A few of words about serendipity

For me serendipity means that we are able to keep our “personal future horizon” open. That we are open to interesting alternatives, previously hidden paths and surprising combinations.

Serendipity and randomness are built in human beings and in our interactions. At the same time, sometimes we need something from the outside to help us to go beyond our routines and convenient practices. Serendipity can be amplified and encouraged. 

Our personal “small data” can be used to understand both our routines and randomness. When powered by personal data, our interfaces can reflect us more precisely and thus amplify serendipity. As the relics of our rational ideals our current machines and interfaces can only mimic it.

In tomorrow’s world interfaces become more ubiquitous. I want to see them develop in a human-centric way. Our interfaces should be there only when we really need them. Our information flows should adapt to us, not the other way around. Real-time web should be “my-time” web.

Technology is just one part of the equation. Our natural tendency towards serendipity makes sure that we keep bumping into random people to learn new interesting things.

Ping me in Twitter and let me know what you think, Jarno M.

(hat tip John Maeda, Aengus Anderson)

PS. If interested, see my writings about the topic also in Spacecollective.

“Your data is your interface” in PandoDaily

My article ”Your data is your interface” was just recently published and featured in PandoDaily. The piece has sparked significant attention and a lot of great replies/comments. A short excerpt from the article below:

“I’m inspired by the thought that I should benefit from all of my tags, comments, likes, and reviews across different apps and services. I should be able to continuously contribute in creating a better personal interface to the information around me. I want all of my data to be brought together into my own personal interface.

Before solving the “Big Data” we should figure out the “small” personal part. Algorithms alone can’t make me whole. Different services need my continuous contribution to understand who I really am and what I want.”

Read the whole article here and feel free to share/comment, thanks! Ping me in Twitter and let me know what you think, Jarno M.

Weekend out with Futureful (part 3)

spot @futureful, Jarno M.

Your Data, Your Interface presentation

I had a great opportunity to give a presentation about the next-generation information interfaces in the 3rd Personal Clouds - Community Gathering organized by Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium. Thanks for an inspiring gathering and feedback. Let me know what you think, Jarno M.

Weekend out with Futureful (part 2)

spot #futureful, Jarno M.

Wear Smart - When Fashion & Tech Meet in Wearables 2.0

We wear design and fashion everyday - be it clothes, a wristwatch, backpack or a ring. We choose things we wear based on how they look, feel and fulfill their purpose. We don’t think tech that many times when putting on a shirt or trying out new sneakers. That’s how smart fashion of the future should work too. You’d wear hi-tech without thinking about it. Below some musings inspired by the last week’s SF Fashion + Tech meetup.

Last Monday we had a chance to peek into our Wearable Futures. Sonny Vu from Misfit Wearables talked about the next-generation smart fashion and also gave us a quick peek into the makings of their latest product Shine. He went quickly through the brief history and present of “fittech” and “healthtech” expanding it to the evolution through wearables 1.0 to wearables 2.0.

According to Sonny, we are still living in the era of wearables 1.0. He used today’s various personal tracking products and apps as an example. Many of them are still quite obtrusive and hard to use. They make you to adapt to them, not the other way around. Also, we still think smart fashion as something we’ve seen in a Tron movie. People wearing smart fashion look like they are wearing “smart fashion”, wearables being like some sort of bulky exoskeletons. What about Google Glass?

Today’s technological development has given us means to hide technology, make it ubiquitously part of the fabrics and other materials. In wearables 2.0 technology will be embedded in a way that there’s no need to compromise on comfort or style. We’ll be able to create well-designed fashion products that are silently and invisibly smart. 

Sonny used their Shine as an example. Shine is a tiny disc-shaped personal tracker that one can wear in multiple ways. People are using it as an earring, necklace or by attaching it into their shoe. However you wear it, Shine promises to collect data about your activities. 

Self-tracking and personal data are currently extremely hot topics across multiple industries. Tech industry is thinking hard how to turn data into something valuable in the digital products. Sonny pointed out that personal data could also create new business opportunities for smart wearable entrepreneurs. Very important yet largely unanswered question was thrown in the air:

How personal data could be used in developing new business models for (smart) fashion industry? 

One way to bring smart fashion and technology together is to use our personal data to create customizable and adaptive wearables. Does technology already allow this? Is it because of technological restrictions that we are yet to see a shirt that detects your body temperature/pulse and reacts to that immeadiately making you feel more comfortable? And most importantly, without you needing to do anything but to look great.

Let me know about interesting projects that are uniting fashion and tech. Looking forward to the next wave of smart wearables. Jarno M.

(upper image: Misfit Wearables)

How To Become Discoverable

Yelp hosted a timely meetup that focused on sizzling-hot topic: how to make people discover your special app in the vast, continuously growing marketplace. Jarah Euston’s presentation and following panel discussion brought up known issues coupled with new insights offering also some practical snippets of advice. 

ASO (App Store Optimization) is here to help us. Get your name right, choose keywords wisely and use enticing graphics. Show love to your users to get positive reviews and pay attention to rankings. Simultaneously, no-one knows exactly e.g. how Apple’s App Store search engine works. Trial and error is still the best method to get it right for your app. Continuous iteration is needed in naming, titles, descriptions and keywords. Everything is tied into the app update cycle - get an update out in 3-6 weeks intervals to make sure you even have a chance to reach your audience.

ASO is only one part of the endeavor. Enabling discoverability is a multi-channel and platform effort that requires a lot of work. Hire a person that focuses on getting the word out. Gather data about the usage patterns as much as possible to drive product and marketing. Consider launching a marketing/add campaign even in a small scale. Smartly targeted social media activity (free and paid), in-product virality and continuous nurturing of media/blogger/app reviewer relationships play a big role when trying to get things working for your unique product. Again, one needs to try out different things to reach the right audience.

Every app is a special case. Succesful tactics vary depending on what kind of product you have. It seems that apps that manage to combine the digital and physical worlds - either in the product itself or in its marketing - can really catch people’s attention (Ovelin is a great example). In the very simplest form: funny costumes, flyers and logo pens are not dead yet. Hat tip to Eric. And there’s another thing to remember: launch first in Ireland to test the waters. Experiences on that, anyone? :) 

One very intriguing question from the audience was left unanswered by the expert panel: has anyone ever gone big without spending a dime on marketing?

Let me know what you think, Jarno M.

A week out with Futureful

 spot #futureful, -Jarno M.

From data-centrism to human-centrism

Currently there’s a lot of discussion going on related to our digital selves, artificial intelligence, personal data and their impact in various contexts. Techno-euphoria meets Techno-criticism. Here are some thoughts that inspire me personally:

We should move from data-centrism to human-centrism. From algorithm-driven to human-driven. From tech-networks to trust-networks.

We need a “Wikipedia” of personal data in which people get value from their own contribution.

We need a people-powered open information economy instead of data silos and endless surveillance race. 

We shouldn’t need to be afraid of our own data, should we?

Let me know what you think, ping me in Twitter. -Jarno M.