Business disrupted
Illustrations and examples that show our industries and business models are changing…
Luxury’s Involvement in Resell. Nori, a crypto-currency for farmers. Carta launches an exchange to help employees and investors sell stock in private startups.
Inside The Billion-Dollar Plan To Kill Credit Cards. Paypal wants to be a super app. A sustainable ecommerce.
A perfect example of how innovation can be simple, and comes from challenging simple , yet unchallenged assumptions: Credit Card Design Is Going Vertical With Tap-to-Pay Booming ($).
Our Future
Terrapy, the new trend identified by Trendwatching. A micro SaaS meta trend: Videopeel. Inside China’s Warring Online Fan Groups (I draw a parallel here to what happened with Gamestop). Can a robot pray? Does an AI have a soul? Machines Are Inventing New Math We’ve Never Seen. The AI Girlfriend Seducing China’s Lonely Men ( you might want to follow-up this article with this one on the therapist chatbot). Microsoft patent shows plans to revive dead loved ones as chatbots. Nasdaq Decodes: Tech Trends 2021. A sneak peek at MetaHuman Creator. The tattoo-like skin patch tracks blood pressure and heart rate while monitoring alcohol and caffeine levels. U.S. Navy Has Patents on Tech It Says Will ‘Engineer the Fabric of Reality’. Researchers Levitated a Small Tray Using Nothing but Light.
Competitive Intelligence
Sources: a new search engine to search ideas ( I love the structure described in the manifesto and can’t wait for the beta to happen). This ragtag crew are shaking up the world of earthquake prediction by analyzing orthogonal data such as ambient noises. Contify Launches a Competitive Intelligence Solution for B2B Marketers with Advanced Website Change Tracking. We are exploring this week thousands of relevant data sets. A good summary here about the retailer’s guide to marketing data, from zero-party to thrid-party.
Analysis techniques: 3 Reporting Hacks for Your Next Competitive Analysis. How Cognitive Bias Can Explain Post-Truth. Alternative Data Adoption in Investment Management .
We also read with interest the 2020 State of Competitive Intelligence survey results by Crayon ( pdf to download here).
We have three spots left in the next cohort for our course “Advanced Analysis Techniques for Competitive and Market Intelligence” taking place on March 29-30-31, 2021. Details here.
Weak signals
Wood can easily be turned transparent to make energy-saving windows. TikTok Influencers Can Now Be Covered by a Union Agreement (I covered this theme of freelancers’ rights during a session on the future of work in a 2015 panel at the Women’s Forum). Microsoft supports a “links tax” in Australia. Facebook Plans Smartwatch With Focus on Messaging, Health. Churches digital divide.
We are launching in April a two-day training class on strategic blindspots where we explore weak signals analysis spotting techniques. Details here.
On our radar
It’s all about voice: as we hosted our first room discussion on Clubhouse to review weak signals, we discussed the surge of voice and the impact on industries, i.e. healthcare. This prompt me to dig into the subject: Why won’t brands stop talking to us? The future of augmented reality is earbuds, not eyeglasses. The therapist chatbot. Microsoft patent shows plans to revive dead loved ones as chatbots. New A.I. can identify the song you’re listening to by reading your brain waves.
Reputation building for direct-to-consumer brands: I am working on a training program early March for the board of a large Canadian direct-to-consumer brand to understand how to protect the company’s reputation and anticipate potential crisis emerging. This lead me to the following : Why Athletic Apparel Brands Are Ahead Of The Pack In DTC. We like Thingtesting weekly newsletter. Social Media’s Role in Crisis Management viewed from the legal department. 8 DTC trends to watch in 2021 . How 2020 killed the Instagram brand. Canadian furniture chain apologizes.
Hodgepodge discovery
What tools are businesses using? If like me, you love what fonts mean, this is for you. The warrior watch study. Optimize your Clubhouse event organization links. Aesthetics Wiki is Internet’s one-stop shop for figuring our whether your vibe is more “cactuscore” or “synthwave”. The Future of Team Leadership Is Multimodal. Aromas evoking journeys not yet taken ($). The state of battery report. Check if your Flickr photos were used to build face recognition .
Feeling good
Starlings in flight. A Journey Around Earth in Real Time. The art of doodling. A cultural teleportation: every green dot on the planet is a radio station you can listen to. And on the same theme as we all miss traveling, a game that catapult you some place on earth, and you have to guess where you are. Addictive…
