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Curiosity Stop: The Social Innovation Roundup
September 2016
CURIOSITY STOP‘Social Thinking’ is understanding how and why people communicate. We use this insight to
provide value for our clients. This understanding is an ongoing passion project for We Are Social.
Our global team of 550 keep a keen eye out for intriguing changes in the social landscape. We take the best of these innovations and compile them in the monthly
Curiosity Stop.
You’ll see some examples which prove our social trendspotting, and others which indicate what might happen next. But if you look really closely, you might catch a glimpse into the future of
how and why we use social.
Curiosity Stop >September
Tom Ollerton, Innovation Director, London
Tom Ollerton, Innovation Director, London
With September comes that back to school feeling, and what better way to indulge your newfound academic cravings than indulging in this month’s Curiosity Stop? We’ve uncovered yet more social innovations which fit the trends uncovered in our Think Forward report, as well as a few more that caught us by surprise.
Social Status Seekers have never had it so good - and it's not just about showing off your latest brunch pictures on Instagram. Now you can show, rather than just tell, the world just how important you really are, by signing up for your own AI personal assistant. Need to schedule a meeting? Just cc in Amy.
Meanwhile, Wearable Social shows no sign of slowing down, with the new Pilot earbuds working as your own personal translation service.
But as always, there are some developments on the horizon that even we couldn't have predicted. Want to send messages to your child via their cuddle toy? Check. Need to send a personal message to the US President? Sorted.
So settle down and enjoy that smug top of the class feeling by getting on top of all of the world's latest innovations in this month's Curiosity Stop.
@PunkpostCo is here to make handw
Social Trend 1: Social Status Seekers
Seeking Social status isn’t new, but the technology enabling this behaviour is.
Bored of the back and forth of organising meetings? @xdotai creates 'Amy', an #AI personal assistant.
Social Status Seekers >X.ai
What’s it all about?
Everyone knows you’ve made it if you’ve got a personal assistant. With the new uprising of AI PAs you can do business like a #boss without the pressure of shelling out for a mid-range bottle of wine at Christmas for their efforts.
To this end, X.ai has created ‘Amy’. She’ll save you time by scheduling your meetings and also cooly cancel the ones you’d rather not attend when Friday drinks are calling. Not diggin’ Amy? Julie Desk and Zoom.ai are also ready for hire.
The bigger picture
As we see machine learning, AI and natural language processing getting corralled for more narrowly purposed means, bots are finding a natural home in the office to helpwith repetitive, mundane tasks, so you can spend more time doing the stuff you’re good at.
CLICK TO TWEET:
Social Trend 2: Wearable Social
The forecasted wearable device market value for 2018 is $13Bn. We are entering a world of “Wearable Social” where movement, heartbeats and emojis are a new form of social language.
Wearable Social >Pilot earbuds
What’s it all about?
As an adult the dream of mastering a foreign language is often added to the bucket list, but when there’s just so many great Netflix Original series out there, it often gets sidelined - sigh.
The technology promised by Pilot earbuds means that we’ll be able to converse with others without language barriers using speech recognition and machine translation. The translated speech is all delivered through a discreet earpiece. Alles klar?
The bigger picture
Now that the internet has connected roughly 40% of the world, one of the biggest challenges still standing in the way of international communication is language, but step by step this is becoming less of a barrier.
CLICK TO TWEET:
Pilot earbuds translate spoken conversation into your ear, so you'll never miss out on a holiday romance again!
Social Trend 3: Social Currency
It’s been said that the internet is made of cats. While that’s not entirely true, social media got a bad name for its propensity to share feline footage. But this has changed - now you can arrange a mortgage on WeChat. Some people trust sending payments and talking about it publicly on social. It’s time to reappraise social as a cat meme dumping ground and get onboard with the new economics of Social Currency.
Social Currency >Embarq
What’s it all about?
As travelling becomes easier and most of the world is within our reach, it is hard to not get wanderlust. Unfortunately, unless airlines start accepting crinkled six month old receipts and out of date condoms as a form of payment, we won’t be going anywhere soon.
Luckily Air Canada has launched Embarq which works like Kickstarter. You can set up an account where you ask friends to help you raise funds for your flights. Those three bloody marys ‘to take the edge off’ will unfortunately need to be self-funded though.
The bigger picture
We’ve already seen crowdfunding platforms make it more commonplace for people to realise their business dreams. Now it’s also possible for millennials with wanderlust to crowdfund their globetrotting dreams.
CLICK TO TWEET:
.@AirCanada's Embarq lets you crowdfund your next trip.
Social Trend 4: On The Horizon
These innovations don’t fit neatly into our trends (dammit), but we reckon they are worth a mention. Successful innovations create expectation, so we’ll be keeping a keen eye on them. Watch this space - if they turn into a wider trend, you’ll be the first to know.
Meet Mon-Mon: A novel (and adorable) way for parents to message their young children.
On the Horizon >Mon-Mon
What’s it all about?
Everybody’s on the WeChat hype in China. Even toddlers. Mon-Mon is a cuddly toy, inspired by a popular WeChat sticker, which kids can use to send and receive messages.
Parents can use the official Mon-Mon account in WeChat to send voice recordings (songs, nursery rhymes, orders to ‘TIDY YOUR BEDROOM’ and so on) to their children. Mon-Mon lights up with new messages and to respond, the little darlings simply press Mon-Mon’s belly and chat away. A (no doubt extremely coherent) voicemail will then be left in Mum and Dad’s WeChat account.
The bigger picture
Asia is well ahead of a trend we’re starting to see unfold in the western world - where connected devices (and in this case, toys) are used to help people feel closer to each other.
CLICK TO TWEET:
On the Horizon >Obamachat
What’s it all about?
Hello Mr President! Obama’s got a new hotline and it runs via Facebook straight to the White House. That’s right, now you can send America’s leader a Facebook message.
He apparently reads 10 messages everyday, so don’t miss your chance to have your say on global warming, third-world debt or simply check in to ask ‘u ok hun?’
The bigger picture
Direct communication between heads of states and the common citizen has been an important tradition of democracies for hundreds of years but now, along with Obama’s penchant for Twitter and Snapchat, messaging platforms are allowing us to have one-to-ones with our leaders in the same way we casually chat with our friends.
CLICK TO TWEET:
Whether you want to put the world to rights or simply just say 'hi', now you can Facebook message @BarackObama.
SOCIAL STATUS SEEKERS
X.ai
WEARABLE SOCIAL
Pilot earbuds
SOCIAL CURRENCY
Embarq
ON THE HORIZON
Mon-Mon
Obamachat
WE ARE SOCIALWe Are Social is a global agency with offices in five continents
(Antarctica is a little too chilly for our liking).
We deliver world-class creative ideas with forward-thinking brands, and have fun doing it. Our clients include adidas, Google and Netflix.
As an international team of 550+, our passion is people. Our mission is to put social thinking at the centre of marketing.
Trendspotting might get us unnaturally excited, but what really counts is action. If you'd like to speak to We Are Social about how to make innovation work for your brand, email us at
