Connectivity Room

Hi! We’re Els Dragt and Pernille Kok-Jensen, trend researchers and expert connectors at MARE Research. Welcome to the Connectivity Room where we share whatever inspires us as well as some of the work that we've done to inspire others. Hopefully by doing so, we'll end up inspiring you or maybe just brightening up your day! Connectivity Room is part of MARE Research, a market research agency that believes in providing custom made future perspectives by connecting consumer insights with global trends. We stay on the pulse through Sparks: our unique, worldwide network of cherry picked creative mavens and trailblazers in various disciplines, who offer their insights and expertise on demand. If you're curious about what trends and Sparks could mean for your company, please don't hesitate to contact us! Let the Sparks fly! MARE Research Raphaelplein 27 1077 PX Amsterdam [email protected] T +31 (0)20 – 6705020 www.mare-research.nl

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THE RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN

Online Tuesday is a monthly event in Amsterdam for anyone interested in online marketing. We attended #45 about online privacy & security. This is our low down:

- How perceptive are you of your online presence? This vid by Buzzfeed shows people getting freaked out when approached by someone who's got some Google info on them.

- The EU court just backed new legislation that gives us the right to be forgotten by Google. 

- A speaker from the Dutch Pirate Party gave their view on today's download and copy culture: "Good ideas are made to copied" & "Piracy is very different from stealing because with piracy the owner still has the possession of the original object." They are in the race for the coming European Elections on the 22th of May.

- A speaker from Microsoft pointed out that president Obama just received an advisory report on big data & privacy. Check it out here.

- Microsoft peeps also calculated the amount of time it would take a regular person to read all the privacy conditions he receives in a year: 78 days! :s

- The discussion about privacy seems to revolve around data collection while the more important concern should be about data processing. And who is responsible? The data collector, processor or the citizen?

We are in the midst of grasping the consequences of leaving digital trails. At Connectivity Room we feel that going Off The Grid wil be an important trend the coming years.

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WHAT DESIGN CAN DO What Design Can Do is an international event investigating the power of design as an agent for social renewal. At the heart of the event is a two-day conference in the centre of Amsterdam. It was a sold-out event and I had the privilage to be a part of it on the first day. There was a certain ambiente which was very interesting to me. A kind of curiosity was hanging in the air. Alle visitors were ready to get a overload of design inspiration with a long list filled with inspiring speakers. I was sitting front row on the first balcony. I had a perfect view of the stage. David Kester and Hadassah de Boer opened this amazing day and talked everything together. Jet Bussemaker - NL Minister of education, culture and  science Daisy Ginsberg - UK Synthetic Biolody Lucas Verweij - Kunst Hockschule Berlin Paul Smith - UK Fashion icoon Richard The - USA Google Creative Lab Willy Wong - UK City Branding Timo De Rijk - NL TU Delft/Design cultures Carlo Ratti - IT  Architecture Nelly Ben Hayoun- France Experience Design And more interesting speakers which you could attend In the following week I will post several reports dedicated to the overwhelming talks from these inspiring speakers and the whole experience around it. I hope you will pick up some things about WHat design can do....

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THE SKY IS YOUR CANVAS Did you ever lay on your back in the grass on a warm summer night, looking at the clouds passing by and asking yourself what the world would look like if you could create all these clouds by yourself? I did as a kid and I still wonder.... I mean how cool would it be if you could use the sky as your canvas to express yourself?! Designer Thomas Lamadieu literally turns the sky into his canvas. He takes pictures of the city sky and uses the sky frameworks that arise from these pics for his design. He then colors the open space and this gives a very cool result. It gives 'looking at the sky' a whole different meaning.

So look into the sky so now and then and get inspired, there's nothing wrong with getting lost in your imagination for a couple of minutes. The sky is the limit!

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A FESTIVAL ABOUT VISUAL STORY TELLING

17-27th of April the Graphic Design Festival took place in Breda. A festival about visual storytelling. Visual storytelling has always been there, humanity already used it during the stone age. These days, existing structures are shifting and it seems that new forces are shaping the idea behind graphic design. In the past visual culture was a form of protest but nowadays It makes people reconsider their choices and ideas. Most of modern graphic design is developed to raise social awareness to involve people in reconnecting todays world. This festival explores how todays designers are dealing with social responsibility. Though powerful project designers express their determination to contribute to the process of change in society. They want to inspire people by playing with their visual knowledge. I have visited several exhibitions during the festival. A single example that really appealed to me was an exchange project from two guys from the US: Christopher Hope & Kenji Nakayama in Signs for the homeless exhibited in MOTI. They have helped several homeless people getting a better “request-board” because their boards were ugly and sometimes unreadable. In exchange for these designed boards Christopher and Kenji would like to hear their story about who they became homeless. They started this exchange project in the hope that those homeless people will get the

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WHAT'S UP #66 BACK TO NATURE Last week (April 15th) I went to What's Up? #66: Back to Nature in Pakhuis De Zwijger. It was all about new initiatives that are inspired by nature. Two key speakers made an impression on me: Olivier Wegloop from Kipster and Aniela Hoitink van Neffa.

Kipster Did you know that the average of food waste per person –yes, your everyday kitchen waste too- is enough to give a chicken a good life? Kipster knows! This initiative was rewarded as the ‘Greenest Idea of Haarlemmermeer’; they dream about happy laying hens all around the city. Kipster provides sustainable chicken runs, medical care/ advice through social media and more. Why? To reduce the food waste, to produce fresh eggs and just because it brings back such a homey and lovely feel to the city. Plus it had an educative factor for kids. Only pro’s! Neffa Neffa explained several of her textile projects: Neffa combines textile with technology and ‘living’ materials. Get a glimpse of future possibilities. The example that stood out the most for me was Monitoring Textile: by incorporating Monitoring Textile into bed linen of hospitals and various other health care institutes, patients can be monitored continuously, the textile will show if the linen is infected or not, which will prevent outbreaks. Impressive, don’t you agree? The next What’s Up? is on May 13th, and is all about local goods. Go check it out and be inspired.

Anouk, Senior Research Manager at MARE

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I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE SOME YOGHURT FROM TIFFANYS PLEASE... Normally when you buy an item from a luxury brand like Chanel, you want to buy it in a luxury store because the setting gives your product extra value and it makes your purchase experience memorable. What if luxury brands are available as ordinary daily products in your nearby supermarket? Does this have any influence on the way we feel about the brands? In times where story telling and branding of products are more important that the actual function of a product, Perry Mergui, (a designer from Israel) wants to overdraw the marketing tricks that several brands are throwing at us because most of the time we're not aware of this marketing magic. He combines universal recognized brands with everyday products, and effectively turns the viewer's perception of quality on its head.  'Wheat is wheat is wheat' is the name of his exhibition. And it shows milk by Apple, flower by Prada and coffee by Cartier... What does a customer actually purchase when he buys a branded product? Does the name of a brand have any influence on the quality we think it will deliver? I mean let's face it, Tiffanys doesn't know anything about yoghurt....

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JUST SKIP IT! It's all around you, everywhere you go advertisements smash you in the face. Billboards, posters, flyers...  When you're watching YouTube you just want to go straight to the clips and not be forced to watch an ad that takes a valuable minute of your life... OMG those adds just take for ever! Thank heaven for the Skip Ad >| button on YouTube, just click on it and you're good to go.

But what about all the offline ads harassing you? Wouldn't it be cool if we had a real life Skip Ad >| option? That is what a couple of creative minds must have thought when they came up with Skip Ad >| stickers. These brilliant minds find that advertising must be relevant and should inspire us to stimulate a better way of living. Unfortunately not every ad is relevant or inspiring. So if you're walking the streets and encounter an ad you feel is irrelevant then put on a Skip Ad >| sticker. And just maybe big advertisement companies will get a wake-up call to make more things that inspire us.  If you would like to give your opinion about annoying adds, you can print your own Skip Ad >| stickers over here and start skipping!

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JUST SAY HELLO!

In some deprived areas in Amsterdam social interaction is stimulated by these street signs saying 'Greeting Zone - Greeting is allowed!'. Let's wave at each other more often!

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DESIGNS OF THE YEAR AWARDS This year Londen organized the Designs of the Year Awards for the seventh time.  During this event several cutting-edge innovation and original talent gathers togheter to show the very best in global architecture, digital, fashion, furniture, graphic, product and transport design.

This exhibition is a good reflection of all the exciting and topic designs in the world. All kinds of designs will be revealed during this exhibition from 26 March till 24 August 2014. Products with a clear future solutions will get the extra attention which they deserve. About a few of the designs which are shown at this exhibition, we've already gebloged a while ago like: Phoneblocks, Faire Phone, Hello lamp post, Chineasy. If you want to be up-to-date of the best designers from this year, you must go and visite The Design museum in London. Someday the other museums will be showing this stuff!!

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AN INTERESTING AFTERNOON

We Dutchies have spawned some of the world's well-know forecasters in the past decades. But we only have a Dutch Future Society since 2013. They organize interesting events where international and Dutch future researchers lecture and meet. We visited 'An Interesting Afternoon' in Amsterdam and heard about these great projects & topics:

Horizonscan 2050: The STT (The Study Centre for Technology Trends) is an independent non-profit foundation and is currently researching the far future of 2050. What challenges await us on the horizon in the next four decades? These challenges were rated on their possibility and desirability. The researchers found an interesting blind spot: when we feel a low desire for a challenge/situation we also tend to estimate the possibility of it happening low. Our brain is wired to like continuity and dislike changes, so it's hard to be open to any alteration in our lives. Futurists: beware of your own blind spot!

World 50.0: A project that states it's the first open source project to collect visionary insights about possible events, technical innovations and social changes. They ask anyone (yeah, you too!) to share ideas of the future of our world in 50 years via several ways, eg. a Facebook group. The goal of World 50.0 is to inspire, to call for action and craft our own future together.

Impact of Future Technology: At Oxford University there's a research group dedicated to studying the possibilities of transformative technological changes and its implications. They are studying 'the unknowns' and feel the future might be all about safe, responsible and fair technology.

The essence of scenarios: Is the book title of former Shell futurist Roland Kupers. He states: "the future is not neutral" and we need to engage WITH the future instead of just thinking about it. Scenario planning is a way to engage with several possible futures and is best done via a combination of intuition and logic.

What is a futurist? Phd-student Tessa Cramer is exploring the profession of future researchers. What defines a futurist? Which job title(s) are used? What do futurists contribute to the world (or clients)? Most of the participants considered themselves to be strategy consultants who inspire others to act on possible futures. 

It was indeed An Interesting Afternoon! Be sure to check out the forthcoming events organized by the Dutch Future Society.

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WHERE DOES YOUR IDEA FIT?

Got a great creative idea? Just plot it in the above axes to check if you should really get your idea going.

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METAPHORICAL FREEDOM OF NOT KNOWING This picture of Jennilee Marigomen shows the mindset of todays world, metaphoricaly. When I was a kid I was playing outside all day long and my mom had to pull my hair to get me inside.  Nowadays you rarely see children playing outside, building tree houses, picking flowers or owning the neighbourhood. These kids replaced the playground for cool digital toys and they rather stay inside. They probably don't even recognize these jumping drawings on the ground. But for adults it's a metaphorical image of freedom. Freedom not knowling the grownup world when you were a kid. Get off the highway of life and start enjoying the moment.

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3D PRINTING EVERYONE CAN DO IT Until now only a specific group of people had access to 3D printing, like architects, scientists, designers etc. When we hear about 3D printing we hear about someone getting a new printed skull or jaw. However HEMA now enables everyone to have access to this world changing printer. HEMA is the first retail company in the Netherlands who makes it possible for the mainstream to have access to this phenomenon. You can easily create your own designed phone cases and bracelets on their website. Once you've created your unique item you can pick it up at one of the HEMA stores or get it delivered at home. I find it very remarkable that a company like HEMA is the first one to offer this service because they normally sell everyday products like kettles, potholders, underwear, vases which aren;t hi tech. 3D printing is however everything but a everyday product and that is why I wonder whether the 3D printing service will be a success. The future will tell…

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AMSTERDAM NORTH: 7th MOST HIP NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE WORLD Talk about the IJhallen flea market in Amsterdam North, and most Amsterdammers will be like; what?! that's aaaaaaall the way across the water behind the central station! But even though many people of Amsterdam find a 15 minute trip with public transport out of the question, this amazing market did not go unnoticed to the rest of the world. 

What began as a no-mans-land quickly grew to become a great place for creative start-ups, festivals, restaurants and a monthly flea market. The website Skyscanner made a ranking of the 20 most hipster neighbourhoods in the world and Amsterdam North finished seventh next to Williamsburg in NYC, Kreuzberg in Berlin and Dalston in London. 

Something to be proud of I must say! Check the complete ranking over here.

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THE RISE OF ANTI-NORMCORE BEAUTY? Fashion is going normcore, it's all about blending in with the crowd. Seinfeld fashion is how some people discribe this style. It's born out of frustration that we have tried everything to make it work ( just like the crisis) Now we start over with the normcore. Being normal is oke. But when you look at the Beauty world it's all about standing out with all kinds of shapes and colours. Big brighter better is what counts. We are official allowed to have fun with our beauty. Girls paint their hair in every shade of the rainbow and we colour our nails as crazy as possible. The beauty of all this is that we can express ourselves to be bright and colourful but no worries if it goes wrong. Just wipe it off and start all over.  `Don't be too serious, Just wink at life

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AFTER SEX SELFIE We were so angry when we heard that the goverment was checking our phone calls and emails. So, you know what, let's make an after-sex-selfie and put it online! How's that for over sharing?!

As usual, Millennials have found an ironic way to comment on the fact that their privacy is being broken into. We're so curious to see where this goes. Sometimes it appears hat Millennials regard privacy in completely different way that previous generations. 

Has privacy become a thing of the past?

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AWAY WITH OLD SCHOOL MARKETING