See the vide0:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Post-conference, the team took some time to discuss presentations and organized the day into four themes:

• Branding: Manufactured Authenticity
• Entrepreneurial: Taking a Client Sabbatical
• Temporality: From Timely to Timelessness
• Design: Beautiful. Efficient. Long-lasting
• Data: Data for Good

We summarized the inspiring sessions, as well as included our own thoughts for context. Each session can be discovered by clicking through the themes above. Click on through each of the themes above, or page through code + construct. We hope you enjoy, and even more, we hope you find yourself as inspired as we were.

The following two session summaries focus specifically on data for good. Data is harnessed as a part of our everyday digital interaction. The sending, sharing and storing of data in aggregate also belies a story underneath, a reflection of the people behind the data can lead to good, and bad. This topic explores the positive affects of data used in a way to achieve steps towards the common good.

“Data for Good” Robert Kirkpatrick, United Nations Global Pulse

“Harnessing innovation to protect the vulnerable.”

What he said: As director of the UN’s Global Pulse initiative, Robert Kirkpatrick is in charge of finding ways to use data to help alleviate the issues that come as a result of incidents of global disaster and policy change. Kirkpatrick’s talk focused on leveraging the large swathes of data – some of which currently lies behind corporate firewalls – created and curated in a world increasingly catalogued in real time. Noting and assessing data can aide in predicting social issues and managing them. The best way to understand this is via the video that was shared during the talk:

Click here to view the embedded video.

What we heard: We’re collecting data. Someone is. From financial transactions to location services on mobile phones to simple emails between friends, the volume of data transferred daily continues to increase as more human activity becomes facilitated and possible through digital infrastructure. But what’s being done with this data? Often, the fear (and reality) is that this data is bought and sold for marketing purposes; yet in reality, this data can be used to achieve a far greater purpose: the common good.

Consider Google’s Flu Trends. By aggregating search data associated with flu keywords, Google can estimate or project the spread of the flu through varying parts of the world. While all interesting information, it’s also helpful in alerting epidemiologists about the spread of disease and, this is key, enabling action – think prevention, treatment – to take place.

Kirkpatrick was careful to note, and rightly so, that the use and power of personal data is in aggregate form. When used properly, harnessing the collection of data that already exists for purposes beyond original intent can only serve to help us all, especially populations that may lack first world means to help themselves.

The Creating and Sharing of Awe. Jason Silva, Futurist.

“Inspiration can be a lonely experience.”

What he said: Jason Silva moves at lightning speed. How do I know this? I’ve seen it for myself. Words and actions? All a blur. Movement? Sporadic. Voice? Enthusiastic. Words? Hypnotic. He doesn’t breathe when he speaks. Moves, moves, moves and talks, talks talks talks. He only had 15 minutes to talk. I’m still not sure what happened. But I loved every minute of it.

Don’t believe me? Watch this:

Click here to view the embedded video.

What we heard: Jason Silva’s goal is to pull people out of context so drastically so as to disrupt thinking. It sparks inspiration. And guess what? His videos are created using data. What? Yes. But not in a scientific manner, or screens of numbers pooling; rather, he uses the videos to show that “to understand is to perceive patterns,” and connecting the dots is a “revelatory” experience in that experiencing life in new ways is the door to seeing and understanding the awesome that already exists. My not quite realizing what hit me after his presentation was exactly what Silva wanted: to disrupt me so much that I couldn’t help but see things around me differently. Through awe comes awareness. Inspiration, motivation, and innovation. And that can only lead to good.

Post-conference, the team took some time to discuss presentations and organized the day into four themes:

• Branding: Manufactured Authenticity
• Entrepreneurial: Taking a Client Sabbatical
• Temporality: From Timely to Timelessness
• Design: Beautiful. Efficient. Long-lasting
• Data: Data for Good

We summarized the inspiring sessions, as well as included our own thoughts for context. Each session can be discovered by clicking through the themes above. Click on through each of the themes above, or page through code + construct. We hope you enjoy, and even more, we hope you find yourself as inspired as we were.

The following two session summaries focus specifically on design, and the creation of design that’s beautiful, efficient and long-lasting.

Creating Beautiful Solutions, Simon Collins, Parsons New School of Design.

“Make it beautiful. Make it brilliant.” “The fact is, we don’t f-ck about.”

What he said: In short, “campaign against bad design.” Collins, Dean of the School of Fashion at Parsons the New School for Design, spoke a little bit about design and a lot about being a better collaborator, designer, and in general, innovative person. Skipping through the details of varying projects Parsons has collaborated on within the fashion industry, Collins was energetic and to the point: it’s not what you have, it’s what you do with it. Parsons’ success can be credited directly to innovation. And how can innovation truly define and drive output?

Don’t design with the end-goal of sales. Make it beautiful, and the rest will come. That is the key to Parsons’ success, and the reason why so many big names want to work with them.

Which led to the crux of Collins’ presentation: rules for innovation, inspiration, and living:

• Never give in to bad design. Just don’t. Ever. On anything.
• Be the dumbest person in the room.
• If you’re not helping, get out. That means you, oxygen-sucker.
• Be nice.

Oh, and just say no. Be uncompromising, exercise authority, and protect the brand. And do it with spezzatura, i.e., elegance. Now the rest is dead simple, no?

What we heard: Long-lasting design isn’t achieved overnight, or in a moment’s notice. It takes time, energy and focus. Slowing down, really paying attention to key strengths and abilities, and yes, turning down projects and assignments can only help, not hurt.

Collins’ rules make sense in the world of design, but they’re applicable to life outside design, too. We’ve all sat in meetings with too many people and not enough decisions. And worked with people who lean a little too far to the left of cranky, and perhaps a bit know-it-all, too. Learn your strengths, contribute when you can and just be nice. Work will get done, life will move on, but it’ll all be a bit more beautiful. And you might inspire those around you to do the same.

Business: Doing More with Less, Graham Hill, Founder of Treehugger and LifeEdited

“Editing is one more of the most essential skills you can have today.”

What he Said: Graham Hill wanted to show that through thoughtful design and editing, it is possible to have a smaller but more compelling life. He started out by tackling his living quarters and introduced LifeEdited – a contest to redesign a 420 square foot apartment so that he could still have a sit down dinner party as well as a spare bedroom for his guests. He crowd-sourced the design online and the winning team got to implement the plan. The results were impressive with many apartment features serving multiple purposes and ultimately, the 420 square foot apartment having enough room for two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, storage and a dining table for ten.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What we heard: In the last few decades, our lives have moved towards being bigger. We now have bigger houses so that we can fit our many belongings and we rent so much storage space for items we do not use that personal storage became a $23B industry. We own more things – more house, more possessions – but interestingly, we are not happier or more satisfied with our lives. In reality, our lives have become cluttered which makes us less focused and potentially less productive because with all the non-essentials in our lives, there is no room or time for the absolute essentials. Editing is a valuable skill that can force us to identify and focus on our priorities and how streamlined and multi-functional design can to smarter products and more productive processes.

Post-conference, the team took some time to discuss presentations and organized the day into four themes:

• Branding: Manufactured Authenticity
• Entrepreneurial: Taking a Client Sabbatical
• Temporality: From Timely to Timelessness
• Design: Beautiful. Efficient. Long-lasting
• Data: Data for Good

We summarized the inspiring sessions, as well as included our own thoughts for context. Each session can be discovered by clicking through the themes above. Click on through each of the themes above, or page through code + construct. We hope you enjoy, and even more, we hope you find yourself as inspired as we were.

Usually, “temporality” refers to time or rather to the concept of being timeless and eternal. So, it may seem odd to think of temporality in the context of the increasingly fast and digital world we live in. However, it is because of the increasingly digital and virtual lives we lead that temporality is more important than ever before. It is time we shift our focus from disposable sound bites and shiny but unintuitive ‘toys’ to what makes us humans great in the first place: Developing tools that are magnificent and timeless expressions of ourselves that are not defined by character limits – ones that seamlessly integrate with our lives as opposed to being an unnatural extension of us and our natural urges.

“Into Timelessness”, Jonathan Harris, Cowbird

“Cowbird is about stories that are worth telling about – stories with teachable moments…”

What he said: Jonathan Harris used to live in an apartment in Brooklyn, and he likely went to the same restaurants, saw the same movies and read the same magazines and newspapers as we do. Soon, he started to realize that ideas that seemed interesting in the context of the city were often because they were trendy, sexy and talked about but at the same time disposable. That is why he made a drastic change and went on a journey to live on remote parts of the world in an effort to reflect and contemplate. Out of that journey, Cowbird was born.

With Cowbird, his latest project, Jonathan Harris wants to counter the “four shifting forces” that have formed with the rise of digital media. Jonathan says that with each new digital innovation, our communications and self-expressions have become more compressed, disposable, curated and self-promoting. Cowbird, on the other hand, is a different type of online community  – one for deep and personal stories that are timeless and encourage creation and self-reflection with the long-term goal of “building a public library of human experience to be shared with future generations.” It is about stories that are worth telling about and will be valid and impactful even decades from now.

What we heard: Cowbird has a beautiful and elegant design and currently consists of a community of 12,000 storytellers with amazing stories to tell. Most important of it all, it succeeds the mostly overlooked and ignored feat of bringing humanity to the Internet proving that we can keep our humanity in the middle of the uber-fast digital world we now live in. However, as Jonathan mentioned in his presentation, this is an issue that cannot be solved in a vacuum. There is a new online community or tool that is being developed every single day by a small group of developers and engineers and this small group is determining how we communicate and interact with each other. That is why it is important to emphasize and underscore the responsibility to build solutions that extend on the pre-existing urges that we have as humans, and that developing as technical as software should be viewed as “social engineering” because of the overarching impact it has on the humanity as a whole.

“A More Natural Future with Technology”, Steve Clayton, Microsoft

“As this mixture of hardware and software gets woven together, design becomes ever more important.”

What he said: There have been a number of trends in the last few years, but one common thread across most has been about creating natural user interfaces – or NUIs. Technology is moving at a warp speed and seeping into every aspect of our lives. While the idea is to make our lives easier and more practical, this abundance of technology and electronics can also make everything more complicated. Imagine the many remotes you have at work and the multiple computing devices you own. Steve Clayton from Microsoft believes that the goal is to design tools and interfaces that allow “technology to understand us as opposed to us fumbling through it”. For example, while we may not be at the sci-fi point where we can put computers in contact lenses, the technology now exists to measure glucose levels through teardrops. Similarly, NUI is all about removing barriers to interaction and making technology much more natural to engage with, almost like an extension of actions and behaviors we already exhibit in our daily lives. Some examples of this already exists, such as Kinect, through which one can play a game just using his/her body with no need to master a remote or voice-controlled remotes that remove the hassle of dealing with multiple remotes and on-screen menus.

What we heard: It is really exciting to think about the possibilities that exist when we go beyond just thinking about product design but also about creating natural and seamless user experiences by bringing various digital elements of our lives together. As it is, we interact with many digital interfaces and electronics although we may not necessarily associate them with computing. Vacuums, cars, computer games, radios, lighting and heating systems are all everyday devices that have a certain level of intelligence. The challenge that Microsoft is tackling is around bringing all these devices together in a way that is integrated with how we go through our lives. For example, cars already have many computers and data sensors in them. Is it too unrealistic to imagine a future where they will be able to “talk” to the smart streets and help us find parking spots and help us pay automatically? The past decade has been focused on impeccable product design. Going forward, as hardware and software gets increasingly intertwined, interaction design will become increasingly important and prevalent.

“The Importance of Side Projects” Tina Roth-Eisenberg, Tattly/SwissMiss

“I never hire anyone who doesn’t have side projects. They show that someone has ideas, self-initiative, and can make things happen.”

What she said: Tina Roth-Eisenberg is the founder of Tattly and SwissMiss. A few years ago Tina decided to take a “client sabbatical” from graphic design to travel and step away from work. During this time she developed the blog “SwissMiss” that hosted popular web findings she found to be inspiring and interesting. She first created the blog as a side project for self-expression, but the blog began to receive heavy amounts of traffic from all over the world. The blog was such a success that she was able to make a profit from placing a small amount of advertising on it. These profits brought Tina to the conclusion that she should extend her “client sabbatical” indefinitely, and continue to pursue side projects that made her feel inspired.

One day Tina’s daughter bought some temporary tattoos and asked her to apply them on her arm, being a graphic designer she cringed at the look of them and began complaining about their poor design. Tina told us she follows a strict rule, “If I find myself complaining about something often enough, I must make a decision to either change it, or let it go.” In this case she decided to make a change. She called a few graphics designers and purposed to them the idea to begin a company that creates well-designed temporary tattoos. Her and her friends thought that this would make an excellent side project, and created “Tattly”, an online temporary tattoo site. Similar to her blog Tattly quickly grew in popularity, to the point where they were receiving orders in over 60 countries. At this point Tina’s side project had rapidly become a solid business. From Tina’s entrepreneur experience she believes that side projects are an extremely important thing to have. They keep you making, discovering and creating new things constantly.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What we heard: Most entrepreneurs have one mantra, do something you love and success will follow. To put it more eloquently here is a quote from the late Steve Jobs, “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” Start with creating things that you see inefficiencies in, objects or situations that you come in contact with everyday; your next side project could be your future business.

“The Outlying Realities of Internet Disruption” Abe Burmeister, Outlier

“The internet is changing the products we design.”

What he said: After becoming an avid bike enthusiast, Abe began to destroy expensive pairs of pants within only a few months of purchasing them. He began to desire a pair of pants that could withstand the beating of riding his bike into work; they had to be durable enough not to tatter within a few months, and had to be designed well enough so he could confidently wear them into the office. Abe began to seek out the perfect pair of biking/office pants, but after a year of looking he decided, “if no one else is going to make these things I guess I’ll have to do it myself.” He was simply a graphic designer, one with no prior knowledge of how to make clothing, so he began to research different materials and became very familiar with the garment district. He eventually had enough information to make a prototype – one pair of pants that he proceeded to wear nearly everyday for a year.

Having one pair of great pants was all Abe wanted in the beginning, but he thought to himself that other people may also enjoy his product so he created a clothing company – he created Outlier. After securing a fabric source Abe began to calculate how much he should sell his pants for; based on traditional industry standards his pants were going to reach consumers with a hefty $300-$400 price tag, which he believed to be too small of a market. He thought that to really be viable he had to bring down the cost to under $200; the only way he could do this was to cut out retail stores and sell his product directly to consumers online. By using the Internet to sell directly to consumers Abe believed that they could sell a better product for less money.

What we heard: The Internet is turning the old retail model on its head. From Etsy to eBay, if you can create something you can sell it to anyone in the world with simply an Internet connection. E-Commerce has completely changed the relationship between the producer and the consumer. Costs of creating a product have decreased dramatically and it is easier than ever to discover new products from niche sources.

“Transactional Storytelling” Rachel Shechtman, Story

“If you create a compelling experience people will fly across the country for it.”

What she said: Rachel Shechtman is the founder of Cube Ventures, a retail and marketing consultancy. Rachel has used her experience as a consultant to create a unique retail store called Story.  Unlike other retail stores who’s products may change only four times a year, Story’s products change as frequently as a gallery. Each item in the store is also supported by the story of that item, such as who made it, how it was created and the inspiration behind it. Rachel believes that although retail has always been about consumption, story driven content and community are a vital component of the consumer dialogue. Rachel’s unique take on the retail industry has been a big success. With lines of people outside on the opening day and even some flying in from across the country to check out Story.

What we heard: Brand identity has become an important part of the consumer purchase process. The more transparent a brand is about who they are and what they believe in, the more consumers feel comfortable with purchasing their product. However, many brands are still holding on to the old concept that a consumer=revenue. Building strong consumer relationships as Story has done is a long-term strategy that will keep brands thriving in the digital era.

Post-conference, the team took some time to discuss presentations and organized the day into four themes:

• Branding: Manufactured Authenticity
• Entrepreneurial: Taking a Client Sabbatical
• Temporality: From Timely to Timelessness
• Design: Beautiful. Efficient. Long-lasting
• Data: Data for Good

We summarized the inspiring sessions, as well as included our own thoughts for context. Each session can be discovered by clicking through the themes above. Click on through each of the themes above, or page through code + construct. We hope you enjoy, and even more, we hope you find yourself as inspired as we were.

The following speakers focused on the theme of branding. Although, each speaker had very different subjects the value of what they told touched on how to create a brand with which people can identify with. In the digital age it is becoming more common for brands to be transparent online, using their properties to convey to consumers who they truly are. This medium also brings with it the ability to reach the masses and as our first speaker talks about, anyone can create a brand, whether it is true or false.

What he said: Vikram Gandhi is a filmmaker who directed “Kumare,” in which he explores the social need for a spiritual belief and leader. Through his childhood in Hinduism and his college years studying religion, Gandhi discovered that most spiritual gurus were fake and in conducts a social experiment in which he lives as a guru, Kumare. Kumare grows out his hair and beard, adopts an accent, creates a logo, learns yoga, and because he looks the part, he is able to convince many of this new religion among people who have real troubles and are looking for comfort form a guru. In this film, Gandhi exposes how people will buy into anything if they think it comes from an authentic source, and he speaks about the similarities between religion and brands. Gandhi shared the similar uses between religious icons and brand logos that drive believers and loyal consumers.

What we heard: There is an inherent desire among people, and more specifically among consumers, to find things because they are looking for them. Whether it is a higher belief for comfort or a brand for comfort, there is a causal relationship between the brands that position themselves as desirable, iconic figures and consumers, who come to rely on these brands whether or not they realize why.

“Making Your Brand Real & Human” Todd Carmichael, La Colombe Torrefaction

“Every corporation has one goal and that is to make money. Even Google is now the big brother and they did not stick with their core belief of ‘do not harm.”

What he said: Todd Carmichael is the CEO and co-founder of a boutique coffee company called La Colombe Torrefaction. In his near 20 years of being in the coffee business, he has never sacrificed “selling out” in order to make it big, but rather, stuck with his core belief of being the good guy and doing good. Carmichael spoke about how to manage his brand and what he has learned in order to create a brand that beyond coffee, stands for philanthropy. He reiterates that “people like good people” and compares a company that believes in the good from the people across the world producing the beans to his regular customers who come for a cup of coffee every morning to big corporates like Starbucks and Google who have sacrificed the simple good of serving good coffee in order to turn a passionate brand into a business. Carmichael argues that a brand can do both.

What we heard: Brand should find what they stand for and stick to it. It may be easier to “sell out” but once a brand has found what they are passionate about (not necessarily the product itself), then a true brand sticks to what they set out to do or be, and accomplishes it. Even if the competitive landscape shows otherwise, it is a brand’s responsibility to stick it out for the long haul.

“Peter pinned a picture on Pinterest”

“Asaf viewed a feed on Pixable.”

Many of you probably have seen posts similar to those at some point on your Facebook Ticker or Newsfeed. There are several actions you might take, 1) try to turn them off, 2) click on the post to see why your friends are so obsessed with those services and keep posting them, or 3) if you happen to use the same service, start feeling self-conscious knowing the content you are consuming is also seen by others. No matter what action you take, one common thing you will come across is that most of the content is automatically shared without the sharer’s awareness, and this automatic sharing function is usually set by default by third-party services.

Facebook revealed “Open Graph” last year, where Facebook will share user’s activities on sites outside of Facebook with their friends. Whether it is listening to a song on Spotify, watching a television show on Hulu, or reading an article on Washington Post, everything can be shared on Facebook for friends to see and join in. According to Zuckerberg, the idea of Open Graph is to combine the “actions” users engage in both on and off Facebook into a single spot, and hence create “a completely new class of social apps than what was ever possible before”.

Apparently one major benefit of Open Graph for Facebook is that it facilitates better advertising. However, from a strategic perspective, Facebook’s aggressive initiative suggests a shift in their strategy: from relationship management to content curation. With Open Graph they can now leverage social connections to enable users to filter through a massive amount of information online and find interesting and personally relevant content. There has been a major argument about how real a Facebook relationship is compared to one that takes place offline. Instead of purely focusing on duplicating offline relationships online, Facebook and other networking sties can provide another unique function — helping users establish lightweight connections with people and in the process gain relevant and useful resources. In some cases, every once in a while, users do tend to find content or deals they are interested in just by watching their friends’ online activities. Facebook’s focus is not only about turning transient and lightweight relationships into emotional and deeper ones (i.e., finding best friends in your life), but also about bringing utility to those connections and making them meaningful to users. The video below put together by Percolate helps us better understand the concept of content curation and how it works from a user’s perspective.

Click here to view the embedded video.

However, despite Mark Zuckerberg’s enthusiasm for ensuring that everything a Facebook user cares about streams to his or her friends and family, consumers have their concerns. Spotify – one of those early partners who signed up on the “frictionless sharing” initiative with Facebook– had to provide a “private listening” mode after a few months because of the huge backlash among those users who didn’t want to share their guilty pleasures with their friends. CNET editor Molly Wood goes so far as to call the frictionless sharing as “a disruptor of her Facebook experiences.” Irrelevancy is another holdup. Researchers from Harvard have found that people are little influenced by their Facebook friends’ tastes. And it’s not hard to imagine that users don’t ask all of their friends for advice; an individual’s social influence and area of expertise determines whom users would ask for recommendations among all their friends and families.

The good news for brands is that those concerns didn’t stop Open Graph being successful in increasing engagement and traffic. The Guardian, The Independent and Yahoo! News have all reported massive increase in traffic and engagement on their websites since adopting Facebook Open Graph. So now the question becomes, as brands, how do we leverage this unique opportunity to better engage consumers, while being mindful of potential pitfalls?

The three questions below will help us answer this:

1. How is content spread and consumed in the real world? We know that some people are nervous about showing their iTunes playlists to friends, so why wouldn’t they be self-conscious when it comes to sharing playlists online? Google+ might not be so much of a successful social site, but the Circle idea (which allows users to share different content with different groups of people in their network) could be borrowed for “frictionless sharing” to really work in an acceptable and meaningful way. Users need to be given options of whom to share with as well as what to share, rather than feeling forced to broadcast all of their online activities.

1. What is the motivation of users sharing consumed content? Frictionless sharing is more of passive sharing from a user’s end, and therefore the motivation might be less about self-documenting but more about bringing benefits to others and getting inspirations from the community. Therefore, providing a feedback function to stimulate discussions around the content that’s being shared is key. But this is not just a comment box or a “Like” button; it has to be designed in a social context and user-friendly way. For example, asking users to rate the content based on certain criteria and share, allowing them to start a group conversation, or sharing different comments with different groups of friends, such as friends who have consumed the same content versus friends who only have heard about the content.

1. What’s in it for users? Besides making “frictionless sharing” more social and relevant, are there other utilities brands can offer to users? One method is to provide exclusive and personalized content to improve user experiences. Airbnb now allows users to register through Facebook and personalizes the search results according to their Facebook network and how they are connected to the hosts/reviewers. Shelby.tv aggregates all of the videos being recommended by family and friends on Facebook and Twitter into a single personalized video streaming channel.

Simply put, Facebook’s Open Graph and the notion of “frictionless sharing” would only work if brands respect sharers’ privacy and truly bring utility to both sharers and users.

The type of brands that benefit the most from “frictionless sharing” so far seem to be e-commerce sites. To them, this “frictionless sharing” function is a great alternative to email spams for presenting offerings to consumers and keeping them on top of product updates. Designer shopping site Fab.com has had a 50 percent boost in traffic from Facebook since they adopted Open Graph. (They offer members $10 worth of Fab.com credits a month for activating their Facebook App, which automatically publishes members’ purchases to their Timeline, Newsfeed and Ticker.) Other e-commerce sites like Payvment and Lyst encourage users to “own”, “want”, “love” or “share” products, which create higher engagement and more comprehensive data of users’ needs.

Like many of the initiatives Facebook has launched in the past, the initial response of this “frictionless sharing” among users was more negative than positive. It can, however, be a powerful tool for certain brands if privacy, relevancy, utility and social context are added into this functionality.

So, what do you think of the future of “frictionless sharing”?

App stores have been late to the game, but this year they will find new ways to aid discoverability, such as Apple’s recent acquisition of Chomp, a start-up that developed a proprietary algorithm to enhance app search. As Forrester predicts in its article, “Three digital experience trends to watch in 2012,” digital content players and online retailers will be vying to quickly “address the real consumer need behind search, allowing consumers to find things in more natural ways.” They argue, “Consumers will use search to not only help them identify products and media, but also empower them to make complex comparisons, assess tradeoffs, and interact in more immersive ways.” Across all the major content industries—movies, books, apps and beyond— companies must begin organizing these immense libraries of stuff, through advanced algorithms that provide more intelligent search results, social integration, mobile technologies, and a greater focus on editorial curation.

For example, in the online retail space marketing giant Amazon has for a long time led the way through its advanced recommendations engine and by expanding into social and mobile technologies. Building off the already huge success of “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” recommendations, Amazon was one of the first to add Facebook Connect integration to tap into the power of social to aid purchase consideration. Then, in December last year it added Flow, a mobile app that uses augmented reality to scan the cover art of any product to pull up product reviews, as well as a price check that identifies the cheapest seller to purchase it from. While currently still basic in functionality, we can assume that Amazon will continue to upgrade this application by adding new layers of digital information that enhance the offline product browsing experience.

The book world, with its long established base of defined interest categories from Romance to Sci-fi, has experienced an explosion of sites aimed at enhancing the product discovery process. Book lovers can take their pick from GoodReads, with its highly advanced selection of lists compiled with the inputs of thousands and thousands of users, LibraryThing, whose uncannily good suggestions come from a user base of over a million book lovers, and Shelfari a social network built around books. While its current search differentiation point lies in the aggregation of cross-platform ebook availability, we should also keep an eye on Google Books for future recommendation engine enhancements.

With a constant pulse on content and innovation, the blogosphere has stepped in to provide more expert curation around the great volume of choice and little organization within app markets. With the goal of “bringing more order to the app world,” Wired Magazine for example launched the Wired App Guide in October last year. The guide, which is available in print, iPad and on the web, provides reviews and recommendations for mobile and iPad apps based on categories such as games, productivity and entertainment, as well as editor’s picks and essential apps lists that include the likes of Dropbox, Instagram and HBO Go.

An increasing trend will also be to tap into the combined credibility of friend recommendations and expert opinions, as we see in the case of Wenzani. This mobile app uses the credible recommendations from Time Out, Frommer’s Travel, BBC Travel, Eyewitness Guides, and Lonely Planet as well as opinions from the users’ friends to guide its users towards discovering their ultimate “experience.” The addition of gaming features and incentives for product reviews will also likely be on the up. A standout in the entertainment space that is doing just this is GetGlue, an online network of people ranking everything from movies, to DVDs and books. Once you sign in using Facebook connect, you can see the viewing activity of the network across categories, as well as earning badges for accomplishments like being a first adopter that recommends lots of new material.

While discoverability will be tackled in a variety of different ways by digital content players in 2012, the result should be more targeted recommendations and easier to find content, provided not only through technology enhancements, but also through  age old trusted sources—our very own social networks and in the know experts.

Where do you go to discover new digital content and experiences? Let us know in the comments section below.

As an R&D group, our KPIs are different that those of a marketing campaign. We measure the success of projects, in part, on how effectively and quickly our findings permeate the rest of the agency. So, back to site analytics. Why were we addicted? The answer, of course, is our innate desire to know that somebody, somewhere is looking at, and hopefully learning from, or at the very least, enjoying, what we’d created. With this, we wondered if there was a simpler way to abstract analytics in order to satisfy our need… which brings us to how the Lytics Cube was conceived.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The challenge was set and the team was tasked with visualizing real time data gathered from user interactions occurring on a given website (in this case, we built a dedicated site). As a jumping off point, we reworked a previous project that used WebSockets to show real time information, gathered from physical sensors, on a website, by flipping it on its head. This time, the website was our input, and the physical output was a glowing cube that personified the website. This cube was created using Arduino Microcontrollers to control the color, intensity and patterns of LED lights that are inside and change in real time thanks to WebSocket technology.

The Lytics Cube which shifts and morphs in color and intensity based on real information around the activity on the site (we track button clicks and page loads). Every new user coming in to the site alters the intensity of the cubes’ glow. Every button clicked has it’s own color to add to the constantly shifting lights. Even actions as simple as the rotation of a tablet device from portrait to landscape can potentially be detected using our technology.

The Lytics Cube can be used to represent the activity on any site with the addition of a small piece of code.  At it’s core, this project illustrates that anything you can track online, can be visually represented in the physical world. In this case, we chose to represent user activity on a website in an abstract form, however, the cube is powered by real data. The data could form the basis of a realtime dashboard, reporting the success of a campaign as it happens. Or, it could be used to alter or manipulate any physical object(s) that a large web audience can control.  Imagine activity on a site represented in a physical space where an event takes place simultaneously online, and offline at a venue.  At a time when the virtual and physical are blurring boundaries, the sky is the limit and we expect to see more exciting uses for this technology soon.

When we open our Facebook profiles and “Like” a brand or sign on to Twitter and start following a company our main question is: Why do I care what they have to say? We may like their service or think that they have great daily deals, or we could care because they care. Seeing a company that truly cares about global warming, famine, homelessness, education or sustainability often sparks an emotional engagement from a consumer.  Knowing that a company cares about bigger issues and that they are putting money, time, effort and social media into a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) project creates a deeper relationship than a consumer and company may normally have. 

We often use social media for personal, political or commercial reasons. CSR combines all three of these interests and allows us to become active on issues that we care about. The amplification of CSR through social media allows companies to be good corporate citizens while raising awareness for an important cause. The positive impact that these programs are having on the world creates interest in a company and lets fans engage on a deeper level. Social media demands more transparency. Good or bad, this new level of access to information requires companies to be genuine with their content and dedication to CSR projects.

Who is effectively using social media in their CSR efforts?

Last year Code + Construct featured a post of some of the top social change campaigns. Some additional examples of CSR are below:

• The Causes app on Facebook helps raise money and awareness for global issues and invites Facebook friends to get involved.
• JP Morgan Chase’s Community Giving built a Facebook canvas app that allows fans to search and vote for small, local charities, and then share their support with friends.
• Target’s Community Giving project put the responsibility on their Facebook fans to choose out of 10 charities to donate 3 million dollars by voting.
• Ford’s social department tackled homelessness issues with Invisible People, featuring stories about real people on a webpage and on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube page and Flickr accounts

What does social media do for CSR?

1. Social media keeps the conversation around these issues going
2. It keeps people interested in the organizations that companies are supporting
3. Social media allows followers to become invested in globally important topics

Corporate Social Responsibility is not a trend, a fun app or a quick kick-off campaign. It is about genuinely caring for a global or local issue that impacts the world. The marriage between social media and CSR is not only positive, but is vital to building a globally conscious and highly regarded brand.