This WEF global risks grid compiled from survey respondent answers seems, at first, to be a pretty good stab at the issues on the table. Now, try and take another look without slipping into a heavily comatose state. These terms, familiar to us thanks to the daily grind of ‘very serious information,’ is the apex of mechanistic, non-sentient language, not far removed from what you might find in an IKEA shelving unit assembly manual. Impossible to decipher and skull-crushingly dull, both destined to go straight in the bin for most normal people. Read More…
For too many reasons consumerism as we know it is over. The problem we have got (besides the fact that our economies still revolve around shopping for stuff from China) is that the consumer landscape has stood still, content to wheeze towards a slow death, unable to embrace the shoots of 21st Century prosperity. Well we think that’s not good enough. Say hello to retail reset. We want retail be the hub of a many-spoked plan to save our cities with creativity, experiences, collaboration and learning. With lots of deep research and inspiring thinking we want to show you that the future of retail is out there and it’s beautiful.
Here’s a small chunk from a longer article on what we think the future of retail is all about:
It’s not that hard to imagine Oxford Street as a hub of mass collaboration where people descend in droves not as 20th century shoppers but as 21st century citizens, ready to be inspired, exposed to new ideas, to learn and participate in something they are passionate about, and connect with others.
Being a responsible retailer in a new economic reality isn’t just about watertight sourcing, me-too environmental credentials, some taxes and a few jobs. Those are in fact bare minimum requirements for existence. It’s about aspiring to give your customers more and actually taking a a role in wider economic fortunes. If you want my money, you are going to have to prove to me that you are worth it. These days I can now spend my (even harder) earned pennies on something unique that also gives me a personal connection, is beautifully crafted or locally made, rather than see my cash pay for your chief executive’s hired help at his winter sun bolthole in in the Seychelles. I want you to use your considerable heft to bring together totally amazing experiences, possibilities and opportunities that inspire me and help me achieve my dreams. Please, try harder or you will never see me again. I have enough options to keep me busy for five lifetimes so make it memorable.
So with this in mind, where are the amphitheatres in Topshop with round the clock lectures from fashion industry players teaching me about how to get my foot in the door? Or the social enterprise upcycling concessions in Primark that show me how to transform last season’s jacket into this summer’s must-have item. Why can’t I take part in an Ikea hack workshop (turning my old Ikea purchase into something new) when I’m actually at Ikea?
When I pick up a shiny gadget why am I not suddenly be immersed in an augmented reality world that takes me on a journey across the globe to witness the raw materials being sourced in Bolivia, to the factory where it was put together in Shenzen, then on to the innovation lab in Bangalore and to the marketing gurus on Madison Avenue? Why can’t I take out my phone and find out where I can connect with people meeting up in real world makerspaces up and down the high street who are into the same things I am and forge new bonds, friendships and alliances. If I’m going to by my food an Iceland (shop not country) why can’t I find out how to make the most nutritional meal possible for my family dinner that night at a hands-on micro seminar in-store? Read More…
This review of an piece by Matthew Darbyshire at the Hayward Gallery exploring the ‘fug’ /’visual puke’ of consumerism.
In Adrian Searle’s review he talks about the optimism of consumerism that is forward looking and its actual emptiness.
As living standards rise across the world can we imagine billions more people all after this type of fulfilment? I don’t think its going to happen as the wheels came off some time ago. Hopefully as companies respond to peoples demand for enabling tools (to live well) we can move out of the old prosperity generating paradigm of stressed out consumerism into one of participatory creativity (something ive looked at a bit in this post).
The biggest challenge is with the world’s new consumers. How to pull them into a different way of doing things when the only reference point is the post war era where they looked on a a small minority raced to accumulate all the trappings associated with modern, happy, healthy, living.
Need a new shaping strategy
The coming demand spike has implications for everyone’s wellbeing. Turning round the accumulation supertanker of this size will take time (too long?). Perhaps an answer lies in this idea of the future? Redefining what people are striving for and creating a shaping strategy for the future of prosperity and wellbeing that looks far better than the alternative.
The inquest for meaning , exploring what the went wrong with the old model needs to carry on, meanwhile companies and governments ( i.e. politicians on election cycles) need to get wise to the limits of what came before. This is about transparency and equity – a problem in the emerging centres of demand. It is also about real innovation where products and services are created in a new deal with new customers that aims to help them prosper for the next 100 years.
As it stands, acknowledging that the old model has failed wont deliver anything but a shortlived boost seems to be the one thing companies and governments cant talk about even as the world disintegrates around them. Against this people are organising like never before, bypassing traditional structures and making things happen in a peer-to-peer world that isn’t about illusory, incremental gains favoured by the old guard. Read More…
Shrouded by the responsibility fog of their ethical sourcing, ‘me too’ environmental credentials, job creation and taxes pledges (or not…), retailers have somehow convinced us and their shareholders that they are doing their bit to help us live well.
Ensconced in this warm cloud the reality down below is somewhat different. Ever smaller margins, shorter product cycles, cheaper stuff, consumed faster, kept for shorter lengths of time. Big retail faces a battle for survival that has made the race to the bottom – based on cost and volume – the only game in town. We are being served up the dregs of our supposed accumulation fixation that lives on in terminal decline to (almost) everyone’s detriment.
Happiness (for big retail) is staring at a Geiger counter
Cloned high streets and and crappy products have left us gasping for more, hunting experience and engagement elsewhere. More often than not what we buy will disintegrate, be usurped by a better model moments after unboxing and end up in landfill or the charity shop. An unrewarding experience for all, including the materials these items are made of. Big retail uses all the tricks of the trade to dupe us into momentary lapses of concentration to fork out at the till and then send us on our way, arrogantly presuming that we will come back soon (for the reasons detailed above). And so the tawdry business rolls on. We are locked into a weak system that is totally gamed in big retail’s favour that gives us less and less. And who are these retailers? Pension fund controlled public groups whose idea of gains (as recently explained by the head of Aviva) is somewhat different to yours or mine. Disoriented by the responsibility fog, they are content with the current setup. Oblivious (or complicit?) to the pitiful returns of this gamed system, they are happy for the half-life counter to continue its never ending death spiral towards zero. Read More…
This is summary of a report soon to be published by Brazilintel exploring at a few of the issues related to the consumption conundrum and Brazil’s new middle classes. Figuring out what we need to do to create a type of prosperity that will fit the emerging global demand scenario must be a priority for businesses and governments of the emerging world.
This report started life as a paper at last year’s EABIS Colloquium in St. Petersberg where a few ideas were tested and debated.
The report’s toolkit explores a number of techniques from service design to collaborative consumption and open innovation that leading companies are using to reconfigure how they operate to fit a rebalancing planet.
If you are interested in finding out more about the report do get in touch.
have a look at the slides on flickr and feel free to use
There seems little point banging on about biodiversity conservation when we live in such an high intensity consumer world. If we think we can wait for events like COP-10 to solve our issues on their own then we deserve to fry and be the only species left.
The world now lives in cities: water (if you are lucky) comes out of a tap, materials are mined and refined (with lots of heat) into shiny objects and food comes out of the factory, not farm, gates. How is anyone going to care or understand the value of natural capital when the view out of their window not the onset of autumn but a wall, motorway or advertising hoarding? We live in a world where a resident of Manaus is less likely to have visited the Amazon jungle on his doorstep (or be bothered about its existence) than the suburbanite 5130 odd miles away in London’s commuter belt. Read More…
Companies like Groupon can use twitter and the like to pump out masses of offers to huge groups, taking advantage of ridiculously fast scaling to become HUGE. Location-based applications like Foursquare, Gowalla and the rest have created a bridge between peoples movement, their custom and the chance to personalise services, deals and offers based on their habits and a GPS signal. Real-time, customised retailing is not that far away (shudder).
This is all great if a) you have a smartphone, b) you feel it’s worth it letting people know where you are 24/7 and c), all you do is shop. Read More…
Think of the centre of a city and its shopping district. From Oxford Street to smaller high streets and shopping centres they are almost universally grim. The stock story goes that the combined forces of the internet and the recession have made high street retail more and more costly. The only way to win is to squeeze prices. So we have 3 quid jeans and two pence t-shirts. High volume retail is the only route left. Read More…
Collaborative consumption has a huge role to play in shifting attitudes to owning more ‘stuff’ and showing up those who talk about sustainable consumption and shifting more units in the same breath.
Corporate efforts so far have mainly dealt with work around reducing waste, reducing resource use in production, raising labour standards, promoting certification standards and adding socioeconomic benefits to products and services. All good but, at its heart sustainable consumption must mean buy/use less stuff. Read More…
Howard Davies, former Chairman of the Financial Services Authority, current Director of the London School of Economics spoke at the LSE last night about where China was up to with its financial reform (download slides here). Davies, a member of the advisory boards of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (since 2003) and the China Securities Regulatory Commission, is ideally placed to talk about reform and the impact of the stimulus.
Davies main tenet: The crisis has meant that China will reform its financial system in its own way and at its own speed. Additionally, the crisis has not derailed the party’s development policies so don’t expect much dramatic change in the model for now.
