Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Technological Fashion

I overheard a discussion today between one of my colleagues and our IT professor debating which industry was more interesting: fashion or technology? That led me to further ponder,

What exactly is fashion and what is in fashion?

This also made me begin thinking about whether or not technology could actually be fashionable. With its leading designs and cutting edge technology, Apple certainly believes it can pave the way in fashionable technology.

In recent years, technology has certainly adapted to become a fashion item, using sleek and modern hardware with increasingly easy-to-navigate interfaces – creating the social emergence of geek chic in everyday society. Technology has been incorporated into popular music, in order to create new sounds and musical dialogue previously deemed impossible. Electronic music is now commonplace, its intricate sounds and beats defying conventional music theories, becoming another fashionable interpretation of music.

So, it appears that technology can be considered in fashion. But on the flip side, can fashion, not just the design process itself, incorporate technology? Leading British contemporary fashion designer Hussein Chalayan, world renowned for his innovative designs, takes a progressive attitude towards applying new technology and social shaping technological norms into his designs.

For over fifteen years, Chalayan has experimented with design and technology, using a creative approach in linking cultural identity, displacement, and migration with fashion. The Design Museum in London, England is currently showcasing over a decade of his work, with exhibits including “Airborne”, a garment masterpiece that integrates the shimmering effects of Swarovski crystals with over 15,000 LED lights and “Before Minus Now”, which is a dress that is constructed of materials used in aircraft and can change shape with the touch of a remote control.

I guess FIT was progressive in naming its institution to describe where fashion and technology really do meet.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Phone Tech

I’m not a huge fan of mainstream radio play, but through the networking capabilities of Facebook, one of my friends posted a link to a song called "Kiss Me thru the Phone", and commented that her phone didn’t have such advanced capabilities…yet.

Only a decade ago cellular phones looked like bricks, used analog technology, and had limited data storage and processing power. Today, cel phones such as the 3G IPhone are crossing the threshold from 2G EDGE networks to 3G technology, allowing access to wireless phone, video, and broadband data streaming over a wide area, without connecting via Wi-Fi.[1]

Welcome to the cellular phone revolution. The advent of the Voice Over Internet Protocol ("VOIP")-enabled telephone was a disruptive technology that has overshadowed the traditional public switched telephone network, enabling unlimited long-distance calling over IP networks, such as the Internet, for a minimal fee.

In December, David Pogue commented on new cellular phone technologies and the ability for 3G cellular phones to incorporate a VOIP application on their phone to bypass expensive data and telephony roaming charges. Skype’s application has become the number-one download from Germany’s iPhone app store, and traditional cellular network companies such as AT&T and Deutsche Telekom are threatening to cut customers’ Internet access if they are using Skype’s free service.

How will consumers react to this resistance? Can cellular networks afford to resist the adoption of new technologies by threatening to sever consumers’ cellular phone plans?

Again, we examine the concepts of technological determinism versus social shaping. Jan Chipchase advises technology innovators to “embrace everyone on the planet” if they want to create the next big idea and that society will allow technology to innovate in ways innovators cannot anticipate. Therefore in creating the next “big idea”, innovators must be informed with societal trends and movements and infuse that knowledge into not only what they design, but how they design it.

It appears that society is becoming increasingly influential in how technology is applied in day-to-day activities. Companies need to be aware of consumer behavior and societal influences and work with, not against them, in incorporating new technology into our lives.

[1] http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/wireless.html

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

High Tech, High Touch

As a child in preschool, I remember one of my first encounters with forming words was playing with a set of building blocks, with colorful letters etched into the faces of the wooden cubes. More creative students were given the sets with different shapes, building fantastic fortresses that knights in shining armor would defend or castles with turrets, where princesses would let down their hair and be rescued by princes on white horses.

These large “blocks for tots” produce endless hours of childhood innocence and mesmerism, promoting the creative development of the brain’s right hemisphere. Children further develop their sense of feel and touch by stacking the blocks into an endless array of shapes, patterns, and forms. Through our early days, we are taught to sift, sort, and stack items, using our hands and eyes to organize images, thoughts, and ideas.

Now, in the new millennium, we have entered into a space linking technology with toys in ways never deemed possible during my childhood. Of course today we are bombarded with electronic games for children, singing plush animals, and even video consoles aimed for adults, but I am interested in a new application spanning a whole new market, from newborns to musicians, which roots humans to their primal instincts of touch and interaction using their fingers and hands.

Siftables is a tangible interaction platform that looks like a handful of electronic building tiles with miniature computer screens. By joining, tilting, or grouping tiles together, the user can form connections and explore interactions between the ideas presented on each tile.

The founders, David Merrill and Jeevan Kalanithi from MIT, aim to create new display devices that allow users to handle and display data in a natural, instinctive manner. Siftables paves way for a new mode of human-computer interaction, namely a tangible user interface (TUI), in contrast to the traditional graphical user interface (GUI), which some users may find constraining in today’s technological landscape. Since these 2-by-2 inch computer screens communicate with each other, they adapt and change based on their surrounding tiles and the relationships between them. Some of the applications shown on demonstrations include music composition, mathematical functions, and color mixology. These tiles have the ability not only to communicate wirelessly with each other, but also with a PC.

Imagine the ability for users to explore new relationships between ideas, thoughts, and images, and how educators can introduce new forms of learning into the traditional school system. Siftables allows humans to think beyond classifying and itemizing objects at an individual level and to explore how objects react with one another, similar to forces in nature. It appears that regardless of how basic building blocks evolve, our primary instincts urge us to explore these differences in order to quell our inquisitive nature and develop new meaning for ourselves and for our environment.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

6 degrees...and dropping

Researchers study the structure of social networks to understand relationships people form with one another. These networks are often based on a clustering concept, where connections are formed between individuals with a common theme, such as a shared interest or mutual friend. With the increased popularity of simplified personal homepages on social media sites such as Facebook, researchers can easily gathering information about social community formation, relationships between users, and the major influencers or mavericks within each group.

Mind mapping is a visual method of collecting images, words, thoughts, and subjects, and clustering them around a central word or idea. Users create diagrams in order to depict interactions and connections within large amounts of data. Similar to brainstorming, this method of data collection is non-linear, and encourages a radial approach to collecting thoughts associated to the main topic. This often results in users discovering new interconnections between two entities that were previously considered radically disconnected.

TouchGraph considers the notion of combining these two ideas together and creating a visual representation of social networks, allowing users to further explore connections between people, thoughts, and interests. On Amazon.com, TouchGraph introduces consumers to new products based on past purchases or browsed products. Instead of being “sold” recommended products by Amazon.com, consumers have the ability to discover how one product is related to another. This visualization may increase the recommended products’ relevance; thereby increasing a consumer’s interest in the product and lead to increased purchasing behavior, while expanding a consumer’s initial purchasing set.

This sounds great for marketers, doesn’t it? How about using this technology to allow users to further explore social networks? TouchGraph also allows users on Facebook to see how they are connected to people in different geographic locations and to explore relationships further by giving them a preview of those people’s friends. This means, people using TouchGraph who do not know you may have actually come across your profile, no matter how high you’ve placed your privacy settings. The issue is that you don’t even need to be using TouchGraph for users to see your profile.

When does data collection and visualization become too intrusive and how can it be monitored on the web? If this is the direction we are moving towards on the web, should we consider limiting the amount of personal information we post online? While TouchGraph is an amazing platform to understand more about consumer behavior and improve relationship marketing between buyers and sellers, it is also inhibiting our freedom and choice for privacy?

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Control Freak

TED.com is a fascinating source sharing new ideas within the technology, entertainment, and design realm. I came across this piece called "If I Controlled the Internet", by LA-based poet, Rives, which piqued my attention as it pertains to user and privacy control in our evolving Web2.0 environment.

The increasing popularity of user-generated media, such as Wikis and social networking sites, has shifted the manner in which individuals and businesses operate, communicate, and educate others. Universal sharing and global networking are becoming increasingly important terms in day to day activities. Not only are users taught to share their knowledge and voice their opinions, but they can also control the information they receive. Web blogs, portals, and feeds allow users to streamline content, giving them the ability to control what they see and hear.

The issue of control is pervasive. Technologies that are popular are the ones that allow users to feel more in control of the content they share with and receive from others. Are we interested in these applications because they allow us to unleash our inherent desire for control? Nonetheless, by allowing everyone to communicate and share ideas, thoughts, and images on a global platform, does that also shift the dynamics of privacy control in the marketplace?

By allowing “weapons of mass collaboration” to freely propagate the Web, the public has observed a movement away from individual content control and a decrease in the user’s ability to restrict private information from being shared and publicized online. With the evolution of the Internet creating this shift from individual to collaborative control, one may ask: who are today’s users, controllers, and owners of online data?

Even if we are “Empires of the Internet”, Rives reminds us that “we are still mortal” and prone to making mistakes. Should we allow our mishaps to be shared and discussed by others; and should we be asking ourselves: when is too much information, truly too much?

View the video here and follow along with the written dialogue below.

Friday, February 13, 2009

I've got a Crush...on Wine

In celebration of one of the most romantic holidays of the year, I wanted to share with you one of my greatest passions: wine. During this month, there are a handful of articles dedicated to wine and chocolate pairings, wines for special occasions, and even wines to seduce – Tablas Creek Vin de Paille Sacrerouge. Nevertheless, this post is not about to make you reel in disgust at another advertising ploy linked to one of the most marketed holidays of the year. Quite the contrary, it is about a website that encourages you to do something for yourself. Indulge your senses while engaging your mind – at Crushpad Winery, you will learn how to make your own wine.

A brief synopsis of Crushpad Winery is as follows: members can select a type of wine they want to create as seasoned wine experts guide them through a selection of grapes. Wine production experts will carefully create a wine through the members’ descriptions of wines they enjoy and once bottled, a design team will help create a personalized label for the wine. Members can keep wines for themselves or market their wines to interested buyers through Crushpad.

Although this may sound synonymous to other wine making companies, the difference between Crushpad and its predecessors is that Crushpad is online – a virtual production facility and marketplace. Crushpad Winery’s creators describe themselves as “wine industry veterans [coupled] with technology refugees.” The company has also created a virtual community space called Crushnet, where members can view other members’ profiles, learn about their wines, and form a social network based their common interests of wine and winemaking.

This is beginning to sound a little bit like Facebook-meets-Amazon-meets-a-Do-it-Yourself center, and its creators should be lauded for their brilliance. In today’s information age, individuals have a constant thirst for knowledge. With the advent of television networks such as the Food Network and HGTV, viewers are being taught to cook, home decorate, and design – services once only available by industry professionals. Our society has shifted to one of self-claimed experts, and therefore will only pay a premium for personalized services and products that they cannot easily replicate. Marketers acknowledge that consumers are not only interested in customization; today they seek an enhanced service experience aptly named customerization.

Customerization focuses on building relationships through two-way interaction between the buyer and seller. Online communities act as a platform to facilitate this communication; buyers can provide real-time feedback in a casual, forum setting, and sellers can continually adapt products and services to suit each person’s needs. Because these online communities bring together individuals with shared interests, marketers can truly understand its core consumers’ desires and adapt to changing trends in the marketplace at a faster pace.

Social media networking benefits consumers’ thirst for knowledge, the human need for social integration, and the producers’ desire to create better products and services. Building an online community can be considered a virtual product extension – a platform directly connected with the product, attracting and engaging an existing affinity group that feels strongly about that particular product. In retrospect, perhaps Crushpad Winery and Crushnet are Valentine’s gimmicks after all. Both websites do encourage members to get together and crush, but in this case they’re crushing for the love of good wine.

Monday, February 9, 2009

One Touch...More (local) Cheese, Please

Forget about the outdoor local farmers’ market this season. Spending a few weekend morning hours in the blithering cold is hardly what anyone wants to do these days. Local foodies, don’t despair. A new online retailer is bringing online shoppers a plethora of local foods via the web. The page is called Foodzie.com, by the makers of Etsy.com.

The premise behind Etsy.com was to allow craftsmen and women to post and sell handmade products through individual profile pages, accessed through the Etsy.com website. While the seller could post his/her products for free, Etsy.com would take a percentage cut of each sale. Likewise, Foodzie.com members can post artisanal produce for free, while Foodzie takes 20 percent of each food sale. While this is a high percentage fee compared to other online retailers, this is a significantly lower cut than the traditional supply chain distribution in the food industry, where small-scale farmers receive less than 25% of the final retail price.[1]

In the early 2000’s, strategists talked about disruptive technologies allowing change to the retail distribution model. With the elimination of the traditional “middleman” and the introduction of a virtual portal, this phenomenon allowed for the distribution and sale of goods via the Internet. This re-intermediation has changed the marketing and supply chain landscape, facilitating the idea of “many-to-many” exchanges. In effect, the use of the electronic commerce is aiming to aid a broad scope of retail supply chain activities, such as forecasting and replenishment, price discovery, and clearing.

What does this mean to consumers? For one, it allows for lower retail prices, because farmers are now enjoying larger margins from this direct virtual exchange. As well, it allows consumers access to a larger variety of artisanal goods. Nonetheless, this shift to the virtual world has definitely put a new spin on the term “local”, as consumers in South Carolina can now enjoy the fruits of labor of niche Californian farmers -- all at the click of a button. However, one may wonder of the carbon footprint effects of this new site. Unless sale and exchanges of goods can be consolidated and streamlined, the local UPS man may become busier than ever.


[1] Jang and Liu, “For the Love of Good Food, Entrepreneurship, Sustainability, and Technological Innovation in Localizing the Restaurant Supply Chain”, page 10.