Quotes + Thoughts | The transformative power of travel… [2]

“Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends…

the mind can never break off from the journey.”  

~ Pat Conroy, Novelist

Inspiration: Wayfare Magazine; Anthropologie; Unique Travel Destinations

Quotes + Thoughts | The transformative power of travel… [1]

“Travel is not defined by the miles you cover.“  

~ Wayfare Magazine, Launch Edition

Inspiration: Unique Travel Destinations

Quotes + Thoughts | Lincoln on molding your own destiny

 

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”  

~ Abraham Lincoln [1809 - 1865],
16th President of the United States

Inspiration: Ihsan “Eik” Ekaputra’s blog: Aikambigram; David Vázquez’ pinterest

Friedman: How India Innovates, when IT and ET join forces with ID

Thomas L. Friedman. Photo: Josh Haner, The New York Times

One of my favorite thought leaders and authors, Tom Friedman, continues to observe the world of global business and write about his insights. The latest is this New York Times article of February 12, “When E.T. and I.T. Meet ID“. It’s a fascinating look at innovation in India, that is driven by IT, which in turn is fueling a slew of home-grown start ups. The Engineering power and IT brains are of course there, having helped run the world’s services – via outsourcing – the past decade or so. Now it’s time the army of smarts strike on their own and bring innovation and techology to great use domestically.

Every time I visit India, I visit Nasscom, the high-tech association, to meet with the newest crop of Indian innovators. They account for only a tiny fraction of India’s 1.2 billion people, most of whom remain painfully poor, but I focus on these Indian innovators because so many of them today are focused on making India unpoor. India is now spawning large numbers of innovators concentrating on solving poor-world problems, and cloud-based technology tools and open-source platforms are enabling Indian innovators to do this with little capital. As a result, they are much more willing to try, fail and try again (the secret sauce of Silicon Valley). And, as a result, we’re starting to see a merger here between E.T., I.T. and ID. It doesn’t get any better than that.

There is nothing that India needs more than an energy technology (E.T.) revolution that would deliver cheap, reliable power to millions suffering from energy poverty. If every village had some reliable power, plus access to high-speed Internet (I.T.), hundreds of millions of Indians would be able to live locally but act globally — that is, they would be able to remain in their villages, yet have access to the education and markets that could enable them to escape poverty and not have to join the hordes in the megaslums of the megacities like Mumbai or Kolkata.

The most exciting E.T. innovation I saw here was Gram Power. Some 400 million people in India do not have access to grid-based power and, therefore, rely on kerosene, which releases tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and claims about 1.5 million Indian lives a year. Gram Power has developed an answer, says its co-founder Yashraj Khaitan: “Our Smart Microgrid system comprises renewable-based generation infrastructure installed locally in the village [usually solar panels on a cellphone tower], and a proprietary smart electricity distribution system that tackles the three main challenges of reliable energy access in India: theft and pilferage that forms the root cause for 58 % of energy losses on the utility grid, high capital costs to extend the utility grid to remote low population areas, and intermittent and unpredictable power supply.”

Brand Building | How to compete in a free info-fueled world

I love this brief video from Forbes which essentially talks about the importance of companies’ understanding their USP, how to compete with a world full of free information. Also how to deal with understanding the meanings that customers attach to your products and services.

All this is in fact the Art + Science of BRANDING that I’ve been advocating all these years, where it comes down to just a few fundamental activities:

• The understanding of customer’s meanings to a brand.
• The management and optimization of these brand meanings that any brand-builder must understand and incorporate into both their brand and business strategy.
• The crucial importance for any brand-builder to understand your true identity (what you stand for; why are you here; who you appeal to, etc.)  and incorporate that into a clear and distinctive brand positioning that separates you from your competition.
• The role of culture in impacting the customers’ meanings.

The video also talks about the importance of positioning.

Hotel Branding | Fancy crashing in a shipping container pop-up hotel? [1]

The term “Sleeping Around” may conjure up rather negative images to denote someone who’s hops beds, and not necessarily of the business-travel or leisure-travel kind! But this is exactly the description that this unique pop-up hotel concept from Antwerp, Belgium wanted. Sleeping Around is a mobile hotel made from shipping containers that can be moved around to temporary locations that require them. Think concerts, sporting events, and other large events that require practical accommodation nearby. And furthermore this pop-up hotel can also be moved to other locations where there are no hotels, where travelers can enjoy natural beauty in remote areas. There’s one condition though – so long as you can move the containers to the site.

What I particulary like about it is that they are designed with travelers’ comfort in mind, and not merely as a barebones place that caters to backpackers or modeled after the capsule hotels that were made popular by sake-thirsty Tokyo “sarariman” (literally translates to “salary man”, which is what they call corporate executives in Japan). So expect to find higher thread count in their linens and ensuite bathrooms so you don’t have to venture into a communal one like in most hostels.

Sleeping Around comprises 6 containers that can be moved from one location to another, and is configured into 4 containers for bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms, 1 container for Breakfast & Lounge Area, and 1 container for the sauna. Sleeping Around hails from the port city of Antwerp in Belgium.

The hotel rooms provide a superior and comfortable night’s stay and include: floating box-spring bed with high quality linen, XXL Hansgrohe Raindance Shower, Rituals amenities, Dyson air conditioning system, …

Sleeping Around is a unique pop-up hotel. The term “pop-up” goes beyond merely “making an appearance”. Here, it denotes exclusivity, flexibility and innovation: a unique experience with a strong element of surprise. Already successfully employed in retail, the concept has never been extensively applied to hotels. Until now, that is.

Our pop-up hotel offers a ready-made answer: a compact yet luxurious hotel room, equipped with all the mod cons: a box-spring bed, rain shower, iPod docking station and air conditioning – all contained in a 20ft recycled sea container.

Hotel Branding | Fancy crashing in a shipping container pop-up hotel? [2]

A novel concept of mini mobile pop-up hotel that doesn’t skimp on design and comfort sensitivities, and gives guests the peace of mind that they have participated in an eco-friendly leisure activity. Photo: Frederik Herregods

Dockside, Antwerp Port, Belgium. Photo: Frederik Herregods

I found the Sleeping Around Pop-Up mobile hotel (please see my previous post) so fascinating and decided to dig a bit further, and found a relevant article in Design Boom on the background of its inception. I’ve seen a few similar concepts, based on using (or re-using) shipping containers as hotels, and other types of building functions, so it’s nice to see the Sleeping Around concept that marries green philosophy and low environmental impact.

A team of Belgian entrepreneurs: Geoffrey Stampaert, Didier Opdebeeck, and Ellen Wezenbeek decided to elevate the status of shipping containers from a 1950′s stock steel crate, to a viable structural framework for architectural programs. mr.stampaert, also a restaurateur in addition to an experienced hotelier, is expanding the ideas of luxury, design, adventure, and comfort with ‘sleeping around’, a pop-up hotel the travels the globe according to user-input demand. ‘pop-up’ as a concept has long been applied to a range of events, exhibits and the like and denotes the temporary presence of a relevant, usually cultural, showcase. the fleeting nature of ‘pop-up’ phenomena often calls to mind exclusive, often surprising, specialized concept structures.

Sleeping Around uses these qualities to offer a range of traveling experiences that employ an effective supply-and-demand model; the shipping containers can take refuge in the countryside or thrive in a stimulating city center. the crux of the business model is that visitors can request a site with something that static architecture may not be able to offer– namely, unique views or fantastic hidden locales. the hotel, for example, has spent some weeks on the banks of the scheldt in antwerp with a view of st anna’s beach, and is now on the move. in the five months it has been open, ‘sleeping around’ hotel has traveled to three locations and successfully accommodated over one hundred visitors. travelers can check back periodically to see if the hotel has moved to an area of interest and enter the location into a GPS device to find it. Sleeping Around hotel can be set up and fully functional within 5 hours of arriving at a location.

The raw material. Before the transformation. Photo: Frederik Herregods

The transformation takes place. From a functional shipping containers void of soul into… Photo: Frederik Herregods

It takes a good amount of work to convert the ugly box into a mobile hotel room. Photo: Frederik Herregods

Hoisting the “ready product” into place. Location: Dockside, Antwerp Port, Belgium. Photo: Frederik Herregods

And voila! Hotel is open and ready to welcome its nomadic guests. Photo: Frederik Herregods