Fresh Takes on Innovation

This year, Biel/Bienne in Switzerland, where BrainStore is located, hosted an art event called “Utopics”

This art exhibit in the public space dealt with ideas like new nations, utopical concepts of society, the invasion of public space and new concepts of the way we could live together in the future.

Among the artists were Antoni Wojtyra and Anni Wu, who worked together in this exhibit as “W&W” and proposed the concept of
“ideally“, an art gallery that does not sell artwork, but rather offers it to someone in exchange of a wish.

The artists in the gallery were not allowed to sell their art, but they had to formulate a wish. Visitors of the gallery could offer to fulfill the wish of the artist and propose how they would do that.

Antoni Wojtyra had created a neon work of art called “let’s hope…“. His wish was at the same time simple and comlex. He wanted people to finish the phrase “let’s hope…” and to choose from those phrases the most meaningful for a future art exhibit.

BrainStore offered to collect the phrases for Antoni, and received the neon in exchange, which now hangs in the check-in at BrainStore in Biel and greets visitors with the challange to finish the phrase.

This Christmas, BrainStore sent this challenge to everyone who has been working with us as a client, partner, freelancer or staff. We want people to express their hopes for the future, for this world, and even for themselves.

Within 12 hours of having sent the Christmas greeting we had already collected more than 500 phrases. Among them are many that express the wish for a better humanity, for world peace and the end of hunger and war. But there are also more personal ones like “let’s hope she calls me” or “let’s hope for a kiss”.

From all the phrases, Antoni will choose a few ones to be part of an exhibition in late 2010 somewhere in the world. He will put the “let’s hope…” neon in the center and the finished phrases as neons around it. Antoni is currently also collecting phrases in Vancouver, among people who usually are not seen as very hopeful: The homeless, the drug addicts, people living on the margins of society.

BrainStore will choose one phrase to be made into a Neon and will offer it to the person who contributed the phrase.

You can contribute here:

in German

in English

I visited www.eternit.ch today. Eternit is the market leader in the roofing and façades sector in Switzerland. The company also acts as an important partner for fireproof and aesthetic interior fittings and design products.

Mr Daniel Hauri, who is responsible for the sales of garden and design products kindly showed me the production and explained the process of fibre cement, which is fascinating.

In the factory in Payerne (in the French speaking part of Switzerland) the company produces roof tiles and wall claddings in different forms and colors, but also gardening pots and design objects like the Guhl Chair (by Willi Guhl, Swiss Designer 1915 – 2004).

What impressed me is the way the company has expanded it’s product portfolio from typical building elements to design objects.

But what truly convinced me today about eternit was a very simple and meaningful marketing idea that was presented to me by Daniel Hauri.

“Because the design products section grew significantly over the last years, we had to hire new workers for our manufacturing process here in Payerne. As the demand rose, the quality (the gardening pots and design objects are produced largely by hand) was getting a bit below standard. We searched some ideas on what we could do and found a very simple solution: A sticker with the personal signature of the person who made the object can now be found in every finished object. It was great marketing in the shops because people realised that the object was actually produced by a person, but it also helped us raise the quality standards, because suddenly the workers went to the shops as well and searched for the pots and objects they had made”.

What I really liked about this idea is the fact that one idea worked perfectly to solve to issues at the same time: Quality and Image.

Thank you, eternit and Daniel Hauri, for sharing this idea with me.