What is the next cool product?

I attended an interesting summit held by Modernmedia last Friday. The key topic was creativity in products.

The first speaker was the CEO from Tim Thom, a French designing company. He emphasized the importance of telling a love story about your product, and turn it into a best seller: unique, exellent and innovative. The design should be more than the technology but the usage, the simpler, the better.

Then came the second speaker, Pete Heskett from BBH Consulting, also brought up the topic on how to innovate. Comparing to Tim Thom, Pete is a brave and structured thinker, who believed that innovation came from the attitude and approach rather than a flash of genius. He also encouraged borderless thinking.

Later moguls from well-known IT giants from Lenovo to Sony Ericsson gathered at a panel discussion. When the host asked what would be the most desirable item on the screen where it showed: A) a Sony Ericsson cell phone B) a Samsang MP3 C) an intellegent computer D) a yoga computer E)Ming (Motorola cell phone). CEO from Tim Thom wrote a question mark on his paper board, indicating it would always be the next product he desired as a cool product.

The speech given by the CEO of Google China was brilliant, and allow me to say that Li Kai fu was a seasoned and charming speaker. He was more than a manager, instead, he became the image of Google China, the voice of Google China. It was even funny when Kaifu mentioned that he dare not be creative since if he told his staff his opnions his employees would start following him but not coming up with their own creative ideas. So all he did was to create a creative environment and shut up.