designswarm thoughts

• This is not a brothel… on Flickr – Photo Sharing!
  Tom Coates , about what comes with being a famous blogger
  (tags: web2.0)

• 3 Things – Show All
  Interesting twist on the “cadavre exquis” concept, this collection of 3 videos makes for sometimes entertaining associations….another project from my friend Michael Chichi’s growing portfolio
  (tags: web2.0 video social network art)

There a saying that goes something like this:

“There are 3 types of people in the world: those who participate in the parade, those who wave from the bleachers and the people that don’t even know there’s a parade going on”.

Things online used to be fairly simple really. This made me think it is no longer the case. I used to meet people, if they were more “businessy” I would give them a business card and they would find me on linkedin if they wanted. They would potentially go see my website and maybe, subscribe to my blog. I’d drop them an email thanking them for their time including my contact info in my signature. Still very businessy. If they realllllly wanted, they would eventually add me on Flickr, but that usually meant we connected on a friendship level as well.

Now… well, there’s Facebook. I keep talking about this, I know, but mainly because I’m baffled about the way it’s used. I hate it actually. It’s made my little silos of personal information into a moshpit of social goo. It’s made my contact management a nightmare.

Everyday I’ll get one of the following sending me a Facebook request:

- long lost friends from 12 years ago.
- friends from Montreal that I haven’t seen in 3 years or don’t see often
- people that I studied with but never really spoke to
- people I studied with
- people I don’t like
- business contacts
- friend who already have me on all the other networks
- friends already have what i call “double click access” to me via ichat/skype, etc.
- people I don’t even know

So now I’ve completely lost the ability to sort where I want people to go and what I want them to see about me. What I decided to do then, is to do nothing. I don’t interact on Facebook, because doing so would mean that I am displaying a part of myself to an audience I’m uncomfortable with. The whole point of social networks used to exist to cater to your multiple online facets, and now clearly that no longer is the MO.

You could say that I could just close my account, that would make sense for the percentage requests that I don’t like, but it would mean shutting off my ability to reach some of my friends, who, not particularly computer savvy, find in Facebook all the functionalities they will ever need.

Good for them, but I’ll just wave from the bleachers on this one I think.

I think this is what Il link to when people ask me what i do.

• icon | 050 | august
  no comment
  (tags: design critical)

• INDEX:2007 SUMMER CAMP
  CIID, IDII’s child school in Copenhagen is organising a 3 week workshop for students. Brings back memories :)
  (tags: interaction design education workshop conference Denmark)

• Inuda Innovations – Explore. Deliver. Enjoy.
  engineering solutions … interesting… keeping my ears opened
  (tags: web2.0 business)
• Zazaziza • For no good reason • Small-time interactions
  great wearable interaction by my favorite designers
  (tags: interaction design)

There’s a habit in the world of product design to only concentrate on the object, its design, the supposed environment in which it would be used (think ikea catalogues where the occasional good looking Swedish person will show up to pick up a spoon from a drawer) and not really on it’s use… For example the Cima ladder, featured in my Core 77 feeds today…

Ok it’s a ladder that looks pretty… and it basically forces you to climb… but holy shit i would be scared senseless to try to change a light-bulb with this, forget trying to paint a wall, i can’t steady my feet on the same level. Perception of stability when doing vertically challenging activities is more important than esthetics… so this ladder reduces any possibility of doing anything that’s independent of a wall… which is why I would need a ladder in the first place no? … as for coming “out of the closet and stand proudly in the salon of the house.”, i don’t have that much space to spare.

So when we’re talking about sustainable product design, and using smart materials, etc… can we also perhaps expect designers to come up with designs that are smart and have the potential to be used in more ways than one? In this case provide the same function as the original product and not less. A “No one-liner” policy would be a great start, otherwise we will keep cultivating the egos of aesthetic and material-based designs with poorer functions and uses…

• Communities Dominate Brands
  Alan Moore, a smart man I met recently, talks about how the marketing and advertising industries can survive in these web2.0 times
  (tags: web2.0 advertising marketing)

• CONTRA – integrated creative services
  creative branding agency based, well all around, but also London
  (tags: agency creative london)
• Train d’union.
  French social network for train travellers in France
  (tags: web2.0 travel)

• BarCamp / mobileCampLondon
  Nice mobile barcamp happening in London during Picnic weekend in September
  (tags: mobile workshop london)

• H3: Le social, a hardware hacking enthusiast’s pubmeet at Nanobyte bar (Wednesday, August 29, 2007) – Upcoming
  Pubmeet for hardware hacking enthusiasts at the end of the month in London, come and join us!
  (tags: hardware hacking meeting london)
• The Anthill Social
  Nice interaction design collective, “exploring and illustrating the boundaries of digital technologies” in London…
  (tags: interaction design london)
• O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference 2008 • March 3-6, 2008 • San Diego, California
  Hmm, could this be the year where i apply?
  (tags: conference technology USA)

Highlarious…

• dopplr
  dopplr has an API wiki now… woohoo
  (tags: travel web2.0)

• ADAD HANNAH
  American artist now working in Montreal… interesting video work
  (tags: art Montreal)
• THE 11TH HOUR
  “redesign design itself” is part of the voiceover for this sustainable movie… interesting to see the global fingers slowing pointing in our direction
  (tags: sustainability movies documentary)
• geobloggers » Topoware: mapping out lunch time.
  Nice review of Topoware in a geography context by one of the nice people at Flickr
  (tags: designswarm product design)
• It’s a Beautiful Day – 5th Alvar Aalto Design Seminar 2007
  nice design seminar in Finland in October
  (tags: finnish conference design)