MS-Surface for Innovative Product Communication

As you might know, Microsoft Surface™ is an innovative (HW/SW) system of surface computing.
As a matter of fact, Surface turns a common table in a dynamic surface that offers a natural interaction with any type of digital contents through simple gestures and physical touch.

The challenge is to conceive and develop SW applications on Surface that exploit its interaction capabilities and engage the users in a multisensorial unique and engaging experience.

Recently at ISH fair of Frankfurt, the most important international event of the year for smart home heating and air conditioning technologies, Zoppas Industries has launched Needo™, a revolutionary product family of comfortable and intelligent home high-tech heating solutions.

The whole range of Needo™ intelligent radiators has been showcased in a unique and engaging fashion through a virtual interactive experience conceived and implemented by CEFRIEL and Nesting on the Microsoft Surface™ platform.

The visitors have experienced an innovative way to learn about a new product range and were able, simply through a finger touch, to:

• create interior design solutions based on 3D models of the products
• customize the main features of the products (size, color, position, etc.)
  
• browsing and consulting an interactive product catalogue
  
• enjoy specific product demos
  

According to Zoppas Industries, this has contributed, along with other factors, to double the number of lead contacts they made during the ISH fair in Frankfurt.

Innovative Technology used to launch and promote Innovative Products... it sounds like an innovative communication approach... let's see if it is just an exception or becomes a new mantra...

ESPN Zone

I've been looking at the business model of ESPN Zone (www.espnzone.com).

ESPN zone is a chain of one-stop-shops that offers premium services focused on sport and entertainment. ESPN zone is full owned and managed by the famous TV broadcaster ESPN.

This innovative and business is built on a new combination and better packaging of traditional services:
- Dining/Bar with a sport atmosphere
- Sport Entertaining+Gaming (Video Games, Sport Simulator, Sport arenas)
- Sport Cinema (to enjoy the vision of sport events with superior video-audio quality and very comfortable seating)

Finally the business is complemented by an in-store offer of sport merchandising.
It is very popular in US, thanks to the links to the sport fan clubs and other social club. It serves as major aggregation point for youth and sport fans in general.

Asia and Innovation: ICT and Design to succeed in global markets

With CEFRIEL we are organizing this seminar on February 1st 2008 in Milan.

Attendance is free, upon registration. Everybody is welcome to attend.

Executive Summary

The indisputable rise of Asian economies on the production and consumption side, is revolutionizing the global market horizons and the traditional western business practices.
Product and service innovation is a paramount imperative to sustain in the long term the new challenges posed by global competition and to seize the new opportunities in the eastern markets.
If ICT helps to reduce costs, improve performances or implement new functionalities, Design can improve the consumer experience during the whole product lifecycle by delivering new meanings and values at aesthetic, ergonomic and ethnographic level.
The challenge for the top management consists in balancing two levers such as ICT and Design, generally perceived as antithetic, and to emphasize their complementary traits in a global business scenario, which considers Asia as next reference market.

Free Registration: www.cefriel.it/ict&design

Location: Sala De Carli – Via Durando 10, Milan – Campus Bovisa

The Role of Innovation Producer

Innovation in the ICT and Design industry requires companies to reinvent their own organizations and appoint new executives (called "Innovation Producer") to manage a sustainable innovation strategy in global competitive markets.
This is the role that Executive Master of ICT and Design for Innovation (MIDI) aim to train. (more info www.e-midi.net)

In short what does an Innovation Producer do?

She/He is in charge of linking all the relevant functions of the Company to generate new value propositions responding to consumer needs and turning the promising ones into real business opportunities. Indeed, an innovative business vision without execution still means failure to innovate. This is the role for the few talents who are visionary enough to create innovative product or service concepts and pragmatic enough to transform such innovative concepts into reality. The Innovation Producer is the key manager who pulls the corporate ropes and steers the product development process, taking into account marketing inputs, technology and design aspects, financial constraints, human resources, supply chain and other operational issues in a truly trans-national and very competitive business environment. She/he sits in the board of Management and is the main interpreter of the Company Vision of the Future. (quoted from the www.e-midi.net)

European Universalism: The rethoric of power

I'm just reading this interesting book from Immanuel Wallerstein.


Ever since the Renaissance, Western intervention around the world has been justified by appeals to notions of civilization, development, and progress. The assumption has been that such ideas are universal, intrinsic in the natural law.

However these concepts are not really global. Rather, they originate from the Western thought and their primary function has been to provide justification for powerful nations to impose their will against the weak under the smoke screen of what is supposed to be both beneficial to humankind and historically inevitable.

This is Wallerstein's theory, many arguments are intriguing and convincing but the whole paradigm would probably need a more compelling high-level framework. It could very well apply to the past Eastern imperialism. I would say it has more to do with the Rethoric of Power rather than with the European Universalism.

Final comment: Quite interesting book, although it needs to be taken with caution, especially if you are a neophile of the topic.

Google raised to the power of 3!!

I was just skimming my picture database looking for something cool to publish in this blog (powered by Google), when I came across this picture taken last summer (August 2005) in Mountain View/California at Google's Headquarter... you can see a self-celebrating programming space freely decorated by their software geeks...


I realize that this is Google seen from Google published in an site powered by Google... It's about MetaGoogle or also Google raised to the power of 3...

By the way... Google's corporate culture is quite unique... You won't such liberal and creative enviroment in almost any corporation with a similiar market capitalization... 20% time for personal projects, shuttle busses driving you to the office and back home, people walking their dogs with runner blades inside the company, pool tables, big cinema, programming contests (and monetary awards) among the software geeks... unbelievable... nevertheless or perhaps (as their HR department wants us to believe) because of its corporate culture Google is a massive business success!!!

Good food for thought... Especially if you realize how difficult it is to foster continuous innovation within a conventional ICT corporation...

Fractal Finance

I'm currently enjoying the reading of the latest Mandelbrot's book: "The (Mis)Behaviour of the Markets)"... A fascinationg journey through mathematics, economics, and finance...

Mandelbrot is the father of the fractal geometry and has already proved the financial markets are far riskier than it has commonly been believed.

CAPM, volatility, portofolio theory, Blach-Scholes-Merton option pricing... such a poor financial modelling...

Mandelbrot's fractal approach doesn't give the prediction about which stock to sell/buy/hold but gives much better metrics to assess financial risks and to properly manage them...

Somebody interested into understanding what risks are and how to measure and manage them should read this book and start digging further.
It's a pity that the leading B-Schools still teach the old crap.