Posts tagged “Detroit”

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • [from julienorvaisas] Inside the Real 2011 Detroit Auto Show [www.insideline.com] – [A detailed and amusing insider's take on the theater of the absurd, the self-caricature that is the Detroit Auto Show on Press Day. Time to rethink, perhaps?] Mini, which Scion-like seems more and more in danger of losing the thread, had one of the most peculiar press conferences: After obligatory brand back-patting, it was time to see the Mini Paceman concept, but wait! First, an auto show model named Brandy, which probably narrows down which model we are talking about by half, comes out with a huge white cardboard cartoon thumb on her hand. Narrated by an overly enthusiastic announcer, Brandy is first presented with a flexing muscleman: Big cardboard thumb down. Then a very limber acrobat: Thumb down. Then a sneering pretty boy: Thumb down. Then the Mini Paceman: Thumb up! Interesting that everyone seems to have run out of auto show ideas at the same time.

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • Some big-thinking on how the professional organization is changing: structure, environment, process – There will be a set of rituals, a cadence of events, that comes to define what differentiates the organization and supports how things get done. The places where these take place now are found by labels on doors—“conference room”—in otherwise undifferentiated space. The activities of the evolving place are about actions—collaborating, integrating, innovating—and not about hierarchy or formal processes.
  • In Detroit, Artists Look For Renewal In Foreclosures – In the late '90s, we used to generate fake "trends" mostly for fun, but also as a fatigued reaction to all the hype we were facing about, well, everything. One of my best – because it was just so ludicrous and therefore worthy of endless repeating in any ideation session – was that people were choosing to live in hovels [because hovel is definitely a good comedy word].

    Once again, I was 10 years ahead of my time.

    "Jon Brumit is an artist in Chicago…He and his wife just bought a house in Cope's neighborhood for $100. That's right: an entire house for the price of dinner at a nice restaurant for a family of four. Sure, the place needs a ton of work and it['s not that safe, but Brumit says it's worth it just to help bring back the neighborhood."

Check out this year’s (business) models!

At this year’s North American International Auto Show in Detroit., one of the buzz stories is not about an automobile model.

radio-flyer
Radio Flyer car, San Jose, CA, 2008

Palo Alto company Better Place is creating a new approach to powering the electric car by stepping outside the traditional automobile business model.

Better Place positions the electric car battery as an element of infrastructure rather than as part the car itself. This move diffuses $8K-$9K of financial impact borne by the consumer in the traditional business model where the battery is part of the upfront cost of the car.

It’s a great example of tackling a tough problem–maybe in this case, “”how can we build a better battery”–by reframing it and creating an even better problem statement: “How can we make electric cars accessible to and functional for more people.”

Related Posts:
Shah Agassi’s Better Place
Rage With The Machine

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