New approaches to smart-home technology are needed before it truly catches on.

By Dianne M. Pogoda

 

The lifestyle shifts coming about as a result of smart-home technology are game-changers. Adjusting to the changes can require a psychological re-set about ways of thinking about the future and of the change that’s inevitable.

During a Kohler Living virtual session called ““Putting People at the Center of Technology”, Don Abraham, senior partner at Consulting by Kantar, said the conventional ways of anticipating what’s on the horizon for smart-home technology might need some tweaking.

In a discussion with Carrie Seymour, communications director of consumer insight for the Wisconsin-based Kohler Co., Abraham outlined five principles of thinking about the future, focused on where trends come from, how to get better at thinking about change and how to get companies to understand just how different the future can be. These include:

  • 1st Principle: Switch perspectives. Most of us make the mistake of studying our immediate space around us: today’s consumer, today’s competitors and today’s categories. If you want to see something different, you have to look someplace different. If you’re looking at the same people, companies and areas, that’s what you’re going to see.
  • 2nd Principle: Look far enough ahead. Many companies make the mistake of not looking far enough. They go through a one- or two-year planning cycle. When you do that, you stay where you are, and you try to inch forward. You need to get away from the gravitational pull of your existing product portfolio and understand where consumers, technology, the regulatory and political landscapes are headed in a five-to-seven-year window to be able to spot something different.
  • 3rd Principle: Anticipate values. Some organizations believe that technology leads and values follow, and that technology is changing faster today than ever, so we need to get closer to technology trends. We believe understanding values is the first step – value shift, technology serves. We cite the transition from Blackberry phones to iPhones. Blackberry to this day is a still a technologically superior device in terms of operating performance and security. The iPhone jumped ahead because it was a better consumer experience, and the values of the consumer experience, convenience, and ease of use were premium values at that time.
  • 4th Principle: Look for connections. You have to connect disconnected concepts to understand the future. You have to force yourself to see connections that others don’t see. When it comes to thinking about the future, “theming” things together doesn’t work – you have to look for the things that don’t seem to go together.
  • 5th Principle: Predict surprises. There are plenty of elephants in the room that we see or choose not to see. For example, the COVID situation is a predictable surprise. Five or six years ago, we dug into this question — it wasn’t a question of if, but of when, a global pandemic would happen. Did we know it was going to be a two-year disruption with global ramifications? Absolutely not! But by taking a structured view of the future, and taking big swing at some predictable surprises, our clients were able to get their arms around just how drastic a future we could be facing, and as a result, drive innovation off the back of it, prepare for it and ultimately plan for it. We help our clients profit from change.

Abraham noted that many people who tried the first iterations of smart-home technology walked away feeling they didn’t live up to their promise. “There’s a bit of jaded consumerism out there. So the trick is to get the affordability and interoperability in place so we can convince people that their needs can now be met by ‘smart home 2.0.’”

Kohler Co. started its Kohler Living conference in 2021,  bringing together thought leaders from tdesign, architecture, art, culture, marketing and business to discuss a range of subjects and products affecting the way we live and work. The virtual and in-person conferences mainly focus on wellbeing, design and inspiration and smarter homes, with the most recent being held at  the Kohler booth at KBIS in February in Orlando.

NKBA’s first report from this session appears here.