Privacy, the ultimate luxury good.

We have a big week upon us.

For those in tech, this week is Apple’s September 9th Product Event, held at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, the largest venue ever used for an Apple product announcement, leading to much speculation in the press (Apple’s speciality).

For those in fashion, this week begins New York Fashion Week, the first season after parting ways with Mercedes Benz as sponsor, and leaving Lincoln Center as their venue (NYFW is now spread across Moynihan Station, Milk Studios, and Clarkson Sq.).

But the real news in wearable-tech already came last week with two big announcements:

1. Ian Rogers, the man ever so recently the CEO of Beats, has left Apple to accept the position of Chief Digital Officer at LVMH (Moët Hennessy • Louis Vuitton), the world’s largest luxury goods conglomerate.

2. Alphabet, the company ever so recently known as Google, has opened up Android Wear to iOS.

These are significant developments for many reasons, some of them interrelated.

LVMH is owner of the Tag Heuer brand of fine watches, who earlier this year announced a luxury smartwatch on the Android Wear platform. Given their customer demographic, LVMH / Tag Heuer would surely have preferred iOS integration rather than Android, as affluent buyers of luxury goods overwhelmingly use iPhones. However, just as Apple’s iOS platform is closed, it also offers no such wearable platform for third parties, only their own Apple Watch. By bringing iOS integration to Android Wear, Google / Alphabet has opened the platform up to a demographic they would never have access to with Android alone. This is something I’ve been calling for since Android Wear launched, and notably something Google would never have done pre-re-org, yet something I predicted last month would be one of the first results of the Google / Alphabet re-org.

As LVMH’s new Chief Digital Officer, Ian Rogers will report to CEO & Chairman, Bernard Arnault (France’s wealthiest man, at $37B), but he will likely work most closely with Jean-Claude Biver, LVMH’s President of Jewelry & Fine Watches. Prior to the Apple acquisition, with $1.4B+ in annual revenue, Beats was the world’s largest “wearable tech” company, and Rogers was their CEO. He has now spent 18 months inside Apple, the technology brand used by the majority of LVMH’s customers, whose iPhones and iOS platform LVMH must integrate with if they expect to have any real success in the wearable-tech space. The hire was brilliant, there may be no better person on earth to fill this position. The fact that the announcement of Ian’s move was followed within 24 hours by the announcement that Android Wear will now be compatible with iOS may also be more than coincidence.

Tag Heuer + Android Wear (with iOS integration) may be the obvious short term solution to LVMH’s offerings in the smartwatch space, but I predict it will be temporary. In the long run I would council LVMH to develop their own wearable platform, and that is exactly what I predict they will do. After all, if opening Android Wear to iOS were their wearable end-game, why create a new C-Level digital position?

Further, I believe LVMH will pull their label’s eyewear in-house. Earlier this year Kerring (another luxury conglomerate and LVMH competitor) announced it was pulling all eyewear brands in-house starting with Gucci, citing eyewear’s strategic relevance as a gateway product for luxury brands that should therefore not be outsourced to a licensee. I’ve already predicted that others will follow suit, for more than strategic brand relevance. As near-eye optics bring the mobile computing interface up to the user’s eye, eye-frames will become the next major interface in mobile computing. Eyewear will move from being an outsourced brand licensing model, to a critical product, central to a luxury brand’s catalog.

Ultimately I predict that Android Wear and LVMH will have a fleeting relationship of convenience for another reason — at heart they have a divergence of interest: Google’s core business is in advertising and data-tracking. As privacy becomes the ultimate luxury good, LVMH will want a wearable platform that is not built upon an advertising and data-tracking business model … and will want that platform to be consistent across their watch brands and their eyewear brands.

At CHRISTOPHER GRAYSON we are building our platform from the ground up as a privacy based model. Our Smart Jewel collects no user data, and nothing from Smart Jewel is ever collected on our servers. It only communicates with the end user’s own device, peer-to-peer, and all data is communicated between Smart Jewel and their iPhone using 128 bit encryption.

I believe the privacy path is the one LVMH will also choose to take.

Christopher Grayson is Co-Founder, CEO and Chief Creative Officer of CHRISTOPHER GRAYSON, a luxury technology label and maker of SMART JEWEL — a beautifully versatile piece of jewelry, discreetly concealing an alerts and notification system that pairs with a woman’s smartphone. SMART JEWEL solves the “purse problem.” Most women carry their phone in their purse. Periodically they check their phone for messages, expected or missed. One recent study has shown that a typical smartphone user checks her phone 110 times daily. To learn more, visit our website.

Christopher Grayson Website

Smart Jewel:

The SMART JEWEL is an alerts and notification system discreetly embedded in jewelry that pairs with a woman’s smartphone. SMART JEWEL solves the “purse problem.” Most women carry their phone in their purse. Periodically they check their phone for messages, expected or missed. One recent study has shown that a typical smartphone user checks her phone on average 110 times daily.

The SMART JEWEL can either be worn as a pendant on a necklace, or be attached to purse or clothing via a provided clip.

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On Monday, February 9th, Lyons Wier Gallery hosted the unveiling of SMART JEWEL by CHRISTOPHER GRAYSON, courtesy of advisor, Michael Lyons Wier. A gracious thank you to all those brave enough to venture out in Monday’s “wintery mix” snowstorm to support us.

I was introduced by friend and advisor, Kelly Hadous, of Win The Room. I took the crowd through my own personal journey, the building of our team, and the launching of the company at Zero Power Smart Fashion, during September 2014’s New York Fashion Week. I then took the audience through the development we’ve undertaken since, including various stages of prototypes. With a request for no cameras, I also shared CTO Craig Janik’s latest work, our miniaturized circuit board — then unveiled the SMART JEWEL.

Some attendees were also treated to a walk through of our new mobile app:

In addition to advisors Michael and Kelly mentioned above, I was also joined by team members Sonya Spann (project management) and Ernest Burden III (3D design), as well as advisor, Sabine Feldmann. The inclement weather kept some away, notably our advisor Christopher Conte, instrumental in the construction of our design prototype. As the evening was winding down, I captured the video below of Danielle sharing her thoughts with Ernest:

Photos above by Sabine Feldmann, Sonya Spann and Ernest Burden III.

Intel Makes a Move

ARM architecture-based processors by Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Broadcom and others, power nearly all smartphones and tablets — especially Qualcomm. After losing out on mobile, Intel is intent not to be sidelined in the emerging wearables space. Over the last 30+ days, Intel has deftly positioned itself to dominate the smartglass market.

On December 1st, the Wall Street Journal reported that Intel has cut a deal to replace the Texas Instruments produced ARM-based processor currently used in Google Glass with an Intel chip, in the upcoming second generation Glass device.

Within two days, Intel then announced it had struck its own partnership with Luxottica to collaboratively produce smartglasses built on Intel processors (Luxottica owns Ray Ban, Persol and Oakley, while producing eyewear under license for Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Prada, Giorgio Armani and others; as parent company of both Lens Crafters and Sunglass Hut, is also the world’s largest eyewear retailer).

Prior to last month’s stunning events, Intel could only boast a stake in Recon Instruments as their key position in smartglasses (Recon is a Canada-based maker of sports-focused smart eyewear including the Snow2 line for ski goggles, and the Jet line of smartglasses focused on cycling).

Then, over the first weekend of the new year, it was announced that Intel has just made a $25M investment in Vuzix, the Rochester, New York-based maker of smartglasses. Earlier this year, Vuzix also announced a partnership with Lenovo to supply their M100 smartglasses to the Chinese market.

As if out of nowhere (in multiple deals that have surely been in the works for many months or longer), Intel has pulled a substantial majority of the smartglass market under their umbrella.

The ARM architecture still dominates wrist-worn devices: FitBit, Samsung Gear S, Motorola Moto 360, Pebble and even the Apple Watch; but it can no longer be assumed that ARM & Qualcomm will dominate the wearables space.

As recently as a mere month ago one could be forgiven for being skeptical of Intel’s odds, given that wearables are at this stage predominantly peripherals to users’ smartphones.

While many players jockey within the emerging wearables space, it could very well be the processor ingredient brands within them that define the true wearables battle of 2015.

DISCLOSURE: While working for the advertising agency, MVBMS EURO, I produced award winning advertising campaigns for Intel. Three years ago I led a pitch for a consumer-facing ingredient branding strategy to ARM (not awarded). As a co-organizer of Augmented Reality Event in Santa Clara, CA, our title sponsor was Qualcomm. I’ve also worked with Vuzix on event organization in the smartglass space. I have no investments in any company in this article, and nothing on this page should be taken as “investment advice.”

SMART JEWEL Launch Deck

NYFW 2014

Wearable Tech Expo

On Thursday, July 24th, 2014 I spoke at Wearable Tech Expo, at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. My talk was titled Design Matters: Industrial Design & Product Styling in Wearable Tech, as part of a panel titled Do You See What I See: Head-mounted Wearables. My slides are shown above.

Thesis: When it comes to wearables, good design, not superior engineering, will decide the winners. This will be true even in the Enterprise. If we want wearables to succeed in the consumer space, they must be stylish, and validation will come not through the tech industry but through the fashion industry.

Conclusion: When I engage with many of my peers in the wearables space, they frequently tout the sensors in their device that their competitors lack, or their new algorithm that’s going to separate them from the pack. I would counter that no matter your technological mojo, if nobody beyond the early-adopter set is willing to wear your device, you will fail. Particularly when I’m on the west coast, in Silicon Valley, there is a casual dismissal of product styling as something that is merely subjective …

slippery, and not susceptible to their calipers. I would counter that the test of success in the wearable space will come down to this: Would a stylish woman wear your device, purely on the merits of aesthetics alone, even if it contained no technology? The players that can genuinely answer “Yes” to this question are the ones who are going to succeed.

I would like to highlight the work of a couple of peers I met at the expo.

Anna Perelman, CEO and Co-Founder of Stelle Audio Couture makes a series of well designed audio products, most noteworthy, the Stelle Clutch — as the name implies, this speaker system takes the form of a woman’s clutch that pops open into a blue tooth speaker system. The Stelle Clutch competes with products like the Nonobject designed BOOM by Ultimate Ears or the Jawbone Jambox. While both of these are well designed products, Stelle takes advantage of an untapped opportunity in the market to make a speaker designed to appeal to the sensibilities of stylish women.

I also met Kristi Gaudio, a member of the design team that created the Diane von Furstenberg eye-frames for Google Glass. The fashion industry, particularly in the accessories space, operates via a web of relationships between fashion brands, manufacturers and product design firms, where many companies are often involved in the making of a single product. To make the DVF Google Glass frames, Diane von Furstenberg

partnered with Marchon Eyewear which in turn is a subsidiary of VSP Global (a vision holding company involved in everything from fashion eyewear to optics engineering, to vision insurance). Kristi is an Industrial Designer with VSP.

The wearables industry as a whole has a branding problem. Rather than give commentary, I’m simply going to share these three images below, and let them speak for themselves.

Following Wearable Tech Expo, Danielle and I walked down to Chelsea for the Thursday evening Chelsea Gallery Walk. In addition to the completely immersive digital installation by teamLab at PACE Gallery’s Ultra Subjective Space, and my friend Michael Lyons Wier’s festive opening party for their Summer Group Show of Conceptual Representationalism (photorealism with a narrative), we hit over a dozen openings, concluding with a stroll up the High Line.

One installation in particular that caught our eye was another Summer Group Show, this one at UNIX Gallery. UNIX represents contemporary artists “with compelling, unique visions who utilize exquisite artistic execution” — the intersection where high-craftsmanship pop-art meets social commentary. Ellen de Meijer’s Shared Sight, brought the evening full circle.
[Editor’s Note: The painting is still available for sale. To inquire for pricing, contact UNIX Gallery.]

Jewelry Tech

Most jewelry tech falls into three categories: health trackers, alerts notifications, and security communicators. Of those shown here, only Netatamo is the exception, an ultraviolet meter to let the wearer know when they have had too much sun exposure.

As of January, Fitbit controlled 68% of the fitness tracker market, and due to Nike’s exit from the market, that number is likely larger and rising. The much anticipated bracelet (shown) and pendant from their partnership with Tory Burch was released this week. Misfit Wearables produces a fitness tracker called the “shine” which consists of a small disc that can be fitted into different enclosures including a plastic wristband, and the necklace shown here.

Among the alert notification jewelry, Ringly, Beacon & Lively and Memi all have the same basic functionality: if one’s smartphone receives certain notifications, messages or calls, the device can either blink or vibrate. Though none have yet shipped, the current momentum is behind Ringly — they began taking orders this month. They are reporting that some colors have already sold out, though actual numbers have not been shared. The Memi smart-bracelet is also taking preorders but has received much less media attention. Though just days away from concluding their Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign, Beacon & Lively are far from reaching their funding goal.

The last of these categories, security communications, is the most controversial and has received some criticism. Guardian Angel was conceived of by the Thailand office of advertising agency J. Walter Thompson, led by Chief Creative Officer Valerie Cheng. Commissioned for an anti-rape campaign, the agency came up with a device worn on a chain, either as a necklace or bracelet with a single button. Pressed once, it sends a fake call to the user’s own phone, in order to create a excuse to exit a bad social situation. If the button is held down longer it sends an “SOS” distress signal with the wearer’s GPS location to a designated third party (spouse, relative, friend, etc.). Though it has received a fair amount of positive press coverage, it was the subject of a negative review in The Verge, that went viral. Cuff.io offers a collection of bracelets and pendent necklaces that also send an SOS to a designated recipient. When the company first launched, its messaging positioned itself as the more fashionable alternative to Life-Alert, famous for their “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up,” late night commercials. After the PR blitz of Guardian Angel, Cuff.io reframed much of their marketing messaging around an implied rape/attack prevention scenario as seen on their homepage, heavy on fear marketing. Communicating a commercial product to a consumer audience aimed at sexual assault prevention while maintaining tact and respect, without selling on fear is very difficult. If competition validates market demand, then there is certainly a market for these devices — competitors entering the space include Sense6 and others, following fast.

Now let us look at the big tech players.

Google has recently launched the Android Wear platform, and Motorola has released CAD renderings of their flagship watch design, the Motorola 360 (below) running Android Wear. If the build quality lives up to the design, it is an impressive showing. Lessons learned from their more homely cousin, Google Glass, it seems to have sunk-in that in wearables — more than ever, style matters.

In typical Apple fashion, nothing of the design of their rumored iWatch has leaked. It will likely stay locked down tight until the veil is removed at an announcement ceremony later this year. What we do know is that they’ve been busy acquiring talent. Not just engineering talent, but poaching big players from across the luxury goods market, Paul Deneve, Angela Ahrendts, and Patrick Pruniaux among them (shown below).

On the health tracker side, in addition to poaching Jay Blahnik, Ryan Bailey and Jon Gale from the former Nike Fuelband team, they have also brought on an entire phalanx of medical device professionals over the last 12 months.

Jean-Claude Biver, Chairman of Hublot, and President of Watches & Jewelry for parent company LVMH, the world’s largest luxury brand conglomerate, has remarked in the press regarding smart-watches, “It would be pretentious to think that this kind of watch would fail to compete with Swiss watches. But they will in any case clearly not be competing with the high-end Swiss watches, which account for most of the exports.”

Though unusually cautious in his wording, Jean-Claude still may have spoken too soon. A report has leaked from KGI, by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (known for having good information in the past) that says the device billed as the iWatch will have at least two models, and will be priced in the “thousands of dollars”. This would imply (as I have long suspected) that Apple’s watch will in fact be targeted at the fine watch market.

Jean-Claude Biver’s voice in this matter is larger even than his title(s) might suggest. When in the early 80s, he was head of Blancpain, quartz-movement had replaced most of the mechanical watch industry, even in Switzerland, which was loosing the industry to Japan. Jean-Claude declared publicly that Blancpain had never and would never make a quartz watch, and led the entire Swiss watch industry back to the mechanically engineered watches that had made the region famous. This revival is still in full swing to this day. His reputation as the guardian of the Swiss mechanically engineered tradition has earned him the loyalty of the industry, and has almost single-handedly prevented Apple from poaching top Swiss watch design talent. The onslaught of the coming smart-watches, especially a high-end watch like that presumed from Apple, will be the biggest test of the Swiss watch industry since quartz-movement, and all will be looking to Jean-Claude Biver for guidance.

How to Get Women Speakers …

Over the last few years I have organized a variety of tech events, and spoken at quite a few more.

The first event I staged myself was a small TEDx event, TEDxSiliconAlley 2011, held at GREY Advertising, followed by a much larger event of the same name TEDxSiliconAlley 2012, held at Terminal 5 (requiring a larger team). A little reported fact, both events had at or close to 50/50 gender balance. As recently as three years ago, this was unusual (it is still unusual today, but the issue is now more top-of-mind). I had brought in my friend and mentor, Tish Shute (at left), whom I assisted in organizing other events, to assist me in co-organizing my own. I had heard the phrase, “change the ratio” circulating but was not yet familiar with Rachel Sklar. I talked to Tish about this and suggested we should strive for gender-balance as a goal for TEDxSiliconAlley. Since that time I have tried my best to apply this to all events and panels that I organize.

It has been suggested to me more than once that I should write some advice about building a gender-balanced speaking roster, based on what I’ve learned from these experiences.

Start with women. In tech (and frankly most industries), you’re almost assured to get more men than women speaking candidates. So front-load women speakers. Here’s a trick: Don’t even bother seeking men to speak, you will get them anyway. For example, if I reach out to my network and tell somebody, “I’m seeking referrals for women speakers for an event: The profile is an entrepreneur in New York City, working on a mobile or geo-location based startup.” (that was one profile for TEDxSiliconAlley 2012). By specifically asking for women at the start, it makes them think of potential women candidates — and if they know a male candidate that fits the profile, they will always suggest them anyway. So I have found that the best technique is to only ask for leads on women candidates. Even then the candidates people proffer will mostly be men (this is true, even when I ask of other women), but I find it results in enough female candidates to build a solid gender-balanced roster.

Sometimes when a panel requires very specific expertise, it can be more difficult. This is when I’ve sought assistance from organizations who advocate for women in the tech industry. Girls in Tech is one of the largest such organizations. In addition to event work, Girls in Tech have also helped me with referrals for employees. They are a great source for assisting in the navigation of tech talent in general. Other organizations I have reached out to include: Step Up Women’s Network and Women Innovate Mobile (since wound down).

Other organizations I know of, but have not interfaced with personally include: NYTechWomen, Women in Technology, TechMums, Black Girls Code, LEVO League, SheSays and City Women Network.

Last year I learned about Reshma Saujani’s organization, Girls Who Code from my girlfriend. Being New York based like myself (Girls in Tech was founded on the West Coast), I was pleased to see a local organization emerge from our New York tech community. I have since sought out opportunities to assist them. When at my previous employer (Japanese tech startup, Telepathy), I approached Girls Who Code to leverage a celebrity media event of ours as an opportunity for a fund raising dinner on their behalf. Unfortunately a product pivot caused us to cancel this February event, but it helped establish an early relationship, and I will assist them when I can in the future — Look for opportunities to build good will.

If your business event is not in the tech-sector, search for women’s advocacy groups within your own industry.

If other leads fail there’s an easy if obvious trick: enter a job title or expertise description into Linkedin and look for women among the results. Then, if you don’t want to cold-call, work backwards to find your common connection for an introduction.

Provide a speaking coach. I’ve heard some claim that bringing in lesser-known/less-experienced speakers to provide gender-balance will produce an event with lower quality speakers. As an event organizer, you should already be providing at least a trial coaching session. Help your speakers be their best. I will share a secret — When I first began speaking at industry events only 5 years ago, I was terrible. I leaned heavily on my art direction experience to produce beautiful slides, to help me communicate. I began speaking because I had ideas I wished to share, and when I was presented with speaking opportunities I chose to accept them. The more speaking I have done, the better I have become. Those new to speaking may be the same — encourage rehearsal. And again, as an organizer, one of the best things you can do to encourage your speakers’ top performance is to provide a speaking coach.

For TEDxSiliconAlley 2011, I negotiated a sponsorship arrangement with Kelly Hadous of Win The Room. During the organizing process I was invited by Bonnie Halper to a party at the home of Murat Aktihanoglu where Bonnie introduced me to Kelly. As the event date approached, my co-organizer, Tish Shute, stepped down as a result of an amazing job opportunity in California. When Tish stepped down, Kelly stepped up, taking on a larger role as co-organizer as well as assisting me in co-hosting the event. For TEDxSiliconAlley 2012 Kelly’s organizational role was smaller, but she still provided limited free coaching to the event speakers. Many of them, including Gilt Group’s Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, have subsequently left Kelly glowing reviews on Linkedin. If your event is in the New York area, I recommend reaching out to her.

Another thing I’ve noticed worth mentioning about booking women speakers — on average, they are much more industrious about promoting your event to their network than men are. Some speakers, especially men who are regulars on the speaking circuit, may act as though they’re doing you a favor just by showing up. On the other hand, my observation has been that women will promote the heck out of their own speaking appearances. At TEDxSiliconAlley 2012, Jincey Lumpkin probably did more to help promote the event than anyone besides myself. She was amazing. If every speaker invested as much in promoting their appearance, we’d have needed a larger venue.

		It has also been my experience that women are more responsive to invitations, perhaps because they get fewer of them. By example, I submitted a panel proposal for SXSW 2013: Emergent Mobile Paradigm: Big Data & AR Wearables. I had myself been a SXSW speaker in 2012 (together with Heidi Hysell). For my 2013 submission the deadline creeped up on me, and when I solicited for speakers for my panel it was already the week of the deadline. I sought multiple candidates for all three panelists in order to assure a full headcount on short notice. I even reached out to InfoChimps founder, Flip Kromer, for the big-data representative. I had not

intended to have a panel of entirely women engineers, but on short notice, only three women confirmed their availability to me in time to make the panel submission date. Of the men solicited, one declined, one was unresponsive, and a third wanted to participate, but didn’t respond quickly enough to make the deadline. While the panel was not chosen by the jurists, it received a great deal of support among social media voters … If I may speak casually for a moment — do my readers see the staggering caliber of speakers represented? Jeri Ellsworth (THE Jeri Ellsworth!!), Nicole Tricoukes of Golden-i, and Sophia Parafina, on the same panel. WTF was wrong with those judges? Seriously. SXSW 2013 panels were submitted in Summer of 2012. With 2014 declared the year of wearables, perhaps the panel was just too far ahead of its time for SXSW.

The fact that gender-balance was achieved at the 2011 TEDxSiliconAlley was not promoted. Being our first event, we wanted to establish a track record. I recommend exercising modesty in your own event’s gender-balance efforts. Certainly promote it to speaking candidates, but rather than promote it to the media, establish a record for yourself, especially if you have a long-running event that does not have a reputation for gender-balance. Let your reputation build through action.

If you are an event organizer looking to improve the gender-balance of your event, I hope this has been helpful to you.

Chris Grayson Appearing …