I know keep following Philips delvelopment since they have the same motto "Simplicity" as with John Medea:
Prof. Dr. Emile Aarts , Vice President and Scientific Program Director at Philips Research, will deliver a keynote presentation during the PICNIC conference on September 26th in the afternoon. In preparation for his talk, ‘New Ways to Feel, Make and Play’, he spoke to Deborah Carter about the creative process that makes Philips a world leader in designing and producing popular, everyday products and services.
What are some of the most interesting technologies that Philips is currently working on?
Emile: I’d have to say one of the most interesting technologies we’re working on is what we call PHOTONIC TEXTILES. We’ve developed a technology based on textiles emitting light which has the potential for all types of innovative uses: backpacks, furniture, walls, ceilings. We developed a proof of concept for it a few years ago and now Philips has launched a start-up company called Lumalive which will develop these products and bring them to the market.
The topic of your presentation is "New Ways to feel, make and play". How do Philips' scientists and designers create these new ways, through experimentation, refining existing technology, taskforces/work groups, etc.?
Emile: Yes, yes and yes. [Laughing.] We do all of these things. We discovered that we have been pushing technology too much over the past 90 years so we’ve now adopted a user-centered design approach which we categorize as EXPERIENCE RESEARCH. This involves concept, laboratory and field research. We try to understand what people do in every-day life through their habits and usage patterns. Believe it or not, technology is not part of the question when we conduct our research and focus groups. Our starting point is ‘What basic needs do our customers have?’ and ‘How can we help them solve this need?’
In order for us to bring a new product to the market, we first start with a concept and prototype, using our ExperienceLab for usability and feasibility studies. ExperienceLab consists of four labs: HomeLab, CareLab (for solutions for the elderly), ShopLab (for retail solutions) and a hospitality lab (for hospitality-related services and products). In all of these labs, Philips researchers develop concepts and prototype solutions. Focus groups are then immediately invited in to help us improve and refine these solutions through testing and feedback. That way, when we launch a product commercially, it comes to the market mature.
Let me give you a concrete example. A few years ago, Philips launched Ambilight TV in which light is emitted from the back of the TV which correlates to the on-screen image. The TV light affects the color of the wall behind it and this can be used to create a mood in the room. Our researchers posed the question ‘What is the best lighting grid which matches what’s onscreen?’ We brought ordinary people into our HomeLab to help us determine the lighting grid.
The Ambilight TV was brought to the market within one and a half years and is one of the ‘killer applications’ which Philips has released via its consumer electronics division. We have already sold more than one million copies of this TV and hope to sell a total of two million within a year, generating approximately $1 billion in turnover. We launched Ambilight TV in a very competitive market saturated by TVs and displays manufactured by Asian companies. And at theInternational Funkausstellung (IFA) in Berlin, Germany, which is one of the world’s largest consumer electronics shows, we recently introduced Aurea, the next generation of Philips Ambilight TVs, which creates an even stronger immersive, ambient viewing experience.
I’ll give you another example. We are working in close collaboration with a Spanish hotel chain, NH Hotels, which is one of the most rapidly-expanding hotel chains in the world. NH Hotels is already considered a design innovator, introducing proprietary concepts such as NUBE, a tapas-based dining experience, in their restaurants and hotel rooms. Philips is working with NH Hotels on concepts to create a unique wake up experience for guests which will distinguish NH Hotels from its competitors. A possible concept could be to create a pillow which detects the stage of sleep that a guest is in and postpones a wake-up call until the guest is optimally-ready to be awakened. We intend to test these concepts in test rooms in Amsterdam and Barcelona.
How is the creative process managed at Philips? Who leads this process? What kind of people are included on development teams?
Emile: As part of our Philips Lifestyle Program, we go through a time-consuming process at a frantic pace, say 12 hours per day for two weeks. We bring in different people, scientists, researchers, managers, etc. and ask them to throw out random ideas. We then group similar ideas into clusters. We then filter out non-relevant ideas by asking ourselves questions such as ‘Does this idea mesh with the brand strategy of Philips? Does Philips have the possibility to bring this concept to market? How much market size can we capture with this product? How much profit can we generate?’ Most importantly, we ask ourselves ‘Can we control technological development and protect the concept or product from being appropriated, refined and sold by competitors?’ Our last session generated 700 ideas, resulting in 50 clusters. The ideas which make it through this filter are then chosen for further conceptualization.
We allow many of our researchers to devote 10% of their time to work on their own ideas. We call this ‘Friday afternoon research’ because in the Netherlands, people start preparing for their weekends on Friday afternoon and we find people to be particularly creative and free-thinking during this time. This time isn’t managed in a formal way. All we ask is that our researchers show us what they’ve been working on once a year, at Philips’ Eureka Fair, which is organized by our researchers for colleagues and managers. We often see that a good idea for a service or product concept comes out of this Eureka Fair, which can lead to a new commercial success for Philips.
What about the tricky issue of intellectual property, especially when Philips is facing increased global competition?
Emile: Our strategy is to create what we call IPR FORTRESSES (Intellectual Property Rights Fortresses). For example, take Philips’ commercial focus on solid-state lighting. With solid-state lighting, we can now extract light from a computer chip. We can change the color and intensity and we can generate many sources of light from one chip. Light can be controlled as if it is a series of pixels. We are witnessing the convergence of displays and lamps. This means that we can manipulate light to generate pictures and images, to follow a person, to create visual effects such as sunsets, forests, the sky.
Solid-state lighting will become one of our IPR Fortresses. We have acquired a company called Lumileds because it has interesting patents which can be added to our portfolio to help us deliver unique and innovative lighting products.
What is your favorite saying/motto?
Emile: Inside Philips Research, anything is possible but you have to do it yourself. I also constantly say to our designers, ‘Live in your own future.’ Meaning that our designers should extend their labs into their homes so they can develop things based on their own everyday experiences.
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