About Jam Sessions and Inno-Waiters

A Jam Session is a musical act where musicians gather and play (or “jam”) without extensive preparation or predefined arrangements.

The word ‘jam’ refers to any particularly inspired or improvisational part of a musical performance, in rock and jazz music.

Jam sessions are often used to develop new material, find suitable arrangements, or simply as a social gathering and communal practice session. The New York jazz scene during World War II was famous for its after-hour jam session. The Minton’s jams were a fertile meeting place for artists like Ben Webster and Lester Young to meet community.

Other artists such as Henry Miller would meet at cafés to further their ideas. Today, this metaphor is used by innovation project leaders to connect with community and gather structured feedback and ideas for their innovation initiatives. Woodstock N.Y.-based Mitch Dikoff took this metaphor a step further opened Breakthrough Café. It serves more than just great food, but also food for thought.

The premise of Dikoff’s unique offering is a simple one: Most of the meaningful interactions that happen at meetings or business trips usually happen informally – at the hotel bar, on the golf course or during dinner. Breakthrough Café is an experiment that fuses dinner-party idea exchange with the focus of a brainstorming session.

The entering guests’ first task is to define an intention, challenge, goal or idea they are struggling with – and want to noodle on during the Café visit.

Strategically placed “inno-waiters” interact with café goers in fun ways to get the creative juices flowing.

Café visitors informally brainstorm with each other – at their tables, while enjoying hors d’oeuvres, or at the bar.

Breakthrough Café is a mix between party, restaurant, and idea jam session.

At the end of the evening, each Café goer is given a check to capture their breakthroughs for the visit and commit to a few, simple action steps.

[Get the full Story ¦ FastCompany]

SolutionSync Tool: connect2jam

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Are Mobile Ads the Next Internet Gold Rush?

Mobile web offers a unique opportunity to marketers. The mobile phone is a highly personal device; research shows consumers rarely leave home without their mobile phone. And, because the mobile device is so personal, users are highly engaged with content. The mobile environment is uncluttered; most publishers only allow one ad per page, providing premiere placement for brands.

Mobile phone ad spending is expected to more than double in 2007 to $1.5bn, says an InfoWord article.

But also mobile video advertising clearly opens interesting opportunities for viral videos delivered to mobile phones, although pricing and/or business models still remain a question to be answered.

With increases in the number of high resolution mobile devices and observation of improved quality when ads are optimized to the handset, the MMA Mobile Advertising committee has developed Mobile Advertising Guidelines for Mobile Web (WAP) Banners. Advertisers and publishers should refer to them:

1. Advertisements may not be misleading or deceptive to the recipient in any way.

2. Advertisements promoting illegal products and services are not allowed.

3. The sponsor of any advertising message should be clearly identified either on the ad itself or on the resulting first-level jump page.

4. Special categories of products must comply with existing voluntary industry guidelines (alcohol, tobacco, seepstakes/promotions, and ads targeting children, etc.)

5. Any advertisement for regulated products must comply with existing guidelines for such advertising (e.g. pharmaceutical ads must comply with FDA guidelines).

6. Advertisements should be age appropriate.

7. Potentially controversial advertisements should primarily be avoided, but may be reviewed on a case-by-case basis by publishers and wireless carriers.

8. All claims made in an advertisement must be substantiated before the advertisement is scheduled to appear. Advertising that includes warranties, guarantees, or other types of assurances to the user must comply with all applicable laws, regulations or guidelines regarding such assurances, including but not limited to those set forth by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

9. Advertisements cannot promote or glorify violence, crime, obscenity, the use of weapons or provide instructions on how to “get away” with crimes or unlawful activity.

10. Language that is offensive, or disturbing, or which is likely to cause outrage, general disapproval, or negative opinion within the community is not allowed.

11. Any customer information provided is limited to the current campaign only. Further interaction with the customer requires an additional opt-in.

[Get the full MMA Mobile Advertising Guidelines]

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Exploring New Sources of Consumer Insight

Are consumer goods companies looking in the right places for consumer insight? Once they understand it, are they leveraging it appropriately? Are they taking advantage of new technologies and the ubiquity of the internet?

Consumer Goods Technology partnered with HP to research the new methods companies are using to gain insights and understand how effectively they are being leverage.

[Get report. pdf - onetime registration required]

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What’s In Your Bag?

Most people own many objects fulfilling a range of practical, social and emotional needs. Mobile Essentials refers to the objects most people consider essential and carry most of the time whilst out and about. People apply different strategies and solutions to decide what to bring in their bags, each of which has its own trade-offs and problems depending on situation, personal habits and preferences.

Explore whatsinmybag (a collection of 2,277 images).

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iPod Therefore I Am

I came across a new website – iPod Stories. German-born Markus Giesler, Assistant Professor of Marketing at York University’s Schulich School of Business, Toronto, set up the site which is dedicated to the study of iPod consumers, their iPod related stories and consumption experiences. Like many of us, he himself is a proud owner of one of these nice little devices. Professor Giesler explores how consumer technologies alter the social fabrics of our lives and our identity.

If you want to tell your iPod story, visit iPod Stories.

When he’s done with the data collection and the review, Professor Giesler will post the first interpretations to collect feedback. It’s a good example about how to collect consumer experience data.

iPod Links Page

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Consumer Ethnography Is Often Misunderstood

The methodology of “consumer ethnography”, following someone around for a day, or two days or even a week, is not ethnography.

Ethnography is the in-depth study of social and cultural systems. A serious ethnographer will not just study a single household, but an entire community. To do an ethnography of consumer behavior, ethnographers participate and observe the consumer and interpret the meanings of work, family, recreation and the relationship of the person to many different others in addition to the particular dynamics related to the product or service in question.

The ethnographer does not rely just upon direct observation and the interpretation of behavior. He or she gathers information about each person observed also from other people who are part of the consumer’s network.

True ethnography is based on the participant observation, in which the observer becomes integrated over a period of time into the everyday lives of those being observed.

While doing ethnographic research work in China, the ethnographer would not live in a hotel during his engagement but share a room with a local family. He or she would take all opportunities to become integrated in their daily lives and connect with other people through this family’s network.

A couple of examples can be found on the “Future Perfect” blog of Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, most of our ethnographic research work for clients is done under under non-disclosure agreements. Also Jan is unable to show any concept generation work in his presentations.

The above image is from Jan’s blog.

There’s a brief but interesting report on “Mobile Essentials – Field Study and Concepting’ The paper introduces three interrelated ways to understand human behavior – center of gravity, point of reflection and range of distribution.

Download “Mobile Essentials – Field Study and Concepting” paper.

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