Digital Technology Transformed By Its Users/Audience

If you were reading these words "back in the day", chances are you would have read it on paper -- with a printed newspaper or magazine in your hands. Today, you are probably reading it on a desktop computer, a laptop (or as a printout from either of these), or perhaps even on your Blackberry or iPhone. These transformations are fueled by innovations that meet the needs of their users and/or audiences. Innovation is something new that creates new opportunities for growth and development. Cellular technology is a prime example, despite the few "Cell Refusenicks", there are if I remember correctly, close to three-and-a-half-billion people who have a mobile device and are connected to each other.

Almost all product design is in fact innovation, but the converse is not true. Many successful innovations begin with a user need. Some innovations occur because of some serendipitous event or some scientific discovery. The innovator goes and looks for the user and looks for an application of the technology. Winston asks and answers, "Why for example, are some prototypes abandoned while others are not?...The protoype can be accepted because the early and incomplete operation of a supervening necessity has created a partial need with which the prototype partially fills." Basically digital technology is transformed by its users and audiences when the audience looks at a particular invention and says, "We need this! We want this! Improve on this"!

As a result of digital technology being transformed by it's users it has empowered them, particularly when they function as consumers. They can say exactly what they think of brands in an instant to a wide audience, check prices online before buying in store, check price comparison websites for the best deals, circulate vouchers and news of special offers -- all through social media and other online methods. Brands can no longer dictate the relationship between themselves and consumers. Instead, they must find ways to connect with people in respectful, relevant, timely and non-intrusive ways. Brands that break these rules will find it very difficult to bounce back.