Welcome to this 5th issue of our newsletter “Weak Signals and other Trends”. Each week, I sift through hundreds of sources of inspiration to track where we’re heading. Your comments are welcome, here, or on our site www.competia.com.
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This is what I noticed this week, thank you for reading.
Our Future
Illustrations and examples that show our industries are changing…some trends are tech related, others not so much.
SciFab: Science Fiction-Inspired Prototyping. Scientists begin building highly accurate digital twin of our planet. Scientists are honing and applying brain organoid research. Vans became a broadcaster for local communities with the launch of their new digital live-stream Channel 66 ( many brands are building streaming channels to connect with customers…). Goodbye to parking spaces, hello to meeting places. The new weapon in the fight against crime. Meet the Ghost Franchises. Grocery Store on Wheels to Disrupt Food Retail in Canada. The essential fly. The link between brain research and artificial intelligence. Microsoft’s Mesh powers shared experiences in mixed reality.
Competitive Intelligence
How Competitive Intelligence increased the understanding of competitor production levels. Owletter Captures, Stores & Analyzes Your Competitors’ Emails. A tool that tracks – stalks – bio changes and what they mean. Use Right Relevance, part of Cronycle, to find groups of highly authoritative Tweeters of niche topics ( I was happy to see our twitter account @competia ranked as the number 1 source for “competitive intelligence”) . We are testing Visualmaping, a tool that monitors website changes. Talkwalker monitors what your customers are saying. Modeling and forecasting: 4 methods. Quake technology helps quant firm time entry and exit points – and buck trend-following trend.
Our next course on Advanced Analysis for Competitive Intelligence research techniques is here. Our next program will take place on March 29-30, 31, 2021 ( 10am-12pm ).
Weak signals
Weak signals are indicators of a change, a trend or an emerging risk that might become significant for the future. They allow us to run hypothesis, expand our thinking, and challenge assumptions. How will you interpret those in your industry?
LinkedIn is building a freelancer market place ( always thought Uber would own that space with Uber Works). The face of the NFT art market. Animate materials. Programmable Synthetic Hallucinations. Raw and real: the new photo app Dispo, and what it means. Superstar musician Shawn Mendes has partnered with Genies — the world’s leading avatar company — to sell digital goods of himself, with proceeds going to charity. Technical sportswear as the new luxury. China’s crackdown on divorce ($). Lego’s bouquet. Mood-altering sunglasses. Unable to travel, strangers mail each other tastes of home.
Join us on Clubhouse at 9AM EST tomorrow to discuss how to interpret some of those weak signals.For those who missed it, we will have this 30mns morning discussion each Saturday at 9am EST ( look for @competia). Here is a summary of our last week’s conversation.
On our radar
In this section, I will share some of the content I come across as I work on specific mandates for our clients. This week:
Longevity: start-ups and scientists are exploring a series of technologies for those longer to stay with their loved ones longer, Creepy for some, hopeful for others, it is just a sign of whats to come: AI chatbots to give people life after death. Eternime is a network of Artificial Intelligent avatars that preserve for eternity their owners. Keeping your best friend forever. Replicka to create a best friend. Microsoft Patent Reaches Beyond Death to Pseudo-Reincarnation. Time for an ethical framework? Time for a legal framework? From organ donors to data donors? ‘Deep Nostalgia’ Can Turn Old Photos of Your Relatives Into Moving Videos. Meanwhile, Granfluencers are taking over.
Clubhouse: I have spent time exploring Clubhouse this week as the platform is shaping up. Nothing introduces Clubhouse as well as this article on Networked Knowledge and Combinatorial Creativity and this quote we love:
Creativity is combinatorial, that nothing is entirely original, that everything builds on what came before, and that we create by taking existing pieces of inspiration, knowledge, skill and insight that we gather over the course of our lives and recombining them into incredible new creations.
We had proof during our weekly chat on CH ( every Saturday at 9AM EST).
Clubhouse’s ecosystem is structuring with new apps to manage your presence: Build your bio. Clubhouse Glow will create the circle around your photo ( or try Chpic ). Direcon will provide the analytics for your room. A ranking of the most popular users, rooms and events on Clubhouse. Not supposed to be recorded but… Clubhype generates a user-friendly link. Clubpad will create reaction sounds in your room. AskClubhouse allows your listeners to ask written questions, so you pick them and answer them live on stage. Managing RSVPs with Comet. Record , Upload and Share your Clubhouse Podcast.
Hodgepodge discovery
Trees As Infrastructure. The new rules of competition in the technology industry. McDonald’s joy of packaging. Modular keyboards for daily creators. An archive of pandemics signs. Ikea offers ‘disassembly instructions’ to encourage customers to extend product life. Ad tech companies are building work-around solutions to allow advertisers to continue to target people on the web using other types of individual identifier technologies. The Chernobyl’s logo. What you should know about Google’s FLOC.
Feeling good
Beautiful visualization of every paper published at Nature. Ferran Adria’s new book. Travel remotely and listen to the local radio. How will your iceberg float?
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