Social Hallucinations

When I Look at You I See...

We look at mobile phone 150 times per day! The most time goes to ordinary things like messaging, voice calls and clock!

Here is more detailed break down:

Messaging related 23 times per day
Voice call related 22 times per day
Clock 18 times per day
Music Player 13 times per day
Gaming 12 times per day
Social Media 9 times per day
Alarm 8 times per day
Camera 8 times per day
News and alerts 6 times per day
Calendar 5 times per day
Search 3 times per day
Other random web browsing 3 times per day
Charging phone 3 times per day
Voice mail 1 times per day
Other miscellaneous uses 10 times per day

Source: The Annual Mobile Industry Numbers and Stats Blog by Tomi Ahonen 

 

Nomophobia

In a few days I am taking away on the vacation into the wild. I have been feeling kind of anxious the past few days and today I've just realized that it is simply because I will be visiting places where there is no mobile coverage. What scared me is not the fact that I will be disconnected, but the fact that I will not be able to Google things up when I need a help or guidance. It is rather scary how dependent I've become on the instant access to the information. I apparently suffer from nomophobia - the fear of being out of mobile phone contact.

Photo by Foomandoonian

 

For nomophobics access is everything. There are many companies who utilize this and provides the solutions like: iPavement - the first intelligent pavement with its own operating system and suite of apps that embeds WiFi hotspots in the street, or a "soda" machine that dispenses internet access to mobile phone in the public space by Coca Cola - Coke Happiness Refill. The name says it all.

Well, it all looks amazing but I guess it will be healthy for me to try to face my nomophobia and enjoy my time off without instant sharing with the world.

The Second Screen

I love this picture by Scott Macklin showing young boys watching Super Bowl on TV 2012. Nothing to add. The Almighty Second Screen. There are no two worlds. Online and offline are merged. This is the real revolution - we have adopted the new behavior. 

Branding Needs Meaning

The Havas Media Lab has conducted a research that shows most people wouldn't care if 70% of brands disappeared. Only 20% of global brands noticeably improve people’s quality of life.

People don't care about brands, people care about their lives and social ties.

It means we have to focus more on how to create a value for people, make their life easier, more meanigful. It means we need to shift away from just only focusing on what we should say as a brand. 

People don't care what we have to say. They just want their problems solved. 

Brands need to become meaningful and "enhance the well-being of individuals, communities and the environment, making people and society flourish."

Simple. Requires less bullshit and more great shit.

 

Marketers are from Mars, Consumers are from Earth

There is the reason behind many failed campaigns...

The Key to Success in Business

"Businesses operate in a world where so much is possible.

The successful ones are those which identify what is necessary."

John Dodds

Be Different or Disappear in the Crowd

What does it mean to be different today?

Differentiation used to be about standing out, about creating a product that is significantly different and there are no other products like it. Just to be noticed and valued.

But is seems like today, there is more focus on illusory differentiation driven by more choices, brand extensions, improved ingredients, more washing power, higher performance....you name it...supermarkets shelves groan under those "different products" that are all the same and use the same tactics to attract users. 

“Today we have more of everything. More brands. More products. More choices. But it all just feels like more of the same. A great big blur of similarity. And most companies are stuck on a competitive treadmill, competing like crazy trying to keep up with each other. But this only makes them just like everyone else.” (Youngme Moon)

What is the solution? Maybe look at the differentiation from different perspective. Start with quitting adjectives. Seeing "differentiation as deviance, permutation, commitment to unprecedented and letting go."

It's getting back to basics, putting the right meaning into the word different and creating great products, no one else does and connecting consumers in the meaningful way instead of creating more clutter. Challenging the ways we see competition. It is good to know what they do but they shouldn't necessary be the point of reference. Look outside, get inspired by different categories and think from time to time that your brand is not saint...

A good start is to read this book...

via www.youtube.com

The Timeline into Future

Future isn't easy to predict. Probably because we use what's known to create the future. Results can be somewhat entertaining. 

1920s,

1930s

1950s

1985

1993

2008

Enjoy!

hattip

How Do Clothes Impact Your Image?

What to wear? A serious challenge. Who hasn't faced the closet full of clothes and who hasn't after minutes of browsing concluded with disappontment that there is nothing to wear. The time spent by women picking clothes is often the subjects of jokes but this is a serious challenge as clothes impact the way you are perceived as this fascinating project "Switcheroo" by Hana Pesut shows. 

 

 

They Keep on Coming

Everyone has at some point been in the hell of incoming messages, notifications and emails...never ending flow that gets you paralyzed.

Here is an awesome video illustrating how does it feel. Excellent editing, btw.

 

Digitals from Chris Crutchfield on Vimeo.

 

The value of not knowing

Those words brought me a relief. I've lately relized that the more I know the less I can digest and use. The overload and overconsumption of information gives an illusion of knowing more, but in fact the more becomes the stress. The quest for informaiton expands all the time and seems to be infinite. I've found saying "I don't know" to be a soothing exprience. Not knowing may become the new luxury nowadays. Besides some things are just not worth to know.

"We need to remember the value of nothing. It’s like breathing: you can’t inhale all day. We need to learn to make peace with the information we don’t know, to embrace the zeroes, to relearn the pleasures of hunger, need, interruption, restraint. We need to work up our ignorance muscles. We need to organize our internal absences to create meaning. We are responsible, in other words, now and forever, for our own deletionism."

Sam Anderson in ‘An Accidental, Experimental Masterpiece’

 

The History of Human Thinking

“All the left brain thinking and figuring out, can’t ever replace the shear mystery of being alive”

The history of human thinking from the caveman days forward. In so doing he links more than 4 decades of data driven developmental psychology research (based upon the work of Clare W. Graves) to the dramatic narrative of human evolution.

 

 

60 Seconds - Things That Happen On Internet Every Sixty Seconds

A lot can happen within 60 sec. especially when you are online

 

Virtual Suicide

Virtual self is increasingly important part of our lives. Internet creates a virtual stage where we can play another role (roles) in the process of creating and inventing ourselves. Virtual identity is equal to the real life identity for many. Some creates new persona, which they don't dare to be in the real life. Virtual space gives more room and possibilities to stage the self...instant and with no limits.

But it takes time.

But it takes you away from the real live.

But it creates false hopes and expectations, which often can't be met where person meets a person.

It doesn't stop the ego...

Full of hope, we dedicate the time to show whom we are or whom we would like to be. impersonating the dreams, becoming the celebrities and paparazzi's of our own lives. Deprived of privacy. 

The mystery is broken.

What would it happen when you would let your Internet life die...would your real life start? Whom would you be? 

Will committing the virtual suicide impact you and your life? Is it immoral to encourage people to commit virtual suicide? Is a virtual identity just another shiny object of XXI century destined to extinct or is it something to last? or is it the extension of our personality? 

so many questions...less answers. We see the new things being created in front of our eyes. This may get us scared and seek the refuge in the seemingly safe past. This may lead us to radical actions...like this oneWeb2.0 Suicide Machine. 

“Web 2.0 Suicide Machine”  allows users to permanently delete their accounts from social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter.

Is something bad that encourages us to partially destroy our lives or is it just a funny gimmick, helping us to distance ourselves from our virtual self? 

Would you dare to take the step and sign out forever?

 

 

Giving people opportunity to help themselves

Getting people out of poverty is not just about giving them money, it is about giving them opportunity to help themselves. Seeing the need, fulfilling it at creating the movement is what happened when Pedals for Progress and founder David Schweidenback have shipped over 20.000 used American bicycles to Rivas, Nicaragua. Amazing transformation caused by giving the people opportunity to be mobile.

 

The Bicycle City. Trailer from Greg Sucharew on Vimeo.