Every year, Fjord comes together to brainstorm the key trends in service design that will transform what we do, our clients’ businesses, and the way we live.
This year, our new colleagues at Accenture Interactive also joined us. The result is our combined thoughts on the major trends that will shape business and society in the year to come.
We believe that 2014 will bring even more transformation, disruption, and delight to organizations and their audiences. Our hope is that our 2014 Trends will motivate, inspire, and provide actionable insights to move businesses and society forward.
If you would like a customized presentation by Fjord on the trends and how to stay ahead of the curve, please get in touch at fjord.marketing@accenture.com.
You can also view the Fjord 2014 Trends and add your comments on trends.fjordnet.com
2. TRENDS 2014
Every year, Fjord comes together to brainstorm the
key trends in service design that will transform what
we do, our clients’ businesses, and the way we live.
This year, our new colleagues at Accenture
Interactive also joined us. The result is our
combined thoughts on the major trends that
will shape business and society in the
year to come.
We believe that 2014 will bring even more
transformation, disruption, and delight to
organizations and their audiences. Underpinning
these trends are three core themes that will
impact everyone.
3. Old businesses will become new.
Traditionally non-digital businesses will have to reinvent
themselves to consider the role of digital services in their
organizations. As people embrace more digital lifestyles,
every business must become a digital business.
We’re entering the age of Living Services.
With more things becoming connected, the living
services wave will radically shape people’s lives and
expectations. Brands must deliver services that are
contextually aware, learn about us, maintain
relevance in our lives, and meet our evolving needs.
Change will beget change.
Digital innovation does not happen on its own or
without consequences. For radical departures from
convention, watch for gaps in between ideas, but be
wary that hyped developments often struggle to adapt
to existing systems and economic reality.
Our hope is that our 2014 Trends will motivate, inspire,
and provide actionable insights to move businesses
and society forward.
We call that Design at the Heart.
4. IN CONVERSATION
WITH OBJECTS
UNDERWRITING
DIGITAL
YOU ARE THE
INTERFACE
WHAT PRESCRIPTION
DOES THE HEALTHCARE
INDUSTRY NEED?
LIVING
ARROWS
EVERY PRODUCT IS
A SERVICE WAITING
TO HAPPEN
THE DISTRIBUTED
HOME
TO SERVE OR
NOT TO SERVE
INVISIBLE
MONEY
TELCO 3.0
TRENDS 2014
conversation with objects
underwriting digital every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backwhat RX does healthcare need?
you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
conversation with objects
underwriting digital every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Bigwhat RX does healthcare need?
you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible m
conversation with objects you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
conversation with objects
underwriting digital every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backwhat RX does healthcare need?
you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
conversation with objects
underwriting digital every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backwhat RX does healthcare need?
you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
conversation with objects
underwriting digital every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backwhat RX does healthcare need?
you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backwhat RX does healthcare need?
you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
conversation with objects
underwriting digital every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backwhat RX does healthcare need?
you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
living arrows the distributed home invisible money
every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Back
living arrows the distributed home invisible money
5. Everything from watches to pill bottles are connecting
with us and collecting data that could influence our
behavior. These devices are beginning to quietly talk to
each other, leaving us to carry on as they recede into
the background to make smarter choices for us. Fjord
believes this “smartification” of objects, and the new
forms of interactions they’ll give rise to, will have a huge
impact on social behavior.
As more objects get “smartified,” deep
challenges to social conventions will emerge.
IN CONVERSATION
WITH OBJECTS
conversation with objects
underwriting digital every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backwhat RX does healthcare need?
you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
6. WHAT’S
GOING ON
New social conventions and etiquette will form around
these connected objects. There’s already animated
debate about when it might not be acceptable to wear
Google Glass. The early adopters sporting Glass will
have to navigate societal norms thoughtfully. If you’re
paying with your face, it may be unclear when your
transaction is complete or when someone else is picking
up the tab.
The same questions arise about other wearables. Right
now, it’s acceptable to look at your watch to check the
time, but if messages, alerts, and payments are flowing
through your wristband, will that change the
meaning of a quick glance at your wrist in a social
setting? There’s also a trend that complicates this social
disruption even more: the prevalence of embedded
sensors in unexpected, newly connected devices, like
your bed. These objects will engage in conversations,
but a conversation is a complex thing. Rethink Robotics
puts graphical “eyes” on their robots, not to humanize
them, but to signal their intent. Machine-to-person
signaling is going to be a key issue.
IN CONVERSATION WITH OBJECTS
conversation with objects
underwriting digital every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backwhat RX does healthcare need?
you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
7. LOOKING FORWARD
IN CONVERSATION WITH OBJECTS
With an estimated five million smart watches expected
to ship in 2014 and the rumored launches of Apple’s
iWatch and China’s ZTE Smartwatch, the wearables
battleground is poised to move into mainstream
popularity. The official launch of Google Glass will lead
the pack of competitors in the smart glasses arena and
traditionally analog products will get a digital makeover
that will usher them into this ultra-connected era.
However, it isn’t just the physical side of smart objects
we should focus on: it’s the services that we design
on top of the physical objects and the behavior they
promote that matter.
In this way, fashion has an important role to play
in determining adoption and use: wearables will
influence fashion designers, and fashion will affect
the technology. We’ve seen designers readily embrace
technology on the runways already, and brands like
MyKronoz are explicitly targeting the style market.
PayPal is poised to revolutionize hands-free payments
with PayPal Beacon and Mondelez International may
introduce Smart Shelves, supermarket shelves that
recognize us and adapt to our behavior. In short, this
year you’re likely to join the wearable revolution and
spot newly-connected versions of familiar products.
8. FJORD SUGGESTS
When more of our homes, cars, work, and children all start
to connect and we adopt new forms of interaction, there
are huge social ramifications to consider. Think through
the contextual reality of conversations with objects,
whether by voice, gesture, tap, or vibration. How will other
humans around your target audience respond to the
interaction?
As we increasingly add smartified objects to our lives, we’ll
have to swim against the tide of compartmentalization
within our businesses. Don’t create a “wearables”
team. Think of a cohesive, service design approach and
organizational structure that supports it. The adage of “just
because you can, doesn’t mean you should” is extremely
relevant as we move towards a future with so
many possibilities.
Design a whole new set of
interaction systems for the
coming “smartification.”
Design services and ecosystems
over single-purpose apps, which
will take a back seat in the
sensor revolution.
Plan for simple barriers, like
charging cord management, that
could be turn-offs for users.
IN CONVERSATION WITH OBJECTS
9. Mobile is undergoing a reinvention and telcos will reap the benefits.
Since Fjord started publishing our annual Trends, we’ve gone from
“mobile first” to “mobile gap.” Now, we’re at the stage of “mobile
as the impetus to reinvention,” where mobile really means
connected technology.
Smartphones and other mobile technology are finally maturing.
Their increased adoption, in every developed market, bumps them
from technology teenagers to mature adults looking to reinvent
themselves. This presents an unprecedented opportunity for
companies to deliver new types of experiences. Telcos will continue
their evolution of business models from “dumb pipes” to “smart
services,” by further combining their traditional network services
with new digital hubs.
TELCO 3.0
Big is back and it’s a make or break year.
ot to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Back
ed home invisible money
10. WHAT’S
GOING ON
The major telcos are now focusing on verticals
to reimagine their businesses. Telcos can have a
profound impact on industries like the connected car
and more broadly travel, health and wellness, home
security, insurance, retail, and education. In addition to
investing in these areas to accelerate their influence,
they’ll need to collaborate with industry leaders.
We’ve seen that this is the case with automotive
when Tesla chose AT&T to power its connected car
strategy. Or it could be a partnership with brands, like
a telecommunications industry joint venture mobile
payment system that works with American Express. In
education, AT&T is championing a degree in Computer
Science at Georgia Tech that will cost students $7000
with Udacity, as opposed to the normal cost of $50,000.
Telcos are an important partner to other industries, as
they hold a natural position of power in the value chain.
Telcos are also data goldmines: by putting this type
of real-time data to use, operators could automate
processes to be more efficient and improve the
customer experience on their network. This could
transform the dumb pipes into value-adding smart
pipes, and upgrade their status in our lives from
“necessary evil” to “indispensable companion.”
For example, one operator captures six billion customer
interaction data points per day on their network. AT&T
and Telefonica are both moving to play central data
roles: BLNK.IO, whose tagline is “small data is the new
big,” comes from Telefonica m2m.
TELCO 3.0
ot to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Back
ed home invisible money
11. LOOKING FORWARD
TELCO 3.0
Telcos will leverage areas of strength—infrastructure,
data services, scale—to be the natural backbone
of vertical services and solutions. But digital
transformation is catalyzed in the front office, not in
the back office. The front end is all about the consumer
experience, service delivery, and engagement.
Telcos will adopt the strategy of people over pipes.
This will be a transition from selling data services to
selling a “connected-living lifestyle” in a digital world.
In many cases, they’ll provide value added services as
part of these solutions—like home security monitoring
personnel for the connected home and car insurance
monitoring for the connected car. We’ve seen this
already with leaders like Verizon dipping into the
healthcare market through their Converged Health
Management platform, a remote patient monitoring
solution to connect patients and doctors between
clinical visits.
Furthermore, since Application Programming Interfaces
(APIs) are the building blocks to living services—
wearables, connected devices, and digital objects—we’ll
see telcos continue to heavily invest in API marketplaces
to fuel the next wave of the Internet of Things. This
is a huge transformation, as telcos are poised to be
the infrastructure and the interface of how we are
connected. Expect more merger and acquisitions action
in 2014. They could be the key to getting our devices,
connected products, and services talking, as well as
becoming huge players in content accessibility.
12. FJORD SUGGESTS
Alas, becoming a new trusted provider of digital
experiences isn’t just about building new businesses or
bolting on new capabilities. To truly own the space, telcos
must make sense of the Internet of Things and be the
glue that allows people to connect not only devices, but
services, in a centralized place without hassle. They need to
get it right by making the experience pleasant and easy as
they roll this out—or risk deepening the infamous love/hate
relationship they have with people. They can make this
right by becoming more adept at things that have eluded
them before: understanding their customers based on
rich data and transforming this data into a beautiful,
personalized response to their needs. This intelligence will
be stronger through alliances with third parties.
As players prepare for the
dawn of Telco 3.0, expect more
mergers and acquisitions in
2014.
While people assume it will be
led by the sexy startups, it’s the
telcos that will provide the
infrastructure that will bring to
life people’s visions of living
services and connected devices.
Think about how telcos
could be a partner for your
organization—it could
accelerate your impact.
TELCO 3.0
13. Brands used to be control freaks. But now users have high
expectations for a more humanized relationship with their
products and services, putting them in the command seat.
In the past, we’ve seen brands address this by engaging
in conversation with users openly on social networks or
including their input in marketing campaigns. Now, brands
need to relinquish their control in a new way: reacting more
nimbly to their audience’s needs, infusing empathy and
delight into every interaction, and being present in
every interaction.
“You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.” Khalil Gibran
LIVING
ARROWS
every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backalthcare need?
interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
14. WHAT’S
GOING ON
We’ve seen brands jump into social media and Internet
forums like Reddit to join the conversation about
them. However, sometimes they can still appear as
an outsider encroaching on an open discussion, like
helicopter parents dancing at the prom. To reframe
this relationship, organizations are inviting people to
improve their products in more collaborative ways.
Good Eggs, a startup that delivers organic food
to your door, does this by partnering with locally-
sourced farms and working with them to grow their
businesses. Facebook offers over $1M to hackers that
would otherwise be hacking against them, to do it in
their favor by finding security breaches. Not only are
these ways to incorporate brilliant super users into
the core of the brand, but it also reminds users that
organizations are run by people, not just technology.
Apple has always done this with the Genius Bar. It’s
conversational knowledge sharing, not mechanized
troubleshooting. Brands are also allowing users to
navigate both products and services in a way that fits
their natural behavior. Nordstrom bridged the gap
between e-commerce and their brick-and-mortar shops,
acknowledging people don’t shop by channel, and
featuring most pinned items on Pinterest in stores. Their
system mirrors a digital lifestyle—ones that has fluid
boundaries between off and online behavior.
LIVING ARROWS
every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backalthcare need?
interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
15. LOOKING FORWARD
LIVING ARROWS
We’ll see companies embrace brand inclusion or
co-production even more this year, by stepping forward
and building platforms that empower their people to
create their own products, the services that surround
them, and community. People will be in control of their
own experiences, but in a way that still feels unique
to the brand.
Yes, this year’s buzz trend was brands learning to
become more dynamic storytellers, but now they have
to be better facilitators of their users’ stories. A prime
example is Microsoft’s newly launched project, called
MSFQT. They’re asking cultural curators to fill their
interactive platform and event venues, with creative
culture—anything from fashion and music to digital
and performance art. Users are defining their own
experience on the platform, both online and off, with
Microsoft supporting them with design and technology.
It helps promote a perception that Microsoft is creative,
supportive, and instrumental in cultivating culture that is
shaping the world.
Kickstarter is the obvious hotbed for this type of
community, but bigger brands have been evolving
crowdsourcing as well. Amazon Instant did this when
they released 14 pilot shows that people could vote
to be turned into full seasons, and Expedia utilizes
crowd-sourced data around user-generated deals
and user-informed travel trends.
16. FJORD SUGGESTS
The interactive nature of digital turns centrally controlled
structures like traditional branding on its head, as most
brand interactions are now primarily through digital
channels. People want products and services from brands
that deliver value and align with their values. That means
missteps are taken more personally and the feedback loop
is rapid in the digital realm.
Companies need to elevate their most fascinating
participants and find ways to deliver and align with their
values. It isn’t just about being transparent with people,
it’s about providing just-in-time resources and openly
supporting and connecting them with their already
established channels and communities.
The brand and audience that
make together, stay together.
Create experiences and
interactions true to your
brand value and design that
into the services you bring
your audience.
Showcase understanding for
users that creates an authentic,
almost peer-to-peer,
relationship between users
and brands.
LIVING ARROWS
17. There’s been a lot of hype around the idea of the
“connected home” or when our households become
digitized environments. The connected home will be like the
architectural version of the quantified self: leveraging the
ability to track and monitor our usage with appliances and
infrastructure for a better home lifestyle.
But realistically, the extent to which all of this connecting
happens within the home is misleading. What we’ll actually
see is the rise of a distributed home, as elements of the home
get smarter and more accessible via mobile.
THE DISTRIBUTED
HOME
duct is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Back
rrows the distributed home invisible money
Home is where your mobile is.
18. WHAT’S
GOING ON
With successful crowdfunding, investors pouring
millions into the space, and a plethora of sensors
that can connect devices to the smartphone or the
cloud, startups are the most disruptive players in the
distributed home. Their devices are often focused on
solving a single problem: Nest Protect reimagines the
smoke alarm, August reframes the smart lock, and
Philips Hue is a wireless lighting system. Unexpected
household items are getting a digital makeover too: the
Smart Power Strip allows you to control your appliances
from your smartphone. And, the smart home wouldn’t
be complete without home security: Dropcam cameras
upload more videos than Youtube daily. Other players
are looking to conquer the entire ecosystem:
Smart Things has a package that acts like a hub to
detect vitals of the home. But, larger corporations in the
technology and communications space are positioned
to pioneer the infrastructure that’ll make the connected
home commercially viable. Apple has patented a
system that anticipates your need for home devices
without any user input and AT&T launched “Digital Life,”
a package allowing you to remotely manage your home
with cameras and mobile door control.
THE DISTRIBUTED HOME
duct is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Back
rrows the distributed home invisible money
19. LOOKING FORWARD
THE DISTRIBUTED HOME
There’s a reason that the connected home isn’t
referred to as the connected house: humans are at the
center of an experience. In the coming year, consumers
will experiment with connected home devices. However,
without more organizations building meaningful
networks of devices, people will grow frustrated. The
requirement to design one’s own commands will be
daunting to the new crowd of second wave adopters.
The tradeoff for the time spent focusing on digital home
literacy will be the ability to “communicate” with the
home when people are away from it. Distribution will
go beyond a constellation of devices or the wiring of
media content. The shifting emphasis on the satellite
home has an interesting echo in social media. Startups
like NextDoor, a social network and message board for
close neighborhoods, closed $21.6m in 2013 in venture
funding. The connected home could expand into
connected neighborhoods.
But the issue of mission creep can plague this domain:
how will everyone feel about being monitored at home,
especially teens? How do designers plan for the edge
cases of contextual preference (e.g. what if you don’t
want the lights to come on when you get home, so as
not to wake the kids)? Will device maintenance, like
replacing batteries on more than 50 devices, cause
digital home fatigue?
20. FJORD SUGGESTS
To be a long-term success in this arena, brands must
recognize that the home is a complex environment with
many unique users within it. The organization that can
appeal to the digital homebody and the restless wanderer
will conquer. Lokki of Finland positioned themselves as a
leader in remote security, but now boasts bringing family,
friends, and places together through one central screen
while you’re on the go.
The companies that will be successful are those who will
think beyond singular devices and reinvent mash-ups.
Many of these mash-ups will be about what happens when
you are away from home: preparing for return, letting
guests in, knowing where your children and pets are.
Home will be where your
mobile is.
In this ripe space, organizations
fall into four categories of user
need: worry prevention, energy
optimization, ease of use, and
security.
Consider home reconnection
as a rich space: utility company
requests, insurance, automated
supply of goods.
THE DISTRIBUTED HOME
21. Digital currencies and trading services allow people to
define the value of money, what it does, and where it goes.
Traditional gatekeepers of financial transactions are
being bypassed. When Wikileaks suffered a financial blockade
in 2012, they bypassed it by raising money through Bitcoin.
What impact will these powerful virtual currencies have on
retail? If Shopify’s latest announcement is any indication, the
ripple effects will be huge. The popular e-commerce platform,
used by 75,000 merchants, has started accepting the
virtual currency.
INVISIBLE
MONEY
The transformation of money will affect
commerce at every level.
ot to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Back
ed home invisible money
22. WHAT’S
GOING ON
If money or currency itself is defined by the exchange
of goods or services, the digital value is the exchange
of “real life value.” We’ve seen a rise in virtual currencies
and willingness to barter intangibles for convenience
and access. In particular, we’ve seen data exchanged for
digital content and peer-to-peer payments. Against this
background, what does cash mean at all?
Bitcoin, launched in 2009, is probably the most well
known peer-to-peer payment service available today.
The excitement and controversy over Bitcoin led to a
U.S. Senate hearing in November 2013, legitimizing it as
a financial service, causing its to value soar. But it isn’t
just what (currencies) we pay, it’s how we pay. People
are growing tired of carrying wallets: PayPal, Google
Wallet, iGaranti, and Square are making mobile
payments more mainstream and instinctual for
younger consumers.
INVISIBLE MONEY
ot to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Back
ed home invisible money
23. LOOKING FORWARD
INVISIBLE MONEY
Bitcoin will become more widely used and have a
ripple effect. The Economist speculates that even
if Bitcoin crashes, it will leave a huge impact on the
financial services sector, in the same way Napster did
with the music industry. The experimentation with value
exchange is just beginning: PayPal has become more
ubiquitous with Beacon, a new device that allows
users to pay hands-free with bluetooth technology.
On the heels of PayPal’s payment prowess is Apple’s
iBeacon. But, iBeacon’s advantage isn’t a technological
one. What will help iBeacon succeed is Apple’s ability
to package an existing technology into a platform that
makes it easy and elegant to build upon and partner
with. However, iBeacon is still in early stages and only
enables location-based experiences on a granular level:
you have to be standing in a precise checkout location
to actually checkout. Besides geo-locative specificity,
non-intrusive push notifications will also be crucial for a
smooth experience. While not all companies can invent
new forms of currency, there’s opportunity with people’s
growing intrigue to simplify their wallet: Coin, a startup
launching in 2014, is a connected device that will store
all the cards you already carry, with multiple accounts
and financial information streamlined into one place.
24. FJORD SUGGESTS
Services and brands that are personalized to people, that
focus on building trust, and have a strong reputation,
will far surpass any financial institution that is not
user-centered. A convergence between Apple’s new
fingerprint security and Bitcoin to form a new type of
transaction could be very potent. People know that new
forms of exchange are on the horizon, but they need to
know how it relates to their lives. American Banker stated
that banks “have an opportunity to become the stewards
of their customers’ digital footprints, securing all their
online account and identity data.” Banks could move
beyond displaying the ever-increasingly abstract numbers
for what we “have,” to showing us our value’s potential and
the pathway to reaching our financial aspirations.
Future consumers will want help
managing their digital footprint.
Money is a private and sensitive
topic: create services that help
users reach their lifestyle goals.
What new currency or value
exchange can your company
take part in?
INVISIBLE MONEY
25. Customer touchpoint opportunities are proliferating faster than
brands can adapt. In this world, personalization and purpose are key
for brands to stay relevant. With so many platforms being offered,
people don’t have the cognitive bandwidth to grow affection for
them all. Only a handful of “suitors,” that actually pair their products
with well-designed services and touch people in an authentic way,
will remain in the user’s heart. This is blurring the lines between
products and services.
EVERY PRODUCT IS
A SERVICE WAITING
TO HAPPEN
Brands must rethink their ecosystems to
add meaningful value.
every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backalthcare need?
nterface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
26. WHAT’S
GOING ON
As Jeff Bezos puts it with his usual bluntness: “If there’s
one reason we have done better than our peers in the
Internet space over the last six years, it’s because we’ve
focused like a laser on customer experience.” The way
your brand behaves matters more than how it looks,
as interactions become increasingly digital and
customer attention more fragmented by multiple
content streams. So, brands are creating services to
maintain relevance, and in doing so, disrupting both the
status quo and market chains. Startups and unexpected
competitors (like suppliers and distributors) threaten
larger corporations as they create useful services that
quickly expand past their product at launch. Nespresso,
a commodity product reinvented as a lifestyle accessory
sold direct to consumers, is a prime example of this
disruption. Fjord expects more direct-to-consumer
innovation as other FMCG companies follow suit, which
poses a question for the role of traditional retailers
when brands begin to bypass them.
Adidas miCoach is a service now supported by
a product: Smart Run is a sensor-enabled watch
that gives runners personalized, real-time coaching
during workouts. Launched in November 2013, their
promotional video had 3.5 million Youtube views in its
first month. Red Bull is a an authentic and passionate
publishing empire that just happens to sell a beverage.
Uber or Airbnb are pure platform services—they simply
provide the service infrastructure to connect people to
the things they need, in a personal and easy to use way.
EVERY PRODUCT IS A SERVICE WAITING TO HAPPEN
every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backalthcare need?
nterface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
27. LOOKING FORWARD
EVERY PRODUCT IS A SERVICE WAITING TO HAPPEN
This trend has been building in the toys and gaming
industry for some time, with games like World of
Warcraft not only selling the product of the game, but
a service in which their audience can create and share
an identity for themselves. This ensures growth and
personal investment in the brand.
Arguably, Disney is the king of the diversification of
merchandise in the digital space, by creating digital
experiences around their physical products with “Disney
Infinity Wave.” Toys R Us followed suit with a family
focused media streaming service. In a broader sense,
we’ll see toys connected to services that grow and
evolve alongside children. This emphasis mirrors the
movement of supermarket chains continuing to heavily
invest in digital services, like Tesco with their Blinkbox
offering and their own tablet, Hudl. These brands are
expanding into services to meet their audience’s needs
and shattering industry boundaries.
We’ll see more of these mash-ups in 2014, and they’ll
get more extensive. Nike+, the pioneer of digital
ecosystems in the retail space, is creating an accelerator
that harnesses the smarts of 10 startups to build “the
ultimate fitness platform.”
28. FJORD SUGGESTS
Pushing products or extraneous services that just add to
the virtual noise and clutter of our lives will not win people
over. With people’s time and energy becoming even more
sacred, we’ll want products and services to aid, empower,
educate, and delight us. One global car manufacturer has
achieved this with a digital platform to help drivers become
more environmentally friendly. We suggest that brands
embrace and consider non-traditional coupling, hyper-
smart consumption, and the new lifespan of a product that
is extended through digital information and intelligence.
Services must grow and mature
with their audiences.
Gain loyalty and relevance by
delivering services that deliver
ongoing value to users.
Brands must transform from
commodities to loyal partners
who want to support us in living
a meaningful life.
EVERY PRODUCT IS A SERVICE WAITING TO HAPPEN
29. Healthcare is approaching a renaissance. Consumers, the media,
pharmaceutical companies, governments, and the medical industry
are all interested in the growing potential of digital healthcare.
As more people gravitate towards health and wellness apps and
wearables become more mainstream, the medical industry is taking
note of the need for great service innovation. How radical this
digital transformation will be depends on the speed with which the
healthcare system can adapt. However, core asymmetries in the
system reveal that the revolution isn’t upon us. Yet.
WHAT PRESCRIPTION
DOES THE HEALTHCARE
INDUSTRY NEED?
Digital health won’t reach critical mass until
there is true innovation in the system.
ith objects
g digital every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backwhat RX does healthcare need?
you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
30. WHAT’S
GOING ON
One of the biggest roadblocks to this revolution is a
fairly universal reality: people around the world are living
longer, but we’re also getting fatter, at an astonishing
rate. This trajectory, coupled with rapidly growing
healthcare costs and increasing demand and high
expectations for smart medical technology, is creating
a delta. Digital technology has the potential to actually
tackle the gap between our expectations and what
we can afford. It will shift the onus onto the public to
track and improve their own health through simple and
engaging tools, instead of waiting for costly medical
technology to trickle down. This is both an empowering
shift and one that requires us to take responsibility for
our own wellness.
A recent study suggested that 90% of chronic patients
wanted their doctors to prescribe an app over the
66% who would rather get medication. In addition,
previously expensive or challenging elements of
healthcare are becoming more accessible: the cost of
sequencing a genome has fallen from $10 million in
2007 to $5,800 in April of 2013.
Companies vested in healthcare are jumping in too,
such as Walgreen’s in-store Refill by Scan service in
2011. Kaiser Permanente is investing heavily in digital:
members have used My Health Manager to view over
26 million test results and refill more than 10.8 million
prescriptions this year.
WHAT PRESCRIPTION DOES THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY NEED?ith objects
g digital every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backwhat RX does healthcare need?
you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
31. LOOKING FORWARD
WHAT PRESCRIPTION DOES THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY NEED?
A lot of these exciting innovations will bump up against
reality in 2014.
Technology enables new service approaches, but
the healthcare system still needs to catch up with
this change. One of the biggest issues with digital
healthcare is that much of the emphasis on the
technology has been on information gathering and is
just now moving into diagnosis.
After information and diagnosis, treatment is the third
phase, and poses a challenge to digital healthcare’s
role in the traditional healthcare system. We still need
doctors for that because of the fundamental asymmetry
built into healthcare: most conditions have multiple
treatments, and someone needs to know these and then
guide the patient to a choice.
The second barrier to the digital health revolution will
be regulation. In December 2013, US genetic testing
company 23andMe halted marketing of its $99 genome
testing kit after a warning from the Food and Drug
Administration. The biggest obstacle, however, is the
process of reimbursing doctors and other front line
practitioners. Right now, the system is designed for
face-to-face interaction.
Fjord has long argued that healthcare products will
need services built to create meaningful differentiation
and pharma will be no exception.
32. FJORD SUGGESTS
While some of the current products are effectively
motivating users to be more active and help them achieve
their goals, the excitement generated from
self-measurement quickly wears off. This is a design
challenge and data visualization on its own is not enough.
These services need to move from helping to achieve to
helping to maintain. An important aspect of achieving
prevention through behavioral change is establishing
rituals or habits. People are in front of the mirror several
times a day and associate it with habit. Can that ritual be
turned into a simple diagnostics experience given that
smartphone cameras can now measure our health too?
Affect real change by being less
broadly ambitious and more
focused on the reinvention of
specific silos.
New services might be more
successful when using existing
rituals as their medium.
WHAT PRESCRIPTION DOES THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY NEED?
33. Major shifts in industry can be contagious, even within
industries with a reputation for holding on to old methods.
Healthcare is experiencing a makeover in the United States,
and there is an amplified focus on wellness and prevention
through the proliferation of wearables. These lateral changes
will have an impact on a field that is usually considered a
digital wallflower: insurance.
UNDERWRITING
DIGITAL
The insurance industry transforms.
conversation with objects
underwriting digital every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backwhat RX does healthcare need?
you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
34. WHAT’S
GOING ON
Insurance brands have long known that their
products are considered grudge purchases with huge
inconveniences and little added benefit. Users typically
“get it and forget it,” and only interact with the provider
when something bad has happened. But, as your mobile
device becomes the central command station with
the ability to survey and track your devices and your
behavior, the insurance industry has a huge opportunity
to capitalize on the resulting data. The connected home
will be able to detect risks from possible theft to the
impact of water damage in flooding. The connected car
will be able to survey the acute realities of accidental
damage. Wearables and quantified self innovations
could translate fitness and wellness goals
into insurance breaks and benefits. Like healthcare,
insurance will shift to a prevention over
treatment approach.
UNDERWRITING DIGITAL
conversation with objects
underwriting digital every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backwhat RX does healthcare need?
you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
35. LOOKING FORWARD
UNDERWRITING DIGITAL
We’ll feel the most benefits of this digital makeover on
the road. Telematics will provide services that deliver
engaging content about the destinations we travel to
and push personalized content around traffic delays
or points of interest, as well as offers and promotions.
Beyond enhancing the journey, content will be available
to support claims prevention by offering data on
geo-locative accident hotspots. Should a collision
happen, we’ll see telematics offer immediate and
automated help at the scene, and later, damage
diagnostics with direct connectivity to a real or
automated customer service adviser.
More selling will take place using collaborative tools
for customer managers and purchasers to work on
together. The dividing line between digital and physical
for sales and advice will become harder to distinguish.
Furthermore, the digital insurer will be able to bundle
more specific products based on an assessment of the
individuals needs: 2014 is the year that digital insurers
with an appetite for innovation will begin to court
genuine consumer loyalty.
The most interesting dynamic to watch could be
insurance startups: we’ll see challengers emerge who
rethink the business model of insurance from top to
bottom. For an industry so dependent on a complex
ecosystem (brokers, underwriters, funds, agents,
adjusters among others) it’s hard to see how disruption
will create wholesale change. But health insurance
companies like Oscar are “using technology to make
insurance simple, intuitive, and human.” 76% of property
and casualty insurers expect to see new external
competitors in the next three years. Might peer-to-
peer risk assessment (think: the wisdom of crowds)
undermine underwriting expertise?
36. FJORD SUGGESTS
Take a fresh look at what risk means in relation to your
customers. New startups will emerge that offer more
transparency about the models that sit behind risk
management and provide real-time updates to help
customers learn to reduce risk for both sides. Look for
new services that monitor risk dynamically and negotiate
pairings between customers and ideal providers. Insurers
will step up to the opportunity to build relationships with
customers beyond those required in times of stress and
need. They’ll compete to build loyalty and offer humanized
guidance. As a matter of urgency, insurers need to
develop truly customer-centric models. We’ve seen in
industry after industry how this will entail organizational, as
well as, communicational changes.
The Chief Digital Officer will
make an appearance in the
insurance industry.
How can sensors and digital
technology take insurance by
storm?
Do these new technologies
afford new opportunities for
improving customer relation-
ships or lowering costs for users
and businesses?
UNDERWRITING DIGITAL
37. Last year, we saw an underlying trend of companies striving to
give more control to their customers. However, this transference of
control often felt like an offloading of responsibility, with companies
outsourcing activities so people could self serve. Organizations
abandoned a key notion—it’s about better experiences, not
offloading the front-end activities to your customers. Ultimately this
is not sustainable: if we spend all our time as users servicing the
commercial entities we engage with, we will have little time left
for enjoying them.
TO SERVE OR
NOT TO SERVE
Designing to empower people, without
abandoning customer service.
duct is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Back
arrows the distributed home invisible money
38. WHAT’S
GOING ON
The self service kiosk is the main conduit of this
conundrum, especially in travel and retail. We see
self check-out services at supermarkets and more
people operating kiosks to print travel tickets, as
seen at subways and airports around the world. The
outsourcing epidemic is spreading: airlines have shifted
to insisting that customers print boarding passes before
they get to the airport. This experience is often riddled
with commercial advertising.
People are getting lost in translation: organizations
have approached this disruption in the customer journey
solely from an economic perspective, forgetting to
put people first. Instead of feeling freedom, customers
end up feeling frustrated and abandoned without the
sole perk of saving time. The self check-out experience
caused such widespread annoyance that whole articles
and blogs were devoted to offering tips for how to use
supermarket self check-outs more efficiently.
TO SERVE OR NOT TO SERVE
duct is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Back
arrows the distributed home invisible money
39. LOOKING FORWARD
TO SERVE OR NOT TO SERVE
Organizations have to flip their approach. It’s about
aligning around customers, not around business
processes. There’s an opportunity for companies to
offer better experiences that resonate with people
by allowing more personalization, transparency, and
contextualization. Fjord’s own collaboration with Mobile
operator 3 to create My3, an an app for iPhone and
Android that creates engaging data visualizations to
demystify the phone bill, is a prime example. The result
reduced the strain on customer service: 50% of users
reported that they called customer service less about
their bill.
Communicating a meaningful value in exchange for
people’s participation can take the form of insights,
curated content, or a gamified experience. For
example, self-service kiosks could offer hospital
patients treatment by first taking vital tests prior to
a visit. Taiwan’s health care system has been doing
this for years and, as a result, has one of the lowest
administration costs in the world at 2%. In the travel
industry, HipMunk and Kayak aggregate deals and
TripAdvisor launched a meta search feature, instead
of cluttering people’s screens with popups of different
travel booking sites. Since this change, TripAdvisor’s
stock has nearly doubled ahead of their leading
competitor and site traffic increased nearly 50%.
Expect to see more services like one European
operator’s new platinum approach; customers can reach
all their loyalty benefits with one click and even call the
platinum service to come to wherever they are, in order
to fix any problem with their phone.
40. FJORD SUGGESTS
By reorienting their strategy towards people’s experience,
businesses can identify the areas where they can deliver
higher value, save customers time, and in the meantime,
reduce customer service needs. Starwood’s loyalty
program is a great example of this: when their most
loyal customers reach a certain status, they receive a
personal travel ambassador that helps with booking,
planning itineraries, and provides recommendations.
Understand when people would prefer to do things
themselves versus when you still need to utilize personal
relationships and human contact in the user journey.
To better understand this, run usability testing on your
customer service chain to test pain points and engage
with call center staff, as they know problems better than
anyone.
People want more control
of things that used to be
backstage or off limits.
Make self service moments
delightful: consider planting
“Easter eggs” that aren’t tied
to functionality, but charm
the customer.
When people have an
empowering experience, it’ll
create a smooth operation for
companies in the long-run.
TO SERVE OR NOT TO SERVE
41. Our bodies are becoming both the controller and the
interface. Why type a password or stand in a checkout line
when you can use your fingerprint or retina? The interface
as we know it will disappear, while we use parts of our
unique genetic makeup to get things done more intuitively.
Service design will be essential in answering a deceptively
simple question: what’s the best way to communicate info
to a human and translate it into an insight? Bandwidth is a
pathway into and out of the human body—in through the eyes
and out through the voice.
Screens are out and skin is in, but we must
consider human bandwidth.
YOU ARE THE
INTERFACE
with objects
ng digital every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backwhat RX does healthcare need?
you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
42. WHAT’S
GOING ON
We’re starting to use our bodies more and devices less
to facilitate new interactions. The traditional “screen”
is losing prominence in our daily lives and Natural User
Interfaces (NUI)—our skin, eyes, and brains—are taking
over. We’ve seen this most popularly with gesture-based
technology, like Primesense—the company behind the
Microsoft Kinect sensor that’s powered over 20 million
devices.
Beyond gestural innovation, bio-based technology
is moving center stage to streamline our daily
transactions, like the iPhone 5S Touch ID fingerprint
sensor. While we’re (thankfully) not yet living in a
Gattaca or Minority Report world, we’re doing things
only previously possible in science fiction: OMsignal’s
t-shirt extract a whole range of health data from the
skin without any interface effort. These technologies
can even give us the illusion of having superpowers:
InteraXon’s flagship product, MindWave, lets you log
into your computer using just your thoughts.
YOU ARE THE INTERFACE
with objects
ng digital every product is a service To serve or not to serve Telco 3.0 Big is Backwhat RX does healthcare need?
you are the interface living arrows the distributed home invisible money
43. LOOKING FORWARD
YOU ARE THE INTERFACE
As more things become connected and sensors become
smaller, more interaction and development standards
for gestural and wearable technology will be created.
Design will surpass screens and focus on allowing
us to complete tasks with even less friction. Many of
the actions we currently need to initiate will also fade
away as technology predicts our habits, routines, and
behaviors. This allows brands to get out of the practice
of catering to basic tasks, and instead focus on higher
value interactions with customers.
We are reaching a point at which human data is being
measured in unexpected ways: dermatologists can
use smartphone photos to make a diagnosis, and
Qualcomm is exploring apps that can predict if you are
developing Parkinson’s disease from the sound of
your voice.
And yet, for all this accelerated change, we are also in
the midst of “Generation Moth”: kids are drawn to touch
screens like moths to a lamp. The latest generation is
growing up using touch screen devices and seeing their
siblings and parents use them constantly in a state of
always-on, multi-tasking, digital fluency. Fjord does not
predict the disappearance of screens—they will exert
an even more powerful hold on Generation Moth. Think
of Invisible Interface as an “and” not an “or.”
44. FJORD SUGGESTS
Users will always want to interact with things in the
most simple and natural way possible. But businesses
need to be cautious and choose carefully which systems
they invent, and which they’ll need to work on with other
companies to leverage. Adoption will not take off if users
have to learn multiple sets of gestures devised by different
service suppliers.
Many of the technologies and products out there right
now are closed ecosystems—for example, you can’t
open up your Fitbit to use the data anywhere else. Yet,
open systems and the ability for people to build around
emerging standards will be critical for the sustainable
growth of these technologies.
Leverage big data, from multiple
sources, to better understand
people’s behavior and fit into
their lives.
Kids will be NUI and brain-com-
puter interface experts. Inves-
tigate the difference between
them and older users’ needs for
interfaces.
Can you use biometric feedback
to redesign products and
services?
YOU ARE THE INTERFACE
45. IN CONVERSATION WITH OBJECTS
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/05/google_glass_social_norms_will_it_be_too_awkward_to_use_in_public.html
http://www.google.com/glass/start/
http://www.rethinkrobotics.com
http://www.techradar.com/news/portable-devices/apple-iwatch-release-date-news-and-rumours-1131043
http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/26/zte-smartwatch/
http://www.mykronoz.com
http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=89517
http://www.mondelezinternational.com/home/index.aspx
http://rt.com/usa/smart-shelves-store-sensors-228/
TELCO 3.0: BIG IS BACK
http://gigaom.com/2013/10/17/tesla-turns-to-att-to-power-its-connected-car-strategy/
http://www.sidhtech.com/news/isis-payments-att-verizon-tmobile-sim-card/10024260/
http://www.att.com/
http://www.telefonica.com/
http://www.blnk.io/
http://www.informationweek.com/wireless/verizon-unveils-remote-patient-monitoring-platform/d/d-id/1112055?
http://www.zdnet.com/at-and-t-launches-new-enterprise-api-library-for-cloud-based-video-access-7000020857/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/09/02/vodafone-verizon-deal-done/2755007/
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203920204577195342790168920
http://www.amazon.com/Instant-Video/b?ie=UTF8&node=2858778011
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2013/04/19/amazon-studios-releases-pilots/2095383/
http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/8758-expedia-launches-crowd-sourced-deals
LIVING ARROWS
http://mashable.com/2012/07/19/reddit-for-marketers/
http://www.goodeggs.com/about/mission
http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/28/good-eggs/
http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/facebook-white-hat-hacker-program/
http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/01/the-genius-bar-branding-the-in/
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-07-02/nordstrom-racks-now-powered-by-pinterest
http://adage.com/article/news/unilever-eliminate-800-marketers-globally-cut-launches/245542/
http://www.microsoft.com/
http://1msqft.stopp-la.com/
http://www.kickstarter.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Instant-Video/b?ie=UTF8&node=2858778011
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2013/04/19/amazon-studios-releases-pilots/2095383/
http://www.expedia.com/
REFERENCE
47. REFERENCE
http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/05/toys-r-us-launches-family-friendly-internet-movie-service
http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/tesco-to-rebrand-all-digital-entertainment-as-blinkbox/4004862.article
http://www.tesco.com/direct/hudl/
http://nikeplus.nike.com/plus/
WHAT PRESCRIPTION DOES THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY NEED?
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Population_structure_and_ageing
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/
http://mobihealthnews.com/23418/most-patients-want-their-doctors-to-prescribe-apps/
http://www.genome.gov/SequencingCosts/
http://news.walgreens.com/article_print.cfm?article_id=5400
http://share.kaiserpermanente.org/article/kaiser-permanente-wins-six-awards-for-digital-excellence/
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304281004579219893863966448
UNDERWRITING DIGITAL
http://healthcare.gov
https://www.hioscar.com
http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/Local_France/PDF/Accenture-Digital-Insurance-Survey-EALA.pdf
TO SERVE OR NOT TO SERVE
http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/22/self-service-culture/
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2011/07/5-insider-tips-for-using-supermarket-self-serve-checkouts/
http://www.fjordnet.com/workdetail/3/
http://www.three.com
http://www.three.co.uk/Support/My3
http://www.apple.com/iphone/
http://www.android.com
http://www.medavail.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Taiwan
http://www.hipmunk.com
http://www.kayak.co.uk
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323420604578650152586848068
48. YOU ARE THE INTERFACE
http://www.primesense.com
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/kinectforwindows/
http://www.apple.com/iphone/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/
http://www.omsignal.com
http://interaxon.ca
http://www.qualcomm.com
http://www.fitbit.com/
REFERENCE