Perspective

Collection: Perspective on Mobile phones and developing societies

Time, the Guardian and the Tale of two Indias - poverty and economic changes
Three Indias - the aspiring class, an emerging market
Price point as design criteria for emerging markets
Mobile phones: a post industrial platform
Motorola's brand experience in Singapore
Designing products for the BoP - more than just profits, ref Motorola
Universal user interface
The changing role of the mobile
Broadband nations: a mobile disconnect?
Intangible benefits of mobile phone ownership at the BoP?

Nokia, Nokia, Nokia and Jan Chipchase

Mobile banking in the USA wrt NYT article

Design challenge: futuregaon 2010

The future of India is literally in her villages, 550 million Indians under the age of 25. Over 65%  of whom live the rural hinterlands of the country and they cannot all migrate to the cities drawn by the glittering flickering images on their second hand black and white TV's that run in their village shacks by car batteries and jugaad.

And yet, is it fair that they should be left out of the great social and economic revolution that is taking place in India's urban sprawls?

Given the infrastructural constraints and the lack of time available, with the opposing maximizing pressures of [raise literacy, income,  opportunity, skills] with [wants, needs, consumerism, economic prosperity] because given the environment and the finite geographical resources available, the population constraint is simply immeasurable.

So how do we bring down the transaction cost of every possible service to be delivered to the common man in India, the humble kisan, the aam junta?

By using existing techological infrastructure to minimize costs and maximize reach, both in terms of return on investment and social value created.

How best do we bring the best the 21st century has to offer to the villages of India, with the benefits of learning, knowledge and culture in a manner that best fits their needs and yet serves to minimize the effect on the surrounding ecology?

By framing the problem to be solved with the maximum constraints, allowing us to design for the future with a minimum impact on the environment.

Blowin' in the wind

Dave sends me this link to a New York Times article dated 24th May - Bob Dylan's birthday, a man whose songs seem strangely forgotten today - written by John R. Quain, its titled "Cellphone banking is coming of age".

While tempted to do nothing more than roll about the floor laughing snarkily, my mature side quickly asserts itself and directs me towards a more measured and thoughtful response. Taking a deep breath, I plunge in to read this exciting news, that mobile banking has finally been noticed by that bastion of mainstream media, the New York Times herself. Oh happy happy joy joy.

Hmm a quick skim of the article feels vaguely familiar in its framework - beginning with a couple of scenarios to set the contextual stage, the author plunges into a discussion of the progress of cellphone banking in the United States. I could be wrong but it all feels oh so familiar. Back to the important bits, both Citibank and Bank of America have JUST in the past couple of weeks, launched mobile banking through the cellphone for their customers. While BoA just lets you surf right on in, Citi requires that you download a special banking application software onto your phone. To wit,

But before your cellphone turns into your wallet, free mobile banking has to overcome one significant hurdle: the cost. While banks may not charge for making transactions on a phone, cell carriers do. Wireless carriers continue to charge cell customers by the kilobyte of data used. It’s an inscrutable system for users — how many kilobytes was that Web page? — that can lead to exorbitant charges. For example, checking my balances, making a transfer and confirming a few payments totaled 244 kilobytes, plus one text message, on Citi Mobile. Total charges from AT&T: $2.59. So, if someone used mobile banking as freely as dropping by the local A.T.M., it could get costly.

Er, no... ATM's charge upto $1.99 and your bank charges another couple of bucks if its not their ATM - that's paying around $3.50 to $4.00 for a $20 withdrawal. In Shakespeare's day, it was called usury. However, I digress, wouldn't a simpler text based system as prototyped successfully elsewhere be faster and cheaper to use? The BoA method certainly sounds that way. Quoting Mr Quain again,

To make account information legible on a phone’s diminutive screen, Bank of America decided to use the wireless application protocol, or WAP, approach. Essentially, it’s a poor man’s Web format, eliminating superfluous graphics in favor of text that can be more easily transmitted and displayed.

Bank of America’s approach means that practically any cellphone with Web access — nearly 85 percent of all mobile handsets, according to the company — can use the service. It does not matter what carrier customers use. Furthermore, users do not have to go through the awkward step of downloading a special software program to their phones to use online banking.

Seems Bank of America might be onto something there, but how soon before it, too, is forced into unilateral agreements with service providers and telco's? This is not coming of age by any means. Mr Quain perhaps must needs visit the Wizzit office or mPesa's to see how these same services are being offered to the unbanked and the underserved.

The methods described above sound like a luxury - the need for extra data service signups, feature rich phones that allow you multimedia access and what not. While they will certainly offer one MORE means for your average wealthy highly productive highly developed industrialized nation's denizen to check his account balance and overdraft facilities, they certainly won't address the challenge that mobile banking has the potential to overcome - banking the unbanked, thus releasing the flow of wealth and assisting with the social and economic development. And this is something that no society can afford to overlook.

Emerging markets: A context sensitive path to development?

From the management consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton's Spring 2007 Issue of Strategy + Business, an article called The Flatbread Factor by Alonzo Martinez and Ronald Haddock caught my eye. The following snippet of a paragraph, describing the lifecycle of development of an emerging market, as posited by Martinez and Haddock, is the basis for the graph I've crudely tried to recreate above.

As a country evolves from developing nation to industrialized nation, the population’s basic needs pass through four distinct stages. In developing countries, most of the population is preoccupied with basic survival — obtaining adequate food, shelter, and clothing. (Much of sub-Saharan Africa is in this stage right now.) As a middle class emerges, people seek greater quality in their food, housing, and clothing. (This is currently happening, for example, in much of China and India.) Once a transitioning market’s population can afford relatively high quality, they begin to seek convenience; they buy time-saving appliances and processed foods, and they may move closer to work. (This stage is emerging today in Eastern Europe and Latin America.) Finally, as the market graduates into the realm of developed nations, the population wants customization; with needs for survival, quality, and convenience now met, people will spend a premium (as many do in North America, Japan, and western Europe) to satisfy individual tastes and desires.

Contentious little soul that I am, there was something about this path to progress, this roadmap to development, which while historically accurate vis a vis lifecycles of nations already developed, that does not quite feel right to me, in today's global context of socioeconomic shifts and thinking. It raises numerous questions in my mind regarding not only the viability and feasibility of such a roadmap, but also whether this is even appropriate or contextually relevant to the nations deemed developing?

Realizing that my questioning this entire concept could go on and on, making for a long rambling post, I'll break up my argument into smaller bite size pieces. However, before I close this introduction to the questions raised by this paragraph and the accompanying chart I've tried to use to communicate my concerns, I will leave you with one thought.

In today's world of impending climate change and global warming, scarcer resources and fossil fuels, environmental concerns and endangered species, is "Industrialized" necessarily the right goal to aim for?

Wasn't it the Industrial Revolution, unchecked mass production and subsequent rise of consumer consumption, one of the key causes of the problems the earth faces today?

Do we really want to aim for more and more happy little consumer societies all wanting convenience, throw away and disposable customization? Isn't that the root of the fear of the current economic boom in Asia? That as the 2.5 billion Indians and Chinese all want their choice, their convenience and their customization, what would be the subsequent impact on the Earth?

Eh?

Design for the future: Maximize constraints, minimize resources

If necessity is the mother of invention, is prosperity the father of consumption?

Industrial design as a profession emerged from the roots of the Industrial Revolution, and flowered into full force during the post war boom of production in the 50's and 60's - thus it has always had its foundations in highly industrialized nations, where the infrastructure of modern life such as electricity, water, housing etc was fully established.

But the makeshift solutions in the liminal space where poverty meets high technology that seem raw and crude to our eyes - accustomed to gleaming automobiles, iPods and shiny shops full of consumer goods - have their own criteria for existence. They could be said to be 'design for survival' - one comes up with solutions for problems with the materials at hand when there are no resources available to get the best that may be available in markets elsewhere.

Taken in this context, I would like the posit the following criteria for the design of products and services for not only the bottom of the pyramid, rural or developing markets in the near term but also across socioeconomic strata in the longer term.  One could call it Jugaad design ;p -

1. Durable and sustainable
2. Reusable and recyclable
3. Affordable and appropriate
4. Low profit margins, higher volumes

I'll try to find examples here in India and hold them up against my theories but in the meantime, I do wonder if these just might make a worthwhile lens through which to look at an emerging form of design.

This conversation will certainly continue...

A user observes the RaZr

Yahoo weather tells me that the temperature outside is 43 Celsius but only 'feels like' 41 and that the forecast is "widespread dust". Oh hooray. In the meantime, I'm all kitted out with a Motoshit ooops I mean MotoRazr and I'm speaking purely as a user - the UI is counterintuitive and makes the use of the SMS functions, very common and very prevalent over here in India, very very difficult to use.

Last trip I'd used an old nokia and didn't have much trouble in figuring out what to do, plus this time, just in case I brought along a basic Sony Ericsson because I was concerned, after all the news bits about the Razr's UI that I might face this trouble and thus be stuck with a device I couldn't use. I'm very tempted to give up right now and shift to the basic phone just so I can use the text functions and communicate with my friends and colleagues in the manner they're most accustomed to. Everyone texts here for everything!

This isn't a design analysis so much as one user's frustration!

Liminal spaces

Thinking over the questions I was asking myself at the end of the previous post, why exactly was I going to live in such a dramatically different environment out of personal choice, I find myself coming back to something I've either said or written about earlier.

My observations over the past year or more on innovation, jugaad, the bottom of the pyramid, creativity and the 'make it happen' mentality - whether by surfing online, following blogs such as Jan Chipchase's or news articles - all point to a sense that the liminal space where high technology overlaps with poverty and scarcity of resources is one of the most creative and innovative when it comes to solutions to everyday life's problems.

Be it the guy charging mobile phone batteries on the street corner in Uganda with a rubber band and a couple of wires attached to a car battery or the farmer in remote India welding a backpack style pesticide sprayer onto a motorcycle - this often overlooked ingenuity has traditionally paled in comparison to the oohs and aahs of the latest products and advances unveiled in tech conferences ranging from Las Vegas to San Jose.

So I'm finally stepping away from the comfort zone of my desktop and airconditioning to go find out what I can and see what I can see.

This journey of discovery will be fun and enlightening - plus my added bonus for analytical pleasure, how do these inventions, innovations or adaptions fit into my posited thesis of the user centered process and design thinking, integrating marketing communication and business development with product design and development? Particularly at the so called bottom of the pyramid.

Who knows, I might even discover that its not the bottom of any pyramid at all. After all, its all a matter of perspective.

Project Tiger - Immersion leads to understanding

I'm on my way to Ranthambhore in Rajasthan, India's northwestern desert state, better known for its rampaging Rajput warriors, colourful nomads, crumbling killas and camels. Sitting here in Singapore - well, mom said stop over, do, its on your way, from San Francisco to New Delhi - contemplating the beginnings of our work in this district. We call it Project Tiger, for Aditya Singh's Ranthambhore Bagh - he's our host - is but the beginning of the Ranthambhore Nature Reserve, one of the best known tiger sanctuaries in India. Here we hope to immerse ourselves in rural India, seeking to understand the enviroment and the constraints, that would shape our understanding of the needs of the local residents. Its summer there now and temperatures can reach over 40 celsius.

Pondering Nokia's tomorrow, part three

Going back to the visions inspired by Michael Mace's post in the first place, I'd like to share the snippet that caught my eye,

The message really hit home last month, when I heard it from Nokia CTO Tero Ojanpera and Bob Iannucci, head of Nokia Research Center, at a Nokia strategy briefing in Silicon Valley. Iannucci pointed out that Nokia started as a paper mill and has a history of completely changing its industry from time to time -- from rubber boots to monitors to mobile phones. He said it is once again "a company in transition to the next phase." That next phase is mobile computing.

Not smartphones, not converged devices, but full-on mobile computers intended to replace both PCs and mobile phones. Nokia says it expects these devices to eventually sell in the billions of units, and to become the world's dominant means of accessing the Internet.

Even though these future devices will still be mobile, if you take all of Nokia's statements at face value the changes from mobile phones will be so extensive that it's fair to call it a new business.
[...]
Now Nokia's talking about how it will put the PC industry out to pasture, and oh by the way take over the Internet as well.

Yes! Yes! Yes! Let's get on with the good stuff already! Way to go Nokia! This is what I see going forward as I ponder, google and write about the mobile phone - the mobile as a post industrial platform for innovation, the role of the mobile phone as a powerful tool for social and economic development particularly for the bottom of the pyramid segments of emerging markets and developing nations.

This new "Internet" - it needs a new name - this web that will bridge the digital divide, connecting the have-nots, giving them a platform on which they too can conduct commerce, collaborate and communicate, connect to the digital world, providing them with the opportunities to contemplate health, wealth and the freedom to choose.

This is the future - the numbers speak for themselves, ONE billion phones were sold in 2006. And unlike a hamburger, the mobile phone has demonstrated its ability - as it is right now - to add value, to generate income, to release the flow of wealth and make a difference to the lives of those who have nothing. Imagine what it could do if there were relevant applications, if there were services, if we could just reach out and ping someone?

I'm excitedly rambling here, probably not making any coherent sense anymore :) but regular readers can understand the implications of Nokia's future plans - they see what I saw. And for that, I thank them. If anyone can do it, it would be that company sitting high up north in a small country closer to the arctic circle than the majority of those whose lives they touch daily. From a paper mill and rubber boots to the world's largest mobile handset marketshare? Doubters should recall that Wipro Technologies, one of India's largest technology companies turned global leader, began humbly making soap and edible oil. I'll try for a more rational articulation of this WAPWeb, InfoNet, WebMob or whatever we end up calling it in the next post, but bear with my inarticulate ravings here, would you? ;p

Nokia contemplates the future, part two

image courtesy www.janchipchase.com

Just a quick post on something I uncovered as I was digging around for the previous post, that again, Nokia's launched a service that seems to directly correlate to Jan Chipchase's earlier work on Village phones, particularly where there is no existing infrastructure. Here's the snippet from their press release,

Nokia Siemens Networks has now introduced its new Village Connection, a solution aimed at providing affordable rural connectivity and coverage in new growth markets. Village Connection is based on an easy concept: build rural connectivity village by village, exploiting a franchise-based business model between operator and local village entrepreneur.

The recently-announced Nokia Siemens Networks Village Connection solution supports GSM-based voice and SMS services, including roaming and connection to the outside world. A range of value-added services can be added, such as cost-effective Internet services in villages via the Internet protocol link.

Village Connection is promoted as benefiting many people, in the opinion of Ari Lehtoranta, Head of Radio Access Networks, Nokia Siemens Networks: “Our solution brings connectivity, access to mobile services and economic activity to the villages. It enables operators to extend their network coverage cost-effectively in rural areas where rolling out and operating a traditional GSM network would be too cost-intensive.”