inspire:blog » Trends

The Future of Retail by PSFK

Nick — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:00:06 +0000

You can flick through the Future of Retail or get a download here.

Well worth a look.

Square away

Nick — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:36:38 +0000

A new way of accepting payments for retailers of all sizes devised by a team including Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame. An interesting use of the audio jack makes me wonder how soon before you can ‘bump’ your cash from phone to phone?

More on the Square website and follow them on twitter @Square could be interesting.

New Google Internet Stats

Nick — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:53:29 +0000

Launched today but hidden away Google Internet Stats is a neat little site to back up those all important presentations/proposals.

Five main areas are covered (with room for expansion) and the opportunity to submit your own stats.

Originally from Read Write Web via twitter

Asda – The Green Room

Nick — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:03:47 +0000

A week or so ago Asda introduced The Green Room, a place for ‘colleagues’ to share what’s happening around the business. Not much fanfare that I noticed externally at least that I spotted anyway. What’s interesting is the openness that surrounds the project as wel as how important it is that colleagues have a voice to interact with the business. One thing that seems to be missing is any ability to subscribe by email or RSS so the site will always have to pull readers to it. There are share buttons on posts though so at least it should have some life outside itself.

As many businesses look to embrace social media at least Asda have plunged in with both feet, whilst others prevaricate; mainly I suspect because they don’t know what they’re buying and/or don’t believe it has a part to play in their organisation. I’m pretty certain that (based on the kind of work we’re doing, more than anything else) that it will be the norm for businesses to have a social media presence of some description and more importantly that the people who run this side of marketing are employees who can be authentic about their brand rather than external agencies. Patterns of employment will also have to change. There’s no point having an online presence that clocks off at 5 o’clock.

At least Asda have a catchment audience in their own employees but many organisations seem to think that user generated content (UGC) will play large part in their social media strategy. This seems a rather lazy way out and flawed. After all if you’ve got Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc why would you go on a forum hosted by any business, it would have to be truly excellent in its own right. Organisations have to come to customers wherever they are, that’s always been the case in retail, and still the case online. Sainsbury’s forum for instance has as of today, 65,691 members but only 134 posts this month, there’s too many other things out there that are better and less brand led.

Another interesting part of Asda’s communication to their employees is that they’ve produced a poster (including a big brother mouse as a bomb, complete with fuse!) which while being rather foreboding at least shows they understand the perils of opening themselved up to the world online.

The posters, watch out for the interweb now …

Also worth looking at Asda on twitter and their YouTube channel, SYMtv (that’s Saving You Money tv)

And also worth looking at how Whole Foods run their whole online presence, as always the US is doing it better:

Whole Foods on twitter

Whole Foods Blog

Up the Albion

Nick — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:20:11 +0000

Here’s a newish caff, the Albion. Part of Terence Conran’s Boundary project. Continuing the trend of taking back Britishness from the far right, tea is served with crocheted tea cosy, cutlery in syrup cans and water in a tin pitcher. Definitely one to add to our next Retail Safari.

On a more social media type front they use Baker Tweet to let their locals know what’s coming out of the oven.

Links:

Albion Caff

The Boundary

Night time shots and review An American in London

Jenny Tucker’s review on Sofeminine

Albion on Twitter

Baker Tweet

Twitter etc as video

Nick — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:25:24 +0000

If you don’t really get Twitter or crowdsourcing or facebook any of that social media malarky here’s a video that shows how it works …

Originally from Seth

No more spam …

Nick — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 08:08:49 +0000

Well in 25 or so years anyway, according to Richard Watson’s new book Future Files. Also included the death of the butcher (not convinced) and no more DVD stores and village stores gone by 2018. Can’t really see the last one, in fact exactly the reverse as more people work from home or local social offices.

Everything is Free

Nick — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 06:47:38 +0000

I do love a good trends read and fortunately Richard Laermer has published his 2011 Trendspotting for the Next Decade online, available as a free e-book. Continuing in fact a trend of publishing your book or at least a chapter or two online before you (might) buy the print version.
freebabyfree.com

Also available is The Word of Mouth Manual (Vol II) available from your blog of choice … Word of Mouth Manual