Mirror Power Innovation Examined

Roger Dooley considers the power of the mirror. Made me remember that the concept of mirrors has often come up in innovation spaces. Have explored it a number of times. Especially the idea of integrating a message within a mirror. Perhaps the most common idea is using the mirror as a sensor (camera behind) and as a way of projecting information (projection behind) to augment the reflected image.

I saw some some excellent examples at Philips innovation centers, now being marketed (right). Taking that a step further, Mirrors that show a persons image, plus alternative virtual makeovers. In the home or in the cosmetic aisle. There are still technical issues with delivering all this together at a reasonable cost. Image recognition and analysis, delivery methods and required intelligence. There is power in the mirror if we can find a means to deliver it.

WOM at Consumer Goods Companies

A couple of new examples of the use of word-of-mouth promotion campaigns, much seasoned with coupons. An example is KraftFirstTaste and General Mills has a 'Psst Network'. A quick look shows that the very active online freebee networks have picked these up and are running with them.

Spam Joins the Freshman Class

Carr writes about the pressure on universities and other entities to offload the management of e-mail systems, now largely about managing the spam it carries. E-mail is still essential, dare we be substantive at times? We can't all just be twittering.

Mirror Neurons

Have been examining the topic of mirror neurons. Has been a powerful meme in the last two years. Though not without criticism. Know of a balanced overview?

30% of Shoppers Make Choice in-Store

I thought the percentage was much higher. I had heard and used a number like 70%. Of interest also is that this study is global. From Progressive Grocer. Also makes a case for (FMOT) first moment of truth in-store merchandising, but does it mean less?:

" ... 30 percent of shoppers around the world wait until they're actually in the store to decide which brand they'll buy, according to a new global study released by the Ogilvy Group.

The study was based on more than 14,000 shopper interviews conducted in 700 retail outlets across 24 markets worldwide, said Ogilvy. It spanned five retail channels across six product categories, to examine how shopper decisions differ across channels, product categories, and brands; and also how those decisions vary by nation and shopper profile ... "

NeuroScience Sources

Encephalon, a blog devoted to neuroscience advances, aggregating a number of articles and resources.

Blog History Review

This blog was established an in internal effort within P&G in 2003. It replaced a newsletter that I had run since the late late 70s that covered new technologies and analytical methods, then mostly in supply chain matters. Later it acted as a means of spreading the word about corporate artificial intelligence methods.

Once we discovered blogs, the newsletter was naturally replaced by an internal blog in 2003. It also acted as a way to keep visitors to our innovation centers up to date on new ideas. I also used it as a means to show vendors that we were promoting their innovations internally. We grew to hundreds of reads a day, very good for an internal technical blog. Relatively little commenting occurred, but I got many private inquiries. This fit with the expectation of Procter corporate culture.

It eventually led to a much broader use of 'Web 2.0' capabilities. Executives chimed in and it led to a number of innovation speaking opportunities. It acted as a part of P&G's Connect & Develop program, pointing employees to outside opportunities.

I created this parallel public blog in 2005. Internal posts were sometimes cross-posted here when they did not contain confidential material. When I retired earlier this year, I continued blogging publicly. Some of the posts here are also still posted internally, depending on their relevance. If anything, the internal blog was more technical than this one, since I could cover the specifics of projects.

Blogging books say it is good to focus when you write you blog. This blog covers what I am most deeply interested in, so it is not focused. I don't advertise and write mostly about what I am passionate about. Posts often help me formulate my own thoughts about a topic. I write to people with like interests. Business intelligence, retail innovation, data mining, visualization, modeling, sensory, analytics and emergent tech are typical areas of coverage. Readership is growing weekly though comments are still low.

This blog also works because of a number of external correspondents I have with vendors, industry and academia. Many from my industry innovation days. Send along things that you think might fit into my interests and I will pass them along.

Looking forward to continuing this. Comments please. I'm an active consultant in the topics above, and well as in blogging and other Web 2.0 areas. I welcome private inquiries, my address is in the top left sidebar.

New Blog Search

Google has a new blog search that I exercised for a number of topics that I cover. Led me to some useful new sources in some of the areas I cover. Mostly about news, but I even showed up sometimes. Includes some interesting gadgets like email alerts and other search linkages for those that need to be connected in real time.

Risks of Connected Kiosks

Evan Schuman writes about new risks of interconnected devices. Devices like Kiosks that were never thought of as risks before are becoming interconnected and a potential security issue. I once accidentally discovered I could wirelessly and openly connect into a kiosk installed for a test.

Knowledge At Wharton High School.

I thought this was a great idea. The well-known Knowledge@Wharton newsletter is starting up a new version designed for high school students. It is planned for start up in February 09, you can find out more about it here. " ... the site will offer articles, videos, podcasts, business-related learning simulations and interactive tools designed to help the coming generation understand business concepts and the role of business in today's global marketplace ... ". Wish I had access to this kind of thing in school or when my kids might have utilized it. Stay tuned.

Mr Clean Actor

Readers of this blog will recall that I was involved with some early novel online efforts with the Mr. Clean Brand. In particular, trying to understand how people interacted with avatars online. Now the actor. House Peters Jr who portrayed him in early TV ads of the 50s has died. Adds a little more to the brand history.

Quantified Self

Via Future Commons: Kevin Kelly's: Quantified Self Blog. "... Tools for knowing your own mind and body ... ". If you are going to be in Palo Alto CA on October 23 (corrected), there is going to be a presentation about the Quantified Self at the IFTF offices at 7PM. If you are interested, send me a note and I will pass along details.

Happy 400th

One of the oldest and far reaching scientific instruments sees its (approximate) 400th birthday.

Visualization Challenge

Colleague Sammy Haroon writes about Science Magazine's 2008 Visualization challenge, points to graphics of the winners.

RFID Benefits

CW says that RFID tagging is very useful in tagging assets. GE has been impressive in using it to track very expensive assets, but this takes the scale down.

P&G, Avon, Kraft Talk Innovation

In Consumer Goods Technology:

P&G, Avon, Kraft and More Talk Innovation
In the competitive and ever-changing consumer goods market, even the best of ideas won't stand a chance if you do not have the right people, processes and technology in place to back their timely delivery to market. On September 24-26, more than 70 senior-level consumer goods executives gathered at The Four Seasons in Miami, Fla. for the third annual Consumer Goods Growth & Innovation Forum. There, they heard from Procter & Gamble, Church & Dwight, Avon and Kraft, among others, on how to cultivate a true culture of innovation ... "

Music Genome Project

I don't know where I have been ... just learned about the Music Genome Project, started in 2000 and now implemented on a site called Pandora. I learned about it because they recently created an application for the IPhone. Well implemented for a mobile device. Good for people that like to listen to wide ranges of music and be introduced to other music.

And from the technical side, the idea seeks to :" ... capture the essence of music at the fundamental level using over 400 attributes to describe songs and a complex mathematical algorithm to organize them ..." . What is not to like about that? :) A good case study for other practical classification problems. The actual 'closeness' analysis looks easy, the tagging of the music harder and costly.

Free now, supported by an ad model ... you can buy what you are hearing on Itunes. But there are dark clouds on the horizon, increased fees for serving up the music may require the service to be shut down or severely change their economic model. It has already been stopped outside the US.

See also the similar internet radio station Last FM.

DataDepot for Sharing Time Series

MS Research has created a web site called DataDepot that allows participants to share time series data. A little reminiscent of IBM's Many Eyes, but far fewer options. Seems to make everything public and you can point to it from anywhere, but besides that not too enticing. Maybe they should add some forecasting options?

Making Your Web Mail More Secure

Good Wired piece on making your Web Mail services more secure.

Secrets of Social Media Marketing

Paul Gillin's new book: Secrets of Social Media Marketing: How to Use Online Conversations and Customer Communities to Turbo-Charge Your Business! has been published. In the process of reading, what I have read so far is very good, an update of his New Influencers. See also the book's site, which will be updated with references.