Make Things People Want & The Hollow Factory...
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john v willshire smithery LTD @willsh
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A talk given at the IAB France & Hyper Island Workshop in Paris, 27th November 2012
Transcript of Make Things People Want & The Hollow Factory...
john v willshiresmithery LTD
@willsh
Bonjour
7 years at PHD Media in London, latterly As Chief Innovation Officer
let me take you back to the Glasgow 2012 olympics...
North korea and south korea have been enemies for
over 70 years
so It’s a probably not a good idea to mix their flags up
Merde.
Wednesday 15th July, Hampden Park, Glasgow
North Korea Vs Columbia
NOT HAPPY
REALLY not happy
The players come back out, eventually.
North korea win 2-0.
and then, the strangest of apologies is issued...
It wasn't a real flag, it was a flag on a video graphic
Paul deighton, locog chief executive
“”
Real not Real
eh?
this story tells ustwo things
1. Scottish people aren’t afraid of north korea
2. digital and physical aren’t different ‘things’...
all our metaphors are broken. The network is not a space, and
it’s not time, it is some other kind of dimension entirely.
@jamesbridlehttp://booktwo.org/notebook/sxaesthetic/
“
”
all our metaphors are broken. The network is not a space, and
it’s not time, it is some other kind of dimension entirely.
@jamesbridlehttp://booktwo.org/notebook/sxaesthetic/
“ ”
let’s think about Product, Brand and media metaphors...
The factory makesan end product...
end product implies stasis, or even death
We have made a thing, and it is finished
products today are never finished. They’re just platforms for people to build on...
“A brand is simply a collection of perceptions
in the mind of the consumer”
Feldwick, 1991
hey, let’s find out what these perceptions are and
put them in an onion...
if your brand is a bit shit, coat it with other stuff too
Oh look, it’s a bruce Lee Nokia N96
A brand today is more like a bittorrent file...
transmission model
http://mediasocialchange.net/2011/05/06/metaphors-of-media-and-social-change/Prof. Mark Hobart, SOAS, on the dominant media metaphor
a mechanical metaphor, the infamous “
”
media:let’s shout
at people
media:a rented
home for a fixed idea...
make product efficiently
innovation as incremental improvement
Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes.
Wikipedia
make brand vaguely interesting& buy loads of media
make product efficiently
“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads”
Jeff Hammerbacher
””
we need to find new metaphors...
media is the connective
tissue of societyclay shirky, cognitive surplus
“
”
media is a vehicle for knowledge
cesar hidalgoMIT media lab
“”
Media is hybrid, just like buildings, devices,
spaces, events etc.
Nothing is all-digital any more that it’s all-physical.
Dan Hill, @cityofsound
“
”
media is product is brand is media is product is brand is media is product is
brand is media is product is brand is media is product is brand is media is
product is brand is media is product is brand is media is product is brand is media is product is brand is media is
product is brand is media is product is brand is media is product is brand is
we need new metaphors to
deal with what comes next
1. more clients will be making things locally
rebalancing economies towards
manufacture
“reshoring”
http://www.inc.com/eric-markowitz/the-long-journey-home-why-manufacturing-is-returning-to-the-usa.html
shipping costs up?labour costs as % down?
Then you bring it back home
2. people care more about what they buy
The internet is biased towards fact. People don’t care about your brand mythology, they care about where your product is made and what’s in it.
douglas rushkoff
“
”
3. the things are... ALIVE!!!!
SPIMES: Material Instantiations of an immaterial system
Bruce Sterling
“”
Physical things directly connected to their metadata about use and constructioN Matt Jones, Berg“
”
media ships as part of every product
Dan Williams
@iamdanw
“My Tuna is
a spime”
the infrastructure is evolving quickly
it will onlyget a lot,
lotstranger
The NEw yorker, 1946
1. Clients will be closer to making things...
2. people will look more closely at the things they buy...
3. Things contain media for agencies to create for...
but what do clients & agencies
know about making things?
you are the
thingsgood
bill hicks on marketers
ruiners of all
C3podemeanshimselffor a washingmachine
really?
The Star Wars Holiday Special looks classy in comparison
you are the
thingsgoodruiners of all
though actually...
people stoppedcaring in
1999
so what is actually being ruined here?
WHY RUIN your brand WITH STAR WARS?
there is nothing in here that’s interesting
get me Darth Vadar
you are the
thingsgoodruiners of all
So how might you go about it instead?
world buildingworld borrowingless more
the labour theory of value
developed by adam smith...
...and later by karl marx
modern economics:
the value of a thing is determined by what one
is willing to give up to obtain the thing
The labour theory of value
the value of something is determined by the labour that went into its production
Field Notes
£0.99 £3.33per padper pad
We’d rather buy this world...
...than this world
“marketing is world building. With unlimited bandwidth we can now show you the world.”
@TobyBarnes
To Do a common thing
brings successuncommonly well
henry john heinz
I’m really interested in the making of ‘it’ -where the making is part of the story of the ‘it’...
thomas heatherwick
“”
Marx was half right...
it’s not about the
http://www.voyoslo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Means-of-Production-PLAYFUL12.006.jpg
meansof production
it’s about themeaningin production
layer upon
layer upon
layer upon
layer upon
layer
http://vimeo.com/43442146
Picture: Greg Petchkovsky
Labour theory of brand value:
make every product with the infinite canvas of the internet in mind
make
things
peoplewant
makethingspeoplewant
[email protected]@willshhttp://smithery.cohttp://shop.smithery.co
