Once again this year, Fjordians from all corners of the world came together at Mobile world Congress, to share ideas and visions, look into the future, and catch up with new and old friends.
2. MWC15
Once again Fjord was present at MWC,
meeting clients and checking out what is
new in the digital world.
The centre of gravity at the conference has
been moving away from mobile phones for a
few years now, and this year we saw a clear
trend in the wider ecosystem taking centre
stage in the form of wearables, hearables,
connected cars, and the likes. The
connected car space saw Ford launch their
MyFord app – a charging aid to drivers of
electric vehicles.
There was a new degree of maturity and
sophistication on the wearables scene.
Amongst many, Huawei launched
their first ever smartwatch made with a
sapphire display, and LG displayed their
‘superwatch’ LG Watch Urbane.
8. #FJORDBALL
This year we teamed up with our friends
from Accenture in Hall 2. The stand was
bursting with digital experiences, and one
of them was our connected fuss-ball
table. A group of designers in our
Helsinki studio teamed up to turn their
physical studio fuss-ball table into a
digital experience.
We brought the experience to Mobile
World Congress, serving as a real life
example of one of our Trends 2015:
Digital Disruption Goes Physical. By
spending less than €60 on an open
source electronics platform, some off-
the-shelf sensors and creating bespoke
code and visuals, #FjordBall was born. It
is a perfect example of how a physical
object can be made digital with very little
effort, money or expertise required.
9. #4YFN2015
4 Years From Now was a satellite
conference held alongside MWC. Devoted
to start-ups and future ideas, the
conference showcased some of the
brightest upcoming products and
services focused on innovation in the
mobile and digital world. The conference
hosted several keynote talks and
workshops.
Mark Curtis, Fjord’s Founder & Chief
Client Officer, gave a keynote talk on
‘Trends Impacting Design and Innovation
in 2015 to an engaged audience of
around 200 people in the Agora Banc
Sabadell Arena.
11. “MWC continues its journey away from “mobile” towards “digital” and
indeed Living Services. It is still telco dominated and this year there was
more than a hint that telcos are pushing harder to define their role in the
forthcoming eco-system. At 95,000 people attendance levels are very
high (remember it’s not open to the public like CES) - it was only 60,000
just three years ago. The US – maybe because of CES – feels under-
represented. Asia is there in force. Maybe the most significant thing this
year was the emergence of a credible off show fringe focused on start-
ups at 4YFN. I expect a lot more focus on innovation in this forum next
year”
Mark Curtis, founder and chief client officer
12. “The Chinese manufacturers have now graduated their products in
technology performance, and this year they were clearly closing in on
design. With the mobile phones lacking differentiation across
manufacturers, the big competition game has moved into the rest of the
ecosystem with wearables as the next battleground. Huawei and LG have
invested in product design to bridge the gap we saw last year between
fashion and smart watches. With hundreds of different wearables at the
show, we are starting to see segmentation emerge”
Inaki Amate, group director Fjord Nordics and Turkey