Augmented Reality: Which Business Opportunities ?

Everybody have heard this term and knows that it is a new technology. But few people know what exactly it is or what is its potentiality. Too bad, because plenty of new businesses are possible with it. Actually, almost everything that we do today can be “improved” with the augmented reality (AR). But first, what is augmented reality? The basic definition, according to wikiepdia, is a “live view of physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video or graphics”. Like on the picture, you see your real hand with a false toy on it.

People need to think out of the box to get all the potential of it. It’s the case of Oren Jacob who gave an interview to the Stanford University to present his new app on tablet_ ToyPlay. Basically, the app allows a kid to play in live with a character. More than playing, it’s a live conversation that is possible. Oren Jacob says that we need to use all the capabilities of the tablet device to think about new apps. The tablet gets the microphone and a camera and you can touch it. So, you can program a character to interact with you. Here is the video:

There are plenty of business opportunities for using augmented reality. Some sounds not really interesting or maybe dangerous such as the facial recognition in the street. But others seem promising:

1.       Shopping

In front of your computer, you can try all the clothes you want, change the color, etc. We know that the online shopping is still growing. This is definitely the new step in online shopping. You can also imagine how will fix a new furniture in your living room. You just select the product and put your tablet in your living room to see how it looks.

Check this cicso's advertisement : 

2.       Entertainment

It’s quite frustrating to check on our smartphone all the time to get information about something we are seeing . With AR, you just have to put your device in front of the thing you want to learn more about. For example, you can targeting a player on a soccer field and instantly see his performance during the season. In museums, audio guides will not be useful anymore. You can have on your tablet someone explaining to you all the paintings of the museum.

3.       Marketing

The AR can work by using cards that you put in front of a camera. You can imagine giving these cards in the street or a mall or even sending them by mail like catalogues and then people can check on a screen how the product looks like and moving it in all direction to see every angles. 

4.       Training

Airplane pilots already train in a simulator. But these machines are very expensive. With the AR, you can manipulate for example mechanical pieces in a motor again and again before doing it for real.

5.       Advertising

After the “classic” advertisement in the subway with posters, you can see now some videoscreen. The next generation is the AR. Imagine looking at a wall with the advertisement for traveling in the Pacific islands. With AR, you can see the trees moving and the dolphins jumping in the sea.

However, this technology needs a device between our eyes and the real world. The next step is to avoid this device or at least not feeling it anymore. This is the google glasses project. Your screen and your camera are fixed in the glasses. You can see all around you without touching anything. Check this video and after think about all the business opportunities it offers.

After the « Start-Ups », the « Start-up Cities ».

If you think “Silicon Valley” when you read Star-up Cities”, I’m afraid to say that you should look forward. The journalist who named it in 1971 is now probably retiring! However the first thing I thought when I’ve read “Start-up Cities” was “yes of course Silicon Valley! This is not new!” Of course I was wrong! We still think about our innovative centers such as the Silicon Valley or Sophia-Antipolis in France. But you don't check the new ones.We could find some very good ideas in these new projects. 

Let’s have a look at 4 new huge projects for research and innovation. These are locales that specifically promote and foster entrepreneurial ideas and networking and they look quite impressive!

          1)      The National University of Singapore (NUS)

Singapore _ with its 5.2 millions of inhabitants_ has spent more than $7.5 billion in research and development in 2011. This corresponds to a 2.5% of its GDP. The goal is to reach the 3% to reach the best countries in this field: Japan, Finland, Sweden, Taiwan, and South Korea. The Island grew its software industry to $28 billion last year, according to Bloomberg, and its accolades are stacking up: it came in No.2 in the Forum’s 2012-2013 Global Competitiveness Index, behind Switzerland.

The University now has more than 34,000 students. They just build a hotel on the campus which looks quite good.

The Hotel on the Campus

The General Electric Innovation Center

Inside the University

Outside of the University

With these results, Singapore’s government has a five-year plan to support technological growth and give to Singapore a statue of entrepreneurial hub.

           2)      Startup Canada

Startup Canada is different because it’s not a huge building plan but an non-profit organization. The idea is to create start-up communities dispersed across the North American country. They try to convince people to become entrepreneurs and help them to do so with for example some training events where all the future entrepreneurs can network. According to what we can see on the picture below, there were 25,000 entrepreneurs involved on the project.

           3)      Skolkovo in Russia

Also called the “New Silicon Valley”, this small town has been chosen to become the technological and innovation center of Russia. It will include a research university, a “technopark” to accommodate 1,000 start-ups and 40 research and development centers for corporations. The total planned investment is closed to $1000 million!

Here is one picture showing the future Business School and another one showing some facts and numbers about this impressive project.

The future Business School at Skolkovo

           4)      Aalto University in Helsinki

The last project is maybe more classic but also quite impressive. It’s the fusion of three major schools in Finland: Helsinki School of Economics (Business School), The University School of Science and Technology and the University of Design and Architecture.

In an old warehouse next to the school, students created the Start-Up Sauna, a business accelerator with partial funding from the government where students can network, receive coaching, and plan field trips to Silicon Valley.

This project already gave birth to some very successful company such as Skype and Rovio Entertainment, the company that created Angry Birds!

All these projects are different. We have investment projects with the Singapore University and the Skolkovo technological center, association project to support and help entrepreneurs in Canada and merging project with the University of Aalto. However, it’s absolutely not sure that all these projects will be successful. But still, there are some good ideas that South Europe and the US should think about. Better : thinking about new ideas!

The Art of Subtraction for the best Innovations

According to Matthew E May in his book “The laws of Subtraction “: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything, decision makers have to answer three questions:

          - What to follow versus what to ignore

     - What to leave in versus what to leave out

     - What to do versus what not to do

Usually, they try to answer the second part of each question. This is what calls May the principle of “subtraction”. It’s a simplification process, a “less is best” approach to innovation. To illustrate his theory, he gives us “6 secrets” which should help the decision makers to do less and better.

     1.     What isn’t there can often trump what is.

The idea is to take off everything that makes a product superficial to obtain its very essence. It’s what the youth car brand Scion (producted by Toyota for the north American market) did when they presented a very simple and cheap car. Then the buyers can personalize it. More that the price, what isn’t there becomes a marketing plan, especially for gen Y buyers who want unique and affordable product.

2. The simplest rules create the most effective experience

The rules of the road is technically an amount of obligations and prohibitions that restraint the action of the drivers and pedestrians. Why not simplify it to a very only one rule? That is the project Exhibition road in London for the 2012 Olympics Game. Cross lights, pathways, road and traffic signs have been removed to build a unique and simple road with only one rule: “all due respect to the most vulnerable”. Result? Twice the fun and a steady flow _ with half the normal number of accidents.

         3. Limiting information engages the imagination.

When you need to deal with a lot of information, your mind is not really inclined to be imaginative. The former group Carbury Scwheppes (now have been bought by Kraft Food) aired a 90-seconds television commercial for its chocolate bars a few years ago that featured a gorilla (rather a man in a gorilla suit). The brand appears in the TV spot only during the last 4 seconds. During the entire first minute, you only see the face of the gorilla who looks to be contemplating the music and preparing for the performance of a lifetime on a famous song of Phil Collins. Then you have a 26 seconds drum session on the music. Sales rose 10% in the two months following the ad and the video have been viewed more than 6 million times on youtube.

     4.  Creativity thrives under intelligent constraints.

How is it possible to do a “faster, better, cheaper” space exploration to collect data on mars that cost 10% less than a classic mission? That was the NASA’s challenge in the mid of the 90,s. An engeenering company tries to do it. Result: the project have been achieved in less than 44 months _ less than half of the precedent mission and with more restraint teams. This “impossible” task required a “change everything” approach. For example, they had the idea to install a huge airbag as the landing method. Effectively, it simplifies a lot of things!

5.  Break is the important part of breakthrough.

According to the American doctor Richard McCauley, healthcare is not only a question that concerns sick people but also for healthy people. They need to go to the doctor for simple things such as vaccination or just for a checkup. So, he had the idea to open a health center just for healthy people because these persons don’t want to go in a place with sick and coughing people. And at the opposite, sick people don’t really want to be in a room with healthy people when they have a serious cancer. In his center, he just gives low prices fees that don’t need insurance.  Innovation often demands a break with convention.

      6. Doing something isn’t always better than doing nothing. 

It doesn’t mean that it is better to always do nothing but sometimes, take a break and not working or just not thinking about your job is more efficient that just doing something to show that you do something. Meditation _ a practice that eliminates distraction and clears the mind _ is an effective way to enhance self-awareness, focus, and attention, and to prime your brain for achieving creative insights. If Google is well-known all around the world for that, others companies such as Oracle, Bloomberg or Ford have CEOs that encourage meditation.

Better than hiring some “specialized in meditation consultants” who are going to be very expensive, maybe be it will be a good idea to create a space inside the company’s buildings where employees could go for meditation or just for thinking about something else for few minutes when they really need it.

 According to Matthew May, these six rules point to a single, powerful idea for achieving simplicity in any innovation effort: “When you remove just the right things in the right way, good things happen”.

Article adapted from Matthew May’s book, The Laws of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything (McGraw-Hill, 2013).