The Pain
We live in a time where technology has become ingrained and ubiquitous in our everyday
lives, so-much-so that we are more connected than ever before. Globalization and the internet revolution, followed by the revolution within mobile technology, has made sure that we are always just a click or a tap away. This technology utopia has great advantages, but also a real downside. As people are bombarded with daily updates, notifications and messaging, they become increasingly overwhelmed. Due to this excessive amount of exposure to constant information, the vital notifications that actually matter get drowned out. Adding to this, the information we receive is often received outside of the context (time and place) where it’s relevant.
The Solution
We believe there’s a simple solution to reduce the amount of notifications and communicational spam any person might receive during the day: a device that allows sending messages to locations instead of other people. Such a device is called the TelePöst and we believe it has the potential to revolutionize how families, roommates and businesses communicate. TelePöst is a situated message board that will show messages sent from any mobile device (smart phones, regular phones, computers, or tablets). This will allow people to send messages to locations and whom-it-may-concern (O’Hara et al. 2005) instead of sending to multiple people, hoping that one of them might be at the location where it’s relevant. It will allow family members to remind themselves or someone else to feed the pet when they get home, it will allow workers who may overstay their time at lunch to send a message to their office door that they will be back in 30 mins. We believe that this simple device will cut through the clutter and simplify our everyday life for the better.
Proof of Concept
Findings from researchers in institutions such as Microsoft Research, Lancaster University, University of Calgary, Virginia Tech, Hewlett-Packard and IDEO have shown that situated messaging devices creates obvious value for users. Many users didn’t even know they needed such a device before they tried it out. However, the timing of the device was wrong as most of the conducted research were from a time where the frustration caused by information overload weren’t as prevalent as it is today. We believe that the right timing is now. Furthermore, many of the tested devices were bloated with unnecessary features that masked the true benefit of such a device; to simplify how we communicate through simple and intuitive interaction. We want to give customers such a device and we want to be the first ones to do so. Therefore, a short time to market is essential in our endeavour.
