At the studio, we have the opportunity to work with businesses and startups from all around the world: from Australia, UK, India to Iceland and Canada. They do speak different languages, have their own culture and their own way to see things.
When we start working with a new client and they fill up our brief, one sentence/request that they all frequently share is: we want something different.
But what does different stand for?
In order to develop a relevant idea, this statement has been the big one question we ask to our customers in an effort to create healthy projects, what does being different means to you?.
We believe that everything's already done but it can always be better, for us being different is taking advantage of what is already there and make some clever modifications and hacks.
The core of our creative methodology is to question our client's processes and beliefs to see the opportunity areas that can be generated in order to design something of true value for their final customers, at the end of the day, being different its just a consequense of the journey of innovation where the principal goal is to turn an idea into a smart solution.
To put this into context, lets turn to the $60 billion USD startup Uber. For some people, uber is an amazing and revolutionary idea, and sure it is, but before Uber, there was already a bunch of cab applications that offered a similar service.
So, why didn't others impact us the same way as Uber did?
What Uber did was just to adopt the on-demand cab service and simplify its main rules, one of the rules they broke is about the drivers: instead of using only taxi drivers, anyone with a car can offer the service and make an income of it. This means that human resources are no longer a limitation.
The second rule is about the users and their feelings, when you use this service you can see who is the person on the steering wheel and rate and comment the driver and his service, you can see how much the trip will cost you and of course track the trip trough maps (a Google inc. technology) and share it with your fellows. For the users, the sense of safety and control is everything.
Uber disrupted the market by adding more value to an existing (and decadent) service by hacking the old rules for the good. if you want to read more about Uber's successful story i recommend you this article.
In business, being different is all about of how your brand approaches to problems and bring solutions the most empathic and simple way possible, generating value to its customers that will take them to reward you with its trust and loyalty.
I would like to close this post making you think with a modified version of the main question: Does your business need to be radically different or just setup its own rules?
Here in the studio, we love to help businesses to understand the concept of being different trough deep thinking, design and technology, our research and creative processes set up the right questions to identify opportunity areas that can add value to our clients services and products.
Happy Business y'all!