Many times, most of the times, when we read about Digital Transformation, we read basically about technology. I love to find papers where «human live» is the center of Digital Transformation and not just hardware, software and platforms…
Some weeks ago, Fjord published their yearly trends on design and innovation and the way they describe the change on human live and how we are migrating from a Digital world into a more hybrid world is something that should make us think when we have to take decisions around products and services.
Let me share with you some headlines of the paper, mixing it with my ideas and also invite you to read the complete version that is available online.
It is not the first time that you read in this blog about more experiences around less brands. I have shared with you my vision of a future world were we will have a super strong emotional link with a very few number of companies. Fjord foresees this as one of the 10 trends for 2016 and they call it «Aggregation moves to services» . They provide examples such as SNCF that extended their «simple» train service to an end to end experience since you buy the tickets, leave your home all through the complete journey.
But the analysis of the trends goes further. Apparently it is not just me the one who spends too much time in front of a screen and that is why…this has become a trend. Clients look for peace of mind and a balance between physical and digital time and exposure. Fjord calls this trends Digital Diet. In the same way we might want and need to reduce salt, sugar, flour or rice in our diet…we feel that we need to control our exposure to technology and digital.
My vision and my feeling is that when we start to enjoy technology we go around different phases and when maturity happens the relation between us and technology tends to calm down after a phase of obsession. I used to visit all my social networks constantly and people posted constantly…Now the waters are more calm and we are willing to cut a bit that obsession and dominate technology instead of being dominated by technology. .
This also generates somehow another trend , digital going physical. I am not surprised when I read that Amazon will open more and more physical bookshops, they where selling through a digital channel, both books and ebooks. Now they want to expand into the physical relation with clients because they understand some clients love to touch and when we see and touch books we buy more and more. But digital moving physical goes further, Spotify moves the experience into the car in a seamless way or we provide options for low cost delivery for physical goods.
Digital transformation is driving «human physical needs» and we need to adapt our processes and our mind so we never forget we do not live in an App. We are no more than «human technology» and having a blended vision of the experiences as companies could be the right way to face our near future.