Flash forward, and we have more choice than we could ever need. Do we really need 285 varieties of cookies, 75 of iced tea, 230 soups, 175 salad dressings? We define happiness as having choices, and yet give us too many choices and we get stressed and would rather walk away and not make a decision than put in the effort required to make an informed choice. This is the subject of the book “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less” by Barry Schwartz.

Happiness is when we feel like we have the time, the knowledge and the choice required to make the best possible decision. We need filters to help us make these decisions and live in that yellow zone. The Happiness Zone.

As a brand, you have to help people wade through choices and find you. You also have the following related problems to solve:

1. People don’t trust nameless corporations and advertising messages anymore (if they ever really did).
2. People are looking for ways to simplify life, and often make their buying decisions by tapping into trusted sources. According to Forrester Research, “83% of online consumers trust the opinion of a friend or acquaintance who has used a product or service”
3. Your brand is not special to your customer. It’s not the center of their life, as it is to you.

So what should brands do? How do you sell products and have your brand heard over the constant drone of your competitor’s messages? How do you cut through the noise and connect with your customer and have them ‘hear’ you.

Traditionally, brands have done some user and market research, built a product, advertised it’s Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and repeated the process to keep the product fresh and relevant in the market. This is a throwback to the industrial revolution and no longer relevant. In this world of flux and speed, the touch points with the customer need to be more natural, immediate and constant. Your brand needs to meet your customer where they are most comfortable, and truly engage with them.

Introducing social media. Social Media is the big broad term that takes many forms, from Facebook to a white label wiki. From media sharing sites such as YouTube, LastFM or Flickr, to life-sharing sites such as Twitter or MySpace. Forget stale forums where people post questions and no one relies, GetSatisfaction delivers the promise of community, by allowing companies and their customers to have lively exchange about products.

As brands grapple with the concept of social media, some view it as just another channel to advertise. But that’s one very thin slice of the possibility pie and dates back to thinking from a 100 years ago. Yes, you can create brand awareness, but how do you actually get your customer to care about you, and make you their preferred choice? Instead of using ad-copy, social media allows you to have a more real, meaningful engagement with your customer. You can now discuss things with your customer. And use language that is more natural and accessible to your customer about every subject that matters. To you and your customer.

The wide, wild, undefined world of social media is in it’s infancy. And brands that ‘get it’ are starting to see it’s true potential. It holds promise for creating deeper relationship between organizations and the people they serve, whether that organization is an online company, a bank, or a non-profit organization. If you have something to promote, and communicate about, social media will be a vital part of your communication strategy going forward.

The concept is simple, really. Don’t look at social media as an advertising vehicle. Instead thinks of it like a party. Your customers are attending this party. You are attending the party too. You are not the host, you are just a participant, as are they. Conversation is lively, noisy and on various subjects. How will you join in? How will you introduce yourself to others? How will you mingle in this party, get people to get to know you, appreciate your presence and really want to keep in touch with you, even outside of this party? In short, how will you become the life of the party?

Guido doesn’t get far anymore. People see through the greasy sheen of falseness. Here’s a suggestion: be authentic, and useful. Be(come) the nice guy. The brand that is helpful, and confident. Knowledgeable in what you do, and not arrogant. Proud not full-of-yourself. Communicative not sale-sy. Marriott has joined Twitter and won kudos for creating great conversations with travelers around the world. Even this hot dog vendor in Vancouver has leveraged their geek central location, to talk to their customers on Twitter with great success.

Before you jump into the social media pond, consider how best you will join in the conversation and what do you have to offer.

Here are a few questions to ask, that will help you humanize your brand, and make authentic decisions on his/her behalf:

1. What would your brand be like at the party? (E.g. The clown, the shy one, the chatty kathy)
2. Where would your brand hang out? What online communities would she or he be drawn to?
3. Who are your brand’s best friends? Who trusts your brand and loves them?
4. What are brands that your brand would buy? (Example: Starbucks or the local neighborhood cafe?)
5. What will your brand do or say at the party, that is typical of her/him, that will make people remember her (in a good way)?

On a somewhat related note, you will find DesignStamp on Twitter, but you won’t find us on Facebook. We haven’t figured out why/how we, as a design studio need to be there. And we refuse to attend the party unless we know that we’d look good going in. So we are talking about it internally, dressing for success (a new website is in the works) and making sure we are drinking the Kool-aid we serve. Be authentic, be useful.

We encourage you to contact us and let’s get to work on your social media strategy!

So what does it mean to me to be good? I am not sure as yet, but here are a few words that come to mind. I told myself that I won’t spend hours and hours on this blog and write from the heart and not the head. So here goes in no particular order:

• Respect. Yup that word again. I believe in this so much that I chide myself when I don’t follow the mantra. It helps me see things more objectively.
• Curious. To want to learn more because I owe it to my craft to be ‘good’ and more importantly, to always be searching for the ‘better’ way to solve problems.
• Caring. From telling someone that their shirt’s tag is showing to giving a team member timely feedback, it is important to “see” people and demonstrate that noticing and acknowledging behavior and yes, even appearances.
• Educate. This I need to do more. I strongly believe that through education you can positively change a life, and this planet’s course is via education. That is why I teach, and if I ever accumulated wealth, that is what I would want to do with my money. Facilitate learning.
• Question. If I want to improve how things are, and make them how they ought to be, I need to remember to think outside the construct and question status quo.
• Happy. If I am happy, I do better work, and I am good to those around me. I owe others to be happy, so I should take the time to do things that make me happy.
• Travel. What better way to appreciate different cultures and ways of living than to see the world. My work, my attitude to people who are different than me is informed by what I think I know about them. I don’t understand how traveling can not be a priority. It’s mine.
• Give. I need to do more of this. But related to “Educate”, for me giving people money or the basics for living (food, shelter) is not the most productive way to change their life for the better. You have to empower people to be able to make choices, to see the world for what it can be for them, and a way out of where they may be stuck. (Gawd, I sound like a preacher, but I have a story that is too long to type, so ask me and I’ll tell you)
• Voice. If you don’t got one, you ain’t going to be able to change nuthin’. If it’s good, than I need to be able to talk about it, start discussions and challenge others to follow. So it’s important to have a clear message about that good thing, and a voice that can be heard.
• Relate. Even if you have to fake it for a bit, you should try and see the other point of view and ‘relate’. World politics could be very different if we stopped trying to vilify nations and whole continents. How about just trying to relate with those people? Why are they hating us so much, and what did we do to make them feel this way?
• Humility. My mamma taught me this. To do good, to be good, and want good things for those around me, I must remember that I am not the best. I am only one person trying to become better because it’s my obligation to do so. Ego is destructive and I am a designer because I want to be constructive.

So there you go, a blog post more for me than you, but I hope that it will ignite a desire in someone, somewhere to not just do, but think a bit about what they do, how they do it, and why they do it.

1. Keeping a customer is cheaper than finding new ones.
2. If you have high churn, you are viewed as selling a commodity not a brand people care for. You will need to start to compete by lowering price which is not a winning game unless you are a volume behemoth like Walmart.
3. Happy customers are more likely to become loyal customers, and loyal customers tend to become cheaper to maintain than servicing the needs of newbies that are partially willing to “try” you out.
4. History is littered with brands who became too big for their own shoes, and started to forget about who made them big in the first place. The happiest brands are those that keep their customers close, and value their experiences as they do their bottom-line.
5. What can your brand do, to make people say “I love [name of your brand here]“. Make people become irrational about their feelings about your brand. The glow that radiates from people in love is infectious. Try telling a Harley-lover that a Honda is better.
6. In the lean times, it’s your brand advocates that will stick by you. Loyalty is difficult to create, and once you have it, you must hold on it, by frequently checking every customer service point within your company (At Rouxbe, the CEO of the company reads every contact form that comes in).
7. Marketers should be part of the design process, so they understand the product that is being built and who it will satisfy. Slapping on marketing messages after the fact doesn’t work. It’s simply too late.
8. Designers should be part of the marketing process, they are trained to be stand-ins for the end-user. Tap into their knowledge to keep the design and the message unified. Apple does this best.
9. Do things differently. The best way to beat your competition is to stand out and be different. Be less annoying than your competition (maybe my bank machine can start to remember what language I speak, and not ask that question each time?), be more caring (don’t tell phone customers they will get through faster by staying on the line, offer to call them back) and more human (WestJet flight attendants crack jokes when making the same old boring “fasten your tray tables” announcements).
10. Be your own customer. Use your product before you unleash it to a market. Design things for yourself, and design the after-sales service for your family and friends. People who don’t know jack about the intricate details about your product. You owe them a good experience.
11. People talk. And in a myriad of new ways. If you run a business that has customers, you ought to be keeping an ear to the ground to listen to what people are saying about you. You should know about the various (new) ways people communicate.

And now a story:

I am on the phone with Fido (BC, where I live, has only 3 major cell phone carriers, sad). I have a nasty customer experience. The agent is unprofessional, absent and not helpful. He has asked me to repeat my mobile number 3 times now. I have been handed from one department to the next, and no one seems to be able to be able to tell me why my account balance is not being accurately displayed online. The call ends with me hanging up in frustration when they finally decide to blame my computer (Mac) even though I KNOW that there is no way that could be the problem.

My tweets during this call:

Sweet revenge.

Flash back, it used to be that when we would have a bad customer experience, we’d grumble about it to others, if the topic came up. Now, I tweet.

Generation Is uses Twitter. A Tweet refers to messages exchanged on Twitter to let people know what you are doing right now. Or what you think or feel about a particular subject. (Learn about what is Twitter and why it’s so popular and stats on it’s usage). So get searching and find out what people are saying about you on Twitter!

So be good to your customers. Bad stories are more fun to tell than good ones. Revenge is more important at times than spreading joy, and more and more,  your consumer understands the power she wields, in this hyper-connected world.

I write this month’s article in the spirit of bringing some joy to my fellow designers. A happy designer is one that has happy clients. There is no greater professional joy than to know that your work matters and is being appreciated by those who use it, and those who pay for it. While clients (those pay for the work) wait to derive happiness from the reaction of the end-user (those that will use it), the design process often precedes that usage. So the client and the designer must work together and alone, against odds, creating work together that has yet to see light of day. Someday the work will be known to, and used by, millions but for today it is tended to and developed by the two people who care most about it.

I have written articles about ethical designers, and I have bantered about how to be a good designer, but this month I write a few tips targeting clients. I think every designer should get their client to read these. And clients: ‘Tis the season to give. So go on, give your designer some love! Here are the 10 things that you can do to share some joy with your designer:

1. Don’t rush it. The first to market syndrome plagues most of the online business world. Sometimes the quality of the final product can be directly proportionate to the time spent on building the product. Ask for timelines from your designer, and work with them to meet your business needs. Consider breaking up your project into phases if necessary. Your customers will love you, not if you launch your product within a month, but if your product actually meets or even exceed their expectations.
2. Design briefs are important. Design briefs help define the problem and the desired solution. It’s important to at least identify the problem that needs to solved, the target audience and the intended impact even before the first pixel is drawn. Good pre-planning and a targeted brief just means that everyone is facing in the same/correct direction. You should be a partner in helping craft this document. It doesn’t need to be a thick document. Good design briefs are short, succinct and capture the key points that help define the project and its requirements.
3. Don’t design for the designer. Don’t ask your designer if they can move that one element 5 pixels to the left or right. Of course they can. But if they are good at their job, everything was done with intention. Good designer lay out grids and work from them, so moving elements means everything could potentially have a ripple effect. They are presenting you the best solution for the design problem you posed to them in the design brief (see #2). If you don’t trust your designer or don’t like their work, the issue may go far beyond the 5 pixel shift. There may be other things that need to shift (either how you relate with the designer or your business to another designer!)
4. Help Manage production. It is important that assets are managed with care during production. I find it humorous to see files names such as “final_final.doc”. It’s good to get used to versioning and working within a structured pipeline to provide assets to your designer because you are ultimately helping them deliver intended results on time. Trust me, more chances that the copy will be correct if you give a file named “About_copy_GD02.doc” for implementation instead of “final_final_07_FINAL.doc”.
5. Communicate. Well! It’s important to define communication protocol early on. Instant Messages and impromptu phone calls are usually not productive because they interrupt the flow of work and catch people unprepared. It is best to define when/how often status and feedback meetings would take place. I find weekly check-ins is a good thing along with the usual stream of emails as needed. Meaningful subject lines and well-formed emails help matters. It is best to not have stream-of-consciousness communication as it can make it difficult for the recipient to follow along and result in misunderstanding and wasted time seeking clarification.
6. Help define expectations. In the end, everyone wants the same thing. A successful project. Success means everyone walks away happy and looks forward to another opportunity to work together. Good pre-planning also means that success metrics are defined and so the end-result can measured against those objectives. This also removes subjective desires or at the very least identifies them. In my experience most people in this world are not bad, lazy or mean. Most misunderstandings happen when expectations are not aligned. Set expectations, develop trust and a plan and then build something good together.
7. Don’t hire in-house full-time designers. The agency model works so much better than having in-house designers. Designers who benefit from being exposed to a diversity of projects, bring fresh energy and perspective to the client work they take on. In-house designers who deal with only one product, one problem at one time, end up stuck in the politics and become colored by the subjectivity that surrounds them. Obvious exceptions are designers who work in large, kick-ass companies where the entire ethos is built around keeping design integral to the company’s mojo. These companies have built successful brands by design and work hard to keep their designers (and thus their design) fresh and innovative e.g. Apple, Google even Harley Davidson!
8. Do some small talk. While familiarity breeds contempt, a lack of humanity and connection leads to communication that is not natural and that can negatively impact project quality. It takes only a few minutes, but connecting with each other at a human level creates a more fulfilling and positive work environment. Some of my best clients are those that I can see myself socializing with. That doesn’t mean that I would socialize with the, but I get them. And that matters.
9. Care about the project. Like a tiny seedling, a project needs to be taken care of, and tended to, by the stakeholders. Neglect, apathy and negativity can severely hinder the project plan and result in ugliness all around. Only hire people you think can care about the project you want them to work on. Don’t hire people who show even the slightest indication of being flippant or bored by your project needs or its objectives. They won’t be able to sustain the energy required in later stages.
10. Respect! If you read the previous points, you know this article is not really about design at all. It is not really even about the final product. It’s about how people come together to achieve common objective. And the process for creation. How people connect, and how the process flows, depends largely on communication and mutual respect. If you have to share a common objective to solve a given problem together in the best way possible than you have to respect each other. Respect is the oil that makes this machine run smoothly. The design process can be fulfilling and rewarding in not only its outcome but in the how the end-result is made. And if there is mutual respect that process can be joyful. That is why our guiding principles are all about respect.

We wish you, our clients and everyone around the world, a joyful festive season. We expect a whole bunch of new-ness next year. See you in 2008!

status

1. I have only updated it once (and it’s 2pm). Usually I would update it at least twice by now. My friends seem to update theirs every hour!
2. I woke up from a dismal 3 hours of sleep, and the first thing this morning, I stagger to my office and instead of checking my email, I update my Facebook status first. Before checking my email? Wow.

For those of you hiding under the rock that hides the internet phobic or privacy hounds, Facebook provides you the option of finishing a sentence that begins with <Gagan is…>. That becomes your status for all to see. Some of my status messages from September (from the inane to the informative):

Gagan is telling his dog that wet dog don’t smell good

Gagan is Monday

Gagan is in meetings

Gagan is actualizing (and using big words)

Gagan is CPC, CPM, CPE and every other acronym

In fact if you have any kind of RSS reader , you can keep getting pings throughout the day that will display your friends’ statuses (statuii?) without you doing much of anything at all. The only caveat is that you cannot remove the “is” in

That leads to the name of this post. Generation Is.

I am part of that blurry-eyed generation that is not neatly defined by world politics , war, dreams or the lack thereof . Instead I am defined by the desire for the “now” of information. I don’t have favorite websites, I have favorite RSS feeds. I don’t go out looking for information to be typed up on the pages of a newspaper or even a website for that matter. I rely on my social network to recommend movies, not a corrupt reviewer sitting behind an oak desk. I trust no credentials, but instead I trust the intelligence of masses and look at how many people have saved a link on delicious to decide if a link is good or bad. Give me a bad experience on a website right now, and I make swooping statements about your brand at many cocktail parties. I don’t waste time sorting through spam as Gmail does that for me quite nicely thank you. After all, my status on Facebook can never be as wasteful as “cleaning my inbox”. My here and now status message must wax poetic or be set apart by productivity or philosophy. My networks come with a dot com prefixed to them (LinkedIn, Flickr, Newstoday or, you guessed it, Facebook). I know when a contact has quit their job because she can text me as she walks toward her boss’s door. I know what she tells people about her job officially (LinkedIn) but I also know how she felt day to day at that job (Facebook status). Nothing is hidden from me even information that I have no desire to go search for in the first place. My life, and the information that fills it, has a sense of immediacy to it. My head is constantly filled with ’stuff’. Up-to-the-minute world news, how the planet is going to s#%$ and how people are dying in countries I will never visit. I can now also find out just how my employee or boss really feels about their day or me! A sense of now. A sense of is.

Where is this going?

Gagan is not sure.

Is this good?

Gagan is on the fence.

I look back at how my parents lead their lives. They wrote letters to relatives who lived in other cities. They sent telegrams when there was a sense of urgency and hoped that the news of birth, death and train arrivals got to the recipient within a day or so. My parents actually picked up the phone to arrange dinners and parties. They didn’t even have a day-planner or PDA and instead relied on the calendar with pictures of pretty flowers that hung near the phone. My parents completed a crossword together each day with their morning cup of tea before breakfast. They also read the paper every morning, along with that tea and crossword, to get their daily news. Cup of tea, crossword, newspaper reading and a sit down breakfast. All this before going to work? How did they have the time?

Flash forward to the now and the “is” of me. I just got back from Europe and paid a lot of money for that vacation so I could have the luxury of checking my email only once every couple of weeks. However I couldn’t help it. I fell right back into the “is”. I updated Flickr photos and wrote back to panicked clients and curious friends/family. I even found myself greedy in the “is” of being a tourist. I rushed around taking in sights, food and drink. I was exhausted every evening just from the is-ness of the day. I felt forced to relax by siesta in Barcelona and couldn’t get used to everything coming to a standstill and shutting down every afternoon. I was “is” more often than not, running from one gallery to the next. But truth be told, I wish I had taken the time to just siesta! I guess now that siesta is no longer an option; I yearn to be less “is”.

But it ain’t all bad. I love technology and the immediacy of communication and connection in the world I have bought for myself. I love what all my devices and machines let me make, play and enjoy.

That said, I have to disconnect from IM, email, Skype, Facebook and the phone just to get work done sometimes. And I don’t think everyone I work with understands that need to disconnect, to create. Sometimes a work day is made up of communication. Where does all that communication about the “is” of projects really get me, or for that matter, the project?

I is tired of pings and updates. I is going to log off. I is done for the day.

So do you think that you are a private person who has managed to protect your privacy in an increasingly un-private world? Consider this:

1. Google knows when you are bad and when you are good. Think about all the things, pleasures, treatments, fun-things-to-do, people, secrets that you have shared with Google simple by typing into that innocuous search box. Everything starts there, and they keep records.
2. And that search engine you use (Google or not) can not only point to all your search queries in the last few years, but heck, it can show people where you live. Give them directions to, and a picture of, your house (I am going to pretend that I still hold a vestige of privacy close to my heart, and instead of showing you my house, I invite you to look at yours from space by going to Google Maps or flying over your neighbourhood by downloading Google Earth)
3. Most websites are unscrupulous about sharing your personal information even when they cut and paste a good looking privacy policy from their competitor’s website. Take a look at some of the complaints about this on this website. I continue to receive emails from Dell even after trying many times to "unsubscribe" from their newsletters (which I never signed up for in the first place). Serves me right for giving my real email address just to buy a computer or two!
4. The average Brit is photographed some 300 times each day by surveillance cameras. North America is not far behind.

So what does privacy amount to today? A lot of revenue for some companies for one. They trade, sell, buy, coerce and steal the private information of the average joe blow, just to sell them the right things at the right time. A qualified customer is a customer that is easier to seduce. If a company knows what you like, they can offer things to you that will more likely meet your needs and tastes. Amazon can attribute this concept of personalized results to much of it’s success. Gmail spiders through emails to provide freakishly topical advertisements that relate to a particular email’s content.

And what we are feeling about privacy right about now? We are being a bit schizophrenic it seems. While we are getting more paranoid about our own privacy, we are also more willingly to give away parts of it in exchange for things that purport to improve our lives somehow.

Privacy is up for grabs.

You too, are OK with giving away your privacy if you got something ‘nice’ in return. Prove value to you, and you will give away information about yourself willingly. Some pieces you hold more dearly, some you don’t. What can be worrying is when people give away privacy unwittingly (careful) or without even being aware of doing so.

I try consciously to choose wisely about how and where I am becoming less private about my life. Why be un-private at all? Because I have realized to get some, I need to give some. If my privacy is worth something to someone else, I may sell it to them. While using fake email addresses and aliases for getting me some things I need to be me, Gagan Diesh from Vancouver BC not Jh from La, Ca, 90210, to get true value.

So who has me? Has me= My personal info in some form that they could use to learn more about me?

• Google grid has me. Whether it is spreadsheets, documents, Gmail or calendar. I am addicted. They all connect so seamlessly and in ways that Microsoft is still trying to work out for their products. My personalized Google page gives me rapid access to my world which Google now controls. I can invite others to collaborate with the real me, and in turn they too become part of Google’s ever expanding world. By the way, you have to watch this video to understand what Google Grid is (and can be) all about.
• Flickr has me. It lets me share my photos with the world. I still keep lots of private photos on Flickr to share with a select few, but every now and then submit to the urge to share photos with strangers.
• Del.icio.us has me. It saves my favorite links from around the world, and allows me to share links with my students and everyone else.
• Paypal has me because I can’t trust making financial transactions with eBay buyers using fake names. So they have access to my bank account and my real name and email address.
• Amazon has me because they offer lovely services like wish lists and easy ways to recommend good books. They also offer cheap books and I don’t have to suffer Vancouver rain to trudge down to my local bookstore. I can order my favorite books from the comfort of my un-private computer desk.
• Skype has me because I use it to talk to clients internationally. Heck when I am lazy I even chat with people on Skype if my phone is in the other room!
• LinkedIn has me because it helps me network professionally and protects me from spam very well.
• My local grocery store has me so I can scan my card and get discounts. They also get to share this info with my AirMiles provider. Suddenly I become a blip on someone’s computer screen each time I buy a family pack of athlete’s foot cream (ewww!).
• Oh my, this list is getting scary… Even my local sandwich deli has me, I keep my "buy 6, get one free" card with my name over there. Heck, did I even enter that draw to win a lunch for my entire office, by giving them my business card? Did I also leave a business card on the bulletin board at my Gym? Networking or privacy risk? Did I also sign up for that gas swipe card so I could pay a zillion dollars for gas more quickly at the pump?

Note to self: Maybe I am just a privacy slut trading my privacy for cheap trinkets?

Ok, I still have boundaries. Kinda.

• I hate Plaxo and all that it purports to do for (to) people. I don’t trust it and with good reason.
• I am wary of registering my software even when I have bought it and not downloaded it. I see no reason to. I have never got better service by doing so.
• I still use email aliases when posting on newsgroups because I can’t stand cluttering searches for my name on Google with outdated screams for tech help or recruiting people.
• I don’t forward jokes. I chastise people for sending out thought viruses (emails that tell you to forward them to others to warn them, bless them, or reward them!)
• I am selective about who I give my email address to, I set up rules to deal with junk and know better than to even open the most amazingly imaginative subject lines (Viagra is so yesterday, spammers are now using a haiku of business talk in the subject line like the one I got today: “Brand motivated faculty”. I almost opened the email, but Gmail protected me by moving it to the spam box automatically)

So maybe I am not so bad. Maybe I still have a vestige of privacy left. Maybe I’ll be ok after all. Maybe I will win a Free iPod if I just answer a few simple questions.

I was delivering my user experience lecture at VFS the other day, and I did something I haven’t done EVER in the years of my teaching at that school. I totally ad-libbed. Like went off for an hour about innovation. Totally, like, whatever. Umm, hello is this the valley-girl innovation hot-line? I digress….

We talked a lot about 3 geeky things that are not even all that new, but have the promise of having some exciting implementations in the future. Our discussion centered around devices that can talk to each other, communicate seamlessly and create some amazing experiences for humans in the process:

• Global Positioning System (GPS). Imagine the possibilities. Your cell phone can show you your jogging path from satellite imagery made possible by Google Earth. While you are there why not do a quick satellite fly-through over that new house-listing your real-estate agent just beamed to you. Look to see if there are enough parks around the house to take Sparky for a walk? Once you’ve decided it’s worth taking a trip to the other end of town to see this place, your car’s (soon to be standard) OnStar system can not only help you find the least crowded route, inform you of cheap(?) gas prices along the way, but also add technologies such as being able to possibly read you your new emails while you drive?
• Voice over IP (VoIP). You now have the capability of placing phone calls using the packet system of IP networks. Voice calls using the internet or even your private office network. By the way your device, will not only allow you to place long distance phone calls at a fraction of the price your phone company charges you today, but heck, you should be able to download music using that same device, and the same network. How’s your VoIP doing? Mine is just fine, thank you. Combine the power of VoIP, the pervasive possibilities of Broadband Over Power Lines (BPL) and the next generation of IP and you are now looking at Uncle Hick living on a farm in Middle America being able to, well, do whatever Uncle Hick would do with broadband.
• Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID). Much hyped, and being tested and actively used by tiny companies such as IBM, Wal-Mart and the Gap. Imagine Gap puts a RFID chip that could cost less than a nickel to produce into each of its loose fit khakis. Joe Blow, an inventory clerk at the Gap store in Idaho receives the shipment of these pants. He doesn’t need to even open the boxes to add this new inventory into the system. The RFID chip informed the store computer (and that of the head office) exactly how many pieces have been received. The store computer can physically track each pair of the khakis. This means that the store shelves will always have the appropriate amount of inventory and if you can’t find that hard-to-find size of waist 30” and length 40”, the employee will be able to find it for you thanks to the ever watchful computer system that can track down that elusive pair of pants that was mistakenly placed under the boot cut jeans pile.

  Just remember to have your ever-happy-to-help Gap employee take out that RFID chip—after all you wouldn’t want your khakis reporting back to the Gap about all those visits you made to your neighborhood McDonalds last month, now would you?

So what are we going to do with these new technologies? What lies ahead? And are we designers ready to take on the enormous responsibility of making these technologies useful? Will we utilize these technologies to their fullest capacity, all the while, remembering the all important ease of use we want to provide our users?

Will we make brilliantly simple interfaces such as that of OnStar? Or will be make cumbersome complex-guised-as-simple interfaces (why should it take someone 20 minutes to tune in to a radio station on their car stereo?)

Oh my gawd, I so get belly-button shivers just thinking about the possibilities of all this….like….totally…!