ad:tech Workshop

Posted in News - April 17, 2008 - tim

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ADG led a one-hour workshop at ad:tech San Francisco on Wednesday, April 16 entitled “New Creative, New Tools”. Initially capped at 100 attendees the session was more than double overbooked and resulted in a lively interactive discussion of how online design has changed over the past few years, and how it should change over the next few.

Key to the discussion was the importance of new designers understanding rapidly changing technology and audience trends: without at least a basic knowledge of the tools, the designer cannot truly innovate in this field.

The presentation deck for the workshop – along with participant poll results regarding trends in design and technology – is available for download here.

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Innovation stifles innovation?

Posted in Thoughts - April 4, 2008 - tim

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So, just back from herding around Las Vegas with the other 40,000 sheep at CTIA, my foremost impression: innovation stifles innovation.

Last year’s mobile conferences seemed to be about “what will the iPhone be”. This year’s mobile conferences (CTIA anyway) seem to be about “I’m just like an iPhone”. After wandering the huge floor for a day and a half I was amazed at how the new device landscape seemed less like new ideas and more like iPhone imitation. A few of the (mostly Japanese) booths showed some departure (at least for US audiences, such as waterproof handsets, handsets linked to exercise machines, the perennial “Love-geti” devices, etc.), but most seemed eerily reminiscent of the one device that ironically was not even there – the iPhone.

Samsung and LG had major announcements with the Instinct (pictured here – look like anything to you?) and the Vu, but they seem more like exercises in “how close can we get to Apple without violating IP” than new innovation. Which leads me to think: does true, radical, innovation (like the iPhone) – if successful – actually stifle innovation since competitors tend toward emulation rather than departure?

Darwin, I guess, would say yes (which – ipso facto I guess – would make Apple a genetic mutation …)

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