Plot | strategic design & innovation agents

A new kind of council

We're going to be contributing the the launch of The Council, Rob Van Kranenberg's brilliant collective of great thinkers in the Internet of things arena. He's managed to attract a fascinating group of people working right across all of the issues that come to mind, from policy to artists interpretations, to developers and makers like Tinker it! I'm really looking forward to the launch event this coming friday in Brussels, and will be running a workshop on the Sensing City, as well as dusting down some scenarios we produced that still have not yet happened. It looks like we've got a sizeable group to come and play, as I'm getting really excited about where it could go. I'm doing the preparation for the workshop, and putting some great stim material together. I've been wanting to do this subject matter for a long time, and being able to design and facilitate the workshop to our spec is a dream.

The idea is to give us a chance to think through some different perspectives on what the IOT could be in cities both developed and slums. We'll be working out some scenarios using different forms of stimulus and building on some of the great wok already done. Will post some of the output after.

This Council is one to watch.

Happy Trails

A great retailing example is the Happy Pills store in Barcelona. Gorgeous sweets in a pharmacy setting, as an excuse to prescribe friends some treats. Simple idea and really well done, with great graphics, adaptable packaging (labels and bottles, pill boxes) and interiors.

Nice.

More on the voices

Recently we had a little rant about the automated audio messaging which is being embedded in so many systems around us. From buses to tube trains, to new self service checkouts in supermarkets, the abundance of messaging seems to be affecting many others too.

On a flight last week a friendly and inspired cabin guy working for Ryanair,  got the whole plane laughing when he was delivering the audio commentary to his colleagues gestures for exits and what to do in an emergency script that we have head time and time again.

"...and place it over your head.." He continued as we all got ready to head off.

"...wrap the tapes around your waist and tie them both around your back. You can top up the air by blowing in the pipe. There is a whistle for attracting attention......and a light to attract the sharks."

That got all of the nervous people smiling - nervously!

It reminded me of when we were working with the Virgin Atlantic guys in Crawley, who have a passion for the sassy performance of cabin crew to get a great athmosphere going. There they specialise in and encourage the kinds of in the moment thinking, that really makes things work. Real humans are given the autonomy to do things like this, in fact they know its what can make the difference between a mundane and a really great experience.

Only humans can do this as, for the moment, our systems are not at all sensitive enough to discern how many nervous faces are looking up at them. Certainly some can do it badly, yet some do it in a way that makes a huge impact on people and that point in time. Context awareness, empathy and a range of sophisticated language options helps.

Oh, ....and timing!

Its all immaterial, anyway

Immaterials: the ghost in the field from timo on Vimeo.

...and then they go and do it again.

What I really love is the way they follow their noses, and produce something that makes you gasp. It's just so beautiful, the shape. A wonderful partnership of two verythoughtful and smart people and organisations.

Love the dumb comments they get - as you do when people expect you to be doing something that they are thinking about, rather than what you are looking at. More, soon!

Charting a new course on the book

About a year ago we started looking at writing a book about the people side of design management.

Well, we finished it. However it has recently faced a much bigger challenge than deadlines. After plenty of deliberation with our publisher AVA, we have decided that the book they want to produce and the book we want to write are two different things. So we have amicably decided to go seperate ways.

However, we still want to publish the book we intended to write. We've had enough feedback from people along the way that they would welcome our book, and asking for when it will be availible.

What really works for us is that the illustrations, images, warstories, interviews we have had from many other colleagues in the design industry have helped us capture something very unique in design books - a far more realistic vision of what it actually takes to work effectively with people. So, this email is not only to thank them, but also to ask you if you would be interested in contributing (with full credit of course) the same to a book that we published ourselves as Plot. We started this work, and would feel we had let down those who had given us their contributions, and lose the momentum we had created over the past year.

Now that we do not have to satisfy an academic audience, we intend to re-write the content to sharply focus on those who are actively involved in designing for public and private sector companies and clients. It can be a sharper and more targetted as a resource for working with rather than for, or despite people. We can build on the insights you have given us, and produce something we feel warrants people time in reading it, and using the methods we have developed. In particular, we can make it highly practical for those who are engaged in actively doing designing, rather than as an academic work.

We are very happy to share our work in progress with you, and are thinking of self-publishing with Lulu.

So, if you have a moment, we'd love to hear what you think.

Happy Sandboxing Revisit

 

18 months ago we were involved in Bristol's IShed's Media Sandbox initiative for pervasive media ideas.That's the project under which we started our Happy Towns work, which is undergoing a bit of a revamp at the moment.

This year they published a book reviewing the past 2 years of projects, including ours. What was even better is that they used our Happy Towns image as their backdrop for the event.

Nice to see fellow travellers such as the Simons.

Playing out

We got to playful09 last week, and had a great refreshing time listening to some great speakers on a range of themes around gaming and playing, especially Rex Box and his subtle drawn light OHP presentation - much underused these days!

Russell Davies was delightful, getting us to enjoy the pretend value that games and much more bring to our lives. Liked the gorgeous pie charts of what's really going on with Jason Bourne - mostly grumpy commuting, and a little fighting and killing. Tim Wright exposed the thinking behind Kidmapper, whcih I'd follower on Twitter. What worked was when people were clear about what they were there for. A couple of times it became heavy weather, and surprised me how much visuals help us (and the speakers) focus on the topic. Nice to see interviewing as a gentle technique to get people to unpack their thoughts. More please, and a great day, thanks!