With a
n interest in Technology and Design one of the things that caught our eye from this weeks CES outputs is the move by Samsung to take something already so common in most houses and turn it into a future enabled feature. Most households see the kitchen as the place for communication within the family – it is where the calendar or organiser hangs; the post it notes for messages to your errant teenage children, and the list of groceries which is compiled as things run out for the next person to go shopping to stock up. The kitchen is also the place where conversations happen – parents discuss family matters while making the tea; kids do homework; its where you take a break to have a cup of tea or raid the snack box when you are bored. Will the touch screen on the fridge change or enhance what already goes on? Personally I could live without it as taking a fridge that size would mean building an extension to my house but I am going to be really interested to see what impact this might have on family dynamics ….
This observation underlines an adage often used in market research that sometimes the most obvious things are those right in front of you. I think this is a great example of innovation fitting directly into peoples lives because it is a different way of doing something that is already embedded behaviour.
One of our New Year thoughts at The Buzzz is to observe more before we commit. The mad rush around project deadlines can sometimes be misplaced, when simply taking some time out to observe existing behaviour can actually deliver significant insights if we have the discipline to dedicate the time to see and think, before we say and do.
