Day 2

Cool Hunting

Host: WGSN

Speakers: Carla Buzasi (Global CCO for WGSN)

Trends are alive and kicking everywhere, not just in fashion. Anna Wintour, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue, doesn't know trends; she even thinks the word trend is a "dirty word."

Trends aren't easy to forecast. It takes more than a determined journalist to be a good trend forecaster. There is A LOT of research that is necessary.

Trend Curve: Trends traditionally follow this trend

Starts at Early Adopters, then onto Influencers, and then the trend reaches High Fashion and Media, it becomes Mainstream Fashion, then Low Fashion (which can mean the mass market), and lastly Death or Hibernation until it gets cycled back around.

Trend cycles aren't becoming shorter, trends are coming to the forefront faster as information is received quicker through technology. Millennials want the new and different, so they are always looking for new things. But trends aren't just made up, there is time and money involved.

What is the difference between trend and fad? A fad comes and goes super quickly, it can catch news and attention but fades.

Current Trends: there has been an increase in investing in experiences

Artisan Products: homey feel, made by people on a small scale
Craft Beer & Barbing: specialist skills
Wellness: obsession with the size 0, enhanced with social media. This has resulted in a lot of new wellness products such as the FitBit, Smart Collars for dogs, etc. But also Wellness Experiences such as yoga, Soul Cycle, dance & cardio classes

2019 Forecasts: there is a movement towards self acceptance, fun experiences, enjoying things

Posh Butter
Architects putting technology into building materials for wellness purposes
Millennial Pink is OVER...it's all about RED
Bored is the new Black: people don't know what boredom is because of technology but the best ideas come from being bored
Augmented Drinking
Wearable Tech in the bedroom
Butterfly Pea Flower
Orange Wine
Goat Yoga

What NASA and Space Exploration Can Teach Us About Creativity

Host: Tongal, NASA

Speakers: Jason Crusan (Director and Advanced Exploration Systems at NASA), James DeJulio (CCO and Co-Founder of Tongal)

Open is good. Open arms, open hearted, open minded. These are all positive things, so why are we embracing closed in today's modern political environment?

Open is a catalyst to breakthroughs. Path to breakthroughs:

1. Scene forms 2. New technology becomes available 3. economic activity presents itself 4. Make it OPEN = a closed mindset has no value

Example: Aviation

1. Scene forms: wanting men to fly

2. Technology becomes available: gliding technology

3. Economic activity presents itself: commercial aviation.

4. Make it open: Raymond Orteig took a closed system and offered a prize to whoever could fly from New York to Paris, making it open to anyone

NASA Today has formed an entire ecosystem. In the next 2 years there will be "A Room with a View," a space port to orbit the moon. NASA is also planning on going beyond Low-Earth-Orbit and testing new technology to advance life support systems for astronauts. They have probes on Mars seeking resources for us to use (aka water) to fuel space shuttling and next generation plant growth (growing plants to feed Earth).

How does NASA share this journey? "Broadened Horizons" is NASA's ethos, they are taking a giant leap on how we think about things. NASA is a problem solving agency (Mother of Invention).

The NASA Tournament Lab (NTL) is for innovations and works by asking everyone for their input, challenging the people to solve their problems (open system).

There has never been a better time to be open. By creating an open system you are connecting billions of minds and putting tools in everybody's hands. "By 2025 there will be 3 billion new people online and with open systems, we have the ability to work with them." - James DeJulio

Some random things that came out of Q&A:

Apple can't continue to be closed, they have been stuck ever sense Steve Jobs died
Branded Missions are the future: fully commercial missions privately funded (Google)
User-based innovations = solutions
STATISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO BE ALONE, there is other life out there, it's just not in the way we think

What people do doesn't change. HOW they do it does. You need to understand the what and re-imagine the how.

Define a North Star

1. Technology will become invisible, it will be out of the way, it will connect in different kinds of ways (ex. Jaquard Fabric, MYO, Barclays, brain computer interfaces)

2. People will get what they want before they ask for it, before they know they need it: "Presult" (ex. Galvonic skin responses)

3. All human interactions can be verbal, with virtual reality

4. Most valuable brands will offer unique access or experiences (ex. Amazon Alexa) Alexa gives you what it wants, not necessarily what you want, is this the death of the brand?

5D Branding will start to rise: offering more in the sensory area

4 Thoughts:

1. Re-imagine the organization in the services given (ex. hospital = air traffic control)

2. Re-imagine people's roles in products & services. A.I. is going to be responsible for taking over 3.5 million jobs, so we must re-imagine jobs with more human impact. Humans can beat out A.I. in these 3 areas: 1. experience 2. taste 3. empathy.

3. Plan for unintended consequences. Just because you can, do you want to?

4. Watch out for uncanny valley

Host: Digital McKinsey

Speakers: Indy Saha (VP Experience Design, McKinsey Digital Labs, McKinsey & Company)

Design Forward: Creating for the Future

Melody, Harmony, Metadata: Understanding People Through Music

Host: Spotify

Speakers: Adam Bly (VP of Data of Spotify) , Dita Von Teese (Entrepreneur & Burlesque Icon)

People are listening more than ever: 100 Billion events a day (subscribing to a playlist, clicking an ad, clicking next on a song, etc.)

Data Privacy: anonymous data is used to create more personalized recommendations for users and more relevant ads for their free users.

Dita Von Teese was the subject of a live data intervention, where Adam Bly used her streaming history as a public data experiment. Here is what

Spotify found:

Dita is a consistent listener throughout the week, except Thursday and Friday nights. This is when she is entertaining and having people over. Also, she would listen to artists a lot when they pass (George Michael, Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson). She discovers more new music than the average listener and her data showed her to be a classic album listener, rather than choosing random playlists/songs. Her data also shows she has a male music preference, which she says because she loves the imperfect sounds in their voices.

Basically, her listening data says a lot about who she is and how she goes about life. She described how the blend of nostalgia and modern music found among her listening choices reflect her approach to life, citing her wardrobe as another place that merges the old and the new.

"YOU ARE WHAT YOU STREAM"

This was a huge talk as you can see by the speakers list; all super intelligent and powerful women.

This talk was about bridging the gap for gender pay equality, and for gender equality is general. There has been change, just not fast enough. We need more time and to see these changes through. There is an unconscious bias in the workplace; whether it is against woman in leading roles or having a male dominant company. Simple solution for hiring fairly in the workplace: remove names from resumes. And to prepare for the future labor market, we need skill training and upskill training so there is room for growth and advancement.

#HEARHERVOICE

Google: 1. Diversity Hiring 2. Inclusion (how do they feel in your company? Foster creativity) 3. Education (high focus that needs yo be supported, encouraged, and promoted)

74% of girls are interested in STEM in middle school and less than 1% in high school. This drop has in turn created a large demand for females in these areas, because it is so male dominant. Now there is a large movement to show girls trying to decide what path they want to take, that STEM has a future for them to grow in.

Facebook: when women succeed, we all win. Half of the world's population doesn't have access to technology, therefore are not connected to the rest of the world. That means half of the people's minds we can't tap into. 93% of Asian woman rely on their smart phones to start their business. These are self-funded woman. Those who started their own business made 10 times the salary expected of them.

Tory Burch Foundation: Embrace Ambition Video

Microsoft: They build the structure to allow for advances for products and technology. They are trying to find individuals passionate enough to get behind. Woman were asked to name any female inventors they know and no one could name one...this needs to change.

"Find your voice, make a difference"

Host: iProspect

Speakers: Ruth Stubbs (President of iProspect), Joanna Catalano (CEO of iProspect, Chair of Diversity and Inclusion Asia Pacific, iProspect), Kathleen Hall (CVP of Brand, Global Advertising and Research at Microsoft), Saadia Zahidi (Member of Executive Committee and Head of Education, Gender and Employment Initiatives, World Economic Forum), Bonita Coleman Stewart (VP of Global Partnerships at Google), Gabrielle McGee (VP of Digital, Marketing and Special Projects for Tory Burch Foundation), Nigel Morris (CEO of Dentsu Aegis Network Americas and Group Strategy and Innovation for Dentsu Aegis Network)

Charlotte Ableman

Designer | Art director | Creative

DAY 2