Seriously Exciting Club

A continually-updated blog of stuff that excites the people of ?What If! Innovation.

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Eleven NHS deaths from wrong medication - Telegraph

Eleven people died in the NHS in England last year after being given the wrong medication, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said today.

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http://www.carefusion.com/pdf/Infusion/Alaris_Overview_brochure-IF2403.pdf

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Vitamins foldable wheel has been short-listed by the Design Museum for their Design of the Year award for 2013.

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Selfridges Goes Logo-Free for No-Noise Quiet Shopping New Year's Revolution

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Designed to overcome the overly loss of space between the cylinders of beer, Heineken Cube optimizes storage all along the chain: from manufacturer to consumer.

It generates a significant fuel economy during transport. Its minimalist form gives it a strong visual identity and integrates symbolic object as in consumer memory.

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Demise of HMV Contributor: Jonas Twitchen

This short article, written by the longstanding head of HMV's advertising agency, is a fantastic example of many of the things we discuss about innovation. I thought I'd circulate because it's a) British and b) recent.

The story includes: * A strong and well-run business with a great brand * An initial failure to understand changes in their marketplace and their consumers * Failed attempts to innovate their way out of trouble - too little, too late Worth a read if you have a spare 5 mins.

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Facebook graph = new tool for insight generation

Facebook has just announced a new intelligent search tool, Facebook Graph.

The tool will help us surface rapid clues from our networks enhancing our existing insight practice. This is the first real step Facebook has made to free its wealth of valuable data in a move that brings Facebook and Google into closer rivalry, and starts to build Facebook a clearer path to real monetisation. Early reports have been met with positivity as some preliminary searches release interesting data: Obama fans are more likely to like Michael Jackson vs Mitt Romney supporters more likely to listen to Johnny Cash. You can also search for recommendations ("have any of my friends ever been to a good restaurant in Stockholm") and get data on things like whether women from London are more likely to dye their hair pink that women outside London.

The value of the tool will be in the depth of data it allows us access to, but should prove useful when used in conjunction with google trends (http://www.google.com/trends ) or google correlate (http://www.google.com/trends/correlate) and will give our hunches some more quant back up.

The tool is on a slow roll out, but we should start experimenting as soon as it comes. I suspect it'll be a useful exploration tool to give us clues for pitches and the beginning of projects, and could be a great recruitment tool enabling fast attitudinal and demographic segmentations. I suspect this will throw up yet another privacy debate for Facebook, but in the long run could be another very useful tool for consumers and us as we start to think about how to supplement our existing insight capability with digital tools. 

Emily Dent.

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Life Straw: Simple, lifesaving technology in an obvious format

The LifeStraw is a water filter designed to be used by one person to filter water so that they may safely drink it. It filters enough water for one person for one year and removes 99.9999% of waterborne bacteria and 99.9% of parasites. MS.

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Friday Freshness: Disingenuous Branding

I wanted to share something interesting/thought-provoking on the recent launch of the new coffee shop Harris & Hoole, disingenuous branding and the ‘indie’ experience.

Harris and Hoole is the Tesco-funded ‘indie’ coffee shop that’s the new kid on the suburban block – vying for a slice of the growing £6bn UK café pie.

Yesterday the Guardian did a nice little piece revealing how people felt ‘cheated’ into thinking that the artisanal vibe they were soaking up was free from the perceived evils of global corporations. Put simply, they felt cheated by the store’s design language.

Now I wonder how far will the gen public’s questioning of H&H’s provenance go?

You could argue that Tesco has simply fulfilled a customer’s desire for an independent experience served with a decent flat white?

A [slightly cynical] haunch is that it’s simply a desire for the indie experience rather than the actual independent café. If the coffee is as good as next-door’s Costa, and couple of pence cheaper and served with a smile; people will vote with their feet.

I guess it’s a good example of rivers of thinking – we’ve worked a way out of sifting out an indie coffee shop – the mismatched furniture, blackboards and hand-cut panninis. So if you’re an ethical consumer, I reckon things are going to get harder when sniffing out the real indie Mccoy!

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This looks interesting... Assemble & Join is a community micro-manufacturing workshop on Lower Marsh, a thriving independent high street in the heart of London. http://www.assembleandjoin.co.uk