A sketch I did of the great man a few years ago.
Rama, Heuristically programmed Algorithmic Computer: 9000 model, Stargates, 1:4:3, Tycho Magnetic Anomaly-1, Space elevators, Clarke’s 3rd Law (how many times has a technologist or designer invoked that in a talk or meeting?), and of course, The Nine Billion Names of God.
Like many, Clarke’s work rewired my brain from a young age, and he’s got my thanks for that.
Whatever’s next for him, I hope it’s “something wonderful”.
RIP, Arthur.
Eno vs Shirky at the ICA
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Shirky vs eno: raw notes, usual disclaimers apply – not a transcript by any means.
ICA
Monday 17th march, 7pm
Eno: Emergence of social communities through networks
1988 : joined the well
Felt like a fulfilment of mcluhan idea of the global village
Persistent on a mixture of honour and shame – which is what keeps small communities together.
93-95 internet had started to grow and it was obvious it wasn?t a 60s social experiment.
Large scale online games: not idealistic global villages -they need different sorts of tools and rules to run successfully. Not anarchistic or simplistic – but nothing like business as usual.
What is the difference between a trad business like ford cars and wikipedia?
Clay: The biggest difference is that large actions generally entail large transaction costs. Scale of decisions pushes you to add some kind of structure. Till recently this was always certainly hierarchically. Internet and social tools reduce coord costs so radically that groups can form and disband easily, but still produce action. Contribution of individuals can be lightweight and distributed.
Most people do almost nothing, and a very few people do an awful lot. Power law. The value of those minimal contributions, can be aggregated to a great effect.
The search for how to structure very large networks that are building value (e.g. Wikipedia, linux) that we are living through is the experimental wing of political philosophy.
Eno: We are poorly informed by our current news media structures (cf. Nick Davies book) PR culture means opinion is careful moulded by power and distributed by a hungry and resource-starved mainstream rolling news media.
Other sources of opinion are needed – the networks.
There?s a phrase of yours I like: ?replacing planning with co-ordination?
Clay: When ever you get a mobile phone you replace plans with co-ordination. What this does for p2p comms is now coming to groups. Great example: HSBC protests on facebook (clay mentioned this on STW)
Eno: a lot of the book is about how a quantitative change becomes a qualitative change. Enabled new situations to catalyse.
Clay: what?s changed is not the tools. Society doesn?t change because of tools, but when attitudes and behaviours change. The tools plus increased social density and comfort – means early adopter techniques have become mainstream social behaviour. The public can now take the sort of actions that they were locked out of just a few years before.
Eno: we?re in England and so we?re pretty cynical compared to people from the west coast. Coming from the most surveilled society in the western world. Can?t believe that governments are going tolerate these changes in power balance that online communities create.
If the co-ordination is mostly through the internet- it?s inconceivable to me that governments are not spending billions on figuring out how to control this. Doesn?t this co-ordination online make us vulnerable?
Clay: Well – I?m not from the west coast I?m from NYC, so my levels of cynicism is somewhere between Mountain View and Brixton.
Yours is a nightmarish scenario, but the thing holding it at bay is that the internet is the first thing that merits the name ?media? because it is genuinely general purpose and flexible. The choice that governments have therefore is connect or disconnect. Too much of what the government is doing is on the same network. The danger is that certain wealthy and controlling regimes will perfect some kind of point control to remove undesirable information from the public sphere before there is casual awareness (cf. The chinese firewall)
(Starts ref: the Leipzig / Minsk ice-cream protest story from ?here comes everybody? – information cascades)
Goes to questions…
Retconning Alternative-3
Chances are if we’ve been to the pub together over the last 15 years, I will have mentioned Alternative-3, amongst the canon of great media proto-ARGs that include Orson Welles’ War Of The Worlds, Ghostwatch, etc.
I re-watched it on the plane over to the USA, and my addled-brain couldn’t help but retcon the whole thing into the LOST universe.
It was made of course, when the DHARMA initiative is intended to have made their orientation movies, which helps.
But the plot within it is worthy of Abrams, Lindelhof, et al.
And I was suprised that I found some parts genuinely sinister/scary still.
The biggest suprise?
Eno!
The meat-death of the universe: SxSW08
SxSW is over for another year, and I’m still recovering from seemingly having eaten the Cloverfield monster, BBQ’d and served with yellow sauce.
I was down to give one talk about ‘supercolliders’ – people who are maestros of social networks, and tried to keep it from being a Dopplr sales pitch as much as possible, but talked about some of the philosophical underpinnings of why we’d chosen some of the directions we had in the design.
Omar Elsayed picked up on this and summed it up more succinctly than I think I did:
“[maybe we’re talking about] two types of social apps: The first class being services where the distribution of information is informed by pre-defined relationships – you receive photos I uploaded because we had previously declared each other as friends. And the second class of services are ones where the flow of information is what defines relationships – we are friends because we regularly send each other photos we?ve uploaded. The general consensus of the panelists was that the first, more ?traditional?, model is proving increasingly ill-suited to support the activities of these extra-social, collision-prone users.”
I really like his formulation there – and also the background tile of his blog. Go look!
There was also doing of science.
Then I got drafted onto a panel about international cultures of mobile device usage. It was something I had to come at on the hoof, but the conversation flowed pretty freely. However I’m sure that both myself and the audience we wishing I was Jan Chipchase or Younghee…
As per usual I managed to miss nearly everything that people said was interesting, including the Steven Johnson / Henry Jenkins and Jane McGonigal keynotes (although I suspect the latter would have been choir-preachin’) – anyway – Dan Hon has awesome notes of eveything I wanted to see.
But – one thing that I think was an interesting trend were the ‘fringe’ mini-conferences that sprang up.
For instance a semi-private one that saw moo, etsy and threadless getting together to share plans and pain; and another open one put on by getsatisfaction for users of their software. Dopplr is starting to really use getsatisfaction more fully for support and product development so this was extremely useful (and great fun)
Nice to see that when the caravanserai hits town, some people are ready to make great, novel uses of it.
Speaking at Adaptive Path’s MX event in San Francisco, April
The programme has been finalised, and I’m going to be there talking about designing social tools, using Dopplr as a case-study.
And, psst… If you register using the code “MXMJ”, you’ll get 15% off the
registration price…
Panel of Miis
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On my way to Austin for SxSW. I got drafted by Souris, and very excited to be on a panel with her, Jen Bekman, and Ben Cerveny.
Souris and Jen as networking-ninjas will be relating their experience of engaging in social networks for fun and profit, while Ben and myself will be talking about social tools and how ‘supercolliders’ hack and transform them.
Looking forward to it.
Best of all, Silvio crafted these magnificent Mii’s for all of us!
If you recognise me from it, say hi!
Rough notes from Seymour Powell presentation, Singapore
Saw Seymour Powell speak this afternoon. Basically, they gave a great presentation of ideas that aren’t that foreign to anyone practising interaction or product design, but as such still depressingly exotic to marketing, advertising and brand people… And let’s face it – you kind of automatically win if you end with “and here’s the spaceship we designed”…
in a very grand ballroom…
let?s just say that advertising people do their conferences very differently…masterclass – from seymourpowell
intro by chris thomas -theme of conference is ?ideas with consequence?
design effectiveness
design council study – basket of companies that privilege design outperforms FTSE
effective design – is there any other kind?
it?s not art
david sainsbury – innovation = successful exploitation of new ideas.
brand – a series of promises that do not change over time (bernstein)Voyage of the dawntreader – what is a star – – what it is, not what it?s made of.
Aston Martin example – ?power, beauty, soul?
?they?ve made a dreadful mistake but putting it on the dashboard.. I don’t want to be told!? (show, don’t tell)
?you don?t own it, it lives in the heart of the consumer?
brands taken and refracted and distorted by forces outside the brand
communications are become more and more fragmented
the product is where the brand keeps it?s promises – where the rubber hits the road.
?audi tt doesn’t need an ad – it is the ad? -john hegarty
the product is an ad that runs every time you pick it up.
even at the end of it?s life – when you discard it.
the brand can be redefined by the product (for good or for ill)
skoda – 10 years refining the product to redefine the brand.
is land-rover a brand or a product?
the dna of the brand is the vehicle, the product
design as a job of reasserting authority for a brand.brands are far to important to entrust to brand managers
1.7 years is the average tenure of a brand manager
product cycles are typically 2-8years…emotional ergonomics – you love to use it.
3d dimensional brandsphases of creativity: idea >belief > embodiment
old saw: ?a brief is a collection of the client?s prejudices? is true.
we don?t listen – we watch.
if you listen to focus groups you get post-rationlisation, not insight.
emergent behaviour comes from watching, and if you watch that you find the future.if 72% of consumer decisions are made at point of sales then how come 72% of the budget isn’t spent there?
change.
?unless we build a receiver into the client, they can?t be read for the violence of the new?
push/pull activity – push from tech, pull from marketing.
poor comms between both usually.over-ambition can be the death of innovation – the search for the big idea, the category killer
usually great innovation is more about a series of small ideas brought together in a new and orginal wayoften innovation theory triumphs over practice – management goobledegook and voodoo. buzzword bingo.
embodying it doesn’t usually fall to the innovation consultants…
innovation sheep-dip – flawed but p.c. idea that everyone can be creative. some people are just more creative than others…. training isn?t always the answer.
good design is cheap, brilliant design is free.
process: gets you the unexpected but relevant solution
?crucible? events – melting point for alloying the points of view of marketing and technical.
embodying an idea is so important – sketching and drawing is crucial.redesigning the steam iron for tefal
two small headaches from user observation – why do I have to fill it through a tiny hole, why is it always falling offc.f. shelf-demonstrable
stand somewhere else to solve the problem from where you are used to – to get to the unexpected but relevant solution
new paradigms of product – how do you create them?
when we see something we don?t quite understand – your brain rifles through all the categories it knows and tries to find a match
businesses need to be a zoom lens to see the very small things that might disrupt the vision.
occupy yourself with the parts without losing sight of the whole.
businesses should ask ?why not? more than ?why?
– george bernard shaw quote
?how far do you want to dream?
shows virgin galactic video
they give extremely good talk – the confidence and passion is something to behold…
My “Designs Of The Year” nominations
For reasons of equal self-indulgence and completism, here are the nominations with supporting text I sent into the Design Museum for their “Designs of the year” exhibition.
I was surprised that neither of my console game nominations got through, but on reflection is this the right venue for games?
Surely they are the advance-guard of interactive, digital design – the cutting-edge of interaction design from which, increasingly, techniques are trickling-down to other applications.
But, then, as they are media, stories, toys, places – the experience of which changes through play – that makes Design with a big D uncomfortable. Ah well. For debate.
In the end, Trulia Hindsight, Sharkrunners, fixmystreet and the iPhone made it into the exhibition from my list.
What would your designs of the year be?
Designs of the year nominations: Digital
Cabspotting / Trulia Hindsight / Oakland crime / work of Stamen in 2007
http://cabspotting.org
http://stamen.com/oakland_crime_map
http://hindsight.trulia.com/
http://content.stamen.com/2007 was the year that information visualisation came out of the academic shadows and the research labs, onto the desktop – and into the art galleries. Much of this is to do with the work and debate around the work of Stamen.
While Cabspotting makes the jaw drop at the beauty of everyday data in the city, Oakland Crime Maps makes subtle political points as well as being a handsome interface for a complex, live data set. Instead of just profiting from UI conventions being set in this new field, Stamen is driving them — and a questioning, critically-thriving community of practice.
———-
While YouTube has the headlines and the hordes, Vimeo has very happy users. Privileging quality of experience and quirky-though-painstaking design (such as its log-in screen! Possibly the most gorgeous log-in screen ever?), its privacy controls and ease-of-use have carved it a loyal niche.
———-
Sharkrunners.com
By area/code for discovery channel onlineDespite the clean graphics and straightforward gameplay, you might think this is a run-of-the-mill promotional game for the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week? You’d be wrong. You set up a virtual team of shark researchers and navigate your vessel in the ocean off the southern california coast. The twist is that the sharks you are pursuing are not coded, they’re GPS-tagged, real sharks leading you a merry dance, in real time, around the Pacific! A pioneering, well-executed and playful way to explore natural history online.
———-
Okami
by Clover StudioAs the sheer graphical horsepower of games consoles increases, it’s more and more gratifying to see designers opting out of the realism arms-race and creating vivid, original worlds such as that found in Okami. The core of its success is the close-coupling of the visual look of the world with the game mechanics and control-system. Turning the 3D world into a 2D traditional Japanese artwork, then using the joypad to draw calligraphic solutions to your problems creates a satisfying, involving and, often jaw-droppingly-beautiful experience.
———–
Moo.com
http://www.moo.comA great home-grown exemplar of wonderful physical/digital service design. From the delightful, straightforward user interface of the website, where you create various printed objects from your content (Flickr pictures, Habbo-hotel characters), to the little touches of copywriting in the emails that keep track of your order, to the
delightful packaging your finished product comes in.———–
Fixmystreet
http://www.fixmystreet.com/From the prolific volunteers at Mysociety.org, a very neat exercise in using constraints positively. By returning a ‘gamefield’ of only a very small area around your postcode, and allowing only observations/fixes to hyperlocal problems – extraordinary levels of feedback and concrete solutions result.
————
iPhone/iPod touch OS by Apple
A beautiful bit of holistic digital/physical design, executed incredibly well with cutting-edge technology. “A remarkable v1.0” as has been said. Important for not only the quality and consistency of the UI, but also for being a genuine example of the overused term “paradigm shift”. Lessons from games UI: direct manipulation, physics and flow are now going to be everywhere – not just on mobile but on the desktop, as the iPod touch/iphones metaphors bleed back into the desktop. Expectations have been raised for the rest of the consumer electronics industry by Apple once more.
———–
Nike+ by Nike/Apple
The cutting-edge of ubiquitous computing is not perhaps in medicine or warfare, but in personal fitness, and purchasable on the high street for about thirty pounds or so. Nike+ is the slickest, neatest, most-well-put-together fusion of physical product, digital service and networked community that’s out there (for now). If there’s any fault one can pick with it, it’s that it allows only one thing (running) to be so slickly-enhanced, and it’s this slickness that precludes further innovation by the community.
————
BioShock by Ken Levine / Take-Two Interactive
It’s rare that a video game is an enjoyable experience for a spectator, and even rarer to hear a spectator ask the player to go back so they can look at a design detail, a piece of scenery or architecture? The sheer detail and horrifying beauty of BioShock’s art-deco undersea setting is nothing short of Kubrick-meets-Jules-Verne spectacular. An astonishing bit of art, that also has literally killer game-play.
DO WANT.
4×4 Meme: More About Me
I got tagged by Saffer, who I kind of regard as my commanding officer, so here goes.
Four Jobs I've Had in My Life:
- 1987-1990: Working after school and weekend in Harris Printers, Porthcawl. I nagged the guy who ran it for a job and got one – folding stuff, stapling, sweeping up at the end of the day. It progressed through learning to set type and help run the letterpress, help make plates and run a litho through to installing and running their first Mac set-up. An SE30 with an A3 black-and-white radius screen and a LaserWriter+ that cost a small fortune.
- 1992-93: Gregg's the Bakers, Cardiff. While in college – I had a job that involved sweeping and mopping the floor of the bakery shop and serving customers. You got to take home quiches and sausage rolls, so I thought it was a pretty sweet deal.
- 1993-94: Architectural Assistant, Welsh Health Common Services Authority, NHS Wales For my year out working I stayed in Cardiff and had a hell of a year working in the NHS, drawing ceiling and landscaping details by-and-large but towards the end of my tenure there I got to do the early concepts for a few schemes such as a respite ward for cancer patients which had some interesting passive-solar features, and a medium-secure unit for violent mental patients, which probably wouldn't pass the Sarah Connor test, but did have nice 45 degree corners in corridors so patients could give staff nasty surprises. I also developed a nice moonlighting role getting paid cash-in-hand to do concept sketch work for one of the qualified architects over the weekend, which he would then pass off as his… This also sticks in my mind as being the one place I have worked where myself and three colleagues successfully managed to speak only using song titles for an entire day.
- 1995: Assistant Producer, Camden Lock / Delphi: My first job out of architecture school, and into the WWW, courtesy of Mr. Phil Barrett. In a Camden basement where I met Stef, Yoz, Mick, Pouneh, Obi, Emyr, Alex, Pete, Graham, Stuart and others, mucked around with Emacs and Video Cameras; and fully fell in love with the Web.
Four TV Shows I DVR (I don't have a DVR, but let's say… time-shifted time-based media originally produced for television… ahem):
- The Wire: I've just finished Season 2, so no spoilers. Also this is something I watch on planes, trains, buses – anywhere I'm on my own. Foe is not so into it to say the least. I, however, am totally hooked.
- Lost: Season 4 and it is back on, as far as I'm concerned. Like the Alias Rambaldi Arc, I like my J.J.A stories weird and byzantine. The more DHARMA the better.
- Sarah Connor Chronicles: It gets a bit emo now and again, but Cromatie is awesome. Also, I guess it's a sign of age that I fancy Lena Heady way more than Summer Glau.
- Primeval: This is UK-pulp family scifi served straight-up and dumb, without any of the shameless Whedonising of RTD's Doctor. I love it.
Four places I've been:
- Adelaide: Beautiful, and the central market is not to be missed – especially the lamingtons…
- Shanghai: crazy corpuscular, muscular hypercapitalism. maximum city, reached by maglev. Maglev!
- Aberdeen: grey stone in sunshine. A majestic market town and a little bit post-peak oil.
- Sienna: The archetypal Italian hill town, and a wonderful place to passeggiata through the contrada…
Four music artists I'm listening to right now:
- Saffer beat me to British Sea Power," Do You Like Rock Music?", but 'Atom' is magnificent.
- School of Language "Sea from shore": very Jim O'Rourke, but this is not a bad thing.
- Nick Cave and Warren Ellis "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" OST
- Deerhoof "The Perfect Me": which seems to sum up a lot of the other, odd things I'm listening to – poppy math rock with wierd vocals seems to do it for me right now.
That's it!
Now, I'm afraid I have to tag people don't I.
Chris Heathcote, Matt Webb, Flo Heiss and Iain Tait, come on down!
Petafloptimism 