mx: find + share

As Ashton and I were brainstorming, I was reminded of an app that my friend told me about which helps North Koreans and South Koreans understand each other. Though they speak the same language, seven decades of separation has also created differences in dialects.

OTHER EXAMPLES
EasyTaxi + Dettol
Another relevant example of technology + community is a partnership between Easy Taxi and Dettol when the Ebola virus spread in West Africa. Together they educated Nigerian cab drivers on how to spot someone who is sick and how to educate others. Read more here: https://openideo.com/challenge/fighting-ebola/research/easy-taxi-and-dettol-partnership-to-promote-awareness-on-ebola

SeedSheet
SeedSheet, an online garden-building program, is for beginner gardeners who wish to plant with ease. Once a gardener has picked a location for their plants, the software identifies the location where the plants will thrive. Once receiving the sheet, gardeners simply have to unroll the SeedSheet and water it.

Hexo+
This drone allows users to film at an aerial view without hassle. After inputting the desired perspective, users can control its movement.

The world is broken up into communities, which at times overlap, creating complex relationships where the same two people can belong to the same group, but simultaneously conflict in another. During class, I was intrigued by the power of critical masses, a community joined by one goal. One current example of this was Cecil, a lion illegally poached in Zimbabwe by a dentist. People had a strong emotional reaction and virtually roasted Dr. Walter J. Palmer to the point of driving him out of business. Trends, too, play a large role in bringing all demographics together. Though there are so many different types of people, somehow they unite simply because they live within the same time period. It's a powerful thing, to start a trend and to utilize it; its a faster and more efficient way to reach a wider range of people.

Cecil the Lion

I understand now, why it's more advantageous to be "the outsider," because you can observe the time and place a community lives in. What I mean is, designers have to make a conscious effort to step out of themselves and analyze what things are trending and why the social culture is what it is.

The concept of "from having to sharing" is rising in popularity, like we discussed in class, and its spewing out new apps like Uber and Peerby. Why buy something new when someone else already has it? Perhaps this notion emerged out of the fact that people own too many things, and they don't want to own an additional item for temporary use. Another phenomenon I've noticed is the transfer from watching shows on television to online. Now we see Hulu/Netflix exclusive shows, talk show hosts like Jimmy Fallon and Ellen heavily incorporating YouTube, and people watching less and less of television. My theory is that people would rather watch shows on their own time rather than a specific time slot, due to peoples' increasingly busy schedules.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a Netflix exclusive series by Tina Fey

Other trends I've noticed and learned about while researching:

–the need to capture/collect experiences/interests and share them (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest)

–the freeing notion of one-time viewership (SnapChat)
–e-commerce and buying everything online
–smart products (iWatch)
–a longing for authenticity
–the effort to slow down, seek for wellbeing and happiness
–the need for filters (decision-maker) due to the abundance of information
–desktop to mobile shift
–streaming audio (Pandora, Spotify, SoundCloud)
–buying on social media
–the desire for information in real-time (turn-by-turn navigation, news)
–the preference of more concise content over lengthy
–instant quality control (photo filters on Instagram, SquareSpace)

...and overall a society that emphasizes connectivity. This reminds me of the film Six Degrees of Separation where Ouisa comments,

"I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find it extremely comforting that we're so close. I also find it like Chinese water torture, that we're so close because you have to find the right six people to make the right connection...I am bound, you are bound, to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people."

Sources
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sarwantsingh/2014/05/12/the-top-10-mega-trends-of-the-decade/
http://www.trendsactive.com/#!/our-trends/societal-trends/
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-trends-gaining-traction-in-2015-new-research/
http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2015/06/01/9-things-social-media-marketers-need-to-know-from-mary-meekers-2015-internet-trends-report/#i.1mb9n4h1buxepx

http://trendwatching.com/trends/10-trends-for-2015/