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23 June 2005
Critical design ethnography: designing for change [Anthropology and Education Quarterly]
This article describes critical design ethnography, an ethnographic process involving participatory design work aimed at transforming a local context while producing an instructional design that can be used in multiple contexts.
22 June 2005
Global Risks Programme of the World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Programme, launched in 2004, works with the Forum’s networks and communities (such as business leaders, NGOs and policy-makers) to develop scenario-based foresight studies.
It recently produced a first guide to the global risks to the world’s economic outlook.
Europe seems to have everything it takes to be a hotbed of high-tech innovation: a highly educated workforce, great universities, a solid legal system, and advanced financial markets. Yet it is anything but.
21 June 2005
People power backfires for LA Times [The Guardian]
When the highly respected US newspaper announced last Friday that it was allowing readers to add their thoughts to online editorials (the so-called “wikitorial”), many in the media predicted disaster.
A recent survey conducted by Microsoft corp finds that workers average only three productive days per week and lays the blame on among other things, unproductive staff meetings.
- Employees spend an average of 5.6 hours in meetings each week
- 17 out of 45 hours in an average week are considered unproductive
- 66% of employees deny having work-life balance
- 69% believe meetings are ineffective
20 June 2005
Apple in their eyes [Fast Company]
The iPod — with its sublime design, intuitive usability, and unparalleled cool quotient — set a new standard by which all other MP3 players are judged. Four rivals (Whipsaw, Sony, Dell and Innodesign) talk about designing their answer to the iPod.
Read full story
Read full story
20 June 2005
Political spin and democracy [BBC]
In his weekly BBC opinion column, Brian Walden considers spin and how it has resulted in politicians losing control of the democratic agenda.Read full story
20 June 2005
Reflecting on Europe’s identity
A series of articles on the current European debate:
- Meet me in Eumerica for the best of two worlds
[International Herald Tribune, 22 June 2005] - Grass roots change for Europe (by EU Commissioner Margot Wallström)
[International Herald Tribune, 21 June 2005] - Top 10 Euro cliches for journalists
[The Observer blog, 20 June 2005] - Europe in search of a new rationale
[International Herald Tribune, 16 June 2005] - Discussions on the EU’s future
[International Herald Tribune, 16 June 2005] - We must not let our greatness flicker
[International Herald Tribune, 16 June 2005] - In U.S., a withering view of Europe as a sideshow
[International Herald Tribune, 15 June 2005] - A lethal ridiculousness in the European Union
[International Herald Tribune, 14 June 2005] - How to fix Europe’s image problem
[Foreign Policy, May/June 2005] - Thomas L. Friedman: 35-hour week? 35-hour day!
[International Herald Tribune | The New York Times, 4 June 2005]
20 June 2005
Some blogs about design and innovation
Design Observer
A blog by a group of seven design heavies that includes contributors to Print and I.D., a trustee of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, and Pentagram’s Michael Bierut
A blog by a group of seven design heavies that includes contributors to Print and I.D., a trustee of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, and Pentagram’s Michael Bierut
metacool
Diego Rodriguez, an instructor at Stanford’s d.school who works for IDEO, shares his thoughts on the art and science of bringing cool stuff to life
Noise between Stations
Victor Lombardi, a principal at the Management Innovation Group, a research group and strategic consultancy in New York, writes this blog about design thinking, and how it can help people in business
20 June 2005
Creating a movement [International Herald Tribune]
Not many marketing campaigns start with a target audience of just eight people. But then, Make Poverty History, the British expression of the global antipoverty campaign leading up to the Group of 8 summit meeting in July, is no ordinary marketing job.Read full story
The advertising business is attempting to revolutionise the way in which it works.
Technology — from wireless devices to iPods to digital video recorders (DVRs), have given time-pressed consumers more choices and control over what they tune in or tune out — and also split the audience into narrower slices. Advertisers raised spending 10% to $140 billion last year, according TNS Media Intelligence, to put more ads in more places, but that onslaught may just be turning all marketing messages into white noise.
“When I came to Sinai I came to live in the desert. I didn’t know I’d be doing computer photography and going to London four times a year,” Father Justin said.
18 June 2005
How Skype and Kazaa changed the net [BBC]
Niklas Zennström, the internet entrepreneur behind both Kazaa and Skype, spoke to BBC Click Online about how his two inventions came about, and how broadband and wireless devices are shaping his vision for the future.
18 June 2005
IDEO’s Mark Jones on service design
Dan Saffer reports in his blog on a talk on service design by Mark Jones, head of service design for IDEO Chicago.
A particularly thorough and insightful article on how the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross), based as it is on 19th and early 20th century paradigms, is coping with a changing world. It analyses the simple question raised by Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo: has confidentiality become obsolete in the face of modern warfare?
A collaboration between the Department of Urban Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Architecture Venice (IUAV), the project uses video-equipped cell phones, PDAs, and location-based technology to deliver multimedia walking tours of lesser-known Venetian neighborhoods. The mobile information system will not only provide visitors with a truer taste of the city, but also, organisers hope, create technology and content-production jobs for residents, luring them to stay.
17 June 2005
Connecting the world [International Herald Tribune]
This week, the International Telecommunication Union unveiled the Connect the World initiative, with the double goal to push “digital divide” issues to the top of worldwide policy agendas and to connect all communities worldwide by 2015.
Founding members include Alcatel of France, the Japanese operator KDDI, the Chinese equipment maker Huawei, the Indian consultancy Infosys, Telefónica of Spain, the European Commission, the French and Egyptian governments and some nongovernmental groups like Child Helpline International and Télécoms Sans Frontières.
17 June 2005
Branding at Philips: sense and simplicity
17 June 2005
del.icio.us
del.icio.us is a social bookmarks manager.
It allows you to easily add web pages you like to your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share your collection not only among your own browsers and machines, but also with others.