As much as “innovation” has been put on a pedestal, enshrined in corporate vision statements and funded by private, state and transnational investors, most companies still do the thing they have always done, in the way they have always done it. We keep hanging on to the coattails of the status quo, for good psychological reasons – fear of failure, various biases – but also because most people, most of the time, do not really understand the direct connection between business innovation, imagination and creativity.
We applaud the achievements of star artists, musicians, designers, architects but that is as far as our appreciation, and our understanding of creativity usually go. The process is reduced to admiration of talent and awards for spectacular success. Creativity is for the chosen few. With talent. And special abilities. It’s just not a thing for average people. Right? Wrong.
In the meantime, instead of trying the untried, dreaming up the new, we continue to attend fabulous events and reading blog posts by thought leaders, who continue to tell us that innovation is a good thing, and we must all do it. Yay! It really is like putting lipstick on a pig.
It’s a wonderful idiom “putting lipstick on a pig.” Trying to make something that is too difficult and too ugly seem better by pretending that if you put gloss on it, you’ve done the hard work. Lots of effort, lots of shine, but practically no real effect.
If a business is to survive the next five years and then thrive for the subsequent decade, assuming it is in an industry that has a future and that it is run by competent professionals, it has to draw on the collective creativity of all of its people, and all of its customers. It has to see fishing in this collective pool of ideas as a strategic asset, not a thing you do on team building weekends. Can you remember the last time when you spent a week working on something completely new, doing things in ways which were different from the usual ways of doing things, connecting with people outside of your normal circle of colleagues?
What is required are ways to release the inherent creativity of your people and a system which builds on people’s natural strengths by centering on the psychology of individuals and groups. It needs to be simple in its fundamentals, and a “natural” thing to run. The point of innovation thinking is to allow people in your organisation to have insights about what can be done better, with a system in place to inspire them to do so, collect those insights when they come, and work with them.
The value which creative professionals can bring to the table, in addition to providing their specialised services, is in assisting executives in being able to look into the future and to train their people to work in this quickened, confusing, rapidly changing digitally transformed context that surrounds us. Creative professionals can answer the call when someone asks “take me, where I haven’t been.”
This is the reason why I do what I do – or rather a number or reasons, all pulling in the same direction.
This text is an edited version of a talk I have given several times at conferences large and small, including gatherings of hundreds of bankers, and a dozen or so telecommunication executives. The message is always the same – to innovate you need new ideas, to get new ideas you need people and places you do not necessarily meet or see every day, and the best people here are artists and creatives of all kinds.
To say that NFTs are overpriced jpgs purchased with magic internet money by fools drunk on their crypto windfalls is to misunderstand – or wilfully ignore – a fundamental shift now underway, in how brand relationships will be built from this time on. Conceptual ecosystems are the next wave of strategic brand development.
For the first time really, brands can connect into areas that only touch on their primary activity. With relative ease, and at a cost much reduced as compared to previous options, brands will become activity hubs and not just “sellers of stuff”, and their upstream suppliers, cross-sell partners and ambassadors will be hooked up with fans of the product. Concepts such as “food”, “glamour” and, of course, “sex” will see connections tied across disciplines in order to build communities where until not long ago there were only loose groups of enthusiasts.
For example, a Bosch or a Whirlpool or a Samsung can position the products of its kitchen appliance division at the centre of a conceptual ecosystem called “food and cooking.” Yes, of course, appliance and cookware manufacturers have been trying various formats around this idea for years. The Whirlpool Cooking Academy is one good example, as is the co-publishing of cookbooks by barbecue makers. This, however, is an opportunity to connect not a few people but a whole lot of them, not physically present to one locale like a cooking school or connected with a physical object like a cookbook (and I love cookbooks) but distributed globally with no reliance on physical artefacts. They are not encumbered by the limitations of physical deliveries but rather empowered to weave together elements of the physical and the virtual in different combinations, as innovative ideas dictate and according to branding strategies yet to be devised.
Conceptual ecosystems can be built around consumer durables just as logically as around FMCG, alcoholic and non-also drinks as around sport and fitness brands. Food and cooking, however, is where this experiment will play out soonest, and with greatest impact, and here is why. Food is by far the most universal of all human experiences, and kitchen appliances appliances come in all types and at every price point. The appliances used the most – cooktops, ovens, fridges – have the broadest reach so, likely, will form the hubs around which such ecosystems will be built, though there are of course outliers which have one specialised function only but whose cultural significance overshadows their narrow scope of functionality.
The best examples of the second group are rice cookers (in most Asian countries) and coffee makers (for pretty much everybody who loves coffee anywhere.) The cultural importance of rice cookers in, say, Japan, and coffee makers in Italy and other countries of the Mediterranean, cannot be overstated.
So, let’s imagine what such a conceptual ecosystem might look like and how might NFTs drive its creation and empower ongoing relevance and growth.
Primary drivers of behaviours often fall into the category of “culture” which has grown around its objects over time. We drink espresso from tiny cups. They are adorned with the livery of the coffee roaster because, back in the day, they used to be adorned with intricate glazes to reflect the pricey nature of the drink inside. Same reason for their size, going all the way back to the deserts of the Middle East, and bedouins pouring the precious liquid into tiny cups for their honoured guests.
I tend to wax lyrical about espresso cups, forgive me, but they are a particularly elegant example.
Now, imagine that Kenwood, or Bialetti or Breville or any other producer of high-end coffee makers decides that they are going to play the game of extending their conceptual ecosystem beyond putting art on their cups, say, as has been done by Illy with excellent results.
Imagine, the brand gurus decide that the idea of “coffee culture” can, and must, be extended beyond portraying smiling plantation workers in exotic locations on their retail shop walls. This has been done by Tchibo and countless others to the point where the merchandising materials are interchangeable save for the company logos.
Imagine, someone came up with the idea that the conceptual ecosystem of “coffee culture” can, and must, be extended far more broadly, and unified under one large umbrella. If they follow Steve Jobs’ famous adage that everything is a remix, then they will soon realise that the remixing needs to take in far broader scope than has been done so far.
And here is where NFTs come in. Because there is nothing fans love more than being rewarded for their fandom and incentivised to grow it.
Imagine, a coffee giant called Galactic Coffee were to decide to play this game. How might they begin? Well, if you purchased one of their special edition coffee makers (the Black Hole, the Milky Way, the Ursa Major) you would be given a corresponding NFT which would give you the usual promotional access to a range of discounts, special merch purchases, and so on. That is where loyalty programmes usually end, but for Galactic Coffee that would be just the start. Their endgame would be a global community of enthusiastic, engaged fans, all working hard to make their belonging to this club a rewarding and fun activity. An activity that reached well beyond the mid-afternoon espresso pick-me-up, and connected coffee lovers regardless of whether they drank their double espresso at three in the morning or a flat white at breakfast.
NFTs’ most usually overlooked aspect, ignored by branding and marketing people, is an ability to build a global community. Having a community is of course a brand director’s wet dream, as they know that no advertising spend can match the power of an engaged cohort of passionate fans.
So, in its inestimable wisdom and with deep insight gained form reading this article, Galactic Coffee would start with a vision of a global club, whose members all carried their membership cards in the form of NFTs (and traded their various collectible versions.) The tokens would serve to unlock access to special events tailored to the tastes of various subsets of the membership body – from “Chamber Music at the Uffizi” (the flat white crowd) to“Rock Around Midnight” (the 3 a.m. double espresso hit) – all powered by Galactic Coffee. They would run the ultimate in User Generated Content programmes – where the community would figure them out for itself, with little or no input from the company. Before you ask, no, NFC membership cards could not offer any of that functionality given that they are physical objects, tied to a particular hardware ecosystem, with its geographic limitations. And they don’t get accepted in the metaverse.
Seriously, the list of activities, projects and off-shoots that could be grown with the NFTs at the centre is limited only by the imagination of those starting the programme. Whoever places the right pebble in the right place, will watch an avalanche build before too long. Ultimately, if grown large enough, the community would end up running its own economy – further incentivising people to come in and existing members to stay engaged.
It would be an interesting question to consider at which point the company might care to engage the community’s leaders in more formal ways, whether or not they might even be interested, and if such an approach and the resulting change in status of the leaders might not have precisely the opposite effect to what was desired. If business is 90% psychology, then community building is 99%.
Then, if we take this further, to reflect what is already happening in the NFT world albeit only in a limited way, the next logical step would be to build a community of communities. Coffee lovers, wine lovers, lovers of Italian food and passionate fans of Renaissance art would be able to mix and mingle, and build value together, on the back of their respective communities enabled by for example, Bialetti, the consorzio Chianti Classico (a wine industry group), the paste maker Barilla and one of the globally recognised museum brands which are, in reality, publishing brands but that’s for another article.
“ProbablyNothing” is a favourite expression among NFT enthusiasts. As you can imagine, it means of course an event that is “AlmostCertainlySomething.” Two such events have occurred in the last few days, signifying that this nascent technology, known primarily for making ape owners substantially better off, is about to enter popular consciousness in ways that point squarely towards broad adoption at a retail level.
Over the last twelve months or so, a long line of “weak signals” emanating from over the NFT near future horizon have been getting stronger. Porsche has dipped its toes (expensive tyres?) in the water, netting 30+ Ether for charity from the sale of a drawing (as NFT and original art) by its exterior design chief. While we’re on the subject of cars, Lloyds Auctions is releasing muscle car NFTs including the Aussie classic Holden Torana A9X (be still my heart.) Playboy has released – can we call it a brood – of bunnies (of the long-eared kind) and Australian Open is selling championship points as an NFT accompanied by the physical tennis ball (in an attractive, handcrafted case, apparently.) It’s getting pleasantly hot out there, but we are not quite at retail level adoption – or have not been so far. That is going to be changing very quickly over the coming months, thanks to two weak signals that are very strong indeed.
Arguments over NFTs’ aesthetic appeal and social signalling value aside, two touchpoints are key to adoption and UX friction needs to be minimised in both of those for mass adoption to come running faster than a throng of Poms chasing a cheese round down a hill.
The first touchpoint is “how do I buy these things?” Right now, this means dealing with all of the intrinsic “delights” of a crypto wallet. If you have one, it probably means you’re a nerd and you find the delights actually less of a pain. For “crypto civilians” this is a major barrier to entry. Making the purchasing process simple and, ideally, dovetailed into their existing financial arrangements, will certainly entice “normal” people into the arena. (Yes, of course, one needs a wallet. The barrier to entry is the level of anxiety in setting one up.)
The second is “what do I do with it?” Yes, you can put the picture up as your social media mug, assuming the NFT you’ve bought is of the profile picture kind. But that functionality is not going to get millions of people excited, and getting millions of people excited about NFTs is the generally accepted definition of “mass adoption.” (Plus, profile pictures are, really, merely scratching the surface of what NFTs can be used for.) Of course, if your NFT happens to be of the Aussie Open-winning backwards lob by Djokovic (OK, maybe not Djokovic) then in all honesty, displaying it to your mates on a phone screen is not going to have quite the intended show-off value.
Around a month ago, as I was setting up Urban Symphony, I described the project to my friend Matthias Röder – musician and culture-tech entrepreneur. He got it immediately, and remarked in passing “I’d love to throw that on my big-ass TV and just immerse myself in the projection.” Of course he would, and that is indeed the intended use case for the art, if I may mix vocabularies from the worlds of art and business.
And so, to the two very strong weak signals. Coinbase has just partnered up with MasterCard to enable customers to purchase NFTs with their credit cards and Samsung has announced that a number of its 2022 smart TVs will have NFT functionality built in. So, yeah, #ProbablyNothing, and Matthias will soon be able to throw Urban Symphony up on his super-sized monitor straight from his wallet.
OK, so this is going to require regular updates with those signals coming in thick and fast now. For the sake of brevity and efficiency, I’ll just be posting the links down here:
Walmart to sell virtual goods and NFTs
The US tax man has already figured out how to tax NFT-related income
Celebrities are hopping onto the NFT train
Crypto is no longer required to purchase NFTs on the world’s largest marketplace
Shopify flows merchants to sell NFTs directly through their storefronts
Back in the day, when it was normal for artists to collaborate and present their work in public, and nobody carried an iPhone because they did not exist, my old pal, guitar virtuoso Nigel Gavin and I worked together on a series of gallery / festival gigs where he improvised his (awesome) guitar loops / jazzy feel / ambient music to a projection of my photographs. The result was an experience in sight and sound that took the audience on inward journeys of a meditative kind. It worked well.
Now the swelling wave of digital art is upon us. So, Nigel and I are getting the band back together and creating a new sight and sound experience, powered by NFTs, streaming technology and other such good and exciting things. The name of the project is as it was then – Urban Symphony – at which link you will find a quickly evolving project site..
(With thanks to Chris Rea for the title idea for this post..)
The fabulous Stephanie McGann Jantzen is one of the leading voices in the Fireside community and it was a pleasure to chat to her about Boma Global, the Sonophilia Foundation, creativity, politics, leadership, play and the very serious role which art and the artists have to play in this, defining, moment in human history. You can pack a lot into an hour…
Have a listen HERE
“To survive we need food, sex, and creativity – and you need the last one to get either of the first two, so we know which is most important!”
I did a thing with the Sonophilia Foundation. It was a lot of fun!
Check it out HERE