Tag Archives: trends

Turn Your Bed Into A Smart Bed

Beddit

We spend around one-third of our life sleeping. Sleep plays a crucial role in good health and well-being. Getting enough quality sleep helps protect our mental health, physical health, and quality of life. The damage from sleep deficiency can harm you over time. For example, ongoing bad sleep can raise your risk for some chronic health problems. It also can affect how well you think, react, learn, and get along with others.  But, as our lives become faster and our stress levels increase, it is becoming increasingly difficult to sleep peacefully at night. There’s a new product which could change all that. It’s called the Beddit, and you sleep on it.

Beddit is an innovative ultra-thin film sensor that measures how you sleep. The device uses ‘ballistocardiography’, with a sensor that is sensitive enough to measure the mechanical forces that come from your heart beat, your pattern of breathing, and the way you move in bed. Simply place Beddit  under the sheet and it will connect wirelessly to your smartphone. In the morning, the accompanying app will draw a full report on your personal sleep habits and will and suggest how to improve the quality of your sleep.

Learn more about Beddit here.

What Sparks Our Fire: An innovative monitor that can help us reach good health and general well-being.

Would you try Beddit?

Marc-eting 101: Hello Digital, Meet Analog

difference-between-online-and-offline-advertisement

Today, most businesses are riding the waves of digital marketing. When asked, “Where do you think the non-digital brand experience fits in?” here is what Marc Sampogna, Canopy’s Managing Director, had to say…

As we continue to see the world of marketing shift further and further into digital, we have to ask ourselves: Does the analog (print, TV, OOH) brand experience fit in anymore? Well, of course it does. But it’s really a matter of how brands and marketers want to spend their budgets. As we know, digital is the most efficient means to reach an audience, measure it, and do it with more modest budgets. But does it leave the profound impact that non-digital channels and tactics leave? The answer is…. not yet! Traditional media has made efforts to tie-in their digital platforms to ensure their brands are accessible, relevant and shareable. But digital isn’t designed to return the favor. So, what’s the outcome? Well, as marketers, we need to recognize the new paradigm, and be very picky about how and where we want to connect with our target. It comes down to who they are and where they get information. Gen X, Y, Millennials, are all digitally connected and rely on this to drive their purchasing patterns. And that makes up a significant piece of the market. Boomers and above are adjusting, but have greater appreciation for traditional because they grew up with it. And while I continue to ramble on, I’m not sure if I’m answering the question of whether or not non-digital/traditional/analog brand experiences fit in anywhere. But if I look at how cyclical trends have become, from fashion to art, I’d have to say this would apply to marketing. Digital will at some point evolve to finally turning around and introducing itself to analog, and who knows, maybe they’ll get along.

 

Are We Planning Our Future Memories?

Cameras are powerful tools to control the memories we make. In a 2010 TED Talk, psychologist and Nobel Prize winner professor Daniel Kahneman, presented the idea that millennials see the present as an “anticipated memory.” In other words, when a person takes an Instagram picture, that person is both experiencing the present reality and actively shaping how that reality will be remembered in the future. As a result, many will argue they are betraying the present by not living in the moment. But, are the memories the real motive why the ‘Instagram generation’ is so addicted to capturing the moment?

Internet surveys indicate over 80% of social media posts to sites like Instagram, Twitter and others amount to “announcements about one’s own immediate experiences”. We post pictures of what we eat, drink, where we’ve been and calmly await for the next tsunami of likes. But what is it that makes us post those pictures on Instagram? Can’t we keep those for our private use? It is undeniable we like the attention but, why do we like the attention so much?

In 2012, Harvard University National Academy of Sciences conducted a study to assess how much people liked talking about themselves and why. The results is that Humans get a biochemical buzz from self-disclosure. We devote almost 40% of conversation sharing our own experience. Sharing personal information activates the reward areas of the brain. The same as we experience after sex, food or getting money. Talking about other people in contrast does not activate the rewarding part of the brain. What is most interesting is the findings also revealed people actually love self-disclosure if they knew people were listening. All of this goes along way toward explaining the appeal of self-promoting social-media platforms like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

What Sparks Our Fire: The power of self-disclosure on social media through pictures.

Do you agree with Daniel Kahneman’s statement or do you think this entire generation is sharing Instagram pictures with the ultimate goal of a social validation? We would like to hear your thoughts.

At a Glance

Today everyone is making a smartwatch. The tech gods have deemed the smartwatch as the new technology frontier all big companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Samsung are going to tackle. But, what if you don’t want to turn in your expensive traditional watch, but want the benefits of a smartwatch?

Glance, a Kickstarter project, allows you to combine your own watch with smart features. It fits right under the wristband of your watch and can do some amazing things. Watch the video to see all of the features; from being able to call your phone when you’ve misplaced it (oops, it happens to the best of us), to being able to respond to texts with a motion.

What Sparks our Fire: A creative way to add smartphone features to my current watch without investing in a new one.

Is this the solution you were looking for to the smartwatch/dumbwatch debate?