brings out some of the key areas in which Indian companies are innovating – unique distribution channels, customizations for first time consumers, lower cost product development, and in some cases, technology interventions.

However, I believe this study is incomplete and skewed because it fails to take into account two dimensions that are highly critical to innovation: Consumer Experience and Product/service differentiation through Design.

Consider similar lists released recently by Fortune and Business Week documenting the world’s most innovative companies.

Here is Fortune’s top 10 list: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mostadmired/best_worst/best1.html)

Now look at Business Week’s top 50 list: (http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/most_innovative/index.asp)

Scanning across the names of the world’s top innovators what are the common threads you find? Is it simply low cost product development? (No- they all contract manufacture in China). Is it lower prices (No – companies like Whole Foods and Apple have significant markup)

No – what is truly common (or uncommon) to Apple, Whole Foods, Amazon, Starbucks and even once-stodgy technology giants like Cisco is their relentless pursuit to creating a compelling, integrated and delightful user experience for their end consumers. Not only how to streamline costs and operations but how to make their offerings resonate with customers’ deepest needs and desires.

Here’s how BW put it “Not so long ago, no conversation about innovation would be complete without the story of 3M inventor Art Fry’s eureka moment that led to the Post-it Note. Today, that tale, which verges on cliche, has been almost universally replaced by the story of the iPod, Apple’s omnipresent icon of design. It should come as little surprise, then, that Apple tops the BusinessWeek-Boston Consulting Group’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for the third year in a row. That sort of staying power speaks volumes about the sort of innovation that matters today. Unlike the Post-it Note, which proves the value of lone inventors, the iPod epitomizes today’s innovation sensibilities. These include the ascendance of design, the focus on the user’s experience, and the power of ecosystems….”

My conclusion – some if not many of the Indian firms that are being touted as ‘innovative’ as currently innovative simply because of a temporary cost benefit, a monopolistic market position, or deep pockets. These firms will struggle in years to come as Indian consumers and indeed global consumers become more and more demanding in the ‘experiences’ from these companies and their products and services.

Here is my pick of two sectors that may lose their ‘innovation’ edge unless they get their customer experience defined right, and soon.

1.      Airlines – In this sector, consumer experience can range from frustrating to terrifying. Read some of the first hand accounts below on the rudeness, unprofessionalism and callousness of the service staff of some Indian airlines.

http://expertdabbler.com/2006/07/25/air-deccan-simply-cry/print/

http://jerinj.blogspot.com/2006/07/low-cost-airline-take-train.html

http://www.m-travel.com/news/2007/03/air_deccan_taki.html

http://youthcurry.blogspot.com/2007/07/strange-bedfellows.html

2.      Banking  – Untrained and unprofessional customer service reps, non-working ATMs over holiday weekends, long queues at bank centers, lousy ‘relationship managers’, spam calls – there is a litany of complaints against most Indian banks and the way they treat their customers.

http://www.complaints.com/2006/november/22/Horror_Exp._with_HDFC_BANK_10047.htm

http://www.mouthshut.com/review/HDFC_Bank-29278-1.html

http://rediff.co.in/getahead/2007/sep/28cards.htm

To end things on a more positive note, I would say that the Telecom, FMCG and Automotive sectors have comparatively been showing much more initiative and maturity in defining good consumer experiences by optimizing the various touchpoints of the experience (pre-sales, sales, service, repeat sales). They also seem to have taken notice of the need for differentiating themselves based on design innovations (Think Swift and Scorpio, Airtel HelloTunes and mCheck payments, think Kurkure and Bingo)

Via Tom Stewart on the upcoming ISO 13407, a good article on the need to include the language of ‘user experience’ within existing usability standards. Mr. Stewart’s expansion to the ISO standard will define User Experience as ‘all aspects of the user’s experience when interacting with the product, service, environment or facility….a consequence of the presentation, functionality, system performance, interactive behaviour, and assistive capabilities of the interactive system….all aspects of usability and desirability of a product, system or service from the user’s perspective’.
I particularly liked the reference to the Apple Store in the article. I’ve used the Apple store as an example of stellar Customer Experience (not just individual user experience) in several of my presentations. Apple did so many things right - they followed the golden role of rapid, iterative prototyping (under the vision of Mickey Drexler and the smarts of Steve Jobs), they hired passionate Apple enthusiasts instead of the sorts of run of the mill floor staff you find at Best Buy or Walmart and they kept ‘live’ (Wifi/music/video enabled) products you could play with (which Nokia’s concept stores do a pretty tacky job of as far as I’m concerned) for as long as you want. The Apple store is a brilliant component of the Apple experience ecosystem.

All in all, the broadening of the ISO usability standard to ‘User Experience’ is a step in the right direction - Apple illustrates how user experience driven products and services can lead to significant market innovation. I hope more companies can learn from them without blindly imitating them.

The NYtimes reported the results of an interesting survey conducted with patients in North America at several top hospitals. The article notes that nationwide 67% patients mentioned they would recommend their institution to friends and relatives. It also notes….“Many patients reported that they had not been treated with courtesy and respect by doctors and nurses; that they had not received adequate pain medication after surgery; and that they did not understand the instructions they received when discharged from the hospital”. 

My personal hospital experiences always involve apprehension (what new papers do i need to fill out before the doctor condescends to see me), a bit of anger at how casually healthcare providers act (inured i’m sure by the sight of the dying day in and day out) and some relief when I leave the place - i almost find myself feeling  better when I leave a crowded, dark, dull hospital and feel the sun and wind on my face outside!

I’ve been coming across this ‘Healthcare experience’ discussion a lot lately. Last month as part of a workshop at IIT Kanpur we gave students the problem of redesigning  the healthcare system at the IIT through technology interventions (most groups came up with hybrid solutions - website and mobile SMS, mobiles and the IIT-wide intercom facility and such). One student group found through their discussions with staff and students at the healthcare center that patients felt doctors were ‘not touching us enough, not talking to us enough, not hearing us intently enough’. I also recall reading in Dan Pink’s Whole New Mind recently that several medical schools in North America have been teaching their students ‘empathy’, ’story telling’, ‘role playing’ and other such softer skills - which sounds like a good move.
I’m still skeptical though - will the medical profession ever embrace an open-source approach towards sharing medical knowledge and conducting treatments? Do they need to?

via the Economist - an objective summary of Social Networking and its business potential circa 2008. Their verdict? Social Networking is a great Internet success story with clear utility but may or may not be a sustainable business model. The article also notes ..”Historically, online media tend to start this way. The early services, such as CompuServe, Prodigy or AOL, began as “walled gardens” before they opened up to become websites. The early e-mail services could send messages only within their own walls (rather as Facebook’s messaging does today). Instant-messaging, too, started closed, but is gradually opening up. In social networking, this evolution is just beginning…”
I am curious about MingleBox and TechTribe and other high profile Indian social networking startups - how much will they scale by 2010? They seem to have a sound business model and a reasonably better and consistent user experience as compared to the run of the mill Indian social networking sites…

Is there a direct relationship between a company’s design investments and its stock market performance? Can PE firms and venture funds use such a relationship to select winners just as they use environment friendliness and carbon footprints?

The British Design Council which first came up with the ‘Design Index’ and ‘Emerging Index’ seems to think that there is. In a comprehensive study first released in 2005 (and updated in early 2008), they showed how an index of 61 top design-award winning companies had outperformed the FTSE by 200%.

The Design Council primarily used prestigious design awards (including by Interbrand). I think if someone wanted to take this research ahead, they could additionally look at:

-         Media coverage of customer reactions to the ‘design’ or ‘user experience’ of the company’s products and services

-         The company’s resource (human and infrastructure) investments in building core design competencies

-         The company’s global footprint (in case of multinationals)

-         The company’s history of using quantitative design and usability metrics to track improvements longitudinally

In these volatile financial times, I would be personally happy if someone could prove a ‘strong corelation’ between Design and stock market performance – at least then companies in India and China would ‘get’ the value of design and invest in building world class design teams and infrastructures.

70%Inspired by Vilayanur Ramachandran’s pioneering research on synesthesia and creativity (shown brilliantly in one of his TED lectures), this website created its own version of measuring your creativity through a quick-n-dirty synesthesia.
I also took the Apple addiction challenge and found that I was 26% addicted to Apple - and I don’t even own an iPhone or a Macbook Air yet!