The Economist has a short article on four lessons on innovation we can learn from Apple. The four lessons are fairly standard fare at this point (but still difficult to actually do), but take on a slightly different hue when viewed in the context of Apple.

1. “…innovation can come from without as well as within.” While Apple can seem like a place full of solitary mad scientists locked away in labs, the reality is that “its real skill lies in stitching together its own ideas with technologies from outside and then wrapping the results in elegant software and stylish design.”
2. Design “new products around the needs of the user, not the demands of the technology.”
3. “Listening to customers is generally a good idea, but it is not the whole story.” “…smart companies should sometimes ignore what the market says it wants today.”
4. “Fail wisely.”

As I said, you’ve heard these before, but think about 3 and 4. Apple has really made it’s name bringing people things they didn’t know they wanted, but soon couldn’t live without, from the GUI operating system to the iPod (ridiculed at launch). This is one of the more difficult decisions in business - knowing when your new product will be embraced by consumers or if it’s value proposition was never revealed as a desire in market research because, well, it’s not desired. This leads into the fourth point - fail wisely.

We always hear that we must be prepared to fail (although we rarely are), but with Apple that failure has taken on much greater proportions. Remember Lisa, the music phone, and NeXT? Yikes! They were failures. Failures so big they almost brought the company down (NeXT, of course, was a failing Steve Jobs company that Apple acquired for its technology). Ideally, when we’re told to “embrace failure,” we’d like to think we’re embracing smaller failures. It’s unusual, if not impossible, to find a truly innovative company without it’s share of failures. Finding a way to fail small, while leaving the door open to succeeding big, is the trick.

Last month, Duncan Watts, a professor of sociology at Columbia University, wrote a New York Times article about some work he and two colleagues did on the predictability of hit songs.  The work had much broader applicability than just music, of course, and offers an explanation of why predicting hits (in music, movies, fashion, etc.) is so difficult.

 After noting that “Conventional marketing wisdom holds that predicting success in cultural markets is mostly a matter of anticipating the preferences of the millions of individual people who participate in them,” he goes on to say that

The common-sense view, however, makes a big assumption: that when people make decisions about what they like, they do so independently of one another. But people almost never make decisions independently — in part because the world abounds with so many choices that we have little hope of ever finding what we want on our own; in part because we are never really sure what we want anyway; and in part because what we often want is not so much to experience the “best” of everything as it is to experience the same things as other people and thereby also experience the benefits of sharing.

This idea that what is slightly more popular can become even more popular as a result of that initial popularity, is called “cumulative advantage.”  In the experiment Watts and his colleagues conducted, subjects chose favorite songs in situations in which they knew what songs others had chosen, and in which they did not ( the actual experiment was a bit more complicated, of course). 

In all the social-influence worlds, the most popular songs were much more popular (and the least popular songs were less popular) than in the independent condition. At the same time, however, the particular songs that became hits were different in different worlds, just as cumulative-advantage theory would predict. Introducing social influence into human decision making, in other words, didn’t just make the hits bigger; it also made them more unpredictable.

The results suggested that predicting the future is not just difficult, but impossible, no matter how much knowledge we have or analysis we do.  Because we can always create a story after the fact about why something was successful, or a hit, we rarely lose our belief in the predictability of the world.  As Watts says, we can’t stop trying to predict the future, but we do need to be more skeptical about both predictions and explanations.  That skepticism holds for predictions of failure too.  Perhaps the best way to look for hits is to launch as many new products as possible in ways that allow you to hold back substantial investment until it’s likelihood of success becomes clearer.  A little early humility may go a long way.

We’ve heard a lot about the creative generation lately, much of it revolving around the online work this group does for free. As this trend begins to mature, we’ve seen that creatives are realizing the value of what they do, whether it’s video, blog posts, or graphic design, and are looking for ways to be compensated. Offline, artists and crafters who begin making objects for friends and family, and are encouraged to sell their work, usually end up at craft fairs, hoping some of those in attendance will see value in what they’ve created. An uncertain process to say the least, but one that’s been established for many years.

I recently came across a new site called Mintd, that bills itself as a “a global collaborative space for artists, designers and musicians to sell their work and connect to new markets.” The twist at Mintd is something called a “Lookbook.”

People buy products. They take photos of themselves or their friends with these products, and upload them to the site. Other users can browse these lookbooks, and link to the products the stylist has used. If they subsequently buy the products, the user who submitted the lookbook gets a commission from the price.

The idea seems to be that there is no better way to sell a product than through an endorsement by a happy buyer. So much the better when that endorsement includes pictures of the product in use.

For a consumer, it sounds like an interesting site that could yield some real gems. When I look at it, however, I see it as a real resource for retail buyers. A whole Web site of interesting and unique objects aggregated in what amounts to an online showroom. But what if that buyer is from Target? How could an individual artisan ever hope to supply the large volume required? The Target buyer makes a simple introduction to her preferred China vendor, and everyone is off to the races. If it’s a resource for buyers, it’s competition for vendors. Another sign of how the mom-and-pop shop can compete on a global basis for business once available only to anointed suppliers with large logistical infrastructures.

MOO, that darling of the Digerati (is that still a word?), has launched MOO notecards.  MOO is best known for its mini-cards, which are small versions of business cards with a picture of your choosing on the back and text and an icon of your choosing on the front (or is it the other way around?).  In other words, they are almost totally customizable.

Similarly, MOO notecards will allow you to choose a picture for the front and text and an icon for the inside.  Inside, however, is a bit of a misnomer as the cards are really postcards with a flap that allows them to stand up for display.  Plenty of online card companies allow you to customize cards, but MOO’s format gives the whole thing a twist and makes it a bit  less formal.  Because the customer base for its mini-cards is  probably not the same as online card buyers (just a guess), MOO may also find that it is able to tap into a relatively new market for cards.

While hardly earth-shattering, this product launch is simply more evidence that the world is passing traditional card companies by.  If you open up the greeting card market to include substitutes (as you must), you find yourself in the “social expressions” market.  Now you realize that text messages, emails, blog comments, video cards, and Facebook “Wall” postings are all competition for greeting cards.  Like so many businesses, card companies are faced with some tough choices - become a true social expressions company and broaden into technology based tools as well as paper, stay with paper but move into customizable cards online, or stay with traditional, non-customizable paper cards.  The first choice is dangerous because you’re moving into unknown territory, while the last two mean you have to accept a shrinking market (rapidly shrinking in the latter case) and enter new businesses to make up the lost revenue.  Sourcing low cost cards from China will only get you so far.

Marketing Daily has an article about General Mills’ launch of a “Worldwide Innovation Network.”  At first blush, this seems to be the sort of open innovation embraced by, among others, P&G, Peugot, and Nokia.  Really, though it looks like GM has simply opened itself up to acquiring new products through licensing and maybe acquisitions.  Not that this is a bad thing.  It all started two years ago when General Mills R&D formed an open innovation team.  This team “has traveled the globe, going to food trade and technology shows looking for technologies and ready-to-go products that could fit in to existing product lines.”  Doesn’t this beg the question of What was R&D doing before that? 

General Mills expects to gain speed to market through this program since presumably any product the company licenses or acquires will have already started down the development pipeline.  What this initiative does not seem to do, however, is tap into consumers for new ideas.  GM may already be doing this in other ways, but figuring out how to bring consumers into the innovation process may be the real Holy Grail.  It’s not clear, however, that the best model for that kind of open innovation has yet been developed.  At this point, the days of consumers offering good ideas for free are over, so some sort of reward or financial participation is a requirement.  Also needed is a way to sort the wheat from the chaff, and I have to believe there would be a lot of chaff.  The jury is still out on just how workable and sustainable such a process would be, but it certainly seems worth a try while marketplace enthusiasm is still high.

 (Via Endless Innovation)

The Independent (via Influx) has a story about Rough Trade’s intention to open a 5,000 square foot music shop in London. This move by Rough Trade, the label that launched the Smiths, is a bet on a counter trend if ever there was one. With stories of declining CD sales in the press seemingly every day, punctuated by music store closings (e.g. Tower Records), a large physical store selling CDs seems to be a Sisyphean adventure. It’s more than a counter trend bet, however, as the shop will have live entertainment and try to become a hub for a vibrant independent music scene. This aspect of the project fits squarely into a relatively recent but already stable trend - shopping as an experience. We hear so much about creating a community online, but there is no community like flesh and blood community, and that is just what Rough Trade hopes to facilitate. If indie music lovers (and all other music lovers, for that matter) find like minded souls as customers, entertainers, and employees in the shop, they’ll come back for more and be happy to purchase physical CDs rather than download (legal or illegal) digital songs. Influx notes that Amoeba Music in San Francisco is the model for the new store. If that’s true, I hope it’s just the start of the plan because Amoeba isn’t quite the kind of experience I think Rough Trade will need to create. It’s harshly lit, jammed with CDs, but otherwise not particularly welcoming (just my opinion).

Creating experiences for consumers has been seen in many businesses now, initially manifesting itself in Nike Town stores which drew consumers in for the experience as much as for the products. A while back I wrote about Living Room Theaters, a Portland cinema that tried to create the experience of watching a movie in your living room. Service and luxury are the experience. Think of another supposedly dying business - high-end stationary. When you walk into a Papyrus or Kate’s Paperie, shopping for stationary becomes an experience. You’re with like-minded people, talking with clerks who love fine paper, surrounded by creative examples of how to do more with what you are about to purchase.

Online companies, too, create this experience. Amazon was an early example as they introduced Recommendations, Wish Lists, and reviews. eBay also played the experience card as the company not only found an efficient way to buy and sell, but provided a fun auction experience. Finally, what could be more boring than a corporate Web site, right? Well, take a look at Dyson’s, but only if you’re ready to spend several hundred dollars for one of their vacuums, because that’s what you’ll want to do after your visit. Visiting that Web site is an experience.

CDs, movie theaters, paper - all products or services that are presumed to be in trouble. Creating an experience around the product or service is how some forward looking businesses are fighting back. Unfortunately there are solid long-term trends beating these businesses down, trends that won’t be reversed simply by creating product experiences. These actions can, however, slow the decline of, or even temporarily grow, the market. You want to have a portfolio of products that cover where you’ve been as well as where you’re going. Just because a certain product type or segment seems to be in decline, doesn’t mean it’s no longer worth addressing.

Business 2.0 has a story about Powercast, a company that has developed the technology to broadcast electricity from a power source to a small receiver.

A transmitter plugs into the wall, and a dime-size receiver (the real innovation, costing about $5 to make) can be embedded into any low-voltage device. The receiver turns radio waves into DC electricity, recharging the device’s battery at a distance of up to 3 feet.

Picture your cell phone charging up the second you sit down at your desk, and you start to get a sense of the opportunity. How big can it get? “The sky’s the limit,” says John Shearer, Powercast’s founder and CEO. He estimates shipping “many millions of units” by the end of 2008.

The article implies that there is some excitement about this technology and it’s easy to see why.  Interest in this technology also illustrates a prime principle - humans progress from less freedom to more freedom.  This is true whether in society, government, or products.  The line of progression is never straight, of course, but if you develop a product that gives consumers more freedom where there is currently less, chances are you have a winner.

It’s interesting to consider two industries struggling with this principle right now - cable and newspapers.  Cable is the ultimate tether, and it would seem that sattelite would deal it a knockout blow.  This hasn’t happened, however, and there are some technological, cost, and business issues holding back adoption.  Nonetheless, it’s hard to imagine we’ll stay cable-happy as we continue to suffer from those maddening tether related service interruptions that seem to occur for no reason.

Newspapers, on the other hand, actually provide more freedom than on screen delivery of the news, yet paper is dying while screen is growing.  This fact had helped blind some newspaper executives to the online threat, thinking that people will never choose to get their news on a screen over  paper.  You won’t carry a computer onto the train.  They missed, of course, all of the other superior qualities of online news delivery that makes it more desirable than paper.  Digital news delivery, however, is becoming more mobile and news organizations must be able to follow that move if  they want to succeed.

A little while ago I posted on desktop fabricators, many of which are user or kit built.  Sears is selling a “desktop” woodworking system called the Craftsman Compucarve.  From the Web site:

Compact, computer-controlled, 3-dimensional woodworking machine with an easy-to-use interface. It allows a novice to make a complete project without a shop full of tools.The unique configuration allows it to perform many other woodworking functions, including ripping, cross cutting, mitering, contouring, jointing and routing. The CompuCarve can work in most soft materials, including wood, plastics (polycarbonate or cast acrylic) and certain types of high density foam.

It’s a bit pricey (as you’d expect) at around $1,900, but it moves us that much closer to the day when we can dream up a product and manufacture it on our desktops.  At first glance it appears to be simply a carving machine (although a pretty nifty one), but as you can see by some of the comments to this article, with some imagination it can become much more.  This is a first generation machine and as it is improved it will get easier to use and more capable.  You can read more about the Compucarve here. Another sign that the huge trend toward customization and personalization isn’t limited to the digital world.  

(Also discussed at Core77)

If you’re a fruit marketer, you probably feel pretty good about the health and exercise trend we’ve been living through for some time now. Unless, that is, you’re Chiquita. While the company was happy to ride along as consumers paid more and more attention to what they eat, it also realized that because ripe bananas spoil more quickly than other fruits, they were only sold in green, not-yet-ripe bunches. This means that it is very hard to purchase a single, ready-to-eat banana at a convenience store, fast food outlet, or other eat on the run outlets. While it participated in the better health trend by default, it couldn’t take advantage of consumers’ desire for convenient, portable, ready-to-eat food. An article in the International Herald Tribune (from the Boston Globe), says Chiquita may have solved that problem:

So Gen3, a product innovation consulting company, researched ways to ship bananas in the perfectly ripe yellow state and keep them that way when they arrive at shops. The company found that the pharmaceutical industry had engineered plastics that regulate air flow in boxes and decided to apply that technology to bananas.

At Chiquita’s packaging plants, workers hand-pick the bananas heading to convenience stores and other fast-food outlets for their ideal size, color, shape and ripeness. The single bananas are laid on top of one another in boxes covered with a semipermeable membrane that allows oxygen to pass through but controls the flow of carbon dioxide to delay ripening until the box is opened.

So Chiquita sells more bananas and banana loving consumers will soon be happy to find their favorite fruit where they want it when they want it. Chiquita did some research in 2005 that told them “42 percent of people would eat more bananas if they were available in more locations.” More importantly, I think, Chiquita recognized the trend toward convenience and hurried lifestyles, or the “transumer” trend as Trendwatching has dubbed it, and innovated to give consumers what they want. Why only take advantage of one trend, when you can use another as well?

Some time ago I noted Don Norman’s article discussing consumers’ desire for more complex products. Shortly after that I pointed out a New York Times article that discussed research showing that if a multi-attribute product is priced too low, consumers suspect its quality. The Times is back again with an article discussing a paper in the Journal of Consumer Research that found consumers “are more likely to repurchase products when the initial purchase experience is packed with ’superfluous choices.’”

For example, students choosing between packages of blank CDs with varying prices and features were more confident in their eventual choices, and more likely to repeat them later, if they were first asked whether they wanted 4, 5, or 6 CD case colors in their packages — though all had said that case color was unimportant.

The choice itself, the authors said, was meaningless. But that tiny extra step — choosing how many colors to get — made the decision seem more considered, and hence more reliable, when the students reflected back on it.

This isn’t the same as a complicated product, of course, but it does reinforce the idea that we like choices and we like to feel in control.

For years now we’ve been hearing greeting card manufacturers and the Greeting Card Association talking about the enduring values of sending paper cards for holidays, birthdays, and just about any other special occasion. Fine stationary manufacturers also tout the beauty and feel of their products as a perfect antidote to the over-digitization of our society. An e-card for your special Valentine? What could be less special?

Well, e-cards may not be all they were once cracked up to be, but it’s pretty hard to ignore stories like this one in the Wall Street Journal just prior to last Valentine’s Day.

Love letters aren’t what they used to be. While young correspondents have committed their deepest feelings to paper for centuries, the latest generation of lovers is coming of age along with new technologies that let them court each other on the run. The passionate essays penned on Valentine’s Days past have morphed into bursts of instant-message affection. Confessions once sealed in envelopes are now dashed off in email. While romantics have bemoaned the end of the love letter for decades, the latest generation of amorous Americans is turning the language of love into shorthand.

Many of us may lament the loss of penned love letters and paper cards, and many of those who now resort to texting “ILU” do as well, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t on their way out. Of course, expressing your feelings electronically also means that those feelings can be forwarded to friends, friends of friends, and complete strangers around the world. It’s a dangerous game, but one that’s played all the time.

Knowing that their prime consumers are middle-aged, for years card companies have discounted low demand from young people, secure in the knowledge that as those consumers get older, they will eventually turn to cards. It seems unlikely that’s the case any more. Certainly some will, but many more have learned a new way of communicating that will serve them just fine as they grow up. There will constantly be new ways to communicate, and paper has a lot of life left yet even if only as an anti-trend, but one thing seems pretty clear - the long term trend for paper cards is down.

A look at TheKnot.com’s wedding trends for 2007 (via Iconoculture) shows that even that bastion of fine paper is headed into digital territory. Making the list are

• Daily bridal blogs
• Personal URLs on invites
• Online RSVP
• Live webcasts
• Digital music
• Streaming video

I’m not sure we’re quite at the day when wedding invitations will be on Evite, but I can’t imagine that Evite isn’t working on how to get brides (and, more importantly, their mothers) to use the service for exactly that purpose.

Last Friday’s Wall Street Journal carried an article by Amy Chozick, explaining how Japan has become “‘Disneyland’ for trends.” The article goes through an exhausting array of trends, including bejeweled sneakers, Jesus-themed restaurants, and robotic baby seals the keep the elderly company. Chozick traces this explosion of innovation to Japan’s recent economic woes:

Japan’s latest ferment can be traced in part to the economic slump that began in the early 1990s and lasted more than 10 years. As monolithic corporations cut jobs and lost their luster, more workers entered fashion, animation and music businesses. The number of employees in these so-called creative industries grew 16%, to 1.4 million, between 1996 and 2001, even as employees of all industries shrunk by 4.3%, according to the Marubeni Research Institute in Tokyo. Japan’s consumers began seeking eccentric products that flattered their growing sense of individuality.

While some of these new trends will travel well overseas and become hits in the US, many will not. The Jesus restaurants, for example, sound like they’ll have patrons thinking less Easter and more Stations of the Cross as, in at least one case, the restaurant is “reached by a dungeon-like brick stairwell, lit by dripping red candles, which leads to a dining area decorated with giant crucifixes, gargoyles and images of a bloodied Christ weeping on the cross.” Yikes!

On the other hand, you can always eat in a “maid café” “where waitresses dress in the black-and-white French maid outfits worn by comic book heroines. ‘Welcome home, master,’ they say upon the arrival of a new customer, typically a male. For $5, waitresses will lift a drink straw to a customer’s mouth, or write his name on his omelet in ketchup.” Sounds like home, doesn’t it? The maid cafes are inspired by “cosplay,” or costume play. You’re familiar with this from seeing people dressed as anime or manga characters. The latest is “Goth-loli,” or Goth meets Lolita.

The list goes on and on, through hot tub karaoke to ice vodka bars. Western companies are taking trend tours of Japan as it lives up to its trend theme-park reputation. It’s pretty clear that this all bears watching, but if you can’t make the trip to Tokyo, one place to follow along from your office chair is the Japan section of CScout.

A few other noteworthy nuggets that came out of the PSFK conference on Tuesday were from the panel discussion titled “Eco Shift or Greenwash.” The panel was comprised of Tamara Giltsoff, Hemal Vasavada-Gill, Jill Fehrenbacher, and Marc Alt.

The first few people to speak, Marc and Jill, both noted companies that they felt hadn’t received proper credit for their Green efforts. In Marc’s case it was Wal-Mart (several initiatives) and in Jill’s case it was H&M (organic cotton). I had expected fire-breathing eco-dragons on this panel and instead heard some rational discussion of corporate Green efforts. This, along with some other discussion, made me feel that the eco-ground is truly shifting for activists. With opinions expressed in the media and among the urban cognoscenti swelling in their favor, they seem to be shifting into business mode from fire-breathing mode. If I’m right, this should mean that companies can stop trying to please activists with their Green products and start trying to please consumers. I’ve said many times before that Green products will only become widely accepted when they offer benefits beyond their Greenness. Those who truly believe in the cause should work on creating superior Green products, not just Green products. It looks like there may be hope that the shift is beginning to occur.

The danger for companies is not over yet, however, as evidenced by an interesting quote from Hemal: “Green is a liability.” She wasn’t entirely clear on what she meant, but I took her to mean that if you do Green “wrong,” the price you pay is high. To me, this brings to mind the lessons learned by the college football world as a result of the criticism Notre Dame received when it fired Ty Willingham. Whatever it was that the critics wanted to teach, the lesson learned was don’t hire a black coach unless you are absolutely positive you won’t need to fire him. With Green products the lesson may be don’t bother unless you are willing to make your product, initiative, etc. absolutely unassailable. The shame of this is that it leaves no room for companies to make honest, but flawed, efforts. What I heard from this panel, I hope, means that is also beginning to change.

The best evidence of a change in the air came from Tamara who said she has been, somewhat controversially, “pro-greenwash.” Her belief is that even if flawed, a Green initiative at least starts the conversation. I think that’s a healthy attitude and one that may actually result in truly remarkable Green products.

The New York Times reports today on a new Internet start-up.

Next New Networks, a New York-based Internet start-up run and backed by former executives of MTV and Nickelodeon, will announce plans today to begin a series of video-oriented Web sites — what the company calls micro-networks — on niche topics like do-it-yourself fashion, comic books, car racing and cartoons.

The company has notable founders, credible investors, and is targeted at online video, all aspects to give it that buzz juice every new company wants when it launches. What interests me about the company is the kind of shows it plans to offer:

Next New Networks plans to blend elements of old and new media into a type of hybrid entertainment that is different from traditional television and user-generated sites like YouTube. Its various Web properties will revolve around professionally produced videos of three to eight minutes, which it plans to pitch to sponsors as safe and predictable places to advertise online.

Many of the programs will solicit contributions from their audiences, but the company will screen submissions before they approved as final product. The company plans to generate some programming itself while also identifying talented video contributors and bringing them into the Next New Networks fold.

The article leads us to believe that this format is mainly driven by the need to find a real revenue model from short Internet video. With YouTube only pulling in $15mm in 2006, it’s pretty clear that the right model hasn’t been developed yet. Advertisers are worried about associating their brands with the free-for-all that is consumer generated video. They’re happy to support the best of it, run away screaming from the worst of it, and right now there’s no way to know if the best or the worst will follow their ad. With this “curator” model, Next New hopes to deliver consistent quality which should allow advertisers to buy space with much greater confidence in the product.

Another reality, however, is the fact that we all know deep down that to be really valuable, online video needs to be curated. That is, we need someone to root through the mass of stuff and separate the wheat from the chaff. Not because we can’t decide for ourselves, but because we don’t have the time.

Remember chat rooms? In the early and mid 90s, people flocked to them for the sheer novelty of telling absolute strangers what was wrong with the world and how to fix it, all while using this cool new technology. There were specific community oriented chat rooms, but the wide open general subject rooms were most popular. Soon, though, we realized that it was all a bit like walking down the street and asking the first person you saw what he thought of US foreign policy. Turns out you really don’t care all that much what he thinks. You care what people you respect think, whether they are friends, family, or experts.

Consumer generated video is a bit like chat rooms were. Neat technology, a chance to express yourself, and some hidden gems among the generally boring or idiotic mass. Just as we found a way to connect with those people with whom we really wanted to talk, we’ll find a way to watch those videos that really interest us. That, I think, is what Next New Networks is really about.

In New York yesterday, I attended the first PSFK conference and found that although it was occasionally a bit rough around the edges, it was worth the trip. I was also glad to see that the “creative type” uniform was being enforced, as I never before saw so many plastic rimmed, rectangular glasses riding above dark, peacoat length coats in one place in my life. There were many good things to take away from the presentations, however, even though some of the afternoon talks were a bit heavy on marketing speak.

One of the morning sessions involved two artists talking about how they turned their art into advertising. Laurie Rosenwald and Scott Campbell are two very different people, but both successfully created businesses out of traditional art. By traditional art, I mean non-digital. Scott told an interesting story about a client meeting that included four other graphic designers, all of which broke out their laptops at the conference table, while Scott opened up his pad of paper. In our highly digitized world, it’s taken for granted that anyone doing commercial art will create it digitally. We’re so inundated with stories of consumers creating graphics, videos, and blogs, all of it digitally, that we sometimes forget about physical art. Might there even be people who have visited Second Life art galleries, but none in real life?

Laurie and Scott, however, still sit down at a desk (Laurie) or an arm (Scott) and create. Their creations may finish their lives in digital form, but much of what makes their work desirable comes from the fact that they create the old fashioned way. They’ve tapped into something that’s awfully tempting to see as a counter-trend.

Laurie uses ink bottles, scraps of paper, and cut-outs to create designs that are meant to be touched. Even when they end up on a two dimensional page, they look very 3-D. Her designs make me think immediately of the current handmade card trend. These cards are embellished with paper, fabric, and plastic doodads that give them a hand made look (think scrapbook page). The tactile nature of these cards seems to be a reaction to the digital nature of much of the rest of our lives.

Scott’s art is rooted in tattoos, and he’s designed a line of tattooed furniture at Bergdorf’s and is working with Nike to design their 2008 US Olympic uniforms. I’ll certainly be interested to see those uniforms, although Scott was mum on what they might look like (contractual arrangements, you know). Scott had one of my favorite lines from the conference when talking about digitally designed, infinitely replicable graphics - “There’s no personality in perfect.” As he talked about the “grit” in his work, he told us how he met with Comcast reps in the back room of his tattoo shop. I’ve talked before about how tattooing came in from the cold quite some time ago, and Scott does an excellent job of keeping one foot planted in the street art underground while toeing the commercial line with the other.

I think both Laurie’s and Scott’s art is enjoying some popularity because they run counter to the mega trend of all digital all the time. Every large trend produces counter trends that swirl off of it like eddies at the edges of a river. While they may not slow the river down, they can still be quite profitable for an innovative company.