Alain Sylvain: What matters more, the innovation or the context? | TNW Conference 2017

Optimus Time: what matters more, the innovation or the context? We live in a world where AI, VR and the connected home are becoming a way of life, but why now? Iterations of these technologies have been surfacing since the 1950s, yet it’s only now that we are really seeing them become a standard of modern living. Alain Sylvain, CEO of Sylvain Labs explores the critical factor influencing tech success today: Optimus Time. Optimus Time is the window when forces are aligned for the ideal introduction of a new behaviour, product, or idea. It's the reason why incredible products fly or fail. So much of the conversation around innovation and invention has been invested in questions of ingenuity and creativity, but what about timing? Ultimately, Optimus Time is a way for us to wrap our minds around the ripeness of ideas – products, brand experiences, or even pop culture phenomena. A framework for us to build stories against, to test within our gut whether an idea feels like it is right or not. And in this instance, a way to ask if the realities of a technologically advanced world jibes with life as we see it. In his presentation Alain will explore the relevance of Optimus Time in the tech evolution, its impact on some of the most exciting brands today - Spotify, Google, Netflix among others - and how brands can harness the theory of Optimus Time for tomorrow’s innovations. Alain Sylvain CEO, Sylvain Labs Alain is a brand and innovation consultant who established Sylvain Labs in 2010 to guide companies through complex business problems and identify new product and brand opportunities. He believes that by applying imagination, some science and a little whimsy, no challenge is too complex. This approach has led Sylvain Labs to lasting and growing results for clients including Google, Samsung, GM, AB InBev, Pepsico, Patagonia, Calvin Klein and others.