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“The premise of the fortune at the base of the pyramid (BoP) is based on the notion of how to profitably do business with the poor. But few such endeavours have become sustainable businesses, falling prey to bad assumptions, misguided marketing, or poor research.” [...]

“Using the 5D’s—development, design, distribution, demand and dignity—can provide a roadmap for a cohesive, human-centered strategy for well-designed products that sell, services that are successful, and programs with low drop-out rates. Observation and user research conducted to understand your new target audience is critical in establishing the relevant value propositions.”

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What big ideas will matter most? What technologies and applications will enable to most disruptive changes? How can our communications and interactions have the most positive impact? Where are the best opportunities for inventors and entrepreneurs? What does it mean? Where are we headed next?

IdeasProject, a project of Nokia, brings together the most visionary and influential ‘big thinkers’ to contemplate exactly these questions, in a new kind of conversation platform aimed at uncovering not only the big ideas that matter most to the future of communications, but also the connections these disruptive ideas. The conversation contemplates what technologies, applications and themes will most change out culture and communications — and shows us the ideas, the people, and how their ideas are connected - sometimes in the most surprising ways.

This site makes the best and most insightful contributions and connections from thinkers across the digital world available. Over time, we plan to add more content and contributors, as well as build in more capabilities to enable a deeper level of participation site visitors.

People featured are Chris Anderson (editor, Wired Magazine), Yochai Benkler (professor, Harvard University), Ron Conway (special partner, Baseline Ventures), Peter Diamandis (chairman & CEO, XPRIZE Foundation), Esther Dyson (chairman, EDventure Holdings), Dewayne Hendricks (CEO, Tetherless), Carl Hewitt (associate professor, MIT), David Hornik (partner, August Capital), Ari Jaaksi (VP of Maemo software, Nokia), Loic Le Meur (CEO, Seesmic), Jerry Michalski (consultant, Sociate), Leonard Shustek (chairman, Computer History Museum), and Vernor Vinge (science fiction author).

You can also browse the site (which contains many links to external content)

• by theme: Business/Investing, Enabling Technologies, Deep Thoughts, New Applications, Impact, and Experience;
   
• by technology: Cloud Computing, DNA Sequencing, Entrepreneurial space initiatives, Global Brain, Internet Applications, Internet of Things, Localizers, Location-based services, Microprocessor Density, Mobile devices, Mobile video, Multi-core Microprocessors, Online Advertising, Page Rank, Smartdust, Social media, Storage Virtualization, and Wireless networks; and
   
• by idea: A world of connected objects; All applications will be social; An economy based on ‘free’; Cloud computing is disruptive technology; Evolving into space; Genetic information is extremely disruptive; Making computing location-independent; Moore’s Law; Sharing changes everything; Social production; Superhumanly intelligent critters; The Internet and the real world become the same place; We are inventing a global brain; and The Internet of things

The site comes with its own YouTube channel and blog.

(via Nokia Conversations)

The purpose of this essay is to build on [earlier work done by a significant number of groups at the intersection of design and futures], and describe how the relationship between design and futures could be deepened to the benefit of both communities. A closer collaboration, and even more important a hybrid practice that drew on each, would improve product design, profoundly change the way we interact with the future, and create the tools to deal with some of the most critical problems of the 21st century.

I approach this from two directions. First, I describe how design can improve futures. In particular, I argue, research techniques developed by designers– particularly their close attention to human-device interaction– could sharpen thinking about, and forecasting of, the future of technology. Second, I describe the contribution futures can make to design. A combination of new technologies and challenges, I contend, are creating an opportunity to design products that can guide people to make better-informed choices about how they can be used, to reinforce behaviors that help users reach long-term goals, and to create a heightened awareness of the future.

This could have profound implications for futures. It would shift the profession from one that communicates through texts, mainly influences leaders and elites, and influences strategic processes, to one that communicates through things, influences large number of people, and informs everyday decision-making. But this is an essential transformation, as it would give us the ability to help solve the critical problems of the 21st century– problems that, I contend, futures as it currently is practiced is ill-equipped to confront.

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The current economic recession is turning out to be very severe (The Guardian evokes the spectre of a 1930s-style depression), with rich countries being the biggest losers, and this slowly unfolding reality will drastically transform our societies and our lifestyles, our values and our choices.

In a recent article on the cultural shift currently taking place in the US, Paul Harris paints a dire picture. But he also starts defining the values that define our new world: a rejection of luxury and excess replaced by a new sense of frugalism (which doesn’t necessarily mean quality), a renewed attention on the lives of ordinary people, a greater focus on community and an end to individualism as the dominant cultural, social and economic idea.

“America,” he says, “now is more frugal, less consumerist and more community-minded. But it is also poorer, angry and afraid.”

Reflecting on this from a European perspective, where communities are traditionally stronger, as is the role of government and the public sphere, I can see the following seven clusters of values taking shape:

• A shift in the price/value balance when buying products or services. An entirely different logic comes into play now. When people are tight with money, they want their basic needs (food, clothing, shelter) to be addressed in the cheapest possible way, whereas other higher level acquisitions are only done when the vendor can guarantee security, durability and long-term value. This applies also to corporate purchases. The throw-away culture is grinding to a halt;
   
• A shift in needs: what seemed liked needs just half a year ago, are no longer perceived as such. There is a back to basics and a no frills culture, but it is not yet clear what that might imply on a larger scale, as things are evolving quicly and little research exists;
   
• A renewed focus on people’s physical community: your neighbourhood, town, core friends and family - the people who are always there and can help you out if needed. You look for company when you are in trouble;
   
• When people are spending more times in their physical communities, their demands for good infrastructure, housing, city planning, transit and energy are bound to increase, and these will need to be met by various Public Works-like public programmes;
   
• But it’s not just the hardware that matters. There will also be an increased demand on public institutions to deliver good services. The excesses of politicians and public servants are no longer tolerated during times of scarcity. People will demand effective policy making, good public administration, and little waste of their tax money. Many politicians, too steeped in their world of political games, have not yet understood this. Friction is bound to occur. Social and service design are bound to increase (read this article by Alice Rawsthorn);
   
• Increased demand on companies: companies will have to listen more and help people achieve their goals. Modesty and long term commitment are more important than ever (which is surprisingly similar to the discourse one can hear in emerging markets);
   
• A fundamental questioning of the growth paradigm: the paradigm of everlasting growth in a limited ecosystem has proven to be a fallacy. Most people - who see their real incomes decline and an environment in increasing disrepair - are not hard to convince of this. What this will imply, remains to be determined and invented, but changes are bound to be dramatic. The Slow Food movement provides one possible way of looking at the future, but also they will need to become less elitist and more down-to-earth.

Understanding this new context, these new (or old) values and needs, and helping companies and institutions to create products and services that address them, is the job of people who do people-centred design.

Each of the seven clusters above provide opportunities for down to earth companies who care about the people that buy what they create, and to public institutions that have a serious commitment to their constituents.

We, people-centred designers, will need to reinvent our trade. We will have to create a sharp vision, a fresh methodology, a bare bones consultancy model, and a clear value proposition within this new context.

We often pride ourselves on understanding the needs and contexts of people and helping companies to design products and services around them. This approach is now more needed that ever, but needs and contexts have changed tremendously. Can we deliver on this new challenge?

Probably not all of us, but our basic paradigm is strong and more relevant than ever.

Abstract:

Around the globe, various initiatives use the mobile phone to provide financial services to those without access to traditional banks. Yet relatively little scholarly research explores the use of these m-banking/m-payments systems. This paper calls attention to this gap in the research literature, emphasizing the need for research focusing on the context(s) of m-banking/m-payments use.

Presenting illustrative data from exploratory work with small enterprises in urban India, it argues that contextual research is a critical input to effective “adoption” or “impact” research.

Further, it suggests that the challenges of linking studies of use to those of adoption and impact reflect established dynamics within the Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD) research community.

The paper identifies three crosscutting themes from the broader literature—amplification vs. change, simultaneous causality, and a multi-dimensional definition of trust—each of which can offer increased theoretical clarity to future research on m-banking/m-payments systems.

- Read paper (preprint version)
- Read review

Now also Business Week’s Bruce Nussbaum is publicly advocating the concept of transformation, rather than innovation, as the approach we currently need.

A first post on the matter was written on New Year’s Eve, and is recommended reading not just because of Nussbaum’s thinking itself, but also because of the many and sometimes very polemic comments that various readers have been contributing (many of whom are concerned about the introduction of a new buzz word).

“Transformation” captures the key changes already underway and can help guide us into the future. It implies that our lives will increasingly be organized around digital platforms and networks that will replace edifices and big organizations (students already know this, university presidents still have edifice-complexes, which is why so many of them are getting the boot). [...]

The concept of “Transformation” [...] implies radical transformation of our systems—education, health-care, economic growth, transportation, defense, political representation. It puts the focus on people, designing networks and systems off their wants and needs. It relies on humanizing technology, not imposing technology on humans. It approaches uncertainties with a methodology that creates options for new situations and sorts through them for the best quickly.

Most importantly, “Transformation” accepts the notion that we are in a post-consumer society, defined by two groups of economic players: manufacturers and consumers. “Transformation” deals with a new Creativity Society, in which we are all both producers and consumers of value.

In today’s post “The Transformation Conversation” (no comments as of yet), Nussbaum attempts to integrate and structure the debate by a more systematic outline of why he thinks “the concept of “transformation” is of great[er] utility and power than “innovation” at this point in time”.

Unfortunately all of Nussbaum’s examples come from the USA and he presents the concept as an entirely new neologism, with strict relevance to the corporate world, which of course it isn’t.

Even in design, I need only refer to the paper that Colin Burns, Hilary Cottam et al. published in early 2006 - currently available here.

Both users and product designers alike talk about user interface (UI) consistency, usability and simplicity, and system attributes like performance and stability. What’s missing is that these attributes are means to an end. The real issue is always the user’s physiological feeling of being in control. And control comes in many ways.

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(via Usability In The News)

“Technological advances have always been driven more by a mind-set of “I can” than “I should,” and never more so than today. Technologists love to cram maximum functionality into their products. That’s “I can” thinking, which is driven by peer competition and market forces. (It’s easier to sell a device with ten features than one.) But this approach ignores the far more important question of how the consumer will actually use the device. [...]

When I welcome my first incoming class this fall, I plan to focus on how RISD’s core ideals of art and design can humanize our advancing technologies. Or, put another way, to focus on what we should be doing, not just what we can.”

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This transformation is never complete of course. With a wink to a recent political campaign, it’s also “time for some change” at Interactions Magazine. Five new contributing editors join the magazine, and I am very proud to say that I am one of them. Here are their introductions:

Elaine Ann joins us from Asia. She is the founder of Kaizor Innovation, a strategic innovation consulting company uniquely positioned to help develop appropriate innovation strategies, research, and designs for the emerging Chinese market.

Lauren Serota is a design researcher with Lextant in Columbus, Ohio, where her work incorporates an ever-present passion for cultural diversity and objectivity in the acquisition and analysis of consumer insights for product and service development.

Mark Vanderbeeken is one of four founding partners of the young and dynamic international experience design consultancy Experientia in Italy. Mark is a specialist in visioning, identity development, and strategic communications, as reflected in his wonderful blog, “Putting People First.”

Molly Wright Steenson, forever the “girlwonder,” is an interaction designer and design researcher with roots in Web, mobile, and service design. Molly was an associate professor of connected communities at the Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea, Italy.

Marc Rettig, former chief experience officer at Hanna Hodge, is cofounder of Fit Associates. Marc’s 20-plus-year career has been guided by an interest in people, systems, communication, and the power of design. Marc served as features editor for interactions during the mid-’90s.

The March-April issue will feature my first contribution as contributing editor, followed by a number of guest pieces in the issues after that.

Although most content is not freely available, you can subscribe to the magazine for 55 USD (less than 40 euro). A bargain.

Meanwhile check out the cover story, which is fully online: The washing machine that ate my sari - mistakes in cross-cultural design.