I just read some comments to the latest David Report bulletin called “I shop therefore I am” in “The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption”. It’s a year-long book-as-a-blog experiment in why we choose to consume, or not, written by India based Gaurav Mishra. In a very clear and comprehensible way he is putting together a couple of important trends that in one way or another describes how our consumption pattern are about to change:

- From conspicuous consumption to conscious consumption.
- From brand-consciousness to background-consciousness.
- From synthetic to organic.
- From mass-produced to hand-crafted.
- From global to local.
- From short-term to sustainable.
- From fashionable to durable.
- From valuing things to valuing insights.
- From fitting in/ standing out to being.
- From buying more to buying less.
- From doing more to doing less.
- From multi-tasking to down-shifting.
- From buying to sharing/ exchanging.
- From owning to experiencing.
- From having to giving.

Sounds quite attractive to me… What do you think?

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Andra bloggar om: shopping, konsumtion, trender, kultur

I’m proud to announce the new David Report bulletin called “I shop therefore I am”. In this issue we are looking into the world of consumer culture from different point of views; ethical, social, political, economical and humanistic.

Shopping has turned into a lifestyle. We consume as leisure and a way to pass time. But at the same time many are realizing that the power of consumption is stopping us from finding true and sincere happiness; and that shopping often works as a substitute for something that we’re missing in life. At what point does the accumulation of material goods become less fulfilling and more stressful and overwhelming?

Our consumption grows in the same pace as our economic growth. Studies shows that in hundred years we consume eight times as much per capita as today. Can our globe take such a strain? The power of consumption is being questioned and there’s a change in attitude and way of life. We don’t want to be consuming goofs, we want to be considered aware and responsible. It is all about WHAT we buy and WHAT we choose to invest in, the world we live in will be the result of those choices.

In the future consumption will be more about experiences and services than things. Perhaps giving will be more important than having. Are the companies, who survive on our consumption, prepared for this transition?

The David Report bulletin no 9 “I shop therefore I am” also offers insight on the subject from strategist Kristina Dryza and Zen-Buddhist Sante Poromaa. On top of this an interview with Mathilda Tham, guest professor at Beckmans school of Design. THIS LINK takes you to the new bulletin (and yes, it’s free!).

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Andra bloggar om: kultur, shopping, konsumtion, handel, hållbar utveckling, csr

Next Friday, April 4, issue nine of the David Report Bulletin will be released. The title will be “I shop therefore I am” and it will concern future consumerism and consumption culture. Among other things you will be able to find interesting texts from Kristina Dryza, freelance strategist and designer and Sante Poromaa, teacher at The Zenbuddhist Society in Stockholm. There will also be an interview with Mathilda Tham, guest professor at Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm. Here’s a short introduction text by Sante Poromaa:

“In the future luxury goods will be methods that bring us back the power of our own attention: the power to choose ourselves what we want to notice or not. And there lies the true luxury of the future, to be able to resist shopping and still be happy.”

To be sure to get a notice when “I shop therefore I am” is released please go to the David Report home page and sign up for a subscription. And the best of all, it’s free!

Image by Barbara Kruger.

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tags technorati : david report future consumerism future shopping trends future consumption

Andra bloggar om: david report, trender, framtid, shopping, konsumtion, design

I just signed an urgent petition calling on the Chinese government to respect human rights in Tibet and dialogue with the Dalai Lama. This is really important, and I thought you might want to take action as well.

After decades of repression, Tibetans are crying out to the world for change. China’s leaders are right now making a crucial choice between escalating brutality or dialogue that could determine the future of Tibet, and China.

We can affect this historic choice — China does care about its international reputation. But it will take an avalanche of global people power to get the government’s attention. The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has called for restraint and dialogue: he needs the world’s people to support him. Fill out this form to sign the petition–and spread the word.

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tags technorati : dalai lama tibet china social responsibility petition

Andra bloggar om: dalai lama, tibet, kina, politik, förtryck, mänskliga rättigheter

I was reading an article some weeks ago in the Swedish business magazine Dagens Industri which made me a bit confused. The theme was branding (and design). In the article, Stefan Ölander from the branding agency Rewir says; “Today most products and services are exchangeable, it’s branding and communication that make the difference.”

I have a few objections.

My first questions is - could Apple exchange the iPod or iTunes? Could Fritz Hansen exchange the Ant chair? Could Omega exchange the Speedmaster?

My second question is - does he mean that a company can exchange most products without changing the company and its values itself? Like changing into products with bad design, of poor quality, without authenticity which are bad for the environment? Or disposable products that we are not emotional connected to? Or just some smoothed average design that are not iconic and timeless at all? Products made by child labour? And so on…

If we hold for true that a brand is (only) a perception in a consumers mind, the physical deliverance of great products will be even more important; the smell, taste, feel, look and sound. Everything that actually has to do with design. Design is like a “visualization of a business strategy” and products are the true messengers of a brand. Nothing you just replace by snapping the fingers.

Today you can’t diminish the importance of good design. Business executives (and marketers…) that don’t understand the power of design in general and sustainable design in particular will have serious problems in the future. Design is one of the strongest competitive weapons. It can give strong business advantages. Why are so many companies still neglecting the importance of design. Is it just lack of knowledge?

History wise, products were everything during the industrialisation. Later, in the middle of the last century marketing/advertising grew really strong. Then, from the eighties and onwards branding was suddenly the overall solution. I think that we in a way are coming back to where we started. With products, but this time based on the knowledge of the power of design. As an important tool to create the future. Design is even more important in a time when climate changes and injustices are growing. Design can make a difference. It’s sustainable. I don’t think you can say that about marketing or branding…

Maybe you were able to sell anything with simple marketing in the past. Even “canned porridge” as we use to say in Sweden. But it is not like that any longer. You don’t build a brand from only advertising or marketing these days. Because no one believes it any longer, they would even like to pay you to be free from it… Today people are wise and connected. You can only sell a bad product once. Then the rumour is all over. Isn’t that a better world? With the consumers behind the steering wheel?

At David report we believe in building brands with design. We have written about it in two earlier issues of our bulletin called The Credibility Loop and Communication Through Product. Both were released during 2006 but is still as accurate. Read it if you have a minute, or two…

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tags technorati : design branding marketing iconic

Andra bloggar om: design, reklam, marknadsföring, varumärke, varumärken, företag, entreprenörskap

New York based designer Stephen Burks was invited to make a conceptual exhibition at the Stockholm Furniture Fair which materialized into the Craft Café. Personally it was one of the most inspirational spots of the Stockholm Furniture Fair. Slightly anarchistic and with a lot of emotions and authenticity it was a joy to sit down and chat with Stephen Burks over a cup of coffee.

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tags technorati : stockholm furniture fair design designboost stephen burks sustainable design

Andra bloggar om: stockholm furniture fair, möbelmässan, stephen burks, design, hantverk, utställning

Here is another video that we produced for Designboost 07. This time it is American designer Stephen Burks who talks about his interesting design projects in Peru and South Africa. Listen to how he is trying to join handcraft with great authenticity and industrial production.

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tags technorati : stephen burks design authenticity designboost sustainable design

Andra bloggar om: stephen burks, designboost, design, hantverk, hållbar design, video

The Kerry Packer Civic Gallery of the Hawke Centre . . . an inviting garden of thought.

The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre at the University of South Australia, which honours the only South Australian to have become Prime Minister, could easily have been another static, lacklustre and staid institution. But instead, it’s a wonderful garden of thought that challenges Australians to consider ideas and develop solutions for a sustainable society through its public learning program, website and gallery.

The Kerry Packer Civic Gallery especially provides a ‘mindspace’ for reflection on Australian society and is presented as a civic thinking space. In direct relationship to the Hawke Centre public program, the gallery focuses on ideas and actions in a democracy, and promotes the values of responsible citizenship. The four themes the gallery is currently focusing on are: media and human rights, freedom, the environment and governance.

On entry to the gallery there is a message stick - the Aboriginal greeting - and is clad in red gum and etched with kangaroo tracks, signifying the place of the Red Kangaroo Dreaming of the traditional owners, the Kaurna people. Message sticks were traditionally used by Aboriginal people to share information about gatherings or as a welcoming gift when entering new territories. The indigenous element at the entry point is a practical solution to orientation, but also a statement of affirmation about the first society in Australia, and its place in the country’s history. Near the message stick there is the freedom wall. This is a wall split in two, and communicates the idea of yerra (a Kaurna Aboriginal word) meaning ‘two way thinking’ and symbolically breaking through barriers.

Nelson Mandela is the international patron of the Hawke Centre and his famed quotes are projected on the Mandela Wall. The gallery also shows thought lightplays: projections of significant images and quotes from the current speaker in the Hawke Centre’s public lecture program. The gallery makes superb use of natural light which helps to digest thought, and at the end of the gallery hangs a peace bird chandelier designed by lighting artist Suzanne Charbonnet.

Guest installation space is given to the University of South Australia to showcase research outcomes that concentrate on sustainability in environmental, economic, social and international terms. The current guest exhibition has been undertaken by the interior design staff of the Louis Laybourne Smith School of Architecture and Design. Entitled A Place at the Table: the Politics of Being Inside, it examines the political meanings and provocations of interior space. External groups are also being invited to use the space to display projects that benefit humankind.

Vox Populi is the gallery’s computer based current issues and opinions log point. The Hawke Centre firmly believes opinion and participation are vital to community health so it captures public viewpoints on key issues to ensure the gallery is dynamic and timely, and presenting the issues and events of the day.

In the words of museologist Elaine Heurmann Gurian, it’s a “safe space for unsafe ideas.” There’s a splendid tension between the plainness of the surfaces, and the strength of the ideas. The gallery projects the sense that it is a neutral canvas on which messages and ideas are placed as either permanent or changing, depending on their universality or their currency.

The gallery strongly encourages a sense of discovery in the visitor. As Elizabeth Ho, the Director of the Hawke Centre says, “the visitor’s eye should be led to explore a set of messages and questions in an intuitive rather than a formal way, and absorb almost osmotically the values that linger in the space - especially the dynamic tension in democracy between individual freedom and social responsibility. There should be clarity for the visitor that they are in a space where respect for ideas is palpable and enveloping.”

Also located within the Hawke Building is the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art which is currently showing the exhibition Wonderful World. Upcoming exhibitions include Primavera, the Museum of Contemporary Art’s annual exhibition of work by Australian artists under the age of 35, and Penumbra: Contemporary Art from Taiwan. Works from rising stars Kuo I-Chen, Tseng Yu-Chin and Wang Ya-Hui will be shown in Australia for the first time.

[Photographs supplied by the Hawke Centre]

This is the first post from Kristina Dryza as a new contributor to the David Report blog.

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tags technorati : kristina dryza australia Kerry Packer Civic Gallery hawke center

Andra bloggar om: utställning, australien, hawke center, galleri

Tomorrow November 24th is the international Buy Nothing Day (November 23rd in the US). More than 65 nations around the globe are involved. The first Buy Nothing Day was organized in Vancouver back in 1992 and has subsequently been promoted by the Canadian Adbusters magazine. The describe the Buy Nothing Day like this; “it isn’t just about changing your habits for one day” but “about starting a lasting lifestyle commitment to consuming less and producing less waste“. According to me it’s an important day for society to examine the issue of over-consumption. As I have mention before it’s impossible to just go on and buy more and more useless stuff. It’s about time to really think about our consumption and try to buy less but better products. I hope that this day of austerity could lead on to a more open-minded attitude towards materialism and the wear-and-tear society we are all part of.

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tags technorati : consumerism buy_nothing_day adbusters materialism

Andra bloggar om: en köpfri dag, konsumtion, miljö, prylar, politik, moral

IOU is a producer selling garden furniture by well-known Swedish designers. The production is in cooperation with C.R.I.S (criminals return into society) where former criminals and drug-users will get a second chance to get back to normal society life through work and education. The complete profit from goes to charity. The new collection is designed by Gabriella Gustafson and Mattias Ståhlbom from TAF Arkitektkontor in Stockholm. It contains tables, chairs and benches in larch wood. One interesting detail is the different widths of chosen planks which avoids unnecessary wastage of material. The IOU garden furniture were also part of the Designboost exhibition which took place in Malmö during Oktober–November this year. The collection will be for sale from 2008.

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tags technorati : iou design kris cris taf outdoor_furniture sustainability csr

Andra bloggar om: iou, design, taf, kris, möbler