Seduced by Generic Design

After seeing a poster for Tropicana Orange Juice, I thought it was an adbuster campaign. The ad looked so generic and so did the product hero shot that it looked like a fake ad with a fake product. So I went to the website (above) and it was their new package design. 

It was a real product with a package design that looked like a generic product. Is the seduction of clean design turning brands into unemotional products?

I have to admit, I do like the way the information is arranged on the package. It also does not disappear on the shelf with the large photo repeating along a row. 

Tropicana is also a member of the Carton Council that has a great campaign about recycling cartons:

http://www.werecyclecartons.com/

During my research of this product I also found that PepsiCo is making to reduce their carbon footprint with this product. How green is your orange juice?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/business/22pepsi.html

Filed under: Creative Direction, Environment, Packaging, Positive Change

PET Recycled Bags

Here are some cool bags made from recycled PET bottles. The full article at Treehugger and the online shop is from www.act2greensmart.com. I hope to see some cooler designs from this material from TUMI and other bag designers soon.

Filed under: Differentiation, Environment, Positive Change , design, laptop bags, recycled

Genealogy and Family Social Networking

I have been using Geni.com for over a year now and never thought the site would have such an impact in my life. Facebook is a bit uninteresting to family members and though they have privacy features it is still difficult to master, control, and trust. It makes so much more sense to have a site dedicated to families to communicate and document past and future events. I am uninterested in ‘living online’ with social network sites and more interested in ‘living outside’ with friends and family so you will find this review coming from someone who spends little time on these network sites but just enough to keep them active.

I am actually feeling a bit guilty writing this now but I hope that someone else finds this personal experience interesting and wants to keep family close – but not that close. 

Usability
I do miss logging in and seeing the visual tree but the Facebook-like feeds of activity is very interesting and comforting. The site is easy to use for a six-year old and a 66-year old. I have my daughter using the site to view photos – and now videos – of family. She is also more interested in the family tree than I ever was. My grandmother is a huge genealogy nut and has written several books on family names but I never shared her enthusiasm until now. If you have formphobia like myself, then you will appreciate the polite, clear, and engaging way the Geni website collects data. It as not as demanding as you may think and before I knew it I had a lot of info, photos, and a growing tree after a few other family members got motivated to post their family info. 

Friends
I hope Geni gets enough feedback on this because I see some hints of adding friends to the network and I am concerned with this idea. There are photos and details that I would not mind sharing with close family friends but I have more public websites for that, Flickr, Ofoto, Facebook, etc. This is not a public website and the differentiator is that very fact. The black and white ‘family only’ format gives me the peace of mind to use and ask family members to trust. The only way to allow godparents or very close friends of family is to have approval by 10 or more other family members. Friends could only see that immediate family info because other family members may not want to be contacted by this person who could abuse the trust of this family network. 

Videos
Finally! This should have been added at launch but I know priorities are all part of the launch and beta process. I have been using Vimeo.com for posting private videos and HD footage of family events and will continue to use that for HD but then post a version for family to see on Geni. Vimeo password protects the videos but it is clumsy and if someone forgets the password I am bothered all the time. The videos can be posted from your hard drive or created on the fly with a webcam which is great for those times you want to capture a moment and a video camera is not as handy as a laptop or cam.  Once downside is all videos are posted as public and you cannot send someone a video greeting like a Happy Birthday! message. It is also a bit lackluster experience to watch the status of the video upload/encoding process – but it works and a small video clip is there. I will still use Vimeo for my HD versions of the footage.

Business model
I can forecast a few ways to make money from members but whatever they do a bit of resistance will be normal. If they can continue to build trust with the product and not violate privacy concerns then I am sure users will be keen on a minimal fee for upkeep. Advertising would feel like a violation of trust if the ads were targeted based on data that was submitted. Sponsoring areas by certain brands would be the most tactful and valuable method to associate a brand with a trusted site. Demanding users to click outside their path is asking a lot and I would feel much better about a company who spends their ad dollars on the Photos section of Geni rather than invading content space. 

Summary
Overall, this Geni product has been a great way to connect with the people I care about most: family. Like a lot of families, everyone is scattered all over the place and it’s nice that we have phones, email, etc. but when I want to ‘reach out and touch someone’ I like to create a video, photo slideshow, or make a card with my daughter and send it. If Geni can look at the real world experiences and mimic those on their site it will be a lot more personal and a great alternative to connect.

• Surprise birthday on webcam. Now they have video capabilities it would be awesome to have family from all over the world to get online at one time and wish someone a happy birthday. 
• Send real gifts and not these silly icons without a message. 
• Send personal video greetings.
• Donate in a family members name.
• Sponsor events, walks, and other things to raise money.
• Post needs and wants. 
• Allow embedded content.
• Encourage family reunions – this would make ‘create an event’ a bit more confusing though.

Filed under: Differentiation, Positioning, Positive Change , family, genealogy, social network

Jobs of Web 2.0 = Fringe Gigs of Today

 

Jobs of Web 2.0

Fast Company posted a 10 slide piece about jobs that exist in the online world – even though the editor has some slides and text in the wrong order. I thought it was odd that they titled it Jobs of Web 2.0 since these roles are pretty commonplace. Even around in 1998 a lot of companies had the same positions with varying titles. I was designing type, iconography, and interfaces for SonicNet in 1996 and they had someone hacking the social software and developing audience more than trying to trick Google.  

The real jobs of the future are going to be how well you interact with people, develop ideas as a team, and make deals. Since most of the jobs are putting people in front of computers, these roles can easily be outsourced. See Daniel Pink’s Whole New Mind to be convinced that these roles will be low-wage roles in booming cities.

I do worry about sending so many jobs outside the U.S. when there are communities of people who need jobs. What would happen if we trained Detroit auto-workers to be a web-hacker/support person? I know some people in Flint, Michigan who would embrace a 24K – 30K salary.  With the way the dollar is headed and the rising rates of Indian companies this is what some companies are paying to firms who give a fraction of that to their employees.  

Jobs of Web 2.0

Filed under: Differentiation, Positive Change, Poverty , daniel pink, fast comapny, job-shifting, jobs, outsourcing, web 2.0

$10,000 rebate for the 2-Year Plan?

I am not sure if there will really be a “rebate” but the notion of building a company around the same type of love affair people all over the world have with their phones is very clever indeed. Americans have had this affair with their cars for decades but the mobile phone is the object people all over the world love. If the electric car can be introduced to consumers the same way a phone plan is initiated then the barrier to entry will be minimal and attractive.

This is an innovative piece and with the backing they have it is beyond “could happen” and in the realm of happening. This will not happen in the good old USA at first but other countries will adopt this and like the mobile phones, we will get a version that barely resembles the orginal vision because of all the companies who had to get their sticky fingers in the mix.

Time will tell and by the time the warranty is up on the Prius, I can get one of these and upgrade the batter via thrid-party on the Toyota. Petrol? What petrol?

Visit projectbetterplace.com

Filed under: Differentiation, Environment, Positive Change , , alternative fuel, electric cars, prius, shai agassi

We Feed the World

There are a lot of films to watch in my Netflix queue and sometimes a film pops up on Sundance or IFC right before I go to bed. Sure I have Tivo but there is something about documentaries that seem to hover in the “soon to be deleted” bubble but on DVD I seem to watch them right away.

The documentary “We Feed the World” by director Erwin Wagenhofer was done in 2005 and it seems like it shold have been long ago. Why have western cultures trusted everything that is grown and sold at markets for so long? Sure, the price is part of it but when farmers would rather grow vegetables that will look better, taste worse, and ruin the land and any future harvests because of our shopping habits, then it is two colliding forces: 1. poor shopper education influencing the industry and 2. corporations taking advantage of the ignorant shoppers by providing retailers with engineered end of life products. I can only blame myself for falling prey to the the same thinking. If it looks good, it must taste good. Wrong.

But this film goes much further and the main takeaway for me was the fact that we have a global food surplus for over 60 billion people and yet 100,000 people die of starvation every year. Nobody should die of starvation in 2008. Malnutrition cases should be able to drop in half by 2010.

Things are changing now and the internet – and positive change organizations – is becoming the vehicle for the voice that has been suppressed for too long.

http://www.we-feed-the-world.at/en/facts.htm

Filed under: Environment, Positive Change, Poverty , corporate farming, documentary, globalization, starvation, we feed the world

The $200 iPhone for change

What an opportunity that was missed by Apple to be able to have $100 – $200 of the dollars that was padded for profits in case the phone did not meet expectations to go to worthy causes. Look at what Good Magazine is doing:http://www.goodmagazine.com/subscribe

Then we have the One Laptop per Child program and to be honest, I am sure these children in rural areas would rather have an iPhone. But either way, a create the $200 iPhone or a step up to the current positive change plate and promote that a portion of proceeds that go to an organization of your choice. That would have been a much better idea than to pad the phone and then surprise people with conditional rebates.

Shame on you Apple. And after the critisism and reply for environmentally sound practices and manufacturing you should know better. Look at the products that people are supporting because they can buy their gadgets and feel good also. Didn’t you have a “Product Red” iPod Nano?

http://www.joinred.com/

I hope the next generation iPhone is as globally concious as the current generation iPhone users.

Filed under: Differentiation, Positioning, Positive Change

One Laptop Per Child – Plus One for You, Too!

Today, the OLPC Foundation announced the campaign that will allow the donor to get their paws on one of the XO laptops when they get pony up $399 to the non-profit organization. This was done after they had positive results from a focus-group study conducted with children aged 7 – 11 years-old. It surprises me that this was never done already and the study was just done with American kids.

What do kids in Puru really want? Is it really a laptop? Maybe it is but I would like to see more initiatives bundled with the laptop to make sure it is actually useful and not a selfish technofan donation. I have visited remote places in the world with extreme poverty and limited resource, power, fresh water, and farming. If I imagined a box with 10 of these laptops landing in a rural village as the OLPC Foundation imagines this is what my reaction would be if I were in the village:

• “How will I power this thing?” It would be wonderful to combine solar technology to power this laptop. Since it already is incredibly energy efficient, how about support the thing with an easy way to juice the toy-looking device?
• “What happens when it falls off my canoe?” This is promoted as extremely rugged but will it survive one day getting from the location it s shipped to the remote village across the rivers or reefs? Trying to get a camera to these areas with a drybag is challenging in itself and usually the bag is piled under items instead of on top so it will not fall off first.
• “Will this help produce clean water?” In an age today where Americans forget that clean water coming from a faucet is still an amazing technological advancement to some cultures, what priority is this to parents who need to have their children help with basic needs of the day?
• “Wow, is this in my native language?” How is a laptop with an English keyboard going to teach them anything?
• “Is open-source software putting food in the bowl?” Will their be videos on how to farm more productively or how to use the Internet to ask for donations to build a wind turbine to power their laptop and all the peripherals they want to order?
• “What, what is the Internet?” Only a handful of places have a decent connection with a phone line that needs to do other things than to be tied up with a 56K modem. Has a global broadband provider been, um, provided?
• “Can this robot keep pesticides from being dumped over my village?” A majority of these villages are not far from corporate or political control and they do not have the knowledge or understanding of how these entities work. How about a documentary or educational materials that are created for then to learn about their rights. Do they know about human rights organizations?
• “Will it bring us good or evil?” Introducing things like this needs to almost have missionaries that can preach the benefits – if there are genuine – and ensure that the community will support the children who want to use and and the others who want to steal it and create conflict. With the women concerned about rape on a daily basis, how is protecting a laptop going to help matters?
• “Where is the nearest Genius Bar?” Sure it’s not an Apple but where is the support when this thing shows a blue screen or a clicking sounds comes from the hard drive? Will Skype work and does UPS really ship that worldwide?

The organization and contributors to the building of this laptop are surprised the sales of this laptop have not taken off since the initial announcement. $200 is not a lot of money for a laptop, that is for sure. What I – and I am sure other people as well – want to know is: will this bring good things or complicate matters in cultures that have more important things (i.e. basic needs) to worry about than how to install Halo on Linux?

How many kids will fight over this unsupervised program? We might as well dump a box full of soda and candy bars and see what happens. What, I know what happens I have seen it. Coca Cola and cigarettes are able to find remote parts of the world and people work and steal just to destroy their lungs and rot their teeth. What happens when they get hooked on Internet porn? What happens when they get credit cards from tourists?
Maybe I just don’t see it and I read their FAQ, mission statement, and press releases. Maybe I need to see how this really works. Maybe I go with a DV film crew and see how this laptop can bring positive change to developing countries. Anyone interested? I need to see the contents of these machines and not the specs. Who really cares how it works but what it can do to save them from natural disasters, starvation, disease, and chemicals seeping into their water supply?

For more information visit:

XOgiving.org (FAQ)

New York Times article

Filed under: Positioning, Positive Change