Welcome to our Tech and Design roundup.
The goal of this series is to filter all of the research and news we read here at Tennis into a relevant succinct summary to help support you with some 3rd party, real-world resources, and examples.
The Future of Social Influencers is AI
AI robot rapper FN Meka releases a new single.
In some fun/weird news, an AI-powered rapper FN Meka released a new single in March which is surprisingly good. AI-generated music is not particularly new but what led us down a rabbit hole is the character design and marketing behind FN Meka. There's no real discernable information out there about who is actually creating this music, it's all hidden behind a fictional "celebrity" FN Meka who has music videos does interviews and drives fast cars.
This got us thinking about the future of celebrity marketing. Will technology get to a point where labels can hire designers and programmers to run digital assets? This question led us to an interesting resource called VirtualHumans.org (highly recommend checking this out).
The landing page has a list of all the famous virtual influencers that virtualhumans.org tracks. They range in style and marketing strategy. Some are influencers, some are used to promote brands and e-commerce. It's fascinating and has some really interesting applications in the influencer/social marketing world.
The B2B Sharing Economy.
PWC predicted the B2C sharing economy would grow from $15Bn in 2013 to $335Bn by 2025. Then COVID hit.
The sharing economy hit a major downfall globally as lockdowns and social distancing were implemented. The sharing economy is down but not out and the B2B world has been waiting for the sharing economy to reach maturity before starting to share tangible and intangible resources in 2021 and beyond.
Through B2B sharing services businesses will be able to generate more revenue with less cost and waste. This article has some great examples of how businesses can do this through:
- reducing capital expenditure
- reducing operating costs
- generating new revenue
- maximizing value of intangible assets
- boosting resilience and agility
- increasing resilience and agility
- offering end-to-end solutions
What the heck is a design system?
An analysis of the design system created across Netflix's studio ecosystem.
Technology, an organization's digital ecosystem, and our customers are three separate variables that are constantly at play with each other and can have huge effects on our organization. The goal of a design system is to help organizations make changes efficiently and with agility across their entire ecosystem so that no matter what variables change from tech, customer needs, or our product deployment strategy the user experience whether its internal or external stays consistent across brand touchpoints and allows you as an organization to respond and evolve quickly without any detrimental effects.
This article is an amazing case study of how and why Netflix uses a design system across its growing application catalog
(80+ applications) to ensure a consistent user experience.
Art is business.
The old artist couldn't sell their work. The new artist sells their soul
Disclaimer this article is blocked by a signup wall but DESK Magazine is a great resource for creatives on the business of design but also has some great inspiration for those times you're looking for some fresh inspiration.
I've been lucky to cross paths with some pretty amazing artists through my journey with Tennis that have become friends and I often think about how becoming an artist is very similar to starting your own business (arguably more difficult). I admire the dedication to a passion and craft and turning that into something that becomes much like a business. I also feel that Art's Colleges and Universities should be incorporating business classes into their programs because they are a breeding ground for artistic entrepreneurs.
This article is a great dive into how technology, branding, and marketing are adding even more business-centric demands onto artists in order to start selling and then scaling up an art practice.
