Coolhunting por Víctor Gil organizado por AECEM

Acaba de terminar la presentación sobre Coolhunting realizada por Víctor Gil y organizada por AECEM. Víctor Gil es un coolhunter, su empresa se llama Cool Insights, y es author de dos libros: Crossumer y Coolhunting.

En unas dos horas Víctor nos ha proporcionado una visión general de lo que es el coolhunting o análisis de tendencias y cómo se lleva a cabo, salpimentando su presentación con comentarios sobre tendencias pasadas, actuales y futuras. Además nos ha propuesto un ejercicio en el que tras apuntar varios fenómenos dispersos hemos acabado identificando varias tendencias subyacentes. La presentación estará pronto en su web.

Estas son las ideas principales que entresaco de su presentación:

• El coolhunting consiste en anticipar gustos e intereses de los consumidores a través de detección de cambios en sus patrones de consumo y valores que los inspiran.
  
  
• Aun siendo conocido más como un arte relacionado con el mundo de la moda, hoy empieza a ser una disciplina o conjunto de competencias, con metodología y creciente bibliografía.
  
  
• Contextualizar es un elemento clave en la actividad del coolhunting: hay que conocer y referirse al grupo al que pertences el target y enmarcar todo en un espacio y tiempo determinados (las últimas tendencias de Tokyo son poco útiles cuando investigamos a amas de casa españolas)
  
  
• Además de conocimientos sobre consumidor, marketing, psicología y sociología, el cool hunter requiere ciertas competencias: saber dónde y como mirar, interpretar, comunicar y aplicar comercialmente las conclusiones extraidas.
  
  
• El acierto de las previsiones realizadas aumenta si se se verifica el enganche de los fenómenos estudiados con necesidades y hábitos existentes o latentes, su aparición en diferentes categorías y la confirmación por parte de expertos.
  

Víctor ha finalizado detallando una serie de herramientas para contrastar y monitorizar tendencias (Google trends, trendpedia, lexicon para facebook, tweetmeme, entre otras).

En resumen, un estupendo panorama de qué es el coolhunting y cómo aplicarlo de manera "casera" con metodología y conocimiento de causa. Cierro con un consejo metodológico de Víctor: "para ser coolhunter hay que desaprender". Saca el niño que tienes dentro: fíjate en los detalles y pregúntate por el por qué de las cosas. Amén.

Storytelling and technology

My favorite feature of many many web 2.0 sites is the status update feature. Such a tiny thing is a crazy mix of personal news update, ego-exhibitionism, gossip and who knows what else (probably this is the reason why it appeals to so many people). Such a simple feature can serve many different purposes as casual or as transcendent as you can imagine. Actually there is a debate going on regarding uses of microblogging, Twitter in this case, beyond its traditional purpose.

twitter tweets...

I want to bring here the case of Twitter as an example of how users can find innovative use cases for existing technologies. Recently, going through Frog Design's blog I found this interesting post on how Twitter has been used for a real-time reenactment of the 23 feb 1981 coup d’etat in Spain. In a country that was struggling to consolidate a budding democracy those were uncertain days. I was too young to recall anything but my parents have told me how we were driving home, close to a military cantonment, not knowing if tanks would be out blocking the roads. The whole country held on to their radios and TV sets listening to the pieces of news that kept on dripping every other minute.

...also en español

Twenty eight years later, Twitter users have revisited, minute by minute, this historical event for my country. Isn't it a wonderful way of telling a story with today’s latest technical tools and language?. I am shocked with what people can come up with when given the adequate resources...

Something is rotten in Technoland

Interesting data on frustation and the use of technology. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

• "Nearly half (48%) of adults who use the internet or have a cell phone say they usually need someone else to set up a new device up for them or show them how to use it."
  

• When technology fails 60% of users feel impatient, 48% discouraged and 40% confused.
  

• 15% of the users is unable to find a solution. It is shocking that only a meager 2% of those who found a solution found it online.
  

That is a lot of frustration for an industry aimed at simplifying our lives, isn't it?. These data say a lot about messy interfaces. An interesting question is: does the interface have to be necessarily complicated in the early adoption phase of a product? As an advocate of effective , transparent communication I do not think so. Ask Apple.

The survey findings resonate with me to a great extent. I never understood why setting up an Internet connection almost required computer science expertise or why Windows punished me with having to go through a help file as engaging as the telephone directory. The following is a great example regarding macros (there should be a graduate program on Microsoft macros' error messages)

Click to enlarge. Would you ever read it?
By the way, clicking OK didn't make things better...
it was just an informational error message, not actionable whatsoever

I guess Windows Vista sorted out some of this problems. They lost me as a client way before Vista was launched.

In this post I have just pinpointed the conclusions that strike me the most in the survey. It is worth taking a quick look at the rest of the study.