tantramar

Chosing A Model

Disclaimer: 90% of this post came of of a dream last night which involved models, Sony, free and sharing.

Being a teenager in the 90s meant I was at the right age to witness and appreciate the supermodel explosion. I thought (then) that supermodels were great. All beautiful and all slightly different. Whatever your preference (although I'm not sure teenage boys worry that much about preference) there was a style / look of girl to tick your appropriate box. More models = good. See where I'm going? Stay with me, this is where it gets weirder.

In my dream I was at some big awards ceremony about social hardware; social product innovation in particular, introducing a category and had prepared nothing. There was a thumb sized device with 4 cables attached to it that Sony was promoting and the tag line on the card said: 

it's not what you listen to, 

it's what you share. 

This captivated me and I gave a speech about freedom of expression, sharing, the nature of the self and why the current social music models are broken (probably another post in that one). I also talked about the new models of consumption and how great it is that we now had physical products as well as digital services that catered to all these new ways of thinking and acting. 

Then some models came onto the stage wearing only data (don't ask) and there was some neon saying it's not what you wear, it's what you share. Yeah I know, sorry.

So the thing that grabbed me and got me writing this at 6:02 this morning was the idea that all these new business models (created by digital) are not only creating new revenue streams for business (I'm reading Free currently) but also encouraging new ways of acting. So (in my dream) multiple new behaviours were being fostered and encouraged through physical products and product lines. Having music devices that didn't play music for example because some people wanted to express themselves with music but not through playing it.

In digital this is happening left right and centre. People are going crazy trying to find new ways to approach a subject. We normally only see this kind of mass innovation during wartime. Intriguing that greed via capitalism could be actually giving us something interesting and new due to such low barriers to entry (cost of creation).

I though that was a pretty interesting idea and of course social hardware.

thanks to Helena Christensen, Chris Anderson, Kevin Kelly, Lloyd Davis and mature Cheddar cheese, who all contributed to this post.

The Big Share

Back when this social web, social media sharing-circus started, I got quite excited - it was all a bit brave new worldly. I was writing a weekly digital music newsletter read by thousands, sticking it to the mainstream media and their pedestrian treatment of the future (present). All seems a bit silly now. 

Anyway, over time and working on lots of digital social applications and systems my viewpoint has shifted and I'm not so inspired by purely digital anymore. Digital should be part of the system, not the system. Part of the function if you like, not the form.

But now I'm starting to get excited by sharing again but for a different reason than before. Everyone was sharing content back then almost for the sake of it. We did it because we could, it was all a bit 'how many sweets can I hold in one hand' but really it didn't do much good or offer that much value, certainly nothing past the short term.

But now I feel we're on the edge of sharing, doing quite a lot of good. You know, digital systems facilitating real world actions and benefits. Free-cycle and The School of Everything are great examples of this. Russell calls this post digital, which is quite nice.

I know several other people (with funding) who are developing more ideas like this so clearly it's not just me that's excited about this. But yes, excited is the right word.

 

Everyone has so many things they could share (mental and physical) or skills they could teach. In the case of skills and knowledge it's worse than the cognitive surplus because that implies that people could learn things with their spare capacity. I'm saying people already have the skills (knowledge) and assets and they're wasting them. Matt Webb had a nice idea about wasteful time and talents, called 100 hours that he talked about at reboot which has inspired me into action somewhat.

I feel the tide is turning from utopian to useful. I guess we'll have to wait and see the score at half time to see if it's happening for real.

In a country like England where we can't afford to make much anymore, we need to get a lot better at managing waste and surplus or in a few years we'll be in big trouble.

For The Sake Of It

This is the inside of an old broken Macintosh Plus that I'm playing with. You can see the names etched on the metal of all the people that were involved in the design of the longest running Mac ever. 

I think I had read about this before but never actually seen it. How wonderful is that; a company that cared about how its staff felt and were playful enough to include a feature which does nothing for the product (visually or functionally) except make the staff feel warm inside. 

I bet they don't do that anymore. I feel this is what is missing from most companies today; a little bit of heart.

The Future Of Dating

Based on my post the other day about what Google are really doing. Here's a little image that a friend of mine turned up. Says it all really.

 

Time As Context

There is an element to mapping services which I feel is being overlooked; time. Mapping services don't seem to have figured this out yet. If I look at a paper map I can learn where things are. If I look at a digital map on a computer it can (potentially) alert me to things of interest to me in a certain area.

If I look at a map on mobile device I can see what's of interest to me in my current location, this is what all services do now. But my phone (for example) knows what day it is and what time it is, in conjunction with my current location. This is important.

Potentially, my needs at 7am on a Monday in Soho are quit different to 11pm on a Friday in Soho. This added contextual data could give a much more meaningful display of information to the user. Now clearly this might take a bit of time to adjust for each individual but the benefits such as not rising up unimportant data would be huge. Especially on screens with such small real estate to play with. 

As more services become location-aware and more data becomes location tagged and social reviews (on sites such as Tipped) become the standard, filters, as we all know will become paramount, in fact the very essence of a service. 

Time will be one of the most important filters we will have at our disposal. People need to start realising this before we drown in a sea of data display carnage.

Obvious but very few people seem to be taking heed.

The clock in the image is the Corpus Clock (for Matti's amusement)

Living In Light Prog

I was staying at Huntsham Hall recently in Devon and I noticed this rather lovely radio on a window ledge. On closer inspection the dial proved to be pretty special.

I'd love to be able to turn a dial to hear some Light Prog, that's a wonderful idea. No more typing to search, no more boring drop down lists. I want a dial to turn.

The Time For Self Analysis Is Here.

The process of mapping is broadly, comparing one set (or several sets) of data with another to create something new or understand something better. I've written a little about this within other topics but I feel one specific element of mapping is fast (well... fast-ish) becoming the one to watch. A trend even! This is the mapping of the self and its becoming it's own genre.

So how do you map yourself, certainly not with a surveyor and a yellow hat, that's for sure. This is about data, mapping of data and understanding data, essentially informatics. Personal Informatics (or P.I.) is the recording of data that applies to you personally. This could be data that you keep private (for various reasons) or also data that you might share with others to find your standing within a group or scenario.

The point of this data is to help the user understand themselves better. To be frank we spend bloody ages (as a species) trying to understand ourselves so I think there's plenty of room for the expansion of learning in this area.

I digress.

Personal Informatics can be seen in services like Nike+, Mint and Daytum. These services vary in how much a user has to compile this data themselves and how much it's automated. Ideas you can expect to see coming to the mainstream soon are such wonders as self-diagnosis kits and stress monitors. Could this be the end of the GP visit? Be good wouldn't it, so the NHS could focus on delivering the stuff we read about online but never see happening to each other, such as the re-growing of severed fingers.

As we advance in understanding what is useful there will be more and more of these services emerging to aid the masses in acute self-awareness. Potentially scary but with great data, comes greater understanding (or at least that's the theory). The technology is already here. The understanding and usability are not but the steps are being taken. That's how we learn right?

Wired magazine just recently called this life tracking. I prefer personal informatics, but you know, I think Life Tracking might catch on faster... as long as people don't confuse it with life caching!

Context Is King... As Always

A few days ago I saw Matt Jones give a good talk (at Conferences Redux) about the themes that arose at Etech. As I follow his Flickr and Twitter I had seen much of the content before but I had none of his perspective, none of the context behind his random thoughts and comments and reasons for photographs, I had ideas but not the reality. I obviously got this from his talk but this made me realise something.

I'd only seen part of the story. I had seen the bricks already and now his words were the mortar holding all these pieces of content together, giving it cohesion.

It occurred to me that this is what social media does extremely well - painting half a picture. You see your friends holidays snaps from Spain, so you know where he was, but not exactly where in Spain and not necessarily who he was with or why he was there. These things matter. The devil is in the details for a reason - it's where the value resides.

Many digital social services have been annoying me of late and much of the reason for this is that they are only giving me part of a picture, a half truth. I've written before about when I feel social media will become useful but before we get there I think it needs to have a better contextual delivery. Lord knows how it'll do that. Sorry, no solutions here, just fragmented ranting. Personal context can be extremely complicated, that's why so many recommendation algorithms are so poor.

Roll on progress...

picture stolen from Mr Jones, I'm guessing he won't mind.

Owning The Past, Who Owns In The Future?

This is the state of my living room after (sort of) unpacking most of my records. I'm a capitalist's wet dream. I like stuff. Not really new stuff, mostly old stuff. I'm sure most people would call it junk.

Because I have so much stuff, I think about ownership and consumption quite a bit. Unfortunately (for my bank balance) I like owning, collecting and obtaining things and try as I might I can't find a sensible reason for this. Ownership is simply not very logical. It causes me trouble moving, things all get dusty quicker than they should and as a result I have a nasty dust allergy. Owning stuff is a nuisance but strangely a joy at the same time.

As we move into an increasingly digital-file-dominant future, ownership becomes even more futile than it is now. Film and music are now files and books seem to be (scarily) following suit. Server space and hosting costs are dropping to nothing, flash memory will be free with Cornflakes and even owning any of these files won't be required, you'll simply access them. It's like the move analysts are seeing from Bit Torrent to Megavideo, it just makes more sense. You don't need to own files.

So it was with great interest that I read a recent Kevin Kelly article where he suggests that access will be the new ownership. In an age where everyone can access anything, ownership becomes pointless. This is a utopian idea and one which reminds me of Star Trek but frankly it makes more sense than storing thousands of dusty records.

But then I find my records and books so charming and pleasing from a tactile and visual perspective. Digital solutions have (generally) so little charm or personality and physical objects especially old ones hold so much beauty and personality (for me).

Has charm been the first casualty in the digital revolution? I guess time will tell...

The Value Of The Unknown

These are the books I own and haven't read yet.

I can hear my mothers voice saying how I certainly don't need to buy any more books until I've read them but part of me knew this isn't right.

One of the books I'm currently reading is Black Swan. You know, the one about the probability of the improbable, it's pretty good.

I was telling Lauren the other day about a passage where Nassim Taleb writes about the theme of seeking validation. Lauren liked it, so I thought other readers might also get something from it. It's particularly good for people that like books, reading books, the buying of books and the storing of books. You get the idea... books.

The passage in question is about having a library or a large quantity of books. It is pointed out by another author, Umberto Eco that the value of the books you own but haven't read, is far more than that of the books you have already consumed and that any library should have more unread books than read books. I aspire to this statement, my mother doesn't.

A private library of books is not an ego boosting appendage but a research tool. The more you know, the more you wish to know. This growth curve is exponential, similar to that of a research scientist. Obviously the more you understand, the more questions you then have. This goes on forever. So in theory, the older you get the more unread books you will own.

Anyway, this made me feel better about having the above books which I own but haven't finished or begun yet.

Life Patterns

I have just moved house and before I did, I predictably spent a few minutes here and there thinking about how it might affect me. I mainly thought about my old environment and how that affected me. I had a few realisations.

I read somewhere sometime ago that the important elements in life were; work, love and home and that you needed good experiences in two out of three to be ok. I now think that this is (obviously) a very incomplete view on how things work.

As humans we create patterns to enable us to complete repeat tasks with greater ease. So that the things you do on a regular basis you can do without having to put in the same amount of thought the first time you did it. What I have come to realise is that these repeat tasks (my patterns) are a large part of my life. They are like the filler, the glue between specific activities such as work, play, socialising or sports.

These patterns can be the routes I walk, transport I take or shops I frequent. They are actually my real world preferences, my choices and as such are really quite important. My patterns establish my quality of life. Not where I work, who I meet up with or where I live. If you don't enjoy the time in-between your activities, your pattern time, then you're stuffed! These are the things you do every day or multiple times in a week and if you're not enjoying them it will grind you down.

The place where you work will frequently be similar and you'll have little or no control over it. The inside of your house doesn't have enough variables to challenge you. The outside world however, will always be different according to the patterns you create.

This is what I have realised and this is what excites me most about moving house. I get to create a whole new set of new regular occurrences for my life. New cafes to sit and read in, new bars to drink in, new places to get food, new shapes and colours to observe. I will be creating a whole new set of patterns. It's like a holiday from my life narrative and a whole new taste sensation for my senses.

Common Sense

Does common sense actually exist? I'm not convinced. The word common is meant to imply that this sense is shared amongst everyone. I mean I know what it is but I'm not sure it means anything. For example, crossing the road is dangerous. It is common sense to take care when crossing the road. And how many people are killed by traffic each day? Hundreds.

So this is simply carelessness isn't it. But wouldn't carelessness show a lack of thinking and therefore possibly a decline in the amount of sense you're applying?

How many times have you cut yourself with a kitchen knife? Do you keep doing it (every now and then)? You know the knife is sharp. This isn't simply stupid people not applying sense (in one way or another), it's everyone.

The phrase is meant to be about the application of prudent judgment. But judgment varies hugely person to person. Isn't this hugely subjective? My version of sense will be different from that of someone else. I can see this is true simply watching the phenomenally stupid things people do everyday.

So therefore does common sense exist? It exists in theory, absolutely, but in practice, I'm not so sure. Friday the 13th is the day of all days to apply some sense!

Just some of my rambling thoughts while coffee drinking with the grumblemouse and Lauren.

Buggin' Out

The first time I read about Bug Labs (on Fred Wilson's blog) I was quite intrigued. There are designing modular hardware in collaboration with IDEO. They have relatively regular updates on their blog and it's a very intriguing project that they have under way. Essentially providing a software and hardware platform for designers to create new things with.

The audience is admittadly niche but with so much focus on entrepenuriual work these days it's surely one to watch...

Distraction

I get distracted a lot. It's almost a profession for me. Now there are many different types of distraction. Faris has been writing about disrupted expectation which is disruption usually to a narrative to create a desired response. I'm interested in the brain wondering off the way it does, more akin to tangential thinking (actually a diagnosis of bipolar disorder). Anyhow, my brain wonders off all the time and I find it very useful.

I spend a considerable amount of time trying to create new things and I've got quite good at fostering an environment to do that. You can't fake it but you can encourage it. One thing I always let happen is distraction. It's healthy but it only recently occurred to me how distraction can vary and how you can steer the results.

Subconsciously we become very familiar with our environments that we spend the most time in. As a result of this I'm suggesting that we become more relaxed and often less creative because of the reduced visual and aural stimulate we're recieving. Now I'm saying all this based on personal experience, I have no data to back this up (sadly). However I have found, time and time again that when I'm in a place alien to me, I perform consistently better in terms of creative thinking.

All the best ideas I've had in the last 6 months have been formed in places other than at work; cafes, parks, tents etc. Perhaps it's always that way. If it is, then it says something about my ability to work in a contained environment, oh dear! I call this type of effect unfamiliar distraction. I bet there's a better term for it.

Unfamiliar distraction is gold dust; the old lady wearing a jumper with two hamsters playing tennis on it, when you mishear someone and you think that they're going swim fishing, or the strange mechanism in a restaurant for holding a menu. These are nearly always inspirational.

So despite many people talking about the negative force of distraction, I think it's brilliant as long as it's the right kind of distraction.

Now I should have read Mark Curtis' book about this, but I haven't (embarrassingly). I will, when I find the studio copy (hint hint). And yeah, the flying turtle was meant to be a distraction.

Actions Speak Louder...

Good Magazine, is pretty... good (ha). This event in LA next Thursday just makes me feel all gooey. They are getting lots of good designers in a room and trying to come up with ideas for solutions to LA's problems. They have really good people and they have free Ice Cream. C'mon, seriously, that's too awesome. How to do it right.

London needs one (or several) of these that don't feel like they are owned by government or a  corporation. Something that is owned by the community. So... we need someone that looks after a community (with opinion) like... Tipped for example. Then we need some kind of media arts partner... like say Protein and then say maybe a local broadcast channel like Resonance FM, we might also need some clever entrepreneurs and forward thinkers. I almost feel the need to say I think we need money, but I don't think we do. I think we just need commitment.

I feel I know some of those people...