This is a sponsored post by Samsung.
How I use the Samsung Flip and why you might want to
It’s not often that a piece of technology comes around that really does change the way you work for the better. Particularly when thinking about bringing people together and being more collaborative, we don’t often think about tech being the solution. But that’s exactly what the Samsung Flip does. It simply helps us to effortlessly share and collaborate.
Samsung invited me to a training session to experience what the Samsung Flip can do. I’m quite tech savvy, so was interested in figuring out the limits of this tool. But after just a short while playing with it, I realised that it does something quite remarkable. Due to its size and tactility, it feels natural to have more than one person working on the screen.
So what is the Samsung Flip?
It’s a digital whiteboard and flipboard. You’re able to draw on it, make notes, create interesting stories, you’re able to import images, connect wirelessly to phones and laptops. Best of all, you’re able to draw all over the the screen. This means, that you and your team or client can make notes, share ideas and more importantly – have fun while working.
This works on so many levels, I know that psychologically we want to get our clients invested in what we do as it produces better results for the client. But that’s often tricky to accomplish, especially with something as abstract as the initial stages of the interior design process. Clients approach interior designers because they can’t speak the language of design and struggle to ‘see’ spaces come to life. Using the Flip gives your clients a tool which helps them communicate their ideas to you.
I used the Flip in 3 different situations to help illustrate how this tool would make it easier to collaborate with clients.
Life Kitchens
We headed off to Life Kitchens as I wanted to show the team how easy it would be to use a Flip with their clients. It begins with collecting content:
- Starting with a floor plan which due to the 55 inch screen makes it so much easier to understand the space planning.
- Adding images of finished kitchens for inspiration, using the pen, your client is able to point out exactly what they do and don’t like from these images. This is really helpful as designers know that it’s often just 1 element of a room that a client likes from an image.
- The Life Kitchens showroom is packed full of luxury kitchen inspiration, so it’s really easy to gather ideas and inspiration for a kitchen project. Snapping away on your phone documenting the textures, finishes and storage solutions that your client fancies. By simply touching your phone to the Flip, you’re able to import these images.
So now you have a whole document which shows a design journey, starting with space planning, moving through inspiration and finally selecting the specific textures, finishes and other specifications.
This makes it easy for your client to understand the design process. We know that this isn’t the end of the design process, but your client feels like they have collaborated and you’ve given them the opportunity to share their ideas in a very simple way. And best of all, you can email them a copy of the work that’s been done. I’d say that’s rather powerful.
Iggi Interior Design
I really put the Flip through its paces at a very busy interior architecture and design firm. Iggi Interior Design is part of one of the largest design firms in the UK and the busiest too! Their dynamic team spend a lot of time working through multiple design projects for their clients which range from national property developers to Royalty and Celebrities. Moving fast is key to their success and any tool that can help a large team make decisions faster is worth its weight in gold.
It didn’t take long for the team to pick up how they could use the Flip and soon we were annotating and collaboratively working through the design schemes and floor plans for Iggi’s founder, Susan White’s own home. It’s also revolutionised their Monday morning meetings with the whole team sharing ideas and content together.
KLC School of Design
A few times a year I lecture at the KLC School of Design. This is one of the top interior design schools in the world and that means that I need to be at the top of my game when lecturing to the students. I love being able to give back to the community and helping students think a little about personal branding and marketing in general, but let’s face it, they’re there for design and business skills aren’t always first priority.
So when I took my Samsung Flip with me I realised that this was going to be a game changer. Colours in branding was the topic, and it was so simple to import content that the students had sourced in magazines. Adding this to my presentation made the lesson collaborative and when I showed the students they could annotate, well that just made their day.
It’s simple
There are so many more examples of the Flip that I can share with you, but this tool really does change the way we work. But more than that, it helps us to communicate visual ideas better, and in our industry, that saves time and produces a better result.
I really do love the Samsung Flip.
