http://www.pompeiad.com Pompei A.D. LLC, C3: Commerce, Culture, and Community – creative services firm specializing in architecture, design, and experiential branding for retail, museums, spas, hotels, real estate development, and events. http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/4_109 World Retail Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Pompei A.D. participated in Future Stores, where we Ron presented an overview of the evolving cultural landscape and its implications in the world of retail. In this video that accompanied the live presentation, trend expert Kate Ancketill of GDR Creative Intelligence joins Ron to discuss 3 cultural shifts that are having significant impact on the relationships between brands and their customers. ]]> Pompei A.D. Ron Pompei,Retail,Conference,Speaking Event,Europe 2007-05-02 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/4_109 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/3_185 Sir Ken Robinson is a voice of our emerging culture. His talks are mesmerizing since he can, with great skill, entertain, inform, inspire, and emotionally challenge us with questions that lead us back to ourselves once again where our real potential lies waiting to be re-discovered.
- Ron Pompei

This video is from the TED Conference, February 2006. Visit the TED website to see many more videos from some of the most inspiring thinkers in the world. ]]> Pompei A.D. Education 2007-03-28 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/3_185 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/3_153 Marco Bevolo impressed with me the substance of his inquiry into culture and its evolution beyond talks of trend and 'market analysis'. And he inspired me with his knowledge of the Italian Futurists, who established at the beginning of the 20th Century so many of the roots of artistic expression that we rely on today and tomorrow.
- Ron Pompei

An essay by Marco Bevolo

Introduction

More than one world-class trend research scholar defined the Zero’s as the age of a “new modernity”, using the “modernist paradigm” as a reference for the current cultural climate. It is difficult to disagree: it appears clear that the social need of an overarching, systematic design behind societies marks the paradigmatic difference between this first decade of the new millennium and the postmodernist years between 1977 -year of first surfacing of Transavanguardia in Italy- and the year of 9/11. In the short span of these last few of years, a number of societal indicators of various nature and scale pointed out how the modernist idea of structure, of progress, ultimately of avant-garde is back “en vogue”. This short essay will attempt to identify connections and threads between some examples of contemporary phenomena in the cultural and branding worlds, and the techniques and poetics of Italian Futurism, the modern art movement aiming to achieve universal change and reconstruction at the beginning of the XX Century.

Labeled as “The Other Modernism” (1996) by Cinzia Sartini Blum, who analyzed the rhetorical mechanisms used by Marinetti, founder and director of Futurism, the movement roared into the 1910’s with a uniquely innovative mix of aesthetic visions and communication techniques. While other aspects of the movement, from the articulation of their ideological theories to the outcome of their culinary experiments, appear weak and irrelevant to our contemporary understanding and taste, the overall design and deployment of the movement remains what brand marketers would define as a “best practice” and a “benchmark”. Furthermore, Marinetti’s aesthetic intuitions, even some among the ones by the late Marinetti, appear blessed by the ability to identify future qualities of great relevance, especially when retrospectively studied along the general lines of post-WWII art history.

To continue reading, click on the link to the left to download the complete essay in PDF format. ]]> Ron Pompei Art,Art History 2007-03-27 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/3_153 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/3_186 Kristine Oustrup doesn't seem to take anything at face value. Her theory of Mood Consumption takes us back to the 5th Century BC to our present stream of multiple life choices today. Her quest for our inner core determining individual preferences is both 'artistic' and 'scientific' in equal measure.
- Ron Pompei

EED: Elemental Experience Design

The human mind once stretched by a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

by Kristine Oustrup

Elemental Experience Design (EED) is a new technique to create great customer and brand experiences. In short, EED combines the Western focus on emotions and personality with the Asian art of architecture and elemental design. Welcome a whole new world of applications!

Why did I invent Elemental Experience Design and is there a need for it?

It’s really quite simple. In today’s marketing and design processes, we constantly talk about creating the great user or customer experience. The winning brand is the one that provides the best experience, whether it’s through the products, in the stores, on the web or by using clever user oriented advertising. Good experience is really important, don’t you agree?

The problem here is that what I consider a good experience may be a bad experience for you. Exactly the same experience might be rated completely differently by different people. So we cannot talk about good experience without considering for whom? But, how do we define “the who?”. By age, gender, income, location, lifestyle? Tough! A 35 year old Parisian female nurse might have more in common with a 59 year old billionaire New Yorker in terms of personality and taste than her colleague working right next to her.

Rather than categorizing people according to the usual demographics and lifestyle, progressive thinkers talk about creating an emotional connection and how feelings and senses become much more important factors. Great, but how do we measure this emotional and sensual experience? How do we create marketing and design processes based on these important factors? It’s all a bit fluffy and we need harder evidence; we need more structure so that we can plan and measure the results. After all, most of our stakeholders want measurable facts to back up our ideas with hard earned design and marketing budgets.

This is the puzzle that I decided to solve. The result is EED Emotional Experience Design - a tool to help you design, plan and measure experiences. The great thing about EED is that you can use it on people, stores, products, ads, services and experiences. They can all be placed in one of the five elements: Earth, Fire, Metal-Air, Water or Wood. It can be used as a general inspirational landscape for new development as well as pinpointing and testing specific ideas.

To continue reading, click on the link to the left to download the complete essay in PDF format. ]]> Pompei A.D. Retail 2007-03-27 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/3_186 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/3_92 combined expertise of these distinguished speakers, global trend gurus, authors and experts on storytelling, education, and cultural studies, contributes to the creative, interdisciplinary way Pompei A.D. approaches every new design project. In keeping with our C3 philosophy, this diverse group has become a connected community, exchanging ideas and information with each other, and new clients. This section contains current news about what this inspiring group has been doing lately, as well as original contributions authored by them.

Here's a quick list of links to get you started:

New Voice of Business

The Arlington Institute

Sir Ken Robinson

GDR Creative Intelligence

First Voice, Robert Dickman

Hub Culture

Arzu Rugs

Architecture for Humanity

Cinnabar, Jonathan Katz

Kristine Oustrup ]]> Pompei A.D. 2007-02-13 http://www.pompeiad.com/articles/3_92