Breath of fresh air

kudos to Qantas for creating such a beautiful showcase that defied all preconceived notions of boring flight safety videos And also entices more travelers to visit the lovely Australia, good job!

A startup for startups

Interestingly, I didn’t expect this to be the article that inspires me to start posting again. I have never been particularly proud of my university and I can’t say my final year project was even anywhere near as exciting as this but this truly made me change my mind about Nanyang Technical  University and shows once again, it is not where you are but what you are that can determine what you achieve.

Barter trade is such a brilliant idea for startups because it suits exactly what they need, have and lack! Startups often need help and expertise but cannot afford to pay for it. At the same time, they possess niche skills and time that may be useful or valuable to other startups AND by doing so, they gain experience and create a portfolio for themselves. Granted finding a perfect match may not always be easy but it is such a sweet idea, I wish I thought of it myself!

Read more about this exciting venture here.

Alternative forms of meditation

The other day, B said he was in bed trying to meditate and go back to sleep. Instead of focusing on his breath, he decided to focus on my snoring (?!) as part of his meditation but in any case, it worked for him. 

Then last weekend, I attended this music event at Hard Rock cafe where I heard the band, A Vacant Affair, play. I’m not typically into hard metal kind of stuff, but they were pretty good. In particular, I was drawn to the percussionist and I was thinking, if I were to learn to play drums, could I potentially use that as a form of meditation? After all, an intense amount of concentration and effort (at least for yours truly) will be required to manage the hand-leg coordination and different rhythms and beats! Food for thought 🙂

The difficulty is in practicing what u preach :)

Gold Diggers Pants

This is one of those “vintage” articles that comes back to fashion every once in a while. Written by the founder of tenCube, this not-so-young-anymore entrepreneur, Darius Cheung had the wisdom and foresight to gather insights on the great hypes of past history. What could be the gold pants diggers need in today’s world? or maybe more specifically, how may an individual with limited resources capitalize part of this gold diggers pants trend? Online payments? Teaching how to write an app? Enabling easy web design?

Part of a prototype experiment @ Spinelli’s

It’s funny how after researching so much about design thinking, interaction with end user to understand needs and rapid prototyping to obtain feedback.. I was finally part of an experiment last week. I was at Spinelli’s Wheelock branch and they were attempting to transform the customer coffee buying experience. The great part was that we got $1 coffee, while several members of the design team went around interviewing customers about their thoughts on some of the proposed improvements. 

The experiment – you fill up a form with paper and pencil of your coffee/tea/hot chocolate choice at the entrance, bring it to the cashier, then collect your coffee. If you are puzzled, don’t worry, I didn’t know what they were trying to do initially either, I figured it was just a gimmick – cheap coffee to attract coffee drinkers for focus groups.

Well, turns out there were a few things they were trying to find out: 1) what if you had a separate ordering machine at the entrance where you can tap your loyalty card to order (loyalty card can record your usual preferences) so you need not wait at the counter for indecisive people to make up their minds about what they want to drink 2) was it useful to have information abt coffee eg where the beans were roasted, what was the difference between a flat white and a latte at the pick up counter to entertain customers while they wait for their coffee 3) will a smartphone app be useful to preorder coffee that you can just come by and collect quickly 4) will customers prefer the use of name or serial number to know when to collect drinks?

I thought (3) was the most useful, my friend says it’s very prevalent in Sydney, I haven seen it around in Spore yet. I can imagine how it will be very suited to the impatient professional who just want their coffee quite literally on-the-go! But it’s crucial to ensure that the branch has the resources to handle the inflow of orders on top of those coming from in-store customers, otherwise it pretty much defeats the purpose of pre-ordering right?

In any case, this was an interesting experience and I look forward to more such prototype experiments!

Pixar creating a lil magic

Could this be the future of makeup?

Interestingly enough, the normal ink that we use for printing our documents, is actually FDA-approved for makeup too. So what Grace did was to transform your regular printer, into one that will “print” a lipstick or an eyeshadow that you can actually use! See her demo here. It will be very convenient how you can take a picture off Pinterest and instantly get the exact same lipstick colour that you like! 

Frank

On first glance, you’d probably think that Frank was a cafe or maybe a music store. But it’s actually a new concept banking branch by OCBC to attract the young banking adults who would hopefully become lifelong customers. In their words, Frank is about empowering you to do the things you want in your life. Instead of proposing indulgent credit card spending, a lucrative source of income, Frank encourages responsible spending with four principles – save, invest, protect, spend. Frank aims to grow with this new generation as they prepare to step into the work force so they may live out their dreams.Frank worked in some practical features like lifetime card fees waiver, which kind of make sense to the bank as well. 99% of the time when you call in to request for annual fee waivers, the request will be accommodated. So now, the banks can reduce resources required to bill and subsequently, waive the annual fees, as well as any other late charges that might have thus been incurred. They worked with the Ministry of Education to optimize the repayment of tuition fee loans, funding done by MOE and administered by OCBC, what a great deal! To get customers started on investment early, no separate trading account is required for the purchase of blue chips shares and preferable commission rates are offered with the Young Investment Programme, along with an investment book by Warren Buffet. Then there are also other fringe perks to appeal the cool and funky crowd, such as the over 120 credit card designs to choose from.

All in all, I’d say well-done OCBC! and I expect to see the other retail banks following suit very quickly!

The humble airplane cup holder

The airplane cup holder is a beautiful example of how design has improved a simple function by leaps and bounds. Allow me to pay compliments to how far we have come. We used to have to lower the entire tray to hold a drink, causing inconvenience and discomfort. Then the cup holder was introduced so that only a small square of space was needed and the cup sits in the round space within. But the plane isn’t always horizontal, so the drink may spill. Hence someone invented the double ring holder, that allowed the cup to balance and the drink level to stay flat.

 

The tray was also made thinner (no real reason for it to be so thick really) so it may be folded into half when not needed, occupying only half the previous space in the seat in front of you. Now the control, cupholder and charger may be placed on top of the tray for greater ease of access. Brilliant, isn’t it? (: