How Immersive Will Our Mindspace Get?





Here are some very cool previews starting with this moving clip of the image above. The web 4 scenario from Seth here and the gel screen created by Yoichiro Kawaguchi (story here). The "screenless screen" video above and more scenarios with mobile devices below from Nokia. Enjoy!









What Do People Really Want?

Fear and desire have always gone hand in hand. Our deepest fears have always revealed our truest desires. For example, if you fear being insignificant, you definitely desire fame. If you fear being poor, you are bound to desire riches, and so on...

While surface needs are always debatable and open to interpretation, all people at their core want to SURVIVE. But what does “survival” really mean? Obviously, it’s the FEAR of their demise and the DESIRE of pleasure, but within which context?

Interestingly, while we are wired for survival in the physical world, our daily existence is increasingly becoming virtual, or more about the the things we can’t really see or touch. It used be that we took a break from our geographically bound physical world to engage the mind with media or thoughts; but isn’t it the other way around now?

Don’t we spend most of our time (work or play) thinking, worrying, imagining, escaping and staring into a screen or attaching our senses to some other attention occupying device (iPods, phones, etc.) most of the time, and THEN take a break to deal with reality (i.e, take out the trash)?

What’s happened here?

Has the context of survival shifted from the physical reality to the space in our heads? If we’ve indeed moved from body to mind, (and before you debate it, just consider what you are doing reading this blog post right now) what are the new rules of survival? What constitutes our real fears here? What equates to our real desires here?

In the physical world, its pretty simple. We fear things leading to death and desire things leading to sex. Before you consider that too simplistic an assessment, just ask yourself why you avoid driving into oncoming traffic and why you really want any possession.

The most powerful force to shape human destiny has always been our desires. The opposite of what we fear most have always been desirous. The question here is not about that basic understanding, but what those fears and desires are when our context changes from the physical to the mental. In other words, in the new world of our mind spaces is it still the same? The answer to that may not only reveal how to market and participate in next market reality, but also reveal who we are and who we are all becoming.

Can It Really Be That Simple?


I remembered this quote about the personal journey of a martial artist that went something like this:

“When I was a novice, a punch was just a punch and a kick was just a kick.

Then, when I started to study the art, the punch was way more than a punch and a kick was way more than a kick.

Now after many years with the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick.”

The point is obviously about the process and how things really are that simple once you’ve gone through it.

For those of us participating in our changing marketplace, I hope your own journey brings out the realization that everything about what we can do better next IS about the fusion of Human+Nature.

As simple as that sounds, it’s far more profound if you’ve worked to understand HUMAN behavior and potential and also see that there is no better blueprint for efficient, sustainable design of everything from communications to systems than NATURE.

The key here as always is the PROCESS.

Why Do People Do What They Do?

Getting to the right question is more than half the battle. Amidst a bevy of predictions that start off the year, most of them seem to be answers to questions that may be the most popular but not necessarily relevant or useful.

For example, it’s easy to say that marketing will go more mobile and social in 2007 based on obvious advances in social and mobile technologies but does that really mean people will opt-in to socially recommended advertising on their mobile devices?

Or is it likely that they will just trust their own opinions because in times of constant change, it’s the easiest and most reliable thing to do? If the latter is more likely, then shouldn’t the mobile apps be based on personal opinion validation rather than network recommendation? See what I mean about asking the right questions?

Thinking about the future is a constant for us, especially when the rules we thought were true have suddenly been challenged. It seems that if we can just keep up with the rate of change, we’ll have the advantage, but could it be that keeping up with change is more about identifying what is constant rather than what is changing?

For me, that constant is trying to better understand why people do what they do.




© 2006 GROW |