designswarm thoughts

You’d have to be in the coma this past week not to have noticed that half the universe is in Austin for what feels like a geek version of prom night.
It’s also in times like these that it feels more lonely on the web in a way, as most of the people who don’t get a chance to meet get to spend a week together while the rest of us are spectators of that time and enjoyment. It’s a strange feeling of being at the end of the network, where it really feels like you’re a voyeur, desperately reaching out for anything people will share: pictures on Flickr, tweets, blog posts, etc.

Or maybe I should get out more :)

Just a quick announcement that I have switched to Feedburner for this blog’s RSS feed…subscribe away!

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So I am no longer a “St-Pancreas virgin” as a fellow traveller in the train referred to it, and it’s frankly really great. It took me a little over 2 hours (or about 40 rows of knitting since that’s what’s making transportation such a breeze these days) to get to Bruxelles and 1h50 minutes to come back! I can’t even get out of London in a car in half that time!

The problem of course with super efficient services everything else starts to pale in comparison and your expectations get skewed.

I was supposed to get to Antwerp for lunchtime on Friday and since it took me 2 hours to cross the Channel and get into Belgium, I figured going to the Netherlands was going to be a breeze… what an idiot!
Turns out it takes about 3 hours both ways and would have cost me about half of the price of my Eurostar ticket. Obviously this was unacceptable and totally unfeasible (It would have meant I would have had to be in Antwerp for a little over 2 hours before turning back to be able to catch my train home), so I had to cancel…

Would I have planned better without the Eurostar? Probably. But I would have ended up taking the less sustainable solution of grabbing a flight back to London… Maybe this is something services like Dopplr can start to address more clearly: managing travel expectations in a world where the diversity in service delivery forces users to make less sustainable decisions.

“You can fly tomorrow and meet Y, and if you’re in town B suggests you go have coffee at Tree & Leaf”.

Thanks to Lina from fo.am for a great stay in Bruxelles.

“[Weblogs are] the VHS cassette of media delivery.”

via Things magazine

I grew up all over the place (Paris, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Canada) and continued to relocate in my adult life (Italy, Holland, now UK) and many of my closest friends have had similar experiences. This got me thinking that the fashionable community of frequent travelers might not necessarily equate the community of frequent re-locators. From children of diplomats or bankers, to anyone who decides to relocate on a whim once they’ve become bored of a city (happens to me a lot), are there any new online or service interactions that can illustrate that granularity of personal experience or cater to those needs? Here are a few “weak signals” I like that could start some thoughts about this area:

We are multicolored is an interested exercise that allows you to draw your own flag based on different flags of countries that have had an impact on you.
I found however that I wanted to include and play around much more than 3 flags. “Where is your home” is question that has become much too broad. Where do you live now? Where have you lived? Where do you call home? are all questions that expand on this idea and could lead to interesting interfaces or visualisations.

What is the difference between relocating somewhere for a few months or a few years? My friend Hayat Benchenaa worked on a service design project for relocation and packing. There’s something interesting here about being able to recreate the idea of “home” quite quickly, before the container full of your belongings arrives. There is potential here in merging some of these ideas with the pre-furnished apartments people rent when staying somewhere for just a few months (very popular in Amsterdam).

Monocle could try catering to re-locators and giving deeper insight into some of the cities they cover instead of skimming through the globe over and over again (the latest one covers Milan in 3 different articles). They could also try catering to women in a different way, other than sticking in awkward fashion ads but that’s another story. There is a market for a magazine that gives insider’s knowledge not only on fashion and politics around the world but also on what makes every city special and different culturally. (Why, for eg. you shouldn’t order a cappucino after 11am in Milan, something re-locators want to know more than people dropping in for a few days of meetings)

Globalisation is a trading concept not a cultural one and there should be services, both online and offline that acknowledge this.

Before attending thishappened last night I was invited by Garrick Jones to attend an informal discussion on web2.0 hosted at the Hospital, a very chichi private club in Soho.

Nothing could have been more further away from how I thought businessmen perceive the value of the now 3 year old term. I should have known better, of course and quickly recalled a client who asked me last year to produce a document on the business value of growing a community online. le sigh.

Here are some answers to parts of that conversation that stood out for me, since the conversation was pretty much taken over by 4 quite aggressive, serious types in a room of 20 sheepish looking observers (i’d kill to know who on earth these people were!).

1. The future of the web is NOT in paying people for their time.

That’s called work. People interact online because it’s fun, they learn stuff, they laugh, they read and educate themselves about the world, and they can meet new people in ways noone would have thought possible. Oh, and Second Life is not a good example of monetisation on the web (WoW is much better at it).
Paying contributors for their time and effort has proven to be an unsuccessful model (check out some thought about this on theWealth of Networks Chapter 4, an article in the O’Reilly radar, and the founder of wikitravel). A vivid example is why, Yahoo answers won against Google answers.

2. Facebook, mySpace, Second Life and Boingboing aren’t the only things online.

These 4 were the most used examples during the entire conversation ( a gentleman from Nokia mentioned Get Satisfaction which was the only new example) and I do not think they represent the spectrum of web2.0 interactions.

3. Stop thinking the Internet is just a dump.

Not unlike a huge library where people don’t put the books back where they left them, the web is full of information which isn’t relevant to EVERYONE but to SOME. Live with that and leave it alone. Not everything is meant to be organised and controlled. Again think word “fun”.

4. Web2.0 can be stronger than corporations, even the online corporations and if you don’t take control of your company’s voice online, you can be sure someone else will.

I have 2 words for you as worthy examples:HD-DVD and Crapwest. If you don’t want something like this to happen to your company every time you piss people off, take part in the conversation online, the worst thing that can happen is that people will challenge you to offer better services.

So in short web2.0 is immensely useful to businesses if they’re wiling to dig a little deeper than the Facebook “you have a new message” emails. (yes someone did refer to that as an example of web2.0 interactions!)

I won’t even try to address some of the silli comparisons to traditional warlord models that were brought up and I wish I had stayed longer talk through some of these points with people, but I had to dash off to a much lovelier crowd in Shoreditch.

(Any resemblance to any living person is purely accidental and unintentional)

1. You no longer listen to round-table introductions
2. You attend conference because there will be “the usual suspects”
3. You prepare your slides while others present
4. You have reached your quota of AIM buddies
5. Have a ratio of 1:10 following: followers on twitter
6. You come back from an event and conference with business cards you never have time to look at. (They’ll find you online you shrug.)
7. You have stopped blogging (that’s what twitter and jaiku are there for)

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The interesting thing about traveling and relocating several times in a lifetime lies in the particular nostalgia one has about those places.

In my case, Amsterdam was always about the biking. The wind (or more often than not rain) in your hair, the upright posture, the power (you will never get a car honking at you as there are more bikes than cars), the infinite ways to explore the city, the pride to ride an old and battered beautiful dutch bike that noone would ever want to steal, the sound of the lock as it clings and clangs against the frame, being able to bike back drunk from an event in town, the wind on your back on a downward slope.

In London, things aren’t quite the same for bikers. I look at them go from the second floor of a bus and it looks like an Olympic sport. Aggressive, fast, on gear-less sports bikes, wearing bike helmets (you’d be laughed at for doing that in Amsterdam) and sometimes face masks, it’s just not the same.

So when I left for Amsterdam last week, I had been thinking for months about how I missed my precious bike and how much I wanted to take it back with me to London. Of course it only occurred to me once I got there that it wasn’t the bike I missed, but the biking experience. Something 20 pounds on Easyjet would never get me.

So I came back empty-handed and a bit sad. This was a good reminder that although you can take your friends and your work wherever you go and that global nomadism is the epitome of cool among geeks, there is a vast array of things you will never be able to export out.

And that’s why most people aren’t global nomads. Some places just are too good to leave behind.

An interesting online battle is being fought these days on the productdesign2.0 scene.

Ponoko just launched (I first heard about them back in May). Part online gallery, part market, part distributed manufacturing, they are catering to the creative industries to provide their catalogue. Think of is as a mash-up between Etsy and Amazon’s business model.

On the other side we have Crowdspirit which relies on people giving ideas about new products, the community votes and most popular ideas get manufactured. Slower pace, smaller slice of the pie (it’s only for electronic products) and reliant on the quality of the community’s ideas.

Who will win?

I’ve had the privilege to have experienced a rather luxurious service recently and it got me thinking about the way we design services for the elite vs the general public. Can one inspire the other? What are the differences and what’s the thinking behind it?

1. Planning for all possible scenarios:

I stayed in a very fancy hotel last month and found among other weird things a shelf next to the minibar including the following items:

- a promotional cup from the hotel
- an Alvar Aalto votive candle holder
- a bottle of liquor
- a box of condoms

Odd combination of items which in fact make total sense, but that I’ve never seen offered in more affordable hotels. What’s the scenario here? Have a cup of tea, light a candle, have a romantic drink and shag? Bring back the cup of tea as part of your collection, bring back the candle holder as you forgot your wife’s birthday, have a stiff drink and call a hooker?

In a way, this very fashionable hotel is almost acknowledging what it is more than hotels where you’ll find the Bible in the drawer of the bedside table. Culturally and otherwise these objects are far more useful to a guest because they can convey a sense of “we’ve thought about everything, just relax”.

It’s interesting to think about how this feeling could be replicated in services. How can you provide a service and give a sense of reassurance to it’s users? Are you honest-enough with your service provision?

2. Secret language:

We all know that the epitome of luxury is feeling like you’re part of the elite and have your own secret language. You can find this to be true of most internet memes (wtf is flume?) but it also applies to the services and objects you surround yourself with. The latest Core77 article on the latest Bang & Olufsen portable music player is an example of misunderstanding that language:

“Bang & Olufsen designs interesting-looking products that most of us will never own, either because they’re too expensive and/or we simply have no use for them.”

That’s besides the point really, because luxury was never about utility but about recognition. How can a service develop it’s own language, only understood by it’s users? I’m talking about more than a member card here. Can other users of the service recognize each other by that language, like those necklaces people who have been to New Zealand wear. Products and services can become part of a secret shared by few but who are the few? Your friends? Your family? Your colleagues?

3. Not for everyone:

Asmallworld has been enjoying a little press lately, and why shouldn’t it? When all the services out there these days have “free signup”, these guys are invite-only (perhaps also what makes feel so elitist still).

What would be the middle ground here? Partial service access depending on who you are to me as the prime user?

I think there’s a lot of potential here beyond thinking about luxury as guns, drugs and art deco :)

(Disclaimer: I started writing this post yesterday and Safari crashed on me, so this is a much shorter version of what I originally wanted to write (which was so freaking brilliant). This morning, i have less time on my hands. )

1. Twitter blocks came out.
2. A lot of people started bitching (on twitter, jaiku, etc of course coz no one seems to be bothered making full-fledged arguments on blogs anymore) that their visualisation was *pretty but useless*.
3. Stamen defended themselves aggressively.
4. In light of the fact that the internet is full of people who amuse themselves filling up pages of cats staying stupid things, I think they should relax.
5. The best defense is offense. Keep at it guys, you’re doing great work.

Conclusion & other questions this brings up: When you’re in the “grey zone” between the totally practical and art, what do you do? Do you keep defending your work as one or the other? Do you just ignore the silos and just get on with it? If Stamen is the grey zone of the internet’s information age, who occupies this role in “offline product design”? And what does that scale look like? What are the criteria for this?

Lack of contextual understanding makes some systems seem dumb. On signing up a Yahoo Groups for tinker.it.

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.

“You have to be strong attention to details and tipography and passionate about online design.”

Part of a freelancer’s life consists in inspecting any online job ad that comes by, which can, at times, be quite entertaining. You can always tell, to illustrate the example above, if they have been written by someone in HR who has no clue as to whether their ad sounds credible or not. You feel that writing this must have been like a mini-project: they went around and asked all the “stakeholders” and made a “list of requirements” and end up having to write something that sounds completely unrealistic.

Most of the ones I stumble upon go a little something like this (this is a mashup of several different ads I’ve seen recently, any resemblance to a single one is an accident) :

“_______ is an award-winning digital agency located in the heart of __________. We are looking for a passionate ___________ designer to help us in a rapidly-expanding team. The successful candidate will have plenty of opportunity to work on high profile projects with big consumer brands. ________is a place where all projects are multidisciplinary and each problem has a finite solution. You should be organized, self-motivated, and able to make deadlines and manage multiple projects without breaking a sweat. This position presents a unique opportunity to work in a diverse and gifted creative environment that rewards knowledge, teamwork and ambition.

Skills Required:
- Brilliant design sensibility (color, form, typography & layout)
- Cultural insight and awareness of current pop & lifestyle design trends.
- Proficient in Flash and strong Web design experience
- Proficient in Photoshop and Illustrator
- Proven oral/written communication skills, client interaction, project management skills
- An ability to take initiative and adhere to project guidelines

Skills Preferred (but not mandatory):
- Knowledge of HTML, XHTML, and CSS (web standards)
- Knowledge of AJAX (Javascript)
- Sound Editing
- Animation (Flash, After Effects)
- Familiarity with eCommerce systems
- Familiarity with MySQL
- Moderate to advanced PHP, XML, ASP, .NET
- Brand/Identity design and illustration”

In these bubble-like times I read that it’s difficult for companies to keep their employees, isn’t it obvious why? If you’re hiring under such hypocritical and demanding conditions, no wonder you don’t live up to the employee’s expectations! In a way telling the truth might be a better policy but I’m guessing it would sound something like this:

“__________ is a struggling average group of designers located in the outskirts of ______(we like to use design agency because everyone else is) but we’re only 6 people, and we really need someone to fill in the blanks, do a bunch of different jobs as the work goes by. You might be clocking 80 hours one week and twiddling your thumbs the other, sorry, that’s how things go here. We expect you to roll with things, be great at doing mentally-empty production work for weeks if need be, because we can’t pay interns to do that and the ones we get for free aren’t reliable enough. We can’t retain our clients because the competition is really fierce, so we’re sticking to the few stable huge corporate clients we have, knowing full well our competitors are working with them as well (but not on the same project) . You’ll be paid about a 10th of what we’ll bill the client for your work. That again, is how things go. We do have a kick-ass pool table though! And we hope you live nearby because otherwise you’ll be spending 3 hours a day commuting to get to the office. Do send us an online portfolio so we can compare you with the others we have and bitch tremendously before you never hear from us again”

In a way looking for a job is like a first date, you and them will present themselves under the best light possible, hoping that the honeymoon will last as long as possible, but both totally blinded by love or desperation in the first meetings :)

And yes I hope to remain employable even after posts like these :)

The proof this is all a bubble:

(Found filling out the usual form page to submit a talk for Berlin’s Web2.0 expo.)