Glass – Google’s Biggest Opportunity And Challenge

Much has been said and written about Google Glass over the last months. It was also one of the topics at this week’s Contagious Now / Next / Why event. Glass was presented as part of the ‘Beyond screens’ trend, which is looking at the post-mobile era and asking the question of what new interfaces mean for brands creating marketing content? The interest behind Glass is understandable as it is the biggest innovative leap from Google launching a market-ready consumer product. It challenges the way we think about interfaces and what the future of interacting with technology might look like. What hasn’t been really discussed in much detail however, is the impact Glass might have on the future of Google’s business. I tried to look at Glass through the strategy lens: It has strategic importance and might leverage all of Google’s innate competitive advantages at once.

Less and More – The Timelessness of Industrial Design Principles

The last post was about ‘Yes is More’ and the inspirational influence of architecture. ‘Yes is More’ describes the architectural concept of “utopian pragmatism”. This time it is about ‘Less and More’ and the industrial design ethos of Dieter Rams. He was described as a “realistic Utopian”. That does not just sound quite similar, there is actually an interesting connection between the two approaches. The ‘Less and More’ exhibition at the museum of applied arts in Frankfurt was a haptic demonstration of that.