Influx Insights Weblog

you've lost me with your environmental stats

Influx Insights — 2008-05-15T05:05:04Z

This is a great video from Flight 404 which ended up winning a recent D&AD competition.

It's good because it's a clever use of time and space to tell an alarming environmental story.

However, it's also kind of numbing because after a while the numbers tell a story that shows the impact and responsibility we all have.

Where's the meaning?

The data is rendered meaningless by units of measurement we aren't used to and can't compare.

It's a big problem and something artist Chris Jordan has been working on. Using scale to bring to life the size of the problem.

If we are going to ever get people to take action on a personal level, someone is going to need to show what difference this is going to make from a macro and a micro level.

Video from Iain

Posted by Ed Cotton

is green marketing working?

Influx Insights — 2008-05-13T14:10:29Z

There are a some interesting data points from a study completed earlier this month by Ci for its SHIFT Report on North American environmental attitudes and behaviors.

1. Consumers Aren't Recognizing Social Responsibility

While consumers feel its important for companies to be socially responsible, they have trouble naming companies that are. Two of the biggest companies, Wal-Mart and GE, who've been big spenders in PR and advertising to demonstrate their green creds, are only recognized as socially responsible by 19% of consumers.

2. Green Ad Campaigns Aren't Proof

Consumers are smart enough not to be Greenwashed by advertising. In making their purchase decisions they are going deeper and investigating other areas. These include product design (65%), packaging (64%), produced locally/sold by a locally based business (57%).

Both these findings illustrate the importance of proof, it you are going to say something you have to back it up with hard evidence.

While this is becoming a pervasive force generally across marketing, it's especially important in areas relating to Social Responsibility.

Posted by Ed Cotton

food stockpilling in the us

Influx Insights — 2008-04-28T17:07:12Z

The Daily Show puts the idea that Americans are now hoarding and stockpilling basic supplies like rice, into very sharp focus.

Sam's Club now restricts rice purchases to four bags per visit.

Of course, we know The Daily Show's stock in trade is satire, but the WSJ?

"I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.

No, this is not a drill.

You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.

Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.

"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)

Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax."

Could Americans be so scared and fearful of rising prices that this Summer we will see mile long lines at gas stations and riots in the grocery aisles over bread, pasta and rice?

Posted by Ed Cotton

consumers are feeling it

Influx Insights — 2008-04-28T03:52:02Z

Consumer confidence sank to a quarter century low in the April 2008 survey.

The decline was due to high fuel and food prices as well as shrinking income gains and falling home values. “The recent acceleration in the loss in confidence indicates a longer and potentially deeper recession,” according to Richard Curtin, the Director of the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. Rising inflation, higher joblessness, and smaller income gains has made most consumers more cautious spenders. “Rising uncertainty about future living standards has caused consumers to adopt more prudent spending plans and become more wary of incurring new debt,”Curtin said.

Press Release from Reuters

Posted by Ed Cotton

growing food in transit

Influx Insights — 2008-03-30T05:10:52Z

Interesting idea from design student Agata Jaworska.

She imagines a world where we shift from thinking about "best before" and move to "ready by", as a new way of food production.

Food could be made in transit and trucks into turned into growing factories!

Via

Posted by Ed Cotton

from user-generated to mass-generated

Influx Insights — 2008-03-22T01:06:03Z

Is the “swarm” a way of improving the quality of user-generated content?

There are signs that the next wave of interesting stuff on the web will be all about collaboration.

Some examples;

Kluster: A collaborative networking site that allows people to come together around ideas. They recently completed an interesting capabilities demonstration at TED.

Kaltura: Lets users develop a collaborative video project by uploading video clips, photos, or audio tracks to a wiki. Users edit collaboratively using Kaltura’s browser-based video editor. They then import their video creations into Kaltura’s library of legally remixable content.

Collaborative Playlists: Edit and share playlists with others- like with Spotify.

This new collaboration movement will allow things to happen faster, allow the end results to be better and make the process more engaging and fun for all involved.

Posted by Ed Cotton

p&G shares trends deck on the web

Influx Insights — 2008-03-14T18:23:02Z

Dave Knox, a brand manager at P&G put his youth trends deck up on Slideshare for all to see.

Welcome to the new P&G. (thanks Anastasia!)

| View | Upload your own

Posted by Ed Cotton

the social network meets the bank

Influx Insights — 2008-03-07T17:52:33Z

This is a really nice idea.

Smarty Pig is a site that helps people save for specific goals and allows friends and family to contribute to those savings plans.

Traditional banks should look at this because the 2.0 companies are snapping at their heels with innovations like this.

Thanks to Colin

Posted by Ed Cotton

a next generation cola war

Influx Insights — 2008-02-27T19:16:53Z

Pepsi just launched an interesting new initiative in the UK with a very selective introduction of Pepsi Raw- a natural version of the cola. It's a step in the right direction; a new on-trend formulation instead of yet another flavor or diet variant, but the ambition appears weak.

It's only being sold in selective nightclubs and not nationwide. It's also only in the UK.

Which leaves me to speculate the following question

Is Coca-Cola going to seize on the opportunity and launch a new natural formula Coke anytime soon?

Will Pepsi go global with Raw?

It looks like we might be entering the next phase of the cola wars.

Posted by Ed Cotton

home farming will be the hot new trend

Influx Insights — 2008-02-21T21:12:49Z

With food prices going out of control and everyone in recession mode, are we all going to start growing our own?

Will chickens soon be heard all over suburbia?

Will we be abandoning our lawns and growing wheat?

Obviously, this is a little OTT, but there's certainly something going on out there.

The desire to take control of your own food supply and to bring costs down is strong.

There's certainly a business opportunity here for brands who can bring out the farmer in all of us.

However, this being the C21st, we aren't so good at the heavy lifting side of the farming business, we want things to grow on our own terms, not theirs.

We need crops that are in tune with our way of life and deliver what we want and need.

In short, we need designer crops.

Of course, they are already here and appearing on your television set. These tomato plants look positively scary. These tomatoes were certainly created in a laboratory and it appears if they aren't controlled, they could easily take over the burbs.

Posted by Ed Cotton

the envionment: where are the standards?

Influx Insights — 2008-02-16T23:50:42Z

With the continuing momentum behind all things green and environmental, the issue of standards is becoming more and more important.

There's a growing feeling that there need to be objective measures to help people understand what's a good thing and a right thing.

In the last few years, the LEED rating for buildings was often highlighted as a great example.

However, recently the tide has turned against LEED, witness this amazing example relating to San Francisco's new Federal Building.

"Too damn ahead of its time, the systems used for environmental control in the Fed Building are so innovative that they have yet to be considered so by the overly-prescriptive commandments of Green. The Green Buildings Council, however, claim that LEED is a work-in-progress, and have consented to take the next few months to reevaluate the Federal Building. Hopefully they'll continue to update their requirements so that LEED becomes less of an pocket industry encouraging architects to "tack on" expensive third-party features and more of an impetus for carefully conceived, environmentally-integrated designs."

SF Curbed

The whole area of standards is something that needs serious thought and investment.

Is government going to lead this?

Industry associations?

It's really unclear who is going to take responsibility and the longer the wait, the more confusion and the more cynicism.

Everyone agrees that environment is the critical issue, but we need more effort to measure.

Posted by Ed Cotton

up a creek minus the paddle?

Influx Insights — 2008-02-14T02:29:10Z

We might be in real trouble, but our experts are confused and uncertain.

"Is the global financial system headed for a meltdown? From Nobel Prize-winning economists to captains of industry, the world’s top experts are united by a common answer: We don’t know."

From Foreign Policy

Posted by Ed Cotton

dubai: it sold the world, now it wants to sell the universe

Influx Insights — 2008-01-27T02:47:34Z

Dubai is now competing with Shanghai as the architectural environment that represents the beacon of the future.

Development is rapid, often skyward and sometimes not representative of the best architecture has to offer.

Off the coast of Dubai, there's an extraordinary development that involves building islands in the shape of countries and selling them. The site is aptly called "The World".

While it might not be the most creative piece of thinking, it fits perfectly with the motivations of the uber-wealthy who can afford this land, they dream of owning countries.

Clealry, this strategy has paid and most of "The World" has been sold.

The crafty developers in Dubai have gone one better and are now creating "The Universe", making all those people who purchased countries in the world, look somewhat foolish, given that planets are now available.

Posted by Ed Cotton

the demise of the expert

Influx Insights — 2008-01-26T17:22:32Z

If the continuing financial crisis has told us one thing, it’s that you can’t trust the experts. Everywhere you look supposed experts and authority figures seem to have been clueless; from the ratings agencies, to governments and senior officers and large financial corporations.

It appears the experts where on a “lunch break” when we needed them most.

Perhaps the world has gotten too complex for experts and they need to band together in complex neural nets to have a grasp of what’s happening.

In other areas, it also seems that experts aren’t all that they appear to be. In a new era of community participation, individuals can emerge as de-facto experts, providing them have the ‘chops” and are seen by the community to be making valid contributions.

The concept has considerable appeal because they appear to have the “secret sauce” of objectivity. Amazon is often sited as the best example of this community of experts, where reviews are given great currency and can be massively persuasive in generating sales. However, according to Slate, these critics appear to be suffering because they have stressful full-time jobs, they’ve become the people they were supposed to replace and their skills and objectivity have to be called into question.

"However, by refashioning Web 2.0 as a proprietary marketplace, Amazon's reviewer rankings subject enthusiasts like Grady Harp to the same pressures that confront the professionals they were supposed to replace. To keep writing, lest another reviewer usurp one's spot. To say something nice, in hopes that someone will say something nice about you. And to read for work, rather than for pleasure. "I have a tall stack of books staring at me," Harp wrote, in a wistful moment."

When it becomes a job, who are they working for?

In fact, the world of the customer review has become a business, you can by a “plug and play” system for your website or brand to help bring that supposedly valued objectivity.

Everywhere you look it appears the expert is in trouble, bothered by a world that’s now too complex for them to understand or in danger of loosing their objectivity because they are bowing to commercial pressures.

In an expertless world, who should we be listening to?

Posted by Ed Cotton

walden as urban car park

Influx Insights — 2008-01-26T17:24:51Z

In a time where we are being driven to desire the natural and the remote, it's fascinating to see somebody take a different take and look at "escape" in an urban context.

A Scottish theater company. Magentic North, is staging a production of Henry Thoreau's Walden in a car park.

Bldblog has a nice piece about it.

I think it's interesting because we seem over-burdened with natural cliches about getting out and finding escape in the natural world.

VW's "Night Driving" campaign also changed it around, challenging us us to find beauty in the urban.

Magentic North's Walden is another great example.

Posted by Ed Cotton