Interview at Monocle 24 Radio Station – The Entrepreneurs

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This episode: We visit a family farm in northern Greece, talk future tech with Adrian David Cheok of the Mixed Reality Lab, explore the US craft-beer movement with Steve Hindy of Brooklyn Brewery, discuss branding with Jeanette Pritchard, look at watchmaking in Australia, and try to predict the future of Burberry with the team at Winkreative.

The big shopping pop-up

On July 7th we were invited by Elias Constantopedos, the Chief Music Technologist of CORD, a brand consulting firm based in London, to attend a retail workshop entitled “The Big Shopping Pop-up.” We showed Scentee to conference attendees comprised of marketing directors, product managers, and new media technologists representing many international brands. The conference was situated on the HMS President ship docked at Victoria Embankment in Central London. Incidentally, it was located right by the Tour de France passing point which we got a cool glimpse of.

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The day was full of informative talks and “labs” which were panel discussions given by guest speakers from affluent companies like Unilever and Microsoft. They spoke of their imagined future of the retail experience and how technology will impact the retail space and influence customer choices in stores. They also gave criticism of some technologies like augmented reality, and praise of others, such as radio-frequency identification. Some companies like CORD even gave demos of their own technology to much fanfare.

After the discussions there were drinks and hors d’oeuvres, and we showed Scentee to some brand managers, many of who were intrigued and fascinated with it, describing it as kind of cool gadget. Ultimately for Scentee, we can see it used in a retail environment as a kind of sensory branding, however, it will be necessary to build some use case scenarios in order for people to “get” its potential for brand building.  We spoke with other CORD employees and they shared their feedback on how it would be used in this manner. We thank CORD for the invitation and for the wonderful experience aboard the HMS President!

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“Kids Love Robots!”

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“Kids Love Robots!” Join us from 11:30 am Sunday July 13th to build and play with Japanese robots at Southbank Center in London, part of the Japanese Tanabata day at the Southbank Festival of Love. The workshop is organized together with Hiroshi Ishiguro lab in Japan, and supported by Daiwa Foundation, Embassy of Japan in UK, and Japan Society London.

http://www.japansociety.org.uk/34844/tanabata-at-southbank-centre/