musings & ponderings, a blog by @mprove

Exactly a week ago, Interaction 12 was kicked off by the mayor of Dublin. I mean the real mayor rather than the one in 4square. He talked about (sub)urban planning and the public bicycle system in Dublin. He was proud to say that a minor change in the interaction design prevented the theft of many bikes. Other than Paris (they lost hundreds), the pole to get a bike is not prominently highlighted in a way that everybody can take the bike as soon as it unlocks. Just two bikes were stolen and both were returned. Clever briefing, or clever mayor – you decide.

Disrupt

After a while I decided to like the opening keynote by Luke Williams. He tackled the general problem of large companies (hey, this should apply to Oracle as well) that they are obviously unable to create new disruptive markets. If they have a business, a successful business, they focus to exploit it as long as possible. But they neglect to go for niche markets, because the dollars are earned in the main stream. Blockbuster Video ignored Netflix. Kodak ignored digital photography. Nokia ignored Apple and Google in the mobile phone market…

Luke offered the idea to do exactly the opposite of the (current) cliché. Why –the heck– are socks sold in pairs? – My mind kicked in and said, “yeah, if I have a hole if a friend has a hole in his sock he can buy just one sock to complete the pair. Makes sense!” But Luke continued to explain that a company built a business on selling socks in sets of three. And none of them has the same pattern! Kids and girls in specific love the brand.

a few more images

Interview with Luke Williams, core77

webcast of Luke Williams’ presentation

Videos shown by Luke_

National Leprechaun Museum

The disruptive highlight of the day was Tom O’Rehilly’s talk on Imagination and Identity. Tom started his career with selling luxury furniture, until he realized that he was in fact selling experiences. Welcome Tom, to the field of user experience and interaction design. I do not remember why he told the story of Brasil, an island on the shores of Ireland that only appeared every 7 years. But I do remember his stories about the Leprechaun, a little Irish wizard or dwarf that is very hard to track. Tom runs the National Leprechaun Museum in Dublin, which is called a museum for the lack of a better name. It is an experience that turns the visitors into little Leprechauns themselves. You enter through a wooden tunnel that changes its diameter while you walk though. It must be a spectacular effect like Alice through the rabbit’s hole.