Top 25 Failed Tech Predictions on Computers
my favorite prediction is not listed in the top 25. the source is my father who predicted that the cd-rom format will be the next media format to die. after being burnt by formats that came and went in the 70s to the 90s (Betamax video 1975, Digital Audio Tape Mid-1980’s, Minidisc 1993, ATRAC Audio Compression 1993, MemoryStick 1998) he thought the cd-rom would be the next big yard sale item.
Archive for the 'design' Category
How impressionable are women? Apparently extremely impressionable, according to a new advertisement for the fragrance Twist from Axe, a Unilever brand. The advertisement shows a woman who is restless on her first date with a guy who she is only marginally interested in. Then a few robots show up and completely transform the guy several times throughout the course of the evening (from cutting his hair to changing his outfit). The woman becomes excited at his various transformations and the spark continues to develop throughout their date.
Continue reading ‘Crowdsourcing and the Extremely Impressionable “Twist” Ad’
STC Associates is in the news – again!
Sophie Ann Terrisse, STC Associates CEO, was featured as a guest author in Telecom 2.0 this month. The article “Strategy for a New Decade: Brand or Die” discusses how branding will determine a telecom operator’s fate in the global marketplace.
Check out the article here – and give us your feedback!
Quick, name something that you use every day but have no idea how it works, or what exactly it’s doing.
Seems silly right? Well what if that thing was a web browser? Hmm. not as silly now is it?
Google has an illustrative video over on youtube.
What does this mean for web designers and developers? A lot more than the layman might think, especially when the dominant web browser for the past 10 years, Internet Explorer (or, as I’ve been known to call it, Demon Spawn from Hell) doesn’t play by the same rules as the rest of the world, making you do more work just to get visual and functional parity between it and the rest of the world.
However there is a bright spot on the horizon (at least for use web developers) it’s about to die a well deserved death. IE6 holdouts, expect to see more of these in your future.
When the news broke about Toyota’s recall, I felt like I used to feel when I was a teacher and the smart, disciplined student who always sat in the front row cheated for the first time.
Then, the details unfolded. The narrative shifted. What was once a tale of Toyota’s fall from grace devolved into an epic of customer betrayal, as the media reported incidents of Toyota’s lack of responsiveness to customer complaints. For years, the straight-A brand had been making decisions not guided by its commitment to transparency and safety. As the President of Toyota said during congressional hearings this week, “We lost sight of our customers.”
Like Toyota, my straight-A student had been having problems for years. She’d been allowing other students to copy her work. In fact, she was somewhat relieved at being caught. She could finally talk about the problem of peer and academic pressure. I told her that everyone makes mistakes — it’s how we learn and grow from those mistakes that makes us leaders.
I am, by no means, calling the Toyota recall a “sophomoric” mistake. Toyota’s eight-million car recall has planted the seed of doubt and paranoia among customers.
But, Toyota can still lead. Like my straight-A student, Toyota has been influenced by the pressure to perform at all costs. We have heard about capacity issues that impacted the quality of Toyota’s production. And, we know that large-scale business crises are often the product of a short-term focus on quarterly results instead of the long-term brand strategy and promise.
In one sense, Toyota is already helping competitors learn from its hard knocks. That leadership should frame a new story about the brand. I’d like to see Toyota start talking about how it will lead a movement to bridge the gap between innovation and safety in the automotive industry.
The automotive industry can still learn from Toyota, and the brand can lead again. (Incidentally, my straight-A student is about to graduate from Skidmore College at the top of her class.) But, Toyota needs more than time to fix the breach in customer trust. Toyota must be and lead the change customers want to see.
saw this ad during lunch break today. its eyecatching but minutes later i had no recall of what product was being sold and what brand it was. not too effective in the long run.
The BBC has been broadcasting since 1927, and has had a web presence since 1997, an eternity in both worlds.
They’ve got a very interesting post up on their internet blog discussing the growth of their Global Visual Language a very interesting read for anyone interested in brand design on the internet, web based grid systems, or watching tv.
Alexander McQueen, the highly creative brain and fashion designer left us at his height yesterday. Mr McQueen’s creative heritage left us some of the wildest shows on the runway.
One of six brothers, his fahter was a cab driver. Mr McQueen was known for his singular voice and hyper sensitivity. He made his first steps by interning for some fo the most prestigious english tailors where he learned the craft relentlessly and built up an unparalleled drive.
his hyper creativity will definitely be missed beyond the runways and his tragic death is a strong reminder that hyper creative people are also hyper sensible individuals.
Then resurface this great branding question: what will happen to Alexander MccQueen, the fashion house without his brain. Bill Blass and Geoffrey Beene, left us a few years ago and the brands have struggled since. I am sure the Gucci group was looking for a better start of Fashion Week in New York Yesterday.
