10 Films from the 80s and 90s illuminate today's tech glossary

1. Start-ups
Ghostbusters - four guys with varying skillsets develop a unique hardware solution in order to improve city life. A distinct tag line helps them go viral.

2. Sheryl Sandberg's "lean in" culture
Working Girl - With "a head for business and a bod for sin", Tess discovers what she's capable of when she's "not afraid".

3. Crowd-funding
Empire Records - A group of music store employees offer perks of badges and booze to the general public in a bid to raise enough cash to "Damn the man" and "Save the Empire".

4. VC Funding
Wall Street - a bright young whipper snapper gets the investment he needs, but discovers only too late that the provision of lunch was not included in the small print.

5. Beta Testing
Jurassic Park - A potentially game-changing new experiential start-up selects a small group for Beta testing. They don't make it to SXSW

6. Google Glass
They Live - A drifter discovers that the ruling class are in fact aliens managing human social affairs through the use of a signal on top of the TV broadcast, concealing their appearance and subliminal messages in mass media. #ifihadglass

7. Rapid Prototyping
Home Alone - a child genius creates a self-inflicted bootcamp and uses iterative development techniques to innovate simple solutions to petty crime.

8. User Experience
Weird Science - two cyberneticists build a humanoid robot with a focus on user needs.

9. Quantified Self
Groundhog Day - By tracking himself over a length of time and assessing the data, Phil is able to improve relationships and lead a better lifestyle.

10. Aquihiring
ET - A foreign entrepreneur recruits an entire team of American specialists to help overcome serious logistical and communication issues.

You Talkin' To Me?

The new one week old* Samsung Galaxy ad is brilliant not just for giving Apple - and their fanboys - a well-deserved clip round the ear, but also for the acute attention to detail on casting and styling. Though the visual and behavioural differences between the Apple fanboys and the Samsung converts are slight, they are nonetheless powerful. These minute signals represent a deep understanding, on behalf of Samsung, for where their potential market lies.

While other technology brands are busy striving to become Apple, Samsung have looked for ways to beat them. And they found it in Apple's customers. In a post-Jobs world, there's a growing legion of Apple devotees who are getting sick of the taste of the Apple kool-aid. They've learnt the value of a great piece of mobile kit, and they're increasingly unconvinced that the iPhone is - or always will be - the only option for their needs.

Furthermore, and as is smartly yet subtly observed in the Samsung ad, Apple customers are fed up with wearing the metaphorical "I'm a Mac" t-shirt at all times. Back in the day (2009), being a "Mac" meant you had taste. You had a subscription to Monocle and Wired. And you wore your artisan aged denim with a Supreme shirt. Now it all feels a bit obvious and, worst of all, normal. As the Samsung ad highlights - even our parents are "Macs" now. Ouch.

Of course, Apple has its eyes on the largest market share possible and will hardly be trembling at the idea of losing its niche group of designer-type fanboys to Samsung. But being both loved and cool is a tricky game for brands, and it rests in the hands of the world's taste makers. If Samsung can lure that group over to their team, it doesn't mean they'll win the game right away but people will still turn out for the show.

*Thanks @planbstudio

Siri says...

This past week, I spent quite a bit of time writing one of my longest articles yet on the future of technology (2,000 words biatches! But, more on that soon). In it, I talked about how exciting change is, and what a positive force it can be. On Wednesday, at a trend briefing by LS:N Global, I sat there shaking my head as they used the word "scary" over and over in the context of social networks and our digital lives online. In fearing the pace of change, we are no different to the Victorians opposed to the speed of steam engines. Technology and the progression of mankind are intertwined - each driving the other forward.

That said, however, the new ad from Apple (released on Friday) showcasing the Siri feature sent a chill down my spine. Compared to the warm, sentimental, intimate even, nature of the FaceTime ad of June 2010, this spot left me cold. And I had to ask, are we really getting to the point where we no longer talk to people on the phone, we just talk to the phone?

 

To be fair, I'm not condemning the technology. Intuitive, voice activated interfaces make perfect sense and I can imagine a number of situations in which Siri would be incredibly useful. It is Apple's depiction of user behaviour - the highlighted "consumer benefit" for which they are known to lead with - which I object to. Unlike the iMac, or iPod or iPad, Siri isn't positioned as being about freedom, fun, beauty or utility. What the ad, and copy like "Siri understands what you say, knows what you mean, and even talks back", suggests is that we are all ultimately alone in the world, attempting to communicate with computers.

 

I may argue that the evolution of human behaviour in line with technology is progress, but Apple's idea that a phone can replace some of the few people in your life who are there for you when you've locked yourself out, or need to get to a hospital, who listen to you and understand you, and who know how to help you with all the little things like packing for a trip and tying a bow tie... now that really is scary.

App Watch

Can't give too much away just yet, but I highly recommend you sign up to get notified about the upcoming launch of Ness, "the first personal search engine based on your unique tastes".

http://signup.likeness.com/

Check out the TechCrunch article here and get involved.

Life lesson from lady geek homegirl and Google exec - Marissa Mayer:

"She advises people pursuing careers in the high-tech industry, whether at startups or Fortune 500 firms, to consider four things when choosing between jobs:

"Work with the smartest people you can find, do something you're not ready to do, find an environment in which you're very comfortable so you can find your voice, and work for someone who believes in you -- because when they believe in you, they'll invest in you."

Via Huff Po's new "Women in Tech" section. Click here for full article.

2010 Round Up - The sites, ads, products, services and people that stood out from the noise this year.

Geek crushes

2010 was the year that made geeks hot - largely due to films like The Social Network, Tron and Inception. It was also the year where I spent 10 weeks in San Francisco - home of the nerds. They had me at "tech start-up". Swoon.


Dennis Crowley/ Foursquare


Mark Zuckerberg/ Facebook

Case study examples

Every digital strategy document I write is obviously tailored to the client, but these campaigns somehow kept sneaking in every time. Why? They pushed boundaries, made the most of the medium and enthralled audiences.


Old Spice/ Real-time YouTube video responses to tweets. Hilarious and genius - W&K becomes the hottest agency on the block.


Square/ The new way to pay took the iPad from a big, beautiful iPhone to a functional piece of kit.


MySpace/ Coming hot on the heels of the Gap logo fiasco, the new MySpace logo gave control back to its users, accepting that people want things their way and becoming the visual manifestation of this personalisation trend.... If MySpace was on Facebook, I'd "like" it

Straight talking

Sometimes it's refreshing just to read something in plain English - no "cross-channel multiplatform social media communication plans" bullshit.


The Man Repeller/ Fashion blog about the clothes that repel men. Also introduced the concept of a 'lady boner' to the mainstream.


A Bajillion hits/ Jacking your strat, jacking my lady boner.


Noah Stokes/ This website is so old school it's epic. Who needs HTML5 when you've got it all laid out in primary colours and no bullshit.

Digital life

If, like me, you can't start your day without that surge of serotonin caused by the arrival of an email, then you'll be relying on a heady mix of tools and services to get you through the day.


Google Reader/ Is there a greater feeling for the digitally addicted than over 200 unread articles?



Cross-platform syncing/ Personally, I like living in a world where I can check in using Foursquare and know that the fact that i just walked into a pub will be published across all my social networking sites for my adoring and ever alert 'friends' to comment upon. #don'tbelieveyourownGoogleAlerts

And finally, some of the stuff to watch out for in 2011...


Whipping your hair becomes a cultural phenomenon. I'm doing right now, as I type.


Check-in culture will get out of control, as we start checking in to TV, films and books.

And, finally... cool ad man says, "What?"

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

She Decos

Well, work is nearly finished on the S&M Barbie Palace in Stoke Newington. The white goods have arrived, the paint colours have been chosen and the new floor is ready to go down. Time now, to start thinking about what's going to go IN it!

As a girl geek, I'm entranced by this QR code wallpaper. How cool to link to my latest thoughts, to-do notes and inspirations simply by holding up my iPhone!



Lighting-wise, the designers around me have been whipped up into a frenzy over the Plumen Bulb Loop - an aesthetically sensitive response to the energy-saving light bulb. Gorgeous.

Plumen Bulb Loop from Plumen on Vimeo.

Lastly, I must give a nod to the new Ikea viral which launched last week. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that one moggy crawled into my oven and is going to come live with me!



Check back soon for the Design Sponge orientated "sneak peek" shots. Work with me here, Grace!

Now available for weddings and bar mitzvahs

SXSW is a Music, Film and Interactive festival held every March in Austin Texas. Austin's history as a hub for musicians has long made it the mecca for bands and artists around the world. They say that 6th Street - Austin's downtown area - is the live music capital of the world and where you can see a different artist perform every night of the week. SXSW started as a music festival, to encourage new audiences to visit the southern state. The website explains how "In 1994 as the entertainment business adjusted to issues of future growth and development, SXSW added conferences and festivals for the film industry (SXSW Film) as well as for the blossoming interactive media (SXSW Interactive Festival). Now three industry events converge in Austin during a Texas-sized week, mirroring the ever increasing convergence of entertainment/media outlets."



Five years since I was a "study abroad' student at UT, I find it hard to believe that my name is on the SXSW Panel Picker list. Five years since my American friends introduced me to this new thing called "Facebook" and I got my first Wi-fi card, it's incredible that I'm planning to talk about Digital Instinctives - the babies seizing our iPads and approaching technology without reservation.



Please click HERE to check out the talk and vote for the entry! Thank you.

What's going on in there?

I just found myself watching a skype-skype interview on mobile apps online while simultaneously watching Gok's Fashion Fix on mute on the TV. Yesterday I found myself reading two newspapers at the breakfast table. What is going on in my brain?

Am I so conditioned to multi-tab browsing? So used to reading emails as I talk on the phone? When did tweeting, facebooking and watching television become second nature?

I'm fascinated because if that's me - and at 26 I'm old in digital terms - what is going on with "the kids"? My boss recently found his two year old son - who, I hasten to add, cannot yet talk - watching iPhone videos of himself in one hand while playing on the iPad with his toes. And it really makes me realise - his approach to learning, multitasking and problem solving is going to be unrecognisable to his elders, to the people trying to teach him when he hits school.



This week I was lucky enough to be part of a panel on "How to... Be part of the next cool thing" as part of LCC's Futurising festival. After the panel Martin Raymond (The Future Laboratory), Jaana Jatyri (Trendstop), Maggie Norden (LCF) and I went for a coffee. We were all gobsmacked by the seeming lack of curiosity from the assembled graduate audience. How could they even consider a career in trend forecasting if they were not brimming with questions for the panel? Maggie, a lecturer, voiced her concerns at the total and utter lack of investigative nous amongst her students. While Martin said interns that limit their research to page one of the Google results don't stick around long at FL.

But I'm concerned we're looking at it from the wrong point of view. Our way of thinking, our way of finding stuff out, is not the future. The extinction signs are there and we should be warned - we already don't remember telephone numbers anymore or since when did you turn to an encyclopedia? My boss's two year old will one day need to be taught by someone who understands that his brain is going to be wired in a totally different way. He is going to have skills and abilities that were once rare, just as he will have blank spots where his father is an expert.



I'm looking forward to spending the next few months figuring out what this is going to mean for brands wanting to make products and services that will thrive in the hands of these "Digital Instinctives". But until then I'm off back to my work iPhone, my personal Nokia, my 7 open tabs on Firefox, my Spotify playlist, the rest of that vid and the last 10 minutes of Gok. Wild times.

I had been intending to post on why Shoreditch is a dead area in terms of trends but then two things happened which totally put a smile on my face and made me love the crazy, modern world we all toddle around in today. Firstly, I received this spammy email from Argos.

"Thank you for your recent enquiry on argos.co.uk

You recently enquired about a Go Go Pets Hamster Deluxe Funhouse Gift Set., Cat No. 384/1534, on the Argos web site, which was out of stock.

We have just received further stock of this item."



Strange, because I've only been to Argos once and that was when I was 16 and also enjoyed Hooch in a bus shelter. And, perhaps more importantly, I don't even own a hamster.

Secondly, my friend The Designer told me that he often gets text message alerts from a school in Inverness reminding him to attend various parents evenings, story times and nativity plays. The Designer is 24 and lives in London.

In a time when we can so easily curate the digital information we receive, the moments when a piece of rogue data slips into our hands can often be pure, human, and hilarious gold.

Shoreditch post to come!

Despite having kvelled over the latest Ordning & Reda range of slick computer and desk accessories, this boho laptop case really floats my boat. Going against everything the minimalist tech look stands for, this case feels crafted, authentic and unique.



Laptop bag from new website discovery, farfetch.com

Watching the MJ memorial

Seems only fitting to add my voice to the millions of views currently being expressed around the world, in many different languages and on many different platforms. The London Paper tonight asserted that this was America's Princess Diana funeral and, certainly, the Americans are giving it all the national outpouring of grief we saw back then. How it differs, however, is due to the exponential growth in social networking. Never before have platforms like Twitter, online newspapers and blogs allowed every view to not only be expressed in real time but also re-tweeted, commented upon and to 'go global' in a matter of seconds. In 1997, could a friend of mine have created and uploaded a tribute film to YouTube within hours of the news breaking? Could the New York Times have crowd sourced photos from the memorial event via Twitter? Could we have watched events unfold via live streaming on the Internet? As technology makes us further and further removed from reality, events which unite us all through communal emotion act as a release. And yet we turn to technology to reach out to others and share the outpouring of feeling we are experiencing. We are living in strange times - times of change, access and democracy of reporting.

Baby steps into the 21st century.

With so much of the internet buoyed by hype, rather than genuine usefulness, I have become somewhat jaded over the words "you simply HAVE to try this". But every so often, one's jadedness is unfounded as you guiltily discover the thing you simply HAD to try and didn't, is ultimately what has been missing so desperately from your sad little life.

First up is Skype. I tried it out a couple of years ago and, after attaching various cameras and mics and god-knows-what to my mac found the re-verb a total conversation killer. Yesterday, however, I gave it a second chance to chat to a friend in Austin, TX and rued all the cash I spent on calling cards that could have been more usefully used on shoes.



Secondly, Spotify, which makes itunes look like that box of vinyls in your attic. Spotify is not about ownership, it's about access. So you log in, create a playlist, and listen online. Thanks so Spotify me and my co-workers have been enjoying everything from 'The Best Music from the French' to 'I will always love you'. And, in case you're wondering, yes - that is a good thing.

Sir mix-a-lot

The current flash-in-the-pan doing the rounds on Grazia and The Guardian is Make A Mixa. The website offers a customisable cassette which acts as a USB case. Purchasers can then upload music onto the USB creating a 21st century retro mix tape.

My heart still goes out to Retropod who were closed down by Sony for steampunking a Walkman into an ipod carrier. We say: bombastic, say me fantastic. Sony said: Infringement of copyright laws.



http://www.makeamixa.com/makeamixa.php
http://www.retropod.com/

The New Aura Phone from Motorola

Ooh, loving this. It's like they've gone right back to the drawing board in terms of what we expect mobile phones to look like. The clock-face detail, in particular, is floating my boat. Gorgeous.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel... and it's out.

Tivo, America's version of Sky+, has teamed up with Domino's Pizza. Apparently you can now order and track a pizza via tivo without having to prise their lardy behinds from the sofa! A rep from the company is quoted as saying, "This is the first time in history that the ‘on-demand’ generation will be able to fully experience couch commerce by ordering pizza directly through their television set. You’ll see a television ad for Domino’s and you’ll click ‘I want it’ through your remote. In about 30 minutes, your pizza will show up at your door.”



Whatever happened to delayed gratification?

I'm posting live from a National Express train on my way to Leeds. Internet on trains! Modern technology, eh!? It'll be jet-packs and gravity boots all round in no time!

Not seen this before - not even sure what name they go by. Curved, outdoor plasma screens on the underground. Drew quite a crowd at Bank.