via Reuters

Coca-Cola will launch a coffee-infused soft drink called Coca-Cola Blak in various markets around the world in 2006.

The new drink, a combination of Coca-Cola Classic and coffee extracts, will be first launched in France in January before being rolled out in the United States and other markets during 2006.

A Coke spokesperson said Coca-Cola Blak will be a mid-calorie drink, similar to Coca-Cola C2, which was launched in April 2004 and contains half the sugar, calories and carbohydrates of regular colas. The formula for the new beverage is expected to vary based on local tastes.

Analysts have said one of the keys to the company’s future is capturing more consumers who have moved away from sugary soft drinks to diet versions, or to healthier low- or no-calorie beverages.

I’m very cynical. Buy this as soon as you can find it, because it’ll become a collector’s item very quickly. Seems like Coke “innovates” new products a little too quickly, but can’t make them stick. Trying to extend the Coke brand seems like a force play that doesn’t have anything real behind it. It is COKE! You must LOVE it! You must DRINK it! Bleccgh.

Rob Walker’s latest Consumed piece looks at the strategic approach of Haier, one of the few Chinese brands making inroads in the US.

Instead of a “technology push” approach (a Bell Labs cranking out wonderful inventions that are then pushed into the marketplace), [Sull] says, they are adept at using a “consumer pull” strategy, studying and responding to their customers’ needs.
…
Sull, the business-school professor, says that U.S. companies operating in China already know that the fiercest competitors there are the domestic ones. “The thing that should really make them nervous,” he says of U.S. companies, is the ability of Chinese manufacturers to export “their ability for rapid consumer-pull innovation” to the United States. Which is exactly what Haier is trying to do.

Our Core77 article Shopping for Innovation: What you need to know before hiring a design firm is finally up – and nicely blogged by Bruce Nussbaum at BusinessWeek.com (among others).

[via Pasta and Vinegar]. Technology is clearly the mother of invention here. What else can we customize? How’s about mouthgards!

For the fourth year running, I’ll be speaking at About, With, and For, organized by the ID in Chicago. This year it’s October 28-29, at Navy Pier. The details of my talk aren’t up, but I’ll be doing a workshop about the relationships between improv and ethnography and innovation. It’s similar to the tutorial I’m teaching at DUX in early November. AWF is always a great event, and the first set of speakers they’ve announced looks pretty good; check it out!

Read the story for an obviously simplified version of how Kodak had the technology but didn’t enter the market. Innovation, as always, presents significant cultural challenges.

More digital camera history here

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I’ve posted a mini-essay called Title Goes Here on CPH127, a blog about design and innovation

We live in a Google world. Information/answers/solutions await us. We want to search, and so other people want to label, categorize, classify. New (and horrific) words like folksonomy emerge to describe the schemes by which we can sort and label the world around us.

I’m a brand new guest blogger there; this was my first post.

The DUX conference site is now showing my tutorial.

In this tutorial, you will learn more about improv, participant observation, listening, context, and, of course, how these things all fit together and can be used and experienced.

DUX is this November in SF at Fort Mason.

This seemed like a nifty innovation, small, yet simple. This UPS truck was parked in Manhattan, presumably the driver might be away from the truck for several minutes, meanwhile, it serves as a convenient drop-box for passerby. I mean, the truck is there, you might as well make use of it, right?

I don’t know, perhaps others do, if they are leaving these trucks in fixed locations for predictable times, serving as reliable-if-temporary drop boxes?

This article

will no doubt be heavily blogged because it describes some innovative electronic acoustic privacy technology, but I thought the latter half of the piece, dealing with the relationship between innovative consultant and innovative manufacturer was extremely provocative.

Herman Miller has a long history of exploring the leading edges of office furniture and computer technology. The company worked with the computer scientist Douglas C. Engelbart during the 1960’s to design furniture and office systems that would help workers collaborate more effectively.

In fact, a walk through Applied Minds’ warehouses reveals many projects that seem to adopt the Engelbart approach of looking for ways to harness machines to augment human intelligence. With Northrop Grumman, the design firm is experimenting with teleconferencing, looking for ways to build systems that are useful for colleagues who work far apart from one another.

Mr. Ferren is particularly interested in finding novel solutions to design problems. All the bookshelves in the company’s offices, for example, are tilted 15 degrees to one side as a way to keep books neatly stacked.

In forming an alliance with Herman Miller, Mr. Hillis proposed a yearlong experiment period, which would allow the two companies to work together on broad ideas. After that, they could either commit to a product development project or go separate ways.