What is it: ScentAir Technologies is building a billboard that emits a particular smell. Shaped like a giant fork holding a piece of steak, the billboard fans a pepper steak and charcoal smell onto passing traffic and pedestrians, aiming to promote a new line of beef available at Bloom grocery stores.

Why is it cool: Using smell in marketing is not a new idea –supermarkets place the bakery section near the entrance to draw shoppers in. It’s powerful because of how closely smell is linked to memory and emotion.

On the other hand, the powerful emotions elicited aren’t always what you want; PETA plans to build a billboard displaying a skinned cow’s head on a slaughter hook, emitting a smell of rotting flesh, urine, faeces and blood.

Where to find it: Article here! PETA’s response here!

Submitted by: Bernard Visperas

What is it: Eye-tracking software being used to detect when people are lying. It’s a great digital alternative to the old polygraph which tests people’s emotional reactions – eye-tracking looks at people’s cognitive reactions and things like eye movement and pupil dilation.

Why is it cool: Eye-tracking is used in market research to determine things like what is the best shelf positioning for a product in the supermarket; as well as website design to answer questions like where should I put my most appealing/important content. This show that it’s not only useful for marketers but also law enforcement and potentially national security.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: Melissa Yee

What is it: A neat build on ‘expectation disconfirmation theory’ (ED), this is about managing expectations and the inherent tension that exists between setting a low expectation (which can be uninteresting) and a high one (which leads to great hopes).Clearly a high initial expectation creates greater opportunity for failure and a low initial expectation creates the potential for a delighted outcome – assuming one ever gets the chance to prove it.

Why is it cool: Though interesting in the context it is presented, ED theory should be considered the foundation for any service organisation.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: David Tunnicliffe

What is it: A crowd sourcing website which allows those in search of new ideas to harness the power of the ‘global mind’.  A company, or presumably individual, with an innovation need can state their requirement which then attracts the attention of creative types who busy themselves addressing the issue.  A kind of ‘one-night-stand’ opportunity for those with intermittent rather than ongoing innovation needs.

Why is it cool: If we think of humanity as a kind of holistic organic melange of experience and ideas, this is a great way to draw on the powers of the collective brain.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: David Tunnicliffe

What is it: Although launched quite a while ago, this is an ad for Earth choice cleaning products.

Why is it cool: The latest Green Pulse results show that individuals feel responsibility for recycling. The Earths choice ad really pushes responsibility onto individuals in terms of the products they choose to use, it would be interesting to see how well this ad performs in terms of converting this responsibility into behaviour change! What‘s next for Green Pulse is to investigate top brands in being green, and investigate what makes people change their behaviour to buy/be green.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: Erin Hearn

What is it: This article summarises a range of studies on creativity, making startling observations about the decline of creativity (in the US), that it can be traced directly back to poor education practices, and its implications on a society’s ability to solve big problems and move forward. The good news is that creativity can be taught, learned and practiced – so we really have no excuse!

Why is it cool: On a practical level, this shows that, whilst creativity is often seen as the domain of artisans, creative thinking is, in fact, useful to most everyone in solving everything from small, everyday problems to dealing with the big stressors of life. On a theoretical level, being able to measure, teach and articulate the benefits of creativity (via the Creativity Quotient), we gain a new understanding of the human mind, and a foil for the much maligned Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and more recent Emotional Quotient (EQ). Finally, perhaps most cool is that the best thing we can all do to encourage creativity is to ask questions, and keep asking questions.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: John Cucka

What is it: For the past four years, Lost & Found has been the seminal insider guide for culturally conscious people wanting to visit Melbourne. As a promotional tool, for three months they are offering a free hotel room—that’s right, folks, FREE!.  Applicants enjoy a double room at Little Collins Street Hotel (Branded separately as Lost and Found Hotel) where the room itself is tastefully designed as a showcase for Melbourne arts and culture. The kicker is that you get a personal concierge who writes for the Lost and Found Guide, so your own insider to help you wring the most out of your fleeting stay.

Why is it cool: While it’s not a particularly new idea (they based the idea on a Swedish hotel “Creator’s Inn) it appears that this is a brand marriage made in heaven: Tourism Victoria, local artisans and artists and the Lost and Found guide itself promise to genuinely give guests an immersive experience. It’s bang on brand for Melbourne, too, which is all about little hidden secrets and artisanal experiences, so very clever all round I reckon.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: Estelle Gohil

What is it: A 62-slide summary pack about the past trends in web design right up trends in 2010 by Tijs Vocker.

Why is it cool: It’s entertaining, enlightening and relevant to our specialty: communications. It also showcases slideshare.net which is filled with business-targeted slideshows, so you should browse to your heart’s content for almost instant gratification.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: Rosemary Butcher

What is it: A new book, titled Wrong, discusses how often experts are wrong – from 90% of doctors’ medical knowledge being substantially wrong, to an average of at least one substantive error in ever newspaper article. Worse, when people are confronted with “experts”, their brains literally shut down (that is, physiologically) – and that’s just when we need our brains the most!

Why is it cool: We’ve seen in a previous SCIO that people are more likely to believe someone that is confident than someone that is correct, even given perfect information. Here we see just how imperfect that information is, and why we are so susceptible. It really suggests that learning when, and how, to critically think about information is a hugely important skill.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: John Cucka

What is it: Shedding was once seen as the domain of retired men escaping their wives, but now the shed is providing an inexpensive venue for developing creative ‘cottage’ industries.

Why is it cool: No longer is shedding perceived as something to be ashamed of, it’s become a very cool way to conduct business in an economic climate of restraint and keeping it real.

Where to find it: here!

Submitted by: Hilde Swendgaard