Futurizing your Plans

Monday, March 7, 2011 by Jared Meisel
It is pretty common to wonder about the future. Even more common to wonder when some of those futuristic visions will become a reality. My Dad just sent me this video, which I found to be pretty interesting. 



Here are my reflections based on watching this: 

1. Flexibility of the technology: Notice how flexible the technology looks, seamlessly surrounding them throughout their day. It allows interaction at different points in different ways. Regardless of what your industry is or what your widget does, flexibility is an essential part of designing with the end (consumer and usage) in mind. Are you making flexibility a key ingredient in your approach today?

2. Customizing the Experience: We consumers crave customization based on our unique needs. Businesses that create customized recommendations for consumers are gaining a loyal following - look at Amazon and Netflix as two personal examples. Are you building customized experiences for your audience?

3. Empowering Consumers: Especially the in-store segments, the shopper is able to review the product information, interact with the product options and deselect down to what she was most interested in trying on. This is not an example of technology for technology's sake (which a lot of these future videos tend to have), but rather technology for shopper's sake. Do you understand your target's purchase pattern enough to identify where gaps and opportunities exist that technology might be able to fill?

The future will be exciting. It always is. And yet the fundamentals applicable today will still apply in the future. You have to have a foundation of consumer and shopper insights in order to build anything relevant, especially in marketing. This allows you to start with the problem/issue/opportunity and then find the right solution (technology/product/service) to fill the need.

As far off as the future is (after all, does it ever really arrive?!), you should be futurizing your approach today. Sound daunting? Not sure where to start? You are in luck. We can help. Because at bg, we futurize. 
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