There have been many attempts to explain what value is, and the difference between the seller’s and the buyers’ product. Here’s another one!

For the seller the deal is about costs and revenue, for the buyer it’s about the perceived value. Only what is perceived has a value for the buyer, the customer. Again, the total [...]

The video has now been published on YouTube.
To see my talk at TEDxNorrmalm, 17th of april 2010, click the image or this link.
Welcome!

The concept of USP, “Unique Selling Point” or sometimes “Unique Selling Proposition”, has been widely questioned. It has been claimed that you cannot be unique these days; you have to add something else, sometimes called ESP – “Emotional Selling Point”.

Well, even if the idea is correct in some sense, I would argue that the discussion [...]

A long time ago I took this picture, and I have used it many times since, discussing our biological fundament for how we perceive and consume. How humans in their natural environment spend a large part of the day chatting, thus stimulating their brains so that they can think fast when a lion shows up! [...]

One of the stories in my TEDx talk was from a vacation in Croatia. I had some “house red wine” with my dinner one night and it was so good that I asked what kind of wine it was.
“- It’s house red wine.”
“- Yes, but I mean, what kind is it?”
“- No, we make it [...]

My talk was basically about my experiences from several creative areas, and the pattern I have seen when putting these on top of each other. Instead of a PowerPoint I used the blue and red glove so that the audience could follow the idea and make up their own minds on the pattern I am [...]

It seems like in today’s media world, many companies, organisations and individuals are struggling to improve their communication skills. They are trying to clarify their message, formulate information goals, developing ways to show the difference in how they do things differently than others. Which is fine! But not so often do you hear about a [...]

In the old industrial world you would look for the linear connections. If I do this, I will have that result. You would set a goal and then set up a linear process and work with determination towards that goal.
Same thing in communication. You would define what you do and then formulate how you do [...]

The good old product lifecycle model has been questioned, but I can’t help thinking that it is a good illustration to the shift of focus that we can see.
The model in brief: when a new offering is launched your first customers will be enthusiasts and after a while the so called “early adopters” will be [...]

By now I think that the idea of how the western world has moved from an industrial state into a post-industrial state, is rather accepted. There are plenty of interesting readings to be found on and off line. I will only refer to this briefly.
What actually interests me is how this model, this shift from [...]

In the old world things would not change so quickly. Change was predictable. You could extrapolate the current conditions and get an idea of the future. To some extent you can today also, but in some areas that kind of linear predictions can be quite risky! Apart from all the physical uncertainties you also find [...]

Once upon a time, the signs around us referred to known things like natural phenomena. And symbols were given specific things. Today it has become much more complicated, but also more interesting. When we dress in the morning we choose attributes, statements and stories for ourselves and others to see.
Symbols and other signs not only [...]

Holistic, integrated product development – what does that mean? Well, if you want to be successful today and tomorrow, if you want to be innovative and competitive, then it will be too slow, inefficient and irrelevant to first develop a physical functionality and then try to powder on some experience values. You will need to [...]

I am trying to find the connection between all these aspects. Which are the drivers in this transition that so many products and services go through? I can see so clearly the “before and after”, in so many areas. But how can I explain it?
I think a part of it is about choice. Let’s take [...]

I have always thought there is something strange about the concept of “adding value”. Which is frustrating as that is basically what I try to do in my work. I think the problem is that “adding value” has a linear touch to it, like if some part of somethings value was already there by itself. [...]

The shift from modernistic to post-modern, physical to mental, basic to added value can be seen in big and small. What’s interesting is how this shift of focus is scattered around all possible areas, taking place at different times. Many areas are still in the modernistic, physical, basic stage, and will still be for some [...]

Even in the major world conflicts you can see how focus has shifted from physical to mental. If you simplify this vast and complex subject into four images you may see this pattern:

World War 1: Basically traditional warfare man-to-man in the fields.
World War 2: Modernistic, industrialistic warfare added the use of not only all the [...]

This shift in focus is also compatible with the idea of our brains being split in two parts. Even though the brain physically is much more complicated than that, it’s a handy model for discussing different ways of thinking. Maybe also for discussing the competencies needed in this new context.
Again, I think it is important [...]

Here is a first rough illustration of the shift in various areas. Of course this model is very simplified and I want to point out the aspects which are increasingly in focus, not an absolute truth!

Obviously the later aspects don’t replace the earlier. But for me the change of focus is quite evident. You may [...]

Service design is a rapidly growing area that today gets a lot of the attention concerning value creation and cross collaboration. And design. Which is good. In area after area, the potential in developing things and expressions that people actually want, as well as the need of collaboration between competencies in order to create that [...]

During my time as a guest researcher at KTH/CID* I led a project where we imagined future use of IT in a social context. Will interactive television affect future sitting room design, was one of our research questions.
To visualise one of our conclusions, that new communication channels seldom replace but rather complement others, we made [...]