Market Segmentation in the Informal Economy
This table is from “How to profit from Africa’s different consumer groups” and the research is from NKC Independent Economists group. There is something lacking in understanding the patterns of purchasing power when segmentation methodology from the formal economy are applied ad hoc to markets which are primarily informal. As mentioned at the end of […]
Sampling uncertainty
This drawing was made by Jeroen Meijer of JAM visual design, Amsterdam, earlier this week during the workshop we held on Monday, November 26th, 2012. Its a visualization of the chart I use to show how participants were sampled for the prepaid economy project. The axes represent the individual’s ability to accurately predict either timing […]
Your margin is my opportunity: entrepreneurship in the informal economy
Each of the persons in the photograph is an entrepreneur whose mission is to increase the amount and sources of income streams for her needs. But this spirit of the informal economy’s engine has been best captured in these words by Bart Doorneweert, my colleague in the ongoing project here in Holland. Your margins are […]
“Leadership is like being in love” ~ Richard Farson
Many years ago my friend, the late designer George Nelson, told me a story I will never forget. Early in his career George worked for a time with Frank Lloyd Wright. One day when George and the great prairie architect were taking a walk and talking, Wright was struggling to find a metaphor that would […]
Takeaways from experiencing the human centered design process
Design adds greater value in the long term by being applied to the HOW of business (practices and process), whereas being applied to the WHAT of business (products) ends up having limited value as those products become commoditized. ~ paraphrasing Clement Mok, March 1st 2005 For an audience who will neither practise the design profession […]
Brave New World: Revisiting Theodore Levitt’s globalization of markets
Convergence of global markets and equalizing of purchasing power will finally offer the “global consumer” Theodore Levitt was seeking. ~ @nitibhan I found myself summing up a search with these words at the end of a series of articles I found while digging around online. Now I want to explore this potentially emerging future a […]
May Lakshmi shower her blessings upon you all!
This post was written by niti bhan and rss originates from www.nitibhan.com
From Motorola to Samsung: Eras of global mobile leadership
A recent conversation on Twitter with Neelakantan on the topic of Apple and emerging markets led us down the rabbit hole of reminiscing on mobile phones and their history of leadership in the recent past. We’ve read, written and commented on mobile phones since 2006 or so, and today’s foray into the archives inspired me […]
Mapping the path to prototyping an adaptable user centered design process
We’ve all seen the classic User Centered Design (UCD) process diagrams, mostly linear, that attempt to communicate the steps yet unable to capture the iterative nature of the activity simply due to the limitations on how many circular arrows one can add without losing clarity. When I first began exploring the process deeply for application […]
Developing a user centered methodology for emerging markets and the bottom of the pyramid
When I first began strategic design planning and concept development specifically focusing on low income customers back in late 2007, it was a learning experience in more ways than expected. The key challenge, which I’d identified back then and tend to refer to as the “values gap” between mainstream consumer culture and what used to […]
