The Constant Observer

“Well, it was kind of an accident, because plastic is not what I meant to invent. I had just sold photograph paper to Eastman Kodak for 1 million dollars” – that’s what Leo Baekeland, the inventor of photographic paper and early ‘light’ plastic called Bakelite said once he had patented Bakelite. Imagine if he hadn’t made that accident in 1907, or better still imagine if he had actually discovered all the possible uses of plastic way back in 1907 without the need of an ‘accident’ and spared all those years through which plastic ‘evolved’? Well now that’s possible – or almost at least.

An emerging technique for new product development and technology optimization called ‘evolutionary design’ makes sure that while solving the problem of developing the ‘optimum’ product; a computer possibly runs through more than tens of millions of possible solutions.

To be entirely honest, evolutionary design is not a completely new concept. It has been used for quite a while in the development of aerodynamics for cars (supercars mainly), the modification and optimization of plane wings, and other aerodynamic related fields. The problem with evolutionary design was that it was restricted only to the larger firms who could afford the super computing power needed to generate more than 10 million ‘product gene’ modifications. The interesting development has been that primarily, the cost of super computers has fallen and this technology now comes within the reach of firms, which may not be mammoth in terms of turnover and market capitalization.

As the name suggests, evolutionary design uses some mechanisms inspired by biological evolution: reproduction, mutation, recombination, and selection. This is done so with the help of an evolutionary algorithm, which takes into account all the possible solutions to altering a problem. It does so through the mutation of a basic blue print.

Anyone who knows the basics of evolutionary biology will tell you that most mutations are worse than the original. Few are progressively better. With respect to product and technology development, an evolutionary algorithm ‘identifies’ these better mutations and thus makes it possible for existing products to be more efficient.

The Evolutionary Algorithm for Products works like this:

1) It takes the design parameters such as length, width, height, current, voltage, material etc. into account.

2) It treats each aspect of the product as a different component.

3) It then tries to put together all possible combinations of the different aspects of a product and come up with the best possible solution.

Here are a few examples on product innovations that have come forth through evolutionary design

‘At the University of Sydney, in Australia, Steve Manos used an evolutionary algorithm to come up with novel patterns in a type of optical fibre that has air holes shot through its length. Normally, these holes are arranged in a hexagonal pattern, but the algorithm generated a bizarre flower-like pattern of holes that no human would have thought of trying. It doubled the fibre's bandwidth.’ (generated from The Economist)

There are also other uses, which have been developed with respect to cochlear implants. The cochlear implant is often referred to as a bionic ear. Unlike hearing aids, the cochlear implant does not amplify sound, but works by directly stimulating any functioning auditory nerves inside the cochlea with electrical impulses. External components of the cochlear implant include a microphone, speech processor and transmitter, which also provides an individual to adjust the sound for quality and amplification. So in essence, about 20 or more combinations of electrodes need to be precisely adjusted for EVERY individual in order to adequately stimulate the auditory nerve! Evolutionary algorithms are now allowing doctors to solve the problems of patients within weeks (a task that previously could often take years).

Evolutionary design could affect ‘super specialized’ businesses as well. A research team at Stanford University prepared a Wi – Fi antenna for a company that did not want to pay any patent fees to Cisco. The team basically fed in all the possible product dimensions and specifications into an algorithm and developed a product that worked around Cisco’s patent and was actually a better product!

So in a sense this is the death of new product development right? Well not really – as new individual needs evolve and people look for new benefits from technology, new products will automatically evolve. Also, evolutionary design develops the most optimum design for products with a given set of ‘raw materials’ so to speak. So in a sense it only develops the ‘best possible solution’ from what is fed in to it. There may be inputs for development that product developers and researchers may still not have discovered the use of. One must keep in mind that an algorithm is a list of well-defined instructions.

Also what Evolutionary design does is that it makes the product perform better. Now with respect to commercial and business products, this means that there will be fewer product defaults and a benefit in overall productivity hopefully. What evolutionary design still cannot do is this – it cannot create a better ‘use experience’, which may arise out of software that is culturally ingrained (eg. Linux is a better programming platform and technically the ‘superior software’ but Windows still sells more as it is psychologically and culturally accessible).

The aesthetic design element will thus play an even more important element in the purchase decision of consumers while deciding which product to buy because most of them will be ‘superior performers’.

It will all boil down to who understands the consumer better, creates a better brand and use experience keeping in mind culture, values, traditions, personal goals etc. (or will we have an optimizer for that as well?)

Podcasts have received a lot of media hype since their inception but they haven’t quite lived up to their expectations as compared to blogs. According to figures from CNET, a new blog is born 2 times in a second.

It thus seems that the podcast as a medium is failing – but is it the death of the podcast? – Not necessarily. That is primarily because podcasting, the term is derived by amalgamating the ipod and broadcasting. So as the possibilities of the pod increase, so do the possibilities of podcasting. The pod now allows you to view presentations, view video, and combine all that with audio – so effectively pod casting too has to now go beyond the audio paradigm.

And its not just the ipod – even other mP3 players like Samsung’s, YP – 10 or the Sansas by San Disk (USA’s no. 2) play video beautifully – and at a better price than the ipod. So the penetration of the ‘pod’ also is likely to be on the rise.

For India – the problem of podcasting lies with the fact that they are distributed over the Internet, which has only 40 million users who access it at least once a month. There is additionally the added time cost of transferring podcasts to the ‘pod’. I think the future of podcasting will lie with mobile phones in India atleast because the phone is converging with the ‘pod’ and will eventually become a pod that also does voice. Distribution of podcasts then becomes easier.

Here are a few ways that marketers can leverage podcasts:

Like any marketing exercise, podcasts to must be customized for relevant customer categories. Once a marketer knows his customers well he can choose from an array of podcast choices:

Original, Brand-extending Content. Here companies can create content that relates directly to the brand. This could include jingles, songs, content that is the corporate blog in audio, maybe even videos of corporate films and ads. As of now videos may seem like the best option but the brand must remember that with video, the file becomes heavier and the downloading time is higher. So only loyalists would actually spend time downloading such content at least in India where downloading video is an investment in terms of time. The key to remember with brand extending content is that it is about conversations with the brand and has not much to do with the products or services that the company provides.

Rehashed Broadcast Content: This may include broadcast content such as presentations, ads etc given in the audio form – this kind of an exercise would generally enable a user to take the brand with him wherever he goes. Again this will probably work for the brands, which have extreme loyalists eg. Apple or Reliance in India.

Information and Guidance with respect to usage of Products: This is basically a service manual in the audio or audio cum video and audio cum simple presentation format. This gives better use options to the consumer plus its content that’s more accessible on the go. Again it’s about going that one step ahead for the comfort and convenience of the consumer.

Content on subjects related to the brand: This could be intellectual or infotainment content related to the brand. Eg. Car brands can produce content related to the technical details, the future of cars etc. Media companies can revolve around the workings of media, the relevance of media etc. This really does value add to the brand and affect the entire category – for the brand what it does is that it embeds the brand within a particular category which is really beneficial for the brand.

Internal Communications: A brand is as much about the ‘outside’ as it is about the ‘inside’. So podcasts can really strengthen emplyee training, employee orinentation for brands etc.

Sponsoring Podcasts from other Sources: If your company does not create podcasts of its own, it can sponsor relevant podcasts and leverage its brand value. Eg. Raymond can sponsor podcasts with short ads where the topic is men’s grooming and personality, or close up can sponsor podcasts where the topic relates to confidence. Basically anything that leverages the key raison d’ etre for a brand.

For podcasting to take off in India, one needs to keep in mind the:

a) Accessibility of the distribution platform – like I said, mobile seems to be the best way to go!

b) Language – podcasts will have to go into regional languages along with Hindi and English. The advantage is that even though people cannot read they can definitely hear and understand and it’s a great way to engage audiences. Looking at a macro perspective, podcasts can also be great educating tools. For this to be realized though, the ‘pod’ would have to become more cost effective. It is estimated that Apple pockets a cool $100 for every $199 ipod sold – that’s a lot of money. One has to then look at distributing such a product for mass benefit from a different perspective.

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