To be a trend or not to be???

To reline the book report on trend forecasting it is crucial to illustrate what a trend actually is. Because fully understanding this issue is essential to rightly adapt the methods promoted by The Forecaster´s Handbook, I will use a whole post to do so.

So what is a trend?

Actually it has not to be physical or aesthetical. The change can also happen in the minds of human beings or simply through emotions. The people´s new ecological awareness of the recent years can for example be counted as a trend, too. A trend is an anomaly which is slightly becoming more common, more accepted among the people. Oppositely to a style, which only shows the difference to the status quo, the trend additionally illustrates the direction into the examined phenomenon might be moving. The word might in this sentence is crucial, because no one can forecast the future for sure. This compels every company and every strategist to develop different scenarios.

Scenario planning is stressed because it is essential to be prepared to react quickly to any changes happening in this fast changing times in a multi-connected globalized world. According to these scenarios there can be crafted action plans giving advice what to do and how to cope with the development if one of these scenarios suddenly occurs. The company with the most thorough, best refined and best reflected scenario plans will come out of this new development as the new strongest actor in the operating field. Like Shell did after the oil crisis in the 1970´s, as it was the only company prepared even for the unthinkable scenario of an oil boycott of the OPEC states.

Resuming the already posted point, that trend forecast is a multi-field science, Biologist Richard Dawkins compares trends to genes calling them memes. Genes assimilate themselves and change by going through bodies, memes assimilate themselves and change by going through brains. Genes as well as memes assimilate, learn and evolve to ensure survival, whether socially, intellectually, culturally or physically. They do so very time when people copy attributions of others which are successful and highly valued by the surrounding society.

Trends spread in a different speed due to different factors like the price of the product, whether it is actually an attitude in people´s minds or something physical and so on. But regarding the society, how do trends spread or as trend forecasters prefer to say: go viral?

Sociologist Everett M. Rogers developed the Diffusion of Innovation 40 years ago and it is still used in this field of science. The society is split up into five groups, namely the Innovators, who do not necessarily create the trend but are the first ones to discover it. Early Adopters, usually close friends of the Innovators and socially better connected, adapt the newly found trend as the first persons. These two heterophilous groups, encompassing people with the aim to be different, are very interesting for trend forecasters, because usually they are needed to gain the critical mass a trend needs to start spreading.

The Early Majority starts using the trend when it already spread but still is not known to everyone, while the Late Majority, a more skeptical part of the population, starts settling on the trend when it is really proved in the exercise through other groups. A trend adapted by the last and least changing stratum of society, the Laggards, indicates that the trend is already gone and rather common habit than new pattern, hence a good trend forecaster should have already scented the next trend.

  

Based on The Trend Forecaster´s Handbook by Martin Raymond

Matthäus

The Trend Forecaster´s Handbook

Trend forecast is important as Team Royal Mess has to deal with future banking in our group´s project with Aktia. This makes it necessary to gather for insights into techniques which help to perceive new trends. The Trend Forecaster´s Handbook by Martin Raymond should deliver these insights. Investment into new trends is risky and therefore has to be well reflected. Companies lost billions of Dollars in the fight for superstition in the market, for example between the VHS and Betamax in the 90´s or just a few years ago when the question appeared whether to endorse the Blu-Ray Disc or HD DVD.

This piece of literature sophistically provides much knowledge, many examples, case studies, stories from successful trend forecasters and how they work as well as a guideline for all phases of trend forecasting from detection to the actual product development.

Information is power - Multi-field research has to be done in trend forecasting ranging from neuro-psychology and complexity theory over behavioral economics up to network science as well as ethnography. You have to know your sector, your products, your company and brand as well as the target group very thoroughly.

Methods of trend detection

Martin Raymond provides many advices how to behave during the working process and what essential points should be regarded and covered. These methods will definitely be used by the project group in order to answer the crucial questions of a trend forecaster: "what", "why", "how", "where" and "when" does something happen.

This book thoughtfully lays down the different forms of intuition, well reflected by providing the advantages as well as the disadvantages. The author clearly states, that intuitive trend perception may be right and useful, but it is hard to be illustrated to a customer, who aims for a data-driven explanation about the whole working process. In order to solve this challenge this piece of literature promotes different cutting-edge methods to map your thoughts and to refine them, namely gut intuition, expert intuition and strategic intuition. Furthermore there is a red string through the whole book guiding you from the first perception up to the last step, the actual product development.

Cultural Brailing, kind of hyper-observation, is one of the methods to detect trends. It consists basically out of observation and asking the right questions about the perceived objects or habits. Since this should happen without prejudgment, suspension of logic is sometimes crucial. The human brain automatically associates new sights to known stuff, but this lets you create only the same stuff over and over again, but nothing new. Logic hinders creativity!

Many new thoughts are not logic but make sense later. The motto Think of the Unthinkable has led to many ideas which revolutionized the world. Open your mind!

Many brains have more power than one does. In order to work together to find a trend they have to be connected which happens via a network. The author examines the different types of networks, from the hierarchical over the collaborative to the distributive network, and shows the pros and cons of using them. Networks are everywhere today, yes you are already using a distributive network by reading this blog post!

App-lication

Now cutting down trend forecasting to the banking sector and Aktia, what are the crucial points in the future of banking? An issue to discuss will be definitely the developing story of the NFC technology. Further there has to be analyzed in which extend online banking will grow and additionally what role face-to-face service at the counter will play in the future. Finally and most importantly: what are the trends no one anticipates today?

Questions over questions which have to be thoroughly researched to draw scenarios and make conclusions out of them in order to respond quickly and effectively to future trends.

Fin.

Matthäus

Graphic Design Thinking: Beyond Brainstorming

GRAPHIC DESIGN THINKING: BEYOND BRAINSTORMING

by Ellen Lupton

Graphic design thinking is a book about generating ideas by going through various phases. Allthough it's much about the visual design and about generating ideas, it also goes through the steps of defining problems and how to get ideas with various methods. It also takes up different case studies with every topic

This book is suitable for our project about banking service design as the user experience (visual, easy to use etc.) has to be on a great level to get a customer to use a service. No one will ultimately use a service that is badly designed and structured.

”A problem well-stated is half solved” - John Dewey

The first chapter is about defining problems via different methods. According to the book there are five rules or guidelines on how to brainstorm in a group:

1. Appoint a moderator
This person writes down on a big paper or a whiteboard ALL the ideas that are thrown during brainstorming. He is the leader of the brainstorming process but doesn't necessarily need to be the team leader. The moderator can also start to categorize the ideas along the way

2. State the topic

This part is all about being specific with the topic. It can be good to break down the topic to smaller parts to generate discussion.

3. Write down EVERYTHING

Everyone should tell their ideas without holding back at all. Every idea should be written down, even the silly and the familiar ideas. By writing everything down you can combine different ideas to become even better ideas.

4. Time limit
By establishing a time limit you'll probably increase the produtivity. It's also good to set a minimum amount of ideas for the whole group.

5. Follow up
Rank ideas and try to get some action after the brainstorming. This way the ideas stay fresh in their minds and won't be forgotten.

Tips on how to make mindmaps are also given. Mindmapping is a great way to quickly get a grip and explore a problem. The most essential part is to have ONE central term in the middle of the mindmap.

A big part of the book is still about designing and ways to design different subjects. For me this is an interesting book because of all the case studies and visual designs that it presents.

“Learn to look past your own navel for ideas”

//Mikael H

Farliga Idéer

For the book assignment I read the book Farliga Idéer - När det opassande tänkande är din värdefullaste resurs (aprox. Dangerous Ideas - When the improper thinking is your most valuable resource) by Alf Rehn.

The book is about creativity, but really it's not. By that I mean it's not one of those classical creativity books that tells you to just step out of your box and do creativity excersises. It's more about to start thinking about the things were not supposed to think about, the improper things. The most interesting points Alf writes about are that there is levels of creativity, that we should think more childishly and about the things adults wouldn't even dream about, and that creativity shouldn't be just nice, but even a little bit disgusting. Usually we think about the nice level creativity where Alf argues that we actually are not creative, but we think we are. The other level is the real creativity, when we have had the courage to step out of our comfort zone and be creative about things that others think is improper or not suitable. At this stage we push our brain to really think and skip the norms. Also he says we need to be more childish, not think that an idea is not possible and imagine things like everything is possible. We need to be even a bit disgusting and think beyond the comfort of nice things. As an example in the book he told about a successful restaurant named The Fat Duck who's owner doesn't see any limits on food. The owner created a dish called "snailporridge" and it's just what it seems like; snails mixed with porridge and it became a success.

It's about thinking that every idea is a possibility, because many success stories don't actually contain a product we thought we would ever need. Here's the iPad a good example. Before the iPad we didn't even think we would ever need one, but when Steve Jobs launched their new Apple product line many bought it and many more think they should get one. It's about creating need. There's many stories like this and it shows that any idea is possible, because we shouldn't limit ourselves to the neccessary or what actually generates sales for sure, but go with it and see what happens.

Towards the end of the book he tells about an excercise he uses on students; they have to make a list of 20 business ideas in about 40 minutes otherwise they fail the course (okay, not really, but this makes them more motivated). His conclusions from the exercise is that the first ideas are good, but safe and common, the middle ones are not that bad, but still the brain hasn't worked hard enough to find the really creative ideas, and the last five are usually totally irrational, but very creative since the brain have had to really empty itself on everything it knows and go beyond the norms. The best ideas comes when you're working under preassure and have a deadline to meet, so I think this is something we're really going to experience at Kunstenniemi.

To finish this post my conclusions are that I think the books message was that we should take more risks, believe in ourselves and allow us to think about the unthinkable. Also we should have the courage to be different and try out things that no one else has and sometimes the most simple ideas are the best ones compared to a really thought-out idea. I think the book was really good, easy to read and follow, so I'm definitely recommending it to others to read!

/ Jasmine

Links on banking service design

By simple googleing I found a bunch of interesting websites and articles on banking service design:

Service Design For Innovative Banking (Rhaglen Dylunio Gwasanaethau Service Design Programme blog)

Storyboarding For A Banking Service (Service Design Melbourne)

Service Design For Banking (Blog: interaction design)

Bringing Service Design Into Retail Banking (Blog: Birds on a W!re)

Designing The Future Bank For The Digital Era (Sabadell slideshow)

The Big Broken Bank Rebuild (Article: The Guardian)

7 Ideas For Innovation In Banking Services (meld STUDIOS)

/ Jasmine

Picture from here.

Mikael L

Hey, I am Mikael, a second-year political science-student at Åbo Akademi University. I also study marketing and journalism as minors. In my spare time I enjoy playing the guitar and spending time with my family and friends.  

I attended this course because it seemed suitable to my studies, and also I thought it would be a nice variation to the regular courses at the university.

Random fact: I am a big fan of the NHL team Philadelphia Flyers!

Book presentation: Markkinamuotoilu-johdatko markkinoita vai johtavatko markkinat sinua

Markkinamuotoilu-johdatko markkinoita vai johtavatko markkinat sinua
Kaj Storbacka & Suvi Nenonen

The book consists of five main chapters:

•  Release from the chains of market
•  Define the right market for you
•  Make an exploration of sources of market
•  Market design basics
•  Markets management

The book has a simple idea that growth is not found staring at its own bellybutton. Need to lift the eye and create a better picture of the market in which want to act. I believe that the book will be useful when considering new and different ways of marketing. In the future market innovations are at least as important as the technology innovations.

Suomeksi kirjan pääkohtia: 
Monet yritykset ovat markkinamäärittelynsä vankeja. Nykyisiltä markkinoilta on vaikea löytää kasvua, mutta siirtyminen uusille markkinoille tuntuu vaikealta ja riskialttiilta. Kasvua hakevan yrityksen tulee muuttaa näkemystään markkinoista: markkinat eivät ole ulkoa annettuja lähtökohtia strategialle, vaan ne voivat olla hyvin toteutuneen strategian tulosta. Yrityksen on luotava parempi kuva siitä, millä markkinoilla halutaan toimia, ja muokata näiden markkinoiden logiikka sellaiseksi, että se sopii yrityksen kyvykkyyksiin. Uuden kasvun aihiot löytyvät siitä, että määrittelee markkinat eri tavalla kuin kilpailijat ja panostaa sellaisiin markkinoihin, jotka kasvavat.Kirjan yksinkertainen idea on, ettei kasvu löydy omaa napaa tuijottelemalla. Pitää nostaa katse ja luoda parempi kuva siitä, millä markkinoilla halutaan toimia.

Markkinainnovaatio lähtee johtamisinnovaatiosta. Markkinainnovaatiot syntyvät, kun asioita tehdään uusilla tavoilla ja markkinoiden nykyisiä käytäntöjä hallitsevat ”totuudet” haastetaan. Yrityksen täytyy myös kyseenalaistaa perinteiset johtamisopit ja ”viisaudet” ja inspiroida koko organisaatiota venyttämään mielikuvituksensa yli yleisesti hyväksyttyjen ja itsestään selvien ratkaisujen.

Perinteisesti on innovaatio nähty lähinnä uutena tuotteena tai palveluna. Markkinalähtöinen innovaatio voi kuitenkin viitata mihin tahansa osaan yrityksen liiketoimintamallissa: asiakasprosesseihin, tarjoomaan ja arvolupauksiin, ansaintalogiikkaan, toiminnallisiin prosesseihin sekä johdon käytäntöihin. Innovointi täytyy siis juurruttaa organisaation kaikille tasoille ja kaikkiin toimintoihin. 

Unohda tuote – ymmärrä tuotteen tuoma hyöty → yritykset eivät myy autoa vaan mahdollisuutta liikkua, ostaja ei halua hissiä vaan mahdollisuutta liikuttaa ja hallita ihmisvirtaa

Tuotteella ei siis sinällään ole merkitystä, vaan sillä mitä tuote mahdollistaa.

Välttääkseen hukkumisen läpipääsemättömiin ja hitaasti kasvaviin sinisiin meriin (vrt. Blue Ocean Strategy) tulisi yritysten rakentaa kilpailutilanteita niistä pakenemisen sijaan!

Uusia markkinoita kuluttajien arkea parantamalla: käytännöt tarjoavat lukuisia kiinnostavia mahdollisuuksia markkinainnovaatioihin.

Menestyksekkään markkinamuotoilun ensimmäinen haaste on yrityksen nykyisen markkinamääritelmän haastaminen ja uusien luovien määritelmien löytäminen. Menestyksen mahdollisuudet kasvavat, jos pystymme tunnistamaan, milloin aktiivinen markkinamuotoilu kannattaa aloittaa ja mihin kilpailuareenoihin on syytä keskittyä. → megatrendit, muutosvoimat, kilpailijoiden toimenpiteet, uusi kilpailija, jakelukanavien yhdistyminen.

Markkinoiden johtaminen edellyttää yrityksiltä uusia johtamiskäytäntöjä ja uusia kyvykkyyksiä. Asiakasymmärryksen hyödyntämisestä tulee yksi yrityksen merkittävimmistä kyvykkyyksistä, joka ohjaa kaikkea kehitystä. Osaava yritys luo kokemuksia, jotka auttavat asiakkaita oppimaan asioita itsestään ja heitä ympäröivästä maailmasta.

  

// Laura

Matthäus

Hey, I am Matthäus and currently studying as an exchange student at the Novia University of Applied Sciences in Turku. My general studies are International Relations and Management but here during my semester abroad I try to get some insights into tourism by working with Andelslaget Toptimal International.

Inno58 seems to me like a really interesting challenge, which eventually led me to join this project. It is exciting to work in an international setting and a good way to get to know Finnish people as well as the way of creating things here in Finland. This project will definitely boost the whole group´s ability to work in an intercultural context.

Random Fact: A good steak is the best tasting vegetable ;-)

Henkka

Hi everyone,
My name is Henri and  I'm a second year business administration student at Novia University of Applied Sciences. I am always interested in new mobile apps and mobile devices. I'm also a huge believer in companies doing their marketing via the social media and other cheaper sources.

I was already attending the course last year but then i got an job opportunity and I had to decide between those two, and I chose the latter one. The course fitted this year however perfectly in my schedule so i am very interested to see what we will be able to create under the given time limit. Our school gives me and the other ones from Novia good knowledge for team-working so hopefully I can help our team in many ways.

Random fact: I could stay home and watch football all day long, greatest sport in the world.

Global Service Jam

As our topic this year will be about "banking service design" I thought it would be good to share my experience of service design to you. GSJ is a happening that I participated a while ago with service design as the main theme. It's a worldwide happening and you have a time limit of only 48h to have an idea ready. A good collection of videos based on service design and it can be good to watch to get a grip and see examples of service design.

Videos from Finland and other parts of the world: http://www.youtube.com/user/ServiceJamTurku
The blog from the happening in Turku: http://servicejamturku.wordpress.com/

// Micke

Mikael H

Hello! I'm Mikael or Micke as I am often called. I'm a third year business adminstration student in Novia University of Applied Sciences with a focus on marketing. I'm inspired by new trends, new technology, visualization and creative solutions in marketing.

I'm attending INNO58h now basically for the second time ( one year i participated without getting to Kunstenniemi). I'm quite familiar with the concept of working in INNO and like the freedom of coming up with innovative and creative solutions. The way of working is similar to ours in Novia and I think I have a lot to offer when we get the motor running with the group in Kunstenniemi. I'm also looking forward to Kunstenniemi with all it's tight deadlines, innovation, laughs and also the stress that follows the deadline.

ACTION!

Random fact: On my freetime i'm an amateur DJ.

A pic from Inno last Autumn

Website

Service Design and Technology in Retail Banking

http://www.imacor.eu/Service_Design_and_Technology_in_Retail_Banking.html

Laura

I'm Laura, a 31 year old student from Turku University of Applied Sciencies where I study Hospitality Management.

When I´m not studying I like to to travel as much as possible and on weekends (and sometimes weeknights) I work in a café. I also have two children that keep me busy ;)

I attended this course because it sounded very interesting, and I believe that the course has a lot to offer me.

Innovation is a new way of learning for me and certainly useful in all fields. 

Nice to meet new people from different backgrounds!

Random fact: Traveling is my passion!

Jasmine

Hi! My name is Jasmine Kukko, 22 y/o, born and raised in the small town of Hanko, even though Turku is the city I've called my home since over 2½ years back. I'm currently studying international marketing at Handelshögskolan vid Åbo Akademi (HHÅA) on my practically second year with French as my minor (which I mostly studied last year). Next academic year I'm flying away to the US to try out the life as an exchange student and this year I wanted the last of the first year studies to be done and most of the second year studies and hooray I've almost accomplished that! I'm pretty ambitious and goal-oriented that way.

I signed up on the INNO58h course, because I thought it seemed as an interesting course and I need something more practical to do in the midst of all the lectures and reading theory. I'm eager to learn more new stuff, learn to be more creative and learn to work with totally new people from different schools. I'm currently functioning as the team leader for our group and so far all is okay and working out well, so I think we're all going to learn a lot and also learn from each other. Mostly I'm waiting for the real project to start in Kunstenniemi!

Random fact: I love travelling! Also I enjoy reading science magazines and watch documentaries on various subjects.

Team meeting

Yesterday we had a meeting with the whole group at Novia. We had just a short and effective meeting so that everyone in our team knows what we're doing, what we're supposed to do and what each of us is doing for the next working day. It was nice to see the whole team gathered (finally) and meet all face-to-face. Shortly we're going to put our individual presentations up here for you to see now that we've decided how to do them. Have a nice weekend all!

/ Jasmine

Second working day

Hello! We had the second working day on Friday the 15th of March in Turun AMK. In out group there was just me and Henri attending at first so the first part of the day we worked just the two of us. After discussing and drawing mindmaps and stuff we got a little bit more ideas on the actual project and what "Banking Service Design" is. Service design is about designing a new service och producing a new concept for an company that need renewal in their service. It's about making the service memorable, amazing and make it work in a new innovative way for the company. After having a little presentation about our company to the other groups and telling about our biggest challenges and so on we had a lunch break.

After the break we continued and now we had another team member joining us. Before we started working the course leaders told us our group has been remodeled and some people are going out and some people in. We're still six people in our group, but with other faces. We began discussing the books we had brough with us and decided on which ones we want to read for the course. Then we made up an "action plan" for the course and decided on meeting dates and stuff that has to be done before the next working day. Well, that was pretty much it!

/ Jasmine

Our poster about Aktia. Info found on the internet and on aktia.fi

http://www.service-design-network.org/readinglist

I found an interesting web page, the topic of Service Design. I wanted to share this with you guys ;)

See you on Wednesday,

Laura

Aktia: Banking Service Design

Hi! So it's Monday again and yet another "working" week begins. Today I attended the team leader meeting at Turun AMK and we got to know what company we're going to work with and what our keyword for the project is. As you maybe already guessed from the blog post title, our group is going to work with Aktia and the keyword we got is "Banking Service Design". So from this we have to build up our own understanding on what the actual project might be and read theory before the intensive period at Kunstenniemi in April where we're going to start with the actual project. On Friday we have our first "working day" from 9 AM to 3 PM, and to that every team member has to bring three books each on interesting topics that we can use as theory for the project. From those books we'll choose a minimum of one each and read it and later on you'll see what the book was about and what we thought about it here on the blog. That's about all I know for now.

One interesting thing I noticed at the meeting today was that just three out of twelve of the team leaders were women; I was wondering if that was just a coincidence, do we have more guys doing this course or are women just afraid of "leader" positions? Well this is a topic that is interesting, but maybe not something we want to take an opinion on during this course. I do not take this leader position as blood serious since it just happened that I had the time to attend this meeting and I think everyone in the group are equal in every matter. Everyone should do aprox. the same amount of work and be as active as anyone. Well it was just one of those things I notice. Bye now!

/ Jasmine

Picture from here.

So it begins...

Hello! I thought I'd peek in and tell you a bit why we started this blog. We are five students from Novia and Åbo Akademi School of Business and Economics (HHÅA), participating in the INNO58h course.  We are three students from Novia and two from HHÅA. The reason for writing the blog in English is that we have an exchange student from Germany in our group.  We are a group of different people with different backgrounds, hence the blog name The Royal Mess.

The course started last Monday (4.3) with a kick-off at BoostTurku, where we were divided into groups. On Monday I will attend a meeting where we will get more information about the project and the company we'll be working with during this course. We will introduce ourselves individually later on. Welcome to follow our journey to innovation!

Read more about INNO58h here: http://innostutaan.blogspot.fi/ & https://twitter.com/INNO58h

About BoostTurku here: http://www.boostturku.com/ & https://twitter.com/boostturku

And follow our Twitter to here: https://twitter.com/TeamRoyalMess

/ Jasmine