Dominiek.com

This weekend I was out to buy a phone in Akihabara. Check it out:

It has a ridiculous amount of features, just as it should be: GPS, G3 internet, email, sms, global coverage, glowing skin, video chat, camera and a little keyhanger that blocks the phone when out of range (the thing is hooked up to your creditcard thats why).

When I was in this big electronics store I was wondering why all the people working there are screaming there so much. As you might notice, they only do it on the ground floor, close to the doors. While I was signing up my contract I found it very annoying. IRASHAIMASEEEEEEEEEE (SHUT UP!). Now, I'm pretty easily agitated but I'm pretty sure that other people were also annoyed by it. So why do they do this?

After thinking about it and after listening to my girlfriend's superior rationale I came to a conclusion. The reason they annoy the hell out of you is because they want to show liveliness and activity. Basically it's a competition between stores who can generate the most lively appearing store.

That same day I ran across a new store of my favorite chain, UNIQLO. Uniqlo is a clothing store chain that sells cheap and minimalistic clothing. In this new futuristic branch they call UT they have a very elegant solution to attract activity:

They have huge light scrolling marquees that have all kinds of words on it inputted by the users of their clothing. In the store itself you have display walls that render clothing-human relationship tagclouds with personalized messages! How's that for clothing 2.0!? :)

Also, while searching the above picture I came across an interesting subculture: taking a picture of someone jumping in and around a UNIQLO store. Long tale baby!

Oh YEAH!

Normally, I try to keep my blog a little detached from my personal life. My main intend for this blog is writing interesting articles and not fall back on talking about myself. Nevertheless, sometimes I will do a little personal life update and here it is.

Since a month now I've been back in Tokyo after having spend several months in Amsterdam and one little trip to Shanghai. As of this weekend my new address in Tokyo is:

Tokyo, Setagaya-ku, Okusawa-1-chome, 1-15-11, 158-0083 kurita house

Here are some pics of my new place:

note: don't be scared, these are just some brain-farts I wanted to throw out :]

Interesting article on readwriteweb: Creative Entrepreneurs: The Next Masters of the Universe. Now ofcourse the notion of creative entrepreneurs is pretty obvious. There are many books including this one that stress the importance of the right brain thinking, the inoutsourcable power of creativity. But I think the importance of creativity is not only limited to this new business-elite.

One of the main powers behind the social web and web 2.0 movements are the people that create content. Websites like Wikipedia show how much an organization is dependent on its users. But for sites like Wikipedia there is just a low percentage of users actually contributing to it, probably because the incentive is relatively low to contribute. You can imagine that an emergent organization with a high percentage of user contribution shifts a lot of power to the people itself.

Creativity will be key to the next stages of not only business, but to mankind itself.

The dying of branding. As businesses get more transparent there is less and less need for branding. A typical example would be the Louis Vuitton wallets I see here every day in Tokyo. Some people are aware of the actual costs of constructing the product, which get lower and lower all the time. Yet people keep on wanting the product, making it more and more expensive. Like diamonds, the key success of Louis Vuitton's business is withholding supply. Pretending that there is a scarcity while there is none. That's why you get bugged on the Champs Elysee by Chinese to buy Louis Vuitton for them. There is a limit of 2 bags per Asian. Now, back to the point. I think slowly, but surely, branding is dying. Because:

• A. businesses will get more transparent, providing a moral insight for the customer.

• B. the channels that high-invested marketing campaigns require are dying. With these channels I mean the typical non-targeted advertisements like TV, magazines.

• C not sure if this will work in favor of branding, but there is and will be a boom of choice. The Long Tail, and at the end of it.... YOU!

...you create your own brand

As Youtube showed, the tools to create are very accessible. Of course most of the video's found on youtube are crap. This is just the beginning, but the foundation is there. Professional tools are getting pushed to lower end consumer markets quicker and quicker. Knowledge and mass collaboration is now possible thanks to the web. The walls between amateurs and professionals are already breaking down.

...you create your own solution

And not only that, you share it. For free as in beer? Well, what if we don't require any physical assets to buy a beer. What if - like in startrek - we have this machine where we push a button and PSSSSHH there's our beer. Doesn't free as in beer get an entire new meaning?

...creative energy will be the new currency