easter eggs at sxsw09

this year at sxsw09 tom and i decided to launch a little prototype qr code-based game, something we came up w o the saturday afternoon and deployed over the next 24 hours. our goals were primarily to test qr codes in a large-scale environment, and more than anything to see what would happen.

i shared an ignite presentation (heh… an adventure ;) with matt milan last week at a workshop here in toronto called situate.us – a day long session exploring the applications and design of situated computing. all in all an amazing day, and major props to matt, michael and daniel for organizing ( as well as the other participants for bringing diverse flavours of awesome).

the premise of the project was this: imagine you’re an intrepid explorer who has stumbled upon sxsw09 for the first time, and it is the technological equivalent of the galapagos islands. the media you discover are somewhat familiar, and echo that which you’ve seen before, but some are completely new species, and essentially you think ‘what the hell is this intarweb?’ and you communicate your discoveries via twitter.

the technical side was pretty lowtech – we wanted to use readily available tools due to time and $$ constraints, so twitter, a qr generator, tinyurl & fedex were the basic platforms, as well as qr readers available on smartphones. every time our explorer found something, he twittered about it and linked to the site via tinyurl. each tweet generated a qr code, which we printed out on paper and distributed across the conference.

the results? well, it sort of worked… it was a good learning experience, in that we found out that printing qr codes on glossy paper = reader FAIL. we used tinyurl, when really we should have used bit.ly for tracking purposes. also, we didn’t really talk it up, preferring to see how ppl would react to random qr codes distributed across the conference (taped on streetposts, tables, walls, etc). turns out, with no context, not very well. so it didn;t work as well as it could have, but that’s what experiments are for!

ps – the last slide w the T800 and lentils is from tom’s recent presentation on augmented reality.

design as derivative – weapons of mass disruption

last week torch partnership and sLab hosted the latest edition of the unfinished business lecture series, and we were treated to a robust and inspiring presentation by gong szeto, a new mexico-based designer. recently, gong has been designing derivatives trading platforms for financial services, and his hyperacute knowledge of these systems has inspired a unique perspective towards design, as revealing the meta layers of economics, politics, etc, and the implications around an emerging set of ethics relating towards the products, services and systems we design. As bruce nussbaum wrote last year – did innovation cause the crisis on wall st?

gong gives good reason to believe this, and more importantly, frames why. the blurb from the talk is here as is the slideshow, but be sure to check his notes on slideshare.

What implications does the current global economic crisis have for Design? For Gong Szeto the answers lie in understanding how design has evolved over the last 100 years in parallel with capitalism. We are in the midst of a global economic crisis, one whose contours are barely understood, even by today’s leading minds. This crisis reveals the very underpinnings of how our world works, and it is the story of finance (a classic tragic comedy) and its colossal role in the development of modern society.

Design, the myriad ways it is practiced and consumed, owes its very existence to the thriving of a capitalist political economy. Design cannot claim primacy in this system, but is, instead, a shadow or derivative of the priorities of supply-side and demand-side economics.

Billionaire Warren Buffett has called financial derivatives “weapons of mass destruction.”. Gong Szeto will demonstrate the powerful properties and dynamics of derivatives in financial world, and apply this framework to understanding Design’s origins and future possibilities. He will try to make the case that Design’s complex derivative nature, if better understood, can be combined with the powerful emerging attributes of massively shared social web platforms, and proactively insinuated in a (post) capitalist political economy, taking shape as “weapons of mass possibility.”

the limits of the imaginable..

bruce sterling has an extraordinarily thoughtful piece in interactions magazine where he writes about, among many other ideas, why our current technosocial space is limited by the paradigms of previous centuries in designing our collective futures. bruce’s writing and speaking of late has resonated pretty deeply of late, it seems he simultaneously mourning, rejoicing in wonder and worriedly glancing at the state of the world. some of my favourite pieces of the article are below, but you should really go read the whole thing..

What science fiction’s user base truly desired was not possible in the 1930s. Believing their own rhetoric, science fiction users supposed that they wanted a jet-propelled, atomic futurity. Whenever offered the chance at such goods and services, they never left science fiction to go get them. They didn’t genuinely want such things-not in real life.
What the user base genuinely wanted was immersive fantasies. They wanted warmly supportive subcultures in which they could safely abandon their cruelly limiting real-life roles, and play semi-permanent dress-up. Science fiction movies helped; science fiction television helped. Once massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) were invented, the harsh limits of the print infrastructure were demolished. Then the user-base exploded.
No sane person reads science fiction novels for 80 hours a week. But it’s quite common for devoted players to spend that much time on Warcraft.
This should not be mistaken for “progress.” It’s not even a simple matter of obsolescence. Digital media is much more frail and contingent than print media. I rather imagine that people will be reading H.P. Lovecraft-likely the ultimate pulp-magazine science fiction writer-long after today’s clumsy, bug-ridden MMORPGs are as dead as the Univac.
What truly interests me here is the limits of the imaginable. Clearly, the pulp infrastructure limited what its artists were able to think about. They wore blinders that they could not see and therefore could not transcend.
The typewriter limited writers. Magazine word counts limited writers. Even the implicit cultural bargain between author and reader introduced constraints on what could be thought, said, and understood in public. Those mechanisms of interaction-the letter columns, the fan mail, the bookstore appearances, the conventions-they were poorly understood as interaction. They were all emergent practices rather than designed experiences.

and

We have entered an unimagined culture. In this world of search engines and cross-links, of keywords and networks, the solid smokestacks of yesterday’s disciplines have blown out. Instead of being armored in technique, or sheltered within subculture, design and science fiction have become like two silk balloons, two frail, polymorphic pockets of hot air, floating in a generally tainted cultural atmosphere.
These two inherently forward-looking schools of thought and action do seem blinkered somehow-not unimaginative, but unable to imagine effectively. A bigger picture, the new century’s grander narrative, its synthesis, is eluding them. Could it be because they were both born with blind spots, with unexamined assumptions hardwired in 80 years ago?
There is much thoughtful talk of innovation, of transformation, of the collaborative and the transdisciplinary. These are buzzwords, language that does not last.
What we are really experiencing now is a massive cybernetic hemorrhage in ways of knowing the world.

and finally…

Rather than thinking outside the box-which was almost always a money box, quite frankly-we surely need a better understanding of boxes. Maybe some new, more general, creative project could map the limits of the imaginable within the contemporary technosocial milieu. Plug that imagination gap.
That effort has no 20th-century description. I rather doubt that it’s ever been tried. It seems to me like a good response to events.

the hammer metric

The Hammer Metric is measured by the strength of one’s desire to smash any designed tool (device, machine, system, etc) with a hammer in relation to particular aspects of design, functionality or use, especially as said usage relates to feelings of epic frustration or FAIL. As such, a low rating is desired, as it reflects a minimal urge for destruction based on what could be construed as user-centric antagonization on the part of the designer/maker.

upcoming

there are some really great conferences coming up over the next month or so – loads of good ideas, practices and people!

LIFT 2009 – feb 25-27, 2009
this is by far the best conference i’ve ever attended (granted there haven’t been many) and this year’s program maintains it’s strength in pushing the boundaries of the conference experience with speakers such as vint cerf, matt webb, natalie jeremijenko (who spoke at ocad earlier today), anne galloway, dan hill and many many others. as well, art projects by thinktank collective kitchen budapest and retrosabotage. unfortunately, i’m not going to Lift this year, due to a mix of deadlines and other conflicts. booo! i keep hoping some magic elf will stop time for the week of Lift and deliver the required aeroplan points… i send laurent, nicolas and the rest of the lift team the warmest wishes for another soon-to-be incredible conference.

SXSWi 2009 – mar 13-18, 2009
what does one say? bbq. parties. ideas. alternatives. practices. le digerati. swag. innovation. invention. insight. awesomeness. austin in march is welcome after the extended months of gray winter, and sxswi is a really fun and inspiring conference, with an amazing lineup this year. w00t!

IN09 – mar 17-19, 2009
the latest rebrand of the conference that i produced last year, IN09 will bring together the best of the Canadian digital and interactive media scene, as well as some pretty fantastic international speakers. and hurry – early bird ends on february 27

google and ge plug into the smartgrid

google.org and ge announced a partnership this week in creating a platform for measuring and affecting individual use of electricity with powermeter. using networked analytics that give detailed information on energy consumption as well as compare your usage with your friends or neighbourhoods, this positions google and ge to provide proactive green benefits to the consumer as they hack the grid, as well as creating a rich database of behavioural metrics that can and will inform the nature of near/far consumer products and platforms. from the site:

Our lack of knowledge about our own energy usage is a huge problem, but also a huge opportunity for us all to save money and fight global warming by reducing our power usage. Studies show that access to your household’s personal energy information is likely to save you between 5–15% on your monthly bill, and the potential impact of large numbers of people achieving similar efficiencies is even more exciting. For every six households that save 10% on electricity, for instance, we reduce carbon emissions as much as taking one conventional car off the road (see sources and calculation).

Google PowerMeter, now in prototype, will receive information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provide anyone who signs up access to her home electricity consumption right on her iGoogle homepage. The graph below shows how someone could use this information to figure out how much energy is used by different household activites.

h/t to @avantgame

finding design frontiers: larry keeley at ocad

larry keeley, ceo of doblin, spoke earlier today at ocad, in a wonderful talk sponsored by torch partnership and the strategic innovation lab – the new incarnation of my alma mater the beal institute for strategic creativity. big thanks to the folks that hosted “the john cleese of innovation.” there were a few key ideas that really stood out for me in his talk.

the thesis of larry’s talk focused on a new emerging discipline of innovation, one that is still in its infancy and will eventually encapsulate the methods and rigour demonstrated in fully or semi-institutionalized disciplines such as medicine, law or business. at a time of great uncertainty, as the systems we have come to rely on for the exchange of economic, physical and political capital begin to erode globally, larry offers that innovation, far from dead, is thriving.

as is often the case in times of turmoil, people innovate when they need to think differently, act differently and make different things. they explore the boundaries of what is possible. however, larry asks “what if everything we thought we knew about innovation was wrong?” especially when we consider that most innovation posts a success rate of less than 4%, worldwide. he then gives the following example of how innovation commonly goes down in a company (which i’m sure will be a bit mucked up in my retelling, but the point will get across ;)

the executives of a major corporation realize that their earnings are tanking, and so product lines are trimmed, teams are reduced and gap analysis is conducted. and the gap analytics indicate that in order to close the gap between the economic projections and the actual company performance, one needs to innovate. so the sr execs comb through the company and pick the best and brightest, and get them all together in the board room. then comes the stirring speech, in which the selected team is inspired and charged to innovate with no margin for error, a super short timeline, no guidance, no resources, threat of termination upon failure and little in the way of exactly *what* they’re supposed to innovate towards. ambiguous expectations and concrete deliverables. however, there will be whiteboards and flipcharts to aid in generating ideas. this is akin to picking a bunch of random people and asking them to perform neurosurgery with a few exacto knives and some rubbing alcohol.

Update: Mobile Experience Innovation Centre – Research & Launch!

Just a bit of an update regarding this Friday’s MEIC Event, from 3-7pm at OCAD in downtown Toronto. The full schedule is below, and as I mentioned before, while the event is free you must register here.

Hope to see you there!

Schedule:

• 3pm: Opening remarks, Karen Thorne-Stone, CEO and President of the OMDC
• 3:05pm: Opening Keynote by Gary Schwartz, President, Impact Mobile
• 3:50pm: MEIC Research Discussion: Michele Perras, MEIC Coordinator; MEIC Working Group Chairs Avi Pollock, Head, RBC Applied Innovation and Gabe Sawhney, Co-Founder, 33 Magnetic and Echo Mobile, with MEIC Research Consultant Ray Newal, Co-Founder, Jigsee, Inc.
• 4:30pm: Break
• 5pm: Panel Discussion: The AWS Spectrum Auction – New Strategies for the Canadian Context, with Dominique Sebastien Forest, Director of Digital Content and e-Commerce, Quebecor/Canoe.ca, and Anthony Lacavera, CEO, Globalive. Moderated by Thomas Purves, Founder, WirelessNorth.ca
• 5:45pm: Strategy Round Table: Next Steps for a Wireless Canada, with President Sara Diamond, OCAD; Dr Mark Green, UOIT; Diane Williamson, VP Interactive, marblemedia; Karl Vrendenburg, Director of User Centred Design, IBM; and moderated by Sebastien Chorney, Chair, Interactive Ontario’s Mobile Committee and Founder, mypetbrainstorm.
• 6:15pm: Closing remarks, Networking reception
• 7pm: Reception Wraps

Mark Surman and A City that Thinks like a Web

The City of Toronto began it’s inaugural Web2.0 Summit today, an interesting idea that I hope they will continue to grow. I unfortunately missed today’s event as I was wrapped up in MEIC work, but was thrilled when Mark Surman, Exec Director of the Mozilla Foundation and genuinely brilliant rabble-rouser, posted his keynote slide deck. Enjoy!

MEIC Research Launch

Photo: Richard Johnson/Interior Images

I’m putting together a little event next week – if you’re in town you should definitely drop in as we’ll be celebrating the culmination of a year’s work – research, partnerships and strategy around the next phase of the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre, the project that I’ve happily chugged away at for the last 6 months. Event info below, and registration is here.

Please note that the event is open but that registration is MANDATORY!

I’m proud to announce as well that we’ve been granted funding through the OMDC for Mobile Experience Research and Prototyping – MEIC Phase 2 – scheduled to begin in March 2009! Yay!!

We’re actively seeking partners and project proposals based in Ontario, so if you have an idea drop me a line and let’s chat!

Please join us on December 5, 2008, as the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre will be hosting an event at the Ontario College of Art & Design in downtown Toronto.

A half-day forum to discuss recent research findings into the current state of Ontario’s wireless and mobile industry, there will also be sessions discussing future strategies for the new and exciting changes in the Canadian Wireless Context. Join us for an afternoon of engaging discussion with industry leaders as we look towards creating a new wireless future.

The MEIC is a public-private consortium led by the Ontario College of Art & Design, and funded through the Entertainment and Creative Clusters Partnership Fund, Ontario Media Development Corporation). For more information, please contact Michele Perras at mperras [at] ocad.ca.

• Date: Friday, December 5, 2008
• Time: 3pm-7pm
• The Auditorium, Ontario College of Art & Design, 100 McCaul St, Toronto.
• Admission: Free

Schedule

• 3pm :: Opening remarks, Karen Thorne-Stone, CEO and President of the OMDC
• 3:05pm :: Keynote introduction by OCAD President Sara Diamond
• 3:50pm :: Panel Discussion: MEIC Research, with Working Group Chairs Avi Pollock, Head, RBC Innovation, and Gabe Sawhney, Co-founder, 33 Magnetic; MEIC Research Consultant Ray Newal, Co-founder, Jigsee inc.
• 4:30pm :: Break
• 5pm :: Panel Discussion: The AWS Spectrum – New Strategies for the Canadian Context, with Dominique Sebastien Forest, Director of Digital Content and e-Commerce, Quebecor/Canoe.ca, Anthony Lacavera, CEO, Globalive, and others.
• 5:45pm :: Strategy Round-table: Next Steps for a Wireless Canada
• 6:15pm :: Closing remarks, Networking reception
• 7pm :: Reception Wraps

MEIC Overview
A partnership of industry and academic organizations actively involved in the mobile content and services space, the MEIC continues the development and implementation of a centre of excellence for applied research, design and commercialization in Ontario’s mobile content and services industries. Focusing on the role of user experience and usability design, the commercialization capabilities of advanced mobile and embedded services and content, and the value of strategic foresight in cultivating a climate of innovation, Phase 2 of the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre will scale the results, partnerships and practices of Phase 1 to sustain industry-academic and industry-industry linkages and build capacity for excellence in mobile design and innovation, with a scope both local and international.

The MEIC aims to advance Ontario-based mobile content, services, application and technology developers, as well as related industry and academic partners, in this expanding global market opportunity. The MEIC Initiative encompasses two stages, Phase I, for which OMDC funding has been granted, is currently underway and encompasses Strategic Development, Business Case Development, a series of Research and Prototyping Initiatives and Collaborative Practices to be synthesized into a final report discussing feasibility and models for growth.