In search of phone ideas, Korean firms turn to amateurs

Via textually.org, I ran across this report about Korean handset makers turning to amateur designers to spice up their new mobile phone lines. Korea has an advanced mobile phone and Internet culture that gives us Stateside folks a glimpse into the future. It's especially intriguing that LG is using mobile-centric Net communities to recruit "prosumers" for future cellphone design work - kinda like American Idol for cellphone designers :-)

Pantech Group, Korea's No. 2 handset maker, turns to its "designer community" for new ideas.
Since 2004, the cell phone maker has selected a couple of dozen students every year to fill this group, which works as a pseudo in-house research unit. The students not only receive hands-on training from actual designers, but also get to develop their own ideas and make proposals to the company. Pantech provides students with office space and funds to conduct research on design-related issues.

So far, 55 students from 20 universities have been involved in this group, of whom 10 went on to work as designers for the company. The IM-U140, a digital multimedia broadcasting phone slated for release later this week, was designed by a member of the designer community.

... LG Electronics also has plans to create a team that can brainstorm about cell phones, in conjunction with Cetizen, the largest Internet community site for mobile phone users, it will recruit what it calls "Cyon Prosumers.

Comments

[CK]

Hi, I quoted your article but couldn't send trackback for some reason.

http://www.web20asia.com/37

[Den Decosta]

Hi,
I just wanna say that there is revolution in 3G mobile phones and to create new designs people need young minds and that what they are doing.