Fernando Fischmann

Innovation: less shock and more awe

18 June, 2014 / Articles

How to avoid disturbing consumers with groundbreaking products

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At Geisinger Medical Cen¬ter in rural Pennsylvania, a robot named Abbie rolls out of the hospital pharmacy into the hallway. “Turning around,” the robot intones politely, “calling elevator.” Reaching a medical wing, the robot putters to a stop. A nurse press¬es its finger scanner, taps in a code and Abbie pops out a drawer with drugs for a patient. Mission accomplished, the robot trundles off – “departing now”.

Robotic assistants, driverless cars, connected homes, digital public services, laboratory-grown meat, augment­ed reality and electric-powered vehicles are just a few of the futuristic technologies elbowing their way out of the laboratory into run-of-the-mill reality. But ingenuity alone is not enough for sci-fi-style experiments to take root in the real world. Newness can shock, as the double-takes provoked by Google Glass show. And al­though people say they like new things, often what they want is mere­ly for existing things to work better.

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Innovations must be bought repeatedly if they are to succeed commercially. As Simon Roberts, an anthropologist and director of Stripe Partners, an innovation agency in London, puts it: “Businesses often look on innovations as ‘new things’. But to understand how new things become part of the everyday, it’s more helpful to think of them as skills and habits consumers ac­quire.”

Innovations that fit current circumstances may stand a better chance of bedding in than those that tear up the rule book. As a concept, the 1980s Sinclair C5 electric vehicle was ahead of its time. But the low-slung open-top vehicle’s exposure to the elements and surrounding traffic made it a com­mercial flop. To flout social norms is also hazardous. To counter a backlash against its digitally-enabled headsets, Google Glass has published tips on how not to be a “glasshole”, a derogatory term coined for Glass users who invade others’ privacy or lurk cyborg-like behind their gadgets.

Developing a man-machine etiquet­te could be crucial to winning ac­cept­ance of robots that perform tasks alongside humans. In 2005, John Jones, who oversees pharmacy operations at Geisinger Health System, the health service organisation, liked the idea of using robots known as TUGs and developed by Aethon to act as couriers, because the move would en­able technicians to concentrate on pharmacy work.

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