Cuzzy ||| Fit Your Mood

THEY SAY THAT THE ONLY
constant thing in life is change. Every day is different from the next; different from the one before. Every hour brings new discoveries about yourself and your environment. You live, you learn. Ever changing, ever evolving, ever progressing, nothing stays the same.

But although we cannot change our inherent physical traits, we can change the things that come along with it. Gadgets, the lifestyle necessity of the twenty-first century, are our new differentiation tool. We buy the latest mobile phones to make sure we're always carrying something different from what everyone else is. We go to great pains to adorn them with photo-stickers, etch our names on the cases and change the screens at accessory shops to make sure it is distinctive from any other people.

It's not just customisation we're talking about here. Customisation is what Dell your local PC retailer do: you can build your own PC, as long as it's from designs we already have. What we're talking about takes the concept of individualism a step further: personalisation. It was Henry Ford that said, "They can have it (the Ford T-model) in any colour, as long as it is black." How far we have come.

Tailoring is a form of personalisation: if you're not happy with what the boutiques in KLCC and MidValley Megamall have to offer, then design your own outfit and get a tailor to make it for you.

The hardware - in this case, fabric - is the same; what is different is how that fabric looks on you. Painting the house, your car or your bike is also a form of personalisation: you're making it suit you as an individual. These days, personalisation is recognised as being one hell of a useful marketing tool for gadgetmakers worldwide like Nokia, Motorola and recently, Cuzzy. But how can you do the same for the twenty-first century's lifestyle statements, those mobile phones, PDAs and laptops, so necessary to modern living?

Knowing me, my mood swings from bright and chirpy today to darf and gloomy tomorrow. I like being joyous. Sometimes, I want to be sombre. I'd also like my lifestyle accessories to be the same.

I have black earrings for black days, and light blue ones for bright days. I've got a brown dress for gloomy occasions such as funerals, and an orange one I use for birthdays. I have dark lipstick for solemn, formal evenings out, and pink lipstick when I plan to dance the night away. I have patent leather shoes for going to government departments, and red strappy sandals for when I go to Starbucks for afternoon teas. I have different handbags, different hairstyles and different jewellery for all sorts of different occasions.

Now, tell me: shouldn't I have the same flexibility with my mobile phone? A black casing doesn't fit my mood when I'm out shopping and having a good time. Metallic silver or grey may be formal, but when I'm out partying, I don't want formal. I want a life!

That's why phones like Motorola's C-series and Nokia's Xpress-On™ concept.....

are so great. They allow you to interchange the housing. according to your mood. You can have a new-look phone every week!

Motorola has a wide selection of designs to choose from, making the C-series particularly appealing to someone like me. Not only can you change the colours, but also the pattern of your mobile phone - how could you ever get bored.

Of course, it's not all good. Nokia, in particular, have fallen victim to pirated housings sold at mobile carts in every shopping mall in the country. No mobile phone manufacturer can match the offering that Nokia offers because of this, like it or not. In some ways, I think this helps Nokia more than anything - look at the variety, the sheer breadth of what you can make your phone look like!

But it seems that the ability to make our gadgets fit your mood is not enough these days. Enter PC modding.

A favourite pastime for many PC enthusiasts, modifying the external look of your PC - "modding", as it is called - involves using such creative tools as paint, brushes and marker pens to personalise your machine.

For a start, PC casings these days, in conventional off-white colours, offer a great canvas for you to exercise your hidden artistic talent.

Avid PC modders often repaint their casings several times a year with their favourite movie or comic-strip characters, funky designs or sophisticated colour schemes that blend in with the rest of their room.

But it's not just the casing that you can redesign: you can repaint your mouse, keyboard and optical drive casing to make them match your new look. Some even go so far as to pick up a soldering iron and couple of LEDs to create lighting within the mouse and keyboard to spice things up a bit.

Granted - LEDs are quite permanent changes to make. But keeping in mind the concept of individuality, you cannot ignore the fact that what you have created is 100-percent unique machine, which, with enough work, may even increase in value. indeed, there have been cases which have sold for over RM1,000 after going through the room of a modder. It only cost RM200 to begin with!

But whilst all this is fascinating, you cannot ignore that consumers are no more than mere amateurs when it comes to modding. You can never give a completely professional finish to your hardware, because you just don't have the machines or technology to do so. Personalisation of computer hardware is possible, but it does have its drawbacks.

Which is why what Cuzzy is doing is so interesting: personalised notebooks. With proprietary technology, they can put any design you want on the casing of your Cuzzy-obile, making it wholly unique.

Sure, we've been slapping stickers on our notebooks to make them different from the rest ever since they were first introduced twenty years ago. But Cuzzy is taking individualism by the horns, and are making almost completely personalised notebooks.

It's not just the notebook's specifications that you can change. Companies that buy Cuzzy-obiles for their field teams can get their company logos or colours designed on the casing of their notebooks to market their brand wherever their sales force goes. Imagine notebooks with Maxis, Petronas or (ahem) PC.com being set up in coffee houses around the country - what does that do for your brand?

"Is Dell truly customising products for you, or are they over-rated?" challenges Jeffrey Raj, CEO of Cuzzy Advanced Convergence Laboratories. "What is the true meaning of customisation? How long can companies like Dell claim to be customer centric without a direct feedback system from consumers?"

PC Modding Primer

Paint - there are many types to choose from, depending on your adeptness. Spray paint is the easiest to apply, but offers less flexibility. Model paint can be applied with a paintbrush, but is not as funky or bright as acrylic paint, which is what the professionals use.

Paintbrushes - you'll want them slim and neat to get into hard-to-reach corners... especially on things like your mouse and kayboard.

Sandpaper - light-grain, to clean up your PC casing before you set to work on it.

Fluorescent paint/markers - the LEDs in your case will reflect off this stuff and give a real cool effect... especially if applied with panache.

High-quality prints - one way around trying to paint Spiderman on your case is to stick a high-quality print-out of him on the side before finishing it with a layer of clear paint.

Cuzzy's Aesthetics Research and Development uses converged principles such as plastic injection moulding, heat and vacuum together with their own Proprietary Aesthetics Technologies to create the Cuzzy-obile. The process they use to colour their products is patented, and can be done in fourteen days as soon as the design is confirmed.

Together with their Global Cultural and Sociological Research Team, Cuzzy aims to enter international markets using data gathered regarding Cultural Tastes and Fashion.

For instance: the Batik Cuzzy-Obile goes down very well in Asia, whereas the Chargeman design got good feedback in the U.K. There is much intangible benefit to be gained from having personalised personalised notebooks, too.

Stolen, notebooks, for instance, will be much harder to resell because of the proprietary company logos embedded on them - you cannot be seen in public using a notebook with Petronas on its cover if you're not an employee of theirs, can you?

"We are also targeting niche markets such as sports, fashion, political and patriotic spirit and the music industry," continues Mr. Raj. Initially, Cuzzy aims to introduce new designs for their notebooks on a seasonal basis. Consumers can then swap designs for their Cuzzy-obiles for an estimated RM40. Cuzzy is launching six new designs for their Fall collection.

"No design is too complicated for us," says Mr. Raj. "As long as it does not infringe on any copyrights (a picture of David Becham, for instance), we can do it. We can even build texture into the surface, so that it feels more real."

Mr. Raj says he is working on getting licensing rights for certain areas, like English Premier League clubs.

What's your pick?
Personalisation is everywhere these days

Motorola - the C-series of Motorola mobile phones have housing that are all interchangeable with each other...even with different physical shapes such as Peanut and Hourglass.

Nokia - Nokia handphones are probably everyone's favourite fashion accessory, because the covers are so readily available. Estimates say that the black market probably has close to two-hundred designs for their phones, costing between RM10 and RM30 each.

Cuzzy-obile - Cuzzy-obile notebooks come in various designs, and you can swap between them anytime you want for only RM40. You can even have your own, unique, one-in-the-world design if you want...for USD600.