We’re suckers for rapid, identifiable transformation. It drives investment. It drives news cycles. It drives Twitter.
Calculated, unidentifiable transformation is a much murkier proposition (which is, perhaps, why the changes in China scare the hell out of so many Westerners). It’s also a big part of the reason for the collective impatience with President Obama – who promised change (but did not promise that it would be instantly recognizable).
I’ve noted frequently here, and in a particularly robust conversation with Gareth Kay, that there exists tremendous inherent value for brands in mundane, incremental change that reveals itself only through the larger transformations it enables. Consider the massively incremental transformations at HP as outlined by Carly Fiorina some years ago or the slow evolution of IBM into a services provider.
Published on December 14, 2009 6:24 pm.
Filed under: Notes on Things Seen, People and Brands Tags: brand, incremental change, iterative, rise of china, Transformation
Three loosely-related notes on a theme:
A colleague and I were discussing this morning the relative stagnation of snowboard design in recent years. By this we meant, of course, the structural design of the boards themselves, and not the graphics (which are often fantastic to behold). Both of us are old enough to recall the swallowtail, [...]
Published on March 11, 2009 3:58 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Notes on Things Seen Tags: brand, conversation, energy waste, evolution, mobile phones, personal growth, power consumption, power management, relevance
PSFK posts today on Google’s Power Meter initiative.
It’s a fabulous idea, to be sure: Allow anyone with a smart meter to plug into the Google application and retrieve a visualization of their actual power usage, thus enabling users to make informed decisions about their power consumption, and ultimately cut down on both usage and costs [...]
Published on February 12, 2009 2:54 pm.
Filed under: Notes on Things Seen, People and Brands Tags: brand, branded utility, free, Google, partnership, power consumption, proprietary format, PSFK, Service, smart meter, visualization
graphpaper.com – Innovation, Transformation, Therapy, Practice
An argument that Nussbaum's death-knell for innovation doesn't go far enough.
Ford's New Prototype Dashboard Concept – information aesthetics
Not likely to compel me to purchase a Ford, but I'm glad to know that they're paying attention in class.
Photoshop Adbusting In Berlin | BRAND INFECTION
Astounding violation of copyright that ought to be [...]
Published on January 17, 2009 4:02 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Links Tags: AdLiterate, brand, innovation, prototype, trust