I really enjoyed recording this conversation with Tom Goodwin - even though it took me a few weeks to edit because of the distractions of a barmy summer. In this podcast, Tom shares the topics of his second book, Digital Darwinism Surviving The New Age of Business Disruption - and we talk about how we need to look at the basics when trying to solve business and professional challenges.

With his popular LinkedIn channel, Tom is known as an agitator in the advertising and marketing world. Within this conversation, it was interesting to hear him provide a word of warning about getting too distracted by shiny subjects like web3 and the metaverse, especially when more immediate opportunities should be focused on for personal success today.

I enjoyed the conversation very much and I hope you do too.

Tom Goodwin’s Projects of Energy: Book | LinkedIn | Personal Site

Some other news & ideas from me and PSFK

Over the summer I worked on market relevance for my research and insights company, PSFK, and as a result I am testing out various new products, projects and service features.

What I Learned About The Market’s Needs For New Ideas

As part of my project, I spoke to about 30 ‘fans’ of PSFK to get their read on what they need in terms of gathering of new insights and ideas.

1. The (perceived) speed of business means that the time to do due diligence and really study market research like we used to has been very much reduced. In addition, knowledge managers get new, internal requests for insights every week.

2. A pandemic-induced generational shift in leadership has led to the empowering of less experienced employees to do insights work - buy while less experienced, they are strong at Google and finding the data that backs their hunches.

3. Insights are being used to back hunches rather than look past them.

4. There's an abundance of #free and "good-enough" research reports now available from tech companies, ad agencies and solution providers, and they're all a search query away. Some of this is real click-bait but in general, these reports help serve the needs in points 1,2 & 3

5. Some PSFK readers love a newsletter with a hundred links, some readers just want the newsletter to focus on 3 key topics.  (doh)

6. There's a need for many retailers and brands to deal with the now.... too many trend reports talk about concepts that are many years from the mainstream experience. 

7. Creative strategists want specific case-studies that can help them as they activate now - and they want stats to help them defend strategic decisions.

8. There still is a desire for executives to meet likeminds, experts and peers working at competitors - for learning and idea sharing.

9. With remote office work, there's a demand for corporate teams to meet and connect around physical and digital experiences.

My Challenge with PSFK

Over the last couple of years, I've been trying to productize the business so it offers an efficient knowledge base - with PDF reports at its core, then newsletters and events around it. Folks are less interested these days in buying, downloading or reading a PDFs - but they do like our POV and network. So this is what I've started to develop (in addition to maintaining the existing IQ platform) ....

Some Ideas That I'm Exploring for PSFK

Reacting to the conversations, I personally used some no-code tools like Airtable and Shopify to test some new ideas. If you have the time - please do check them out - and provide feedback.

+ 1. Expert Database

A platform that helps the PSFK community find and connect with people in our community - including new hires & topic experts. 

Search a first version at this service that I set up using Airtable and MiniExtensions here: https://www.psfk.com/expert-network  (e.g. Search what it says about you!)

+ 2. Topic Alerts

A service that sends emails about 1 piece of innovation news  as soon as our research team finds it (vs a weekly round up). The recipient can choose specific topics. 

Try the service by signing up for this test I made using Zapier/Feedly here: https://airtable.com/shrDE3oyli0ONroCo

+3. Free Industry Report Library

To improve the visibility of our thinking (and to up-sell paid-for reports), I set up a Shopify version of our report library. Ultimately, I think I’d like to add other company's reports on this so it becomes a knowledge space for all trends and insights reports. 

Download some free insights here : https://store.psfk.com/ (My SEO consultant is freaking out that I have an alternative sub-domain with dupe content now…)

 

+ 4. Quick Hit Advisory Services

--Check-A-Deck - A new service where PSFK researchers offer a review of a retail strategy and compare it with trends and innovation that we see developing in the marketplace. 
-- Phone A Friend - A newish service for companies to access our research team for a 1-hour video call to pick their brain about any topic in our report library.

More details for these 2 services : https://www.psfk.com/retail-strategy-consulting-research-firm

+ 5. Immersive Experiences

-- CES/NRF/Shoptalk Immersion Tours - To provide an opportunity for remote colleagues to come together and learn in person, we are showcasing these creative immersive learning experiences we've been providing in the past in Vegas & NYC

-- HQ Town Halls - Creating experiences that encourage staff to come back to the office and learn by leveraging our event production skills, our trends and innovation knowledge and our access to experts.

More details for these 2 offerings here

+ 6. Convention MeetUps

Creating spaces for the community to come together - maybe by industry vertical during events like NRF. 

To help me understand the demand for this - come along to a PSFK meetup for the upcoming GroceryShop or FastCompany shows (or don't! :)

+7. Solution Provider List

Find the best companies delivering innovation for retailers and brands today. I hacked Wordpress to create this initial roll out: https://www.psfk.com/vendors 

+8. PSFK Email Focus

Our weekly emails are getting a little more focused around the 3 themes - vs sending a blanket of news. Keep an eye out for them and send any feedback when you receive them. (sign up here)

I wanted to talk to Robbie Salter because from what I could recollect, he had a career that was doing great: he was working in the big city (NYC) at a company everyone knew (Medialink). He and his wife were also preparing for the arrival of their first child - so there was no need to rock the boat.

But Robbie had an itch - an itch that he really needed to scratch. 

For many of us, we dream about changing things up, about doing something new but circumstances hold us back. Sometimes we think we don’t have the idea baked enough, sometimes we’re unsure how to  make & sell a product, and sometimes life is just a little too good to risk it all.

Since I started my own business, I’ve met a lot of people with new ideas but few find a way to just get started. For a short while, Robbie seemed to be one of those - he had told me that he had been planning something and I waited…. but then the pandemic came and in the chaos he found the courage to launch the Jupiter haircare brand.

In this interview, he’ll share his story from corner office to DTC start up. He’ll talk about the moment he realized he needed to make a change, the motivations behind his new company Jupiter and why he thinks it’s an imperative that we all pursue projects of energy. 

I hope you’ll find this story of invention and reinvention inspiring - Piers

Piers Fawkes

My PoE: PSFK | Retail Innovation Week | Wallkit | Project of Energy

Welcome to a refresh of my Distracted newsletter - an email I was sending to share positivity at a time when the sky was falling during the pandemic. Now I return to distract you again as I explore themes of positivity through invention and reinvention.

This isn’t really a new newsletter - but an introduction to a recorded conversation I had with Asmeret Berhe-Lumax about her One Love Community Fridge project and the community she founded. Like many people reading this, she started a small project that served the community during the pandemic. The fridge on the street project was initially organized by Asmeret, her children, her husband and close friends but it not only served food to her local community in Brooklyn - it also gave food for thought to a broader community of people around her.

You will hear on the podcast how the One Love Community Fridge project has grown to embrace a large community of supporters and volunteers who are involved in the feeding of New Yorkers and also the support of the community today. In the podcast, you'll hear about how Asmeret went about building a community organization, how she realized that aesthetics and beauty directly connects with notions of respect and how the fridge location is a place of pride and joy versus a place of needs.

“One Love Community Fridge works to empower & engage the community through education and providing access to fresh, healthy fruit & vegetables with no stigma.”
One Love Community Fridge Website

When I challenge her that she's built a brand around the one love community fridge, Asmeret brings back the idea of collaboration and she connects this concept of a brand with a notion of exchange and this “exchange” is something I think is very fascinating and something for all of us in creative business to take away.

Hopefully by listening to this, you'll be inspired about how to invent by starting small and how to reinvent by engaging the people around you, including the people you serve to start. Do subscribe to this newsletter or the podcast to hear more stories like this.

Listen to the interview on Apple Podcast

Listen to the interview on Spotify

One Love Community Fridge

Pics by Malin Fezehai republished with kind permission. Fridge on street by Piers Fawkes

Some other news from Piers Fawkes

I’m hosting a free webinar on digital transformation on Tuesday at 12pm ET

I’m speaking at the Lead Innovation conference in Williamsburg, NY on Wednesday at 9.15am ET

My team just delivered a guide to help brands and retailers to engage Gen Alpha

I’m behind 2 other creative business newsletters that are sent each week to audiences of about 40,000 folks

****

Distracted #15

Patterns: Hardware Gets Circular, Our Time of Silence, Nature As Our Ally, Alt-Job Listings, Immersive Immersion, IoT Returns

Patterns can be so much more interesting than one-off pings and posts. Here are a few:

Not quite what it was intended for….

Money printing and trading makes Animal Crossing “more like it’s Wall Street” WSJ

How Fortnite might evolve into the future internet.

How private label products (made by 3rd parties??) are changing the Amazon experience. (Term to memorize: Fulfillment by Amazon, or FBA business)

How Instagram (and the pandemic) is giving rise to the memorialization of the dead. (Connected: opinion on why we need to wait before we build memorials of the ones we lost in the pandemic).

Dispo photo app recreates the disposable camera experience and aesthetic to counter your phone’s lens tech.

NFT reinvented already: news articles, news ‘moments’, art exhibitions, creative concepts

Related: 2009 US movie beats up super-hero flicks for record theatrical sales in China in 2021

Hardware Gets Circular

Circular sounds: New personal speaker uses upcycled e-bike batteries.

Next gen BMW Neue Klasse cars will avoid the extraction of primary raw materials and use secondary materials “wherever quality and availability factors allow.” Lots of AI functionality will be built into these cars to keep them super efficient across all markets and geographies

I talked repair in the last email : now UK citizens get a ‘right to repair’ (more here in the Guardian)

A solar-powered light for your window that “harvests energy by day to light your home at night.”

How Braun partnered with design lead Virgil Abloh to rework a design classic “with purpose.”

Nature As Our Ally

“The beauty of gardening and nature is it’s always here…. It’s a reminder that life goes on.” Useful meditation on engaging audiences with style and content - and plants: How a British Gardening Show got people everywhere through the pandemic.

Fascinating conceptual book on plant design including the theme of Plants as Allies: speculative designs that look at “future alliances or future cooperations with plants.”

Planted disposable mask will sprout

If no one is going to come by and see it, why bother cutting it: the end of lawn.

Mushrooms will save us and are the answer to everything.

New word: Waldeinsamkeit - German: searching for the solitude of the forest.

Our Time of Silence

Empty: Berlin clubs, London Tube, Toronto cannabis store.

How a year of dangerous decisions has upended our lives and relationships - and changed “how we relate to other Americans.” (538)

Data on dating, one year into COVID

Also, Maisie Cowell’s illustrations are a quiet reflection of frustration and loneliness in lockdown.

A Whimsical List of Your Brand’s Future Values

Practical Elegance “Practical elegance… means that the thing we built was worth building, and it left the user feeling better, not worse, about their choice.” Seth Godin

Visual Poetry (to sell whiskey)

Intentionally Incorrect - making mistakes that can be discovered like easter eggs. 

Vulnerability for brands

People just helping each other out, just because…

The rise of food-sharing apps: “It’s such a small thing, but it makes me feel good and my neighbor feel good. And a lot of small acts can end up making a big difference,” one user says in this piece.

Love this project from SF artist that I follow, Tucker Nichols: He takes free requests on his website and sends painted cards to people who need flowers.

How London teenagers hack street signs to get their environmental message across.

Official Emotional Support Beer

Reframing Retail

Out of Hong Kong and launched on the new moon in Scorpio: a design-led, spirituality store.

Repositioning the parlor as an Ice Cream Social

Here’s a possible retail trend… “I specialize in plants that don’t sell very well.” Ha! Plenty of gems in this NYT piece on the way retailers are describing their niche retail outlet: “unrepentant ornamentalists”, sellers of “woodland treasures”…. Dig in.

Pop up gives a taster of new burger joint in Oakland.

Why department stores like Nordstrom are betting on livestreaming. Plug: PSFK research paper on Livestreaming

Alt places to find freelance-work

There’s something bubbling around how creative professionals find employment - or at least revenue streams…. I should have bookmarked more of these as I saw them but here are two examples for now:

Giphy becomes job marketplace with ‘hire me’

Facebook rewards content makers with a new set of video formats

Not a pattern, it’s just interesting how luxury brands pursue radically different strategies

Chanel unveils Global Culture Fund to support “Pioneering” artists

Hermes creates a bag out of mushroom.

How Macintosh collaborated with Jeep to create a high end in-car sound system. (Compare with Braun above too)

Dolce & Gabbana taps DJ Khaled for eye-catching collection

Food Adventures (a bit of a bucket of links)

Bloomberg reports that to becoming a truly adventurous eater—ask what’s on your plate after you’ve tried it.

36% of fish is mislabeled so time to try some alt-fish.

Polaroid pen writes candy - also check: Laser etching food.

Via Neal U: Eating through Iran

Rooftop igloos for outdoor dining. Check my Future of Home 2030 report for more on this concept of parasitic architecture.

FastCo takes a bite into the livestreaming classes by Jenn Nicken, the founder of The Chef & The Dish. “By the end of your class… you feel like you’ve taken a virtual trip to a different part of the world. My goal is to make the computer distant… That’s what I aim to do. I want the computer to disappear.”

Immersive Immersion

Ear, ear; not 1 but 2 immersive, sound & video-mapped Van Gogh exhibitions coming to London this year.

Adventure.Lab - join 8 friends in VR and party. Mashable review

Kaws retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum - expansive and immersive too.

Klein Dytham Architecture in Japan create a fairytale building in a clearing of the forest.

We’ve all heard about 3D printed houses but here’s another angle on them from the people who now live in them.

The City of Arles is southern France gets a cathedral-style art center from Gehry.

An immersive art exhibition features 400 trees.

TikTok seems to be having a Facebook 2008 Moment

How BookTok videos on TikTok influence publishers and best-seller lists.

“Why Real Estate brokers should be on TikTok”

Rough drafts: The NYT looks at how music performers are testing out ideas on TikTok to see if they catch on. 

Glossy interviews Walmart CMO about the retailer’s use of TikTok: “Our overall social strategy is centered around engaging with customers on their terms, on channels they love. We want to show that we ‘get’ them and understand how to fit into their lives.”

Kinda seems like there are some weak signals for a new wave of innovation in Consumer IoT…

Remember the XBox Kinect camera. A lack of open-source innovation and the rising sophistication of the mobile phone camera kinda tidied that tech away - until now: an electronics maker is releasing a camera that’s going to help electronics - and robots - recognize things.

What possibilities if all your IoT electronics were given free data on their network plan.

Circular rhythms: researchers transform smart speaker into a contactless heart rhythm monitor.

Useful Resources

Social Impact provider database.

Branding Style Guidelines database

Google SEO guide for videos

PSFK report on Embracing the Diverse Consumer

**** That’s it ****

Piers Fawkes

PSFK | Papa Tees (new/sneak peek) | Co-Live Costa Rica | Wallkit | Retail Innovation Week

And Yes. This newsletter is on Substack. I don’t know what to say or do about that yet. For now, if we want to look at sustained corporate misbehavior, let’s watch the trailer for WeWork together:

*I use Feedly for bookmarking and for news-tracking, fyi