Innovation isn’t flying cars or VR glasses

By:  June 17, 2019 Categories: 

Last Saturday we found a new apartment in Shanghai through ZiRoom (自如). The app has zero flair and is pure efficiency. Through filters we narrowed down our options, listed on a map in north Shanghai (screenshots are just examples).

Most apartments have 360° photographs. We got an appointment in 10 minutes, and later that evening we decided to take it, and paid & signed the contract through the app. The WIFI & TV (with a free Chinese Netflix-service) worked within minutes, and ZiRoom also provide a weekly cleaning lady.

To me this is the kind of real innovation that will never win awards at Cannes Lions because it doesn’t ‘feel’ futuristic, and will never get mentioned in advertising blogs, because it doesn’t boast artificial intelligence or VR-glasses.

It’s underwhelming actually, but it’s so user-friendly — and if I ever use a traditional broker again I’ll surely look at it as extremely outdated. We got an apartment in the most convenient way possible.

Latest

Half a Jin, Eight Liang

Half a Jin, Eight Liang

Learning Chinese, or any language, makes you more aware of language in general. And one thing that surprised me is that, despite Mandarin being so different from my mother tongue (Dutch), both languages reach for the same units when weighing things: the kilogram (公斤, gōngjīn) and the half-kilogram (斤, jīn). It’s a small thing, but […]
June 24, 2026
Cake and Timepieces

Cake and Timepieces

There are multiple ways to define Shanghai. There’s the more modern version, with beautiful lanes full of expensive yoga studios or artisan coffee shops, lined with the London Plane Tree (法国梧桐) and the Wukang Mansion (武康大楼), and renovated parks like the North Bund (北外滩) and West Bund (西岸). There’s also the Shanghai as the international […]
June 23, 2026
A candle in Minnesota

A candle in Minnesota

It’s Wednesday morning, and I’m in Saint Paul, Minnesota, attending the morning mass at St. Bernard’s church. It’s about twenty years since I last attended a mass, and the first time I’ve ever done so voluntarily. I’m sure I’m drawn to this church near my Airbnb, compelled to go in, but I find it hard […]
June 14, 2026
Revisiting Columbine

Revisiting Columbine

Growing up in the Netherlands, it’s not immediately obvious (even to myself) that the history of the United States is also partly mine, but through TV series and movies — as well as the news — it’s also a country I lived in and grew up in. And unlike presidential elections or the September 11th […]
June 8, 2026