Adrian Chan, social media expert and social interaction theorist at Gravity7, has written a long essay to collect his thoughts on social interaction design.

“Imperfect and unfinished as any project on contemporary products will be, my Principles of Social Interaction Design is now available for free download. This project has taken a couple of years, and in places bears the marks of a theory worked out over time. Some of my core concepts appeared in my blog posts first. These include the idea of frames — for both conceptualizing interactions, as well as for design thinking. Concepts of mediation, of symbolic tokens, of realtime streams may also be familiar from topics I have blogged about over the years. I have developed these into simple logics.

Now, as always, I believe that mediation is real — mediated interactions should not be understood by their simple reference to face to face situations. Mediation makes a real and measurable difference. And this difference is experienced and produced as a mental engagement, by means of which users fabricate, imagine, project, internalize, and much more, their interpretations of others and of social worlds in general.

As always, I believe that any designer of social tools should appreciate the multi-faceted manner in which these experiences become motives; orientations; activities; and ultimately, social practices. The user experience is, in social interaction design, both more necessary, and farther from reach.

Many sources were drawn upon for this project: from contemporary designers/thinkers/bloggers to canonical sociological, psychological, and linguistic frameworks. My effort to pull together theoretical and conceptual architecture from outside the design world, in order to accommodate the needs of both mediated user experiences and emergent social practices, is unorthodox. Hence I am calling this an essay. I am excited to see it develop over time.”

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(via Johnny Holland)

Applying Anthropology in the Global Village
Edited by Christina Wasson, Mary Odell Butler and Jacqueline Copeland-Carson
Left Coast Press – November 2011 – 326 pp.
Hardback (978-1-61132-085-5)
Paperback (978-1-61132-086-2)

The realities of the globalized world have revolutionized traditional concepts of culture, community, and identity—so how do applied social scientists use complicated, fluid new ideas such as translocality and ethnoscape to solve pressing human problems?

In this book, leading scholar/practitioners survey the development of different subfields over at least two decades, then offer concrete case studies to show how they have incorporated and refined new concepts and methods.

After an introduction synthesizing anthropological practice, key theoretical concepts, and ethnographic methods, chapters examine the arenas of public health, community development, finance, technology, transportation, gender, environment, immigration, aging, and child welfare.

An innovative guide to joining dynamic theoretical concepts with on-the-ground problem solving, this book will be of interest to practitioners from a wide range of disciplines who work on social change, as well as an excellent addition to graduate and undergraduate courses.

Review by Spiked:

A new collection of essays challenges both pessimists who see urbanisation as a human disaster and eco-footprint obsessives who want to corral as many people into towns as possible.

“What is refreshing about The Lure of the City is that it puts people – not the planet or the expert – centre stage. From this, the ambition – the urgent demand – to transform the world to meet the aspirations of billions of new city dwellers rightly flows.”

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Abstract
Our industry’s long wait for the complete, strategic guide to mobile web design is finally over. Former Yahoo! design architect and co-creator of Bagcheck Luke Wroblewski knows more about mobile experience than the rest of us, and packs all he knows into this entertaining, to-the-point guidebook. Its data-driven strategies and battle tested techniques will make you a master of mobile—and improve your non-mobile design, too!

In a short review, Peter Morville writes:

“I devoured my advance copy of Mobile First in less than three hours. Not a second of that time was wasted. Luke has packed oodles of data, scads of examples, and years of experience into this admirably brief book. It’s a brilliant explanation of why we should design for mobile first, and how.

Every information architect and experience designer should read this book. It will change the way you work today and how you think about tomorrow. In short, Luke Wroblewski has gone big by going small. You should too!”

This book explores the HDL Studio Model, a unique way of bringing together the right people, a carefully framed problem, a supportive place, and an open-ended process to craft an integrated vision and sketch the pathway towards strategic improvement. It’s particularly geared towards problems that have no single owner.

It includes an introduction to Strategic Design, a “how-to” manual for organizing Studios, and three practical examples of what an HDL Studio looks like in action. Geoff Mulgan, CEO of NESTA, has written the foreword and Mikko Kosonen, President of Sitra, contributed the afterword.

About The Authors

Bryan Boyer
At Sitra, Bryan is a part of the Strategic Design Unit where he focuses on building the Helsinki Design Lab initia- tive to foster strategic design as a way of working in Finland and abroad. This includes the Studio Model, as well as the HDL Global event and website. In his spare time Bryan searches for innovative uses of walnuts, a fascination that stems from growing up on a walnut farm in California. Previously Bryan has worked as an independent architect, software programmer, and technology entrepreneur. He received his BFA with Honors from the Rhode Island School of Design, and his M.Arch from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Justin W. Cook
As Sitra’s Sustainable Design Lead, Justin is working at the intersection of climate change and the built environment. He led content development for the Low2No competition and is focusing on Low2No as a development model that aims to balance economy, ecology and society through strategic investments and interventions in existing cities. He has previously worked in the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Genova, Italy; as a design researcher on the Harvard Stroke Pathways project; and was the principal of a design-build firm in Seattle. Justin received his BA from the University of Washington and his M.Arch from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Marco Steinberg
Marco directs Sitra’s internal strategic design efforts, charting new forward-oriented opportunities to help Sitra meet its mission of enhancing Finland’s national innovation ability and well being. In addition to Helsinki Design Lab he is responsible for the concept and design-development of Low2No, a transitional strategy to create sustainable urban development models in Finland through the implementation of a large scale development project in downtown Helsinki.
His previously experiences include: Professor at the Harvard Design School (1999-2009); advising governments on SME & design funding strategies; and running his own design & architecture practice. He received his BFA and BArch from Rhode Island School of Design and his MArch with Distinction from the Harvard Design School.

Synopsis

The realities of the globalized world have revolutionized traditional concepts of culture, community, and identity—so how do applied social scientists use complicated, fluid new ideas such as translocality and ethnoscape to solve pressing human problems? In this book, leading scholar/practitioners survey the development of different subfields over at least two decades, then offer concrete case studies to show how they have incorporated and refined new concepts and methods. After an introduction synthesizing anthropological practice, key theoretical concepts, and ethnographic methods, chapters examine the arenas of public health, community development, finance, technology, transportation, gender, environment, immigration, aging, and child welfare. An innovative guide to joining dynamic theoretical concepts to on-the-ground problem solving, this book is also an excellent addition to graduate and undergraduate courses.

Table of Contents

Introduction, Christina Wasson, Mary Odell Butler, Jacqueline Copeland-Carson
1. Public Health in Global Localities: Managing Infectious Disease, Mary Odell Butler
2. Transportation and Infrastructure: Culture on the Move, Mari Clarke
3. Community Development in Globalizing Cities: Housing and Finance, Jacqueline Copeland-Carson
4. Sex Trafficking: Feminist Anthropological Practice, Susan Dewey
5. Climate Change and the Global Environment, Shirley J. Fiske
6. International Migration and Aging, Madelyn Iris
7. Neoliberalism and the Privatization of Social Services, Susan Racine Passmore
8. Internationalism and Systems Thinking in Community and Public Health, Eve C. Pinsker
9. Localizing the Global in Technology Design, Susan Squires and Christina Wasson
Conclusion: Globalization, Community Research, and the Politics of Science, Jean J. Schensul
Index
About the Authors

Ken Banks adds some further reflection to the matter, and thinks the book is a must-read “for anyone interested in how anthropology can be usefully applied in the modern world.

“The Edinburgh international book festival begins this week, featuring a fortnight of storytelling and literati self-promotion. Looking at the 17 packed days of a programme filled with debates, talks, readings and keynotes, I’ve noticed that there is virtually no reflection on the cards for the “dead tree” version of the story that is threatening to shake-up publishing’s centuries-old foundation. More so, it is surprising given the “digital first” bent of its headline sponsor, the Guardian, that there’s no mention of apps, digital extensions or the new, multiformatted way of telling stories that’s emerging among a new and talented crop of content creators supported by innovative and risk-taking storytelling outlets.”

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In Design for Services, Anna Meroni and Daniela Sangiorgi articulate what Design is doing and can do for services, and how this connects to existing fields of knowledge and practice. Designers previously saw their task as the conceptualisation, development and production of tangible objects. In the twenty-first century, a designer rarely ‘designs something’ but rather ‘designs for something’: in the case of this publication, for change, better experiences and better services.

The authors reflect on this recent transformation in the practice, role and skills of designers, by organising their book into three main sections. The first section links Design for Services to existing models and studies on services and service innovation. Section two presents multiple service design projects to illustrate and clarify the issues, practices and theories that characterise the discipline today; using these case studies the authors propose a conceptual framework that maps and describes the role of designers in the service economy. The final section projects the discipline into the emerging paradigms of a new economy to initiate a reflection on its future development.

Contents:

Preface, Rachel Cooper

Introduction, Ezio Manzini

Section 1 Introduction to Design for Services: A new discipline

Section 2 Design for Services: from Theory to Practice and Vice Versa

Designing interactions, relations and experiences
CASE STUDY 1: Co-designing Services in The Public Sector
CASE STUDY 2: Developing Collaborative Tools in International Projects: Polidaido Project.
CASE STUDY 3: Designing Empathic Conversations about Future User Experiences
CASE STUDY 4: Driving Service Design by Directed Storytelling
CASE STUDY 5: Exploring Mobile Needs and Behaviours in Emerging Markets

Designing interactions to shape systems and organisations
CASE STUDY 6: There is More to Service than Interactions
CASE STUDY 7: How Service Design can Support Innovation in the Public Sector
CASE STUDY 8: From Novelty to Routine: Services in Science and Technology-based Enterprises
CASE STUDY 9: Enabling Excellence in Service with Expressive Service Blueprinting

Exploring new collaborative service models
CASE STUDY 19: Service Design, New Media and Community Development
CASE STUDY 11: Designing the next generation of public services
CASE STUDY 12: A Service Design Inquiry into Learning and Personalisation
CASE STUDY 13: Mobile and Collaborative. Mobile-Phones, Digital Services and Socio-Cultural Activation.

Imagining future directions for service systems
CASE STUDY 14: Using Scenarios to Explore System Change: VEIL, Local Food Depot
CASE STUDY 15: Designing a collaborative projection of the ‘Cité du Design’
CASE STUDY 16: Enabling Sustainable Behaviours in Mobility through Service Design
CASE STUDY 17: Supporting Social Innovation in Food Networks

A map of design for services
What is design for services?
What job profiles for a service designer?

Section 3 Future Developments: An emerging economy

Appendices

Index

Authors

Dr Anna Meroni is assistant professor at the INDACO (Industrial Design, Arts, Communication and Fashion) Department of the Politecnico di Milano University, Italy, a Training and Research Centre in Design. She investigates service from the perspective of strategic social innovation, with a specific emphasis on community centred design. Her main research areas are food systems and innovative housing for sustainable lifestyles. Dr Meroni is co-director of the international Master in Strategic Design and a visiting professor and scholar in schools and universities around the world. She is active in the launch and promotion of the international network DESIS, Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability.

Dr Daniela Sangiorgi is a lecturer at ImaginationLancaster, the creative research laboratory at the Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Arts (Lancaster University, UK). As one of the early scholars looking into Service Design, she has gained international recognition. Her work has been mapping and supporting this emerging field of study and research since its outset. Her doctorate has investigated services as complex social systems, proposing holistic and participatory approaches to Service Design. Recent work has been exploring the role of Design and participation within public services reform, with a focus on commissioning for healthcare. She has been one of the founders of the Service Design Network and Service Design Research initiatives.

Contributors

Sara Bury, Computing Department, Lancaster University, UK
Keith Cheverst, Computing Department, Lancaster University, UK
Carla Cipolla, Department INDACO, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Shelley Evenson, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
Luca Maria Francesco Fabris, Centro Metid and Dept. BEST, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Giordana Ferri, Department INDACO, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Julia Gillen, Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, UK
Valerie Hickey, IBM Research USA and IBM Corporation, Canada
Stefan Holmlid, Linkoping University, Sweden
Johnathan Ishmael, Computing Department, Lancaster University, UK
François Jégou, Strategic Design Scenarios, Belgium
Sabine Junginger, ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University, UK
Lucy Kimbell, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, UK
Keith Mitchell, Computing Department, Lancaster University, UK
Dianne Moy, Melbourne University, Australia
Elena Pacenti, Domus Academy Research Centre, Italy
Margherita Pillan, Department INDACO, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Nicholas J. P. Race, Computing Department, Lancaster University, UK
Bas Raijmakers, STBY, The Netherlands and UK
Mark Rouncefield, Computing Department, Lancaster University, UK
Chris Ryan, Melbourne University, Australia
Susanna Sancassani, Managing Director Centro METID, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Giulia Simeone, Department INDACO, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Paul Smith, Computing Department, Lancaster University, UK
Susan L. Spraragen, IBM Research USA and IBM Corporation, Canada
Deborah Szebeko, Think Public, UK
Nick Taylor, Computing Department, Lancaster University, UK
Paola Trapani, Department INDACO, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Mark Vanderbeeken, Experientia, Italy
Roger Whitham, ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University, UK
Jennie Winhall, Participle, UK

“In Divining a Digital Future D&B reiterate many arguments made in earlier work, provide them with more flesh, and formulate some future directions for ubicomp. To be sure this is not a bad thing, neither for those who wish to read a book on the current state of affairs in ubicomp, nor for ubicomp researchers who wish to enlarge the scope of their own practice. The book attempts to foster an anthropological sensitivity among its (presumed) CHI readership. Fundamentally, their proposition to approach technology (and urbanism) through an ethnographic lens is highly relevant in my view. Imagine what the future of our cities look would like if it were the sole concern of coders and engineers? Indeed, we should never forget Jane Jacobs’ lesson that livable and lively cities are about people.

I also appreciate their relational view of ubicomp as intricately bound up with the messiness of everyday life, their concern with its multiplicity of forms and shapes, and their attention for fringes (edges, periphery, margins). Important too in my view is that D&B implicitly question the notion of ‘the everyday’. The everyday does not consist of stable pre-given categories (home, mobility, etc.) that can be supplemented with ubicomp. It arises from socio-cultural performances and is continuously negotiated. Still, they could have stated this even more explicitly, because ‘the everyday’ is so often unproblematically assumed as a self-explanatory term in both technology and urban studies.

That being said, D&B’s focus is too much directed inward in my view. D&B dish up insights from urban ethnography, sociology and human geography to a ubicomp audience. The ubicomp crowd may find this refreshing; those more familiar with these ‘soft’ disciplines will already consider such insights well-accepted. As said above, what I feel is lacking from their approach is a clear vision how ubicomp can reciprocate to an understanding of the intricacies of techno-urban practices. What can ethnography and urbanism learn from ubicomp?”

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Ethnographies of the Videogame uses the medium of the videogame to explore wider significant sociological issues around new media, interaction, identity, performance, memory and mediation. Addressing questions of how we interpret, mediate and use media texts, particularly in the face of claims about the power of new media to continuously shift the parameters of lived experience, gaming is employed as a ‘tool’ through which we can understand the gendered and socio-culturally constructed phenomenon of our everyday engagement with media.

The book is particularly concerned with issues of agency and power, identifying strong correlations between perceptions of gaming and actual gaming practices, as well as the reinforcement, through gaming, of established (gendered, sexed, and classed) power relationships within households. As such, it reveals the manner in which existing relations re-emerge through engagement with new technology.

Offering an empirically grounded understanding of what goes on when we mediate technology and media in our everyday lives Ethnographies of the Videogame is more than a timely intervention into game studies. It provides pertinent and reflexive commentary on the relationship between text and audience, highlighting the relationships of gender and power in gaming practice. As such, it will appeal to scholars interested in media and new media, gender and class, and the sociology of leisure.

Helen Thornham is Lecturer in Sociology and Media at City University, London, UK

Businesses and other organizations are increasingly hiring anthropologists and other ethnographically-oriented social scientists as employees, consultants, and advisors. The nature of such work, as described in this volume, raises crucial questions about potential implications to disciplines of critical inquiry such as anthropology. In addressing these issues, the contributors explore how researchers encounter and engage sites of organizational practice in such roles as suppliers of consumer-insight for product design or marketing, or as advisors on work design or business and organizational strategies. The volume contributes to the emerging canon of corporate ethnography, appealing to practitioners who wish to advance their understanding of the practice of corporate ethnography and providing rich material to those interested in new applications of ethnographic work and the ongoing rethinking of the nature of ethnographic praxis.

Melissa Cefkin is a cultural anthropologist with experience in research, management, teaching, and consulting for business and government. Currently based at IBM Research in the area of services research, she earned her PhD from Rice University and remains dedicated to pursuing a critical understanding of the intersections of anthropological practice within business and organizational settings.

Related:

Last weekend, the Financial Times Magazine reports on one chapter of the book that describes how two Intel researchers, Dawn Nafus and Ken Anderson, observed the rituals of everyday life in Intel’s corporate “jungle”.

“Ironically, while Intel worshipped the idea of free-flowing innovation, the way employees communicated was subject to a rigid but unspoken set of cultural “rules”. Post-it notes were deemed acceptable, and used to “push the boundaries”. This, however, “delegitimized knowledge which did not come in the form of bold, sweeping statements required of ‘out-of-the-box’ performances,” they write. PowerPoint and whiteboards were acceptable; communicating through dance was not. And “if your inspiration [for innovative ideas] happened to come from ‘suspect’ sources, such as religious texts, this can be smuggled in only through disguise.”

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In the 20th century humanity consumed products faster than ever, but this way of living is no longer sustainable. This new and important book shows how technological advances are driving forms of ‘collaborative consumption’ which will change forever the ways in which we interact both with businesses and with each other.

The average lawn mower is used for four hours a year. The average power drill is used for only twenty minutes in its entire lifespan. The average car is unused for 22 hours a day, and even when it is being used there are normally three empty seats. Surely there must be a way to get the benefit out of things like mowers, drills and even cars, without having to carry the huge up-front costs of ownership?

There is indeed. Collaborative consumption is not just a buzzword, it is a new win-win way of life. This insightful and thought-provoking new book by Rachel Rogers and Roo Botsman is an important and fast-moving survey of the dramatic changes we are seeing in the way we consume products.

Many of us are familiar with freecycle, eBay, couchsurfing and Zipcar. But these are just the beginning of a new phenomenon. Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers have interviewed business leaders and opinion formers around the world to draw together the many strands of Collaborative Consumption into a coherent and challenging argument to show that the way we did business and consumerism in the 20th century is not the way we will do it in the 21st century.

Related > The end of consumerism? [Article in The Guardian]
Collaborative consumption – the notion that we can now share or swap anything from clothes and parking spaces to free time – is an exciting idea. But is it really the answer to rampant consumerism?

“It contains nearly 30 essays, cartoons, instructional how-to’s, and guides from Shareable contributors. In its pages, young people tell the story of a new economy based in collaboration instead of competition, and how they’re making it a reality in their lives. Part post-college guide, part ground-breaking analysis, Share or Die is a great resource for young folks or anyone attempting to understand what it means to live as part of Generation Y.

Using eBook technologies for more than just distribution, Share or Die lets readers explore the collection in their own ways. Articles are arranged into “work” and “life” sections, as well as by tags, which encourages readers to jump around and find what interests them.

In Situated Technologies Pamphlets 8, Christian Nold and Rob van Kranenburg articulate the foundations of a future manifesto for an Internet of Things in the public interest. Nold and Kranenburg propose tangible design interventions that challenge an internet dominated by commercial tools and systems, emphasizing that people from all walks of life have to be at the table when we talk about alternate possibilities for ubiquitous computing. Through horizontally scaling grass roots efforts along with establishing social standards for governments and companies to allow cooperation, Nold and Kranenberg argue for transforming the Internet of Things into an Internet of People.

Download pamphlet (pdf)

Abstract

Through the lens of culture, The Internet of Elsewhere looks at the role of the Internet as a catalyst in transforming communications, politics, and economics. Cyrus Farivar explores the Internet’s history and effects in four distinct and, to some, surprising societies–Iran, Estonia, South Korea, and Senegal. He profiles Web pioneers in these countries and, at the same time, surveys the environments in which they each work. After all, contends Farivar, despite California’s great success in creating the Internet and spawning companies like Apple and Google, in some areas the United States is still years behind other nations.

Skype was invented in Estonia–the same country that developed a digital ID system and e-voting;Iran was the first country in the world to arrest a blogger, in 2003; South Korea is the most wired country on the planet, with faster and less expensive broadband than anywhere in the United States; Senegal may be one of sub-Saharan Africa’s best chances for greater Internet access.

The Internet of Elsewhere brings forth a new complex and modern understanding of how the Internet spreads globally, with both good and bad effects.

Review by Curt Hopkins in ReadWriteWeb

“Instead of focusing on the capital of the Web, Silicon Valley, or even on one of the Silicon Valleys outside of the original, like Bangalore, India, Farivar has taken a look at our wired world through the lenses of South Korea, Senegal, Estonia and Iran.

There is a tendency to think of the Internet as being a priori and sui generis. This is a new world so powerful and so game-changing that it effects history and culture, no matter where one stands. Farivar’s argument, and it is a well-made one, is that like any other element of the human experience, the Internet is effected by history and culture. If we ignore that fact, if we let ourselves believe that the Internet, not history, is more of a determining factor in our future, we are liable to be surprised by it to an excessive degree.

Each of the places he covers are important to our understanding of the Internet because their histories and cultures have influenced how they have embraced it. In a way, the countries he has chosen to profile are reflections of each other, Senegal of South Korea and Estonia of Iran.”

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Synopsis

Recent developments in new media devices and applications have led to the rise of what have become known as ‘social media’, ‘Web 2.0’, ‘social computing’ or ‘participative web’. This shift in ICT, from unidirectional to conversational media of mass self-communication has lowered the technological thresholds for everyday users to cooperate for their own benefit, to participate in online environments and social network sites, to co-create business value and to become ‘produsers’ or ‘pro-ams’. At the same time, we see an evolution towards people-centred design and user-driven innovation in the design of new media technologies. This has created new opportunities and heightened expectations regarding user empowerment in different societal arenas.

However, the question remains to what extent users and communities interacting in an all-IP new media ecosystem are empowered (and not disempowered) to express their creativity and concerns in their social and cultural environment and to obtain a prominent role in the process of new media design and innovation. The book attempts to answer this question through a collection of chapters that scrutinise this issue. The different chapters focus on the way that social and economic opportunities and threats enable and/or constrain user empowerment.

This work consists of four major sections, each of which examines the (potential) empowerment/disempowerment of users in relation to new media technologies from a different angle. The chapters in the first section describe different theoretical perspectives on user roles and user involvement in the new media ecosystem, referring to interpretative, positivist and critical schools of thought. Based on these overall guiding frameworks, we then explore the leverage users have, both on content level and on technological level. This refers respectively to the second and third section of the book. In the fourth section different case studies are presented, each of which highlight how user empowerment manifests itself in different new media sectors and environments (such as publishing, the music industry and social networking sites).

The book is based on interdisciplinary research. It offers innovative insights based on state-of-the-art academic and industry-driven ICT user research in various European countries. This work will appeal to post-graduate students and researchers in the field of media and communication studies, social studies of technology, digital media marketing and other domains that investigate the mutual relationship between new media technologies and society.

Contents

• Yves Punie: Introduction: New Media Technologies and User Empowerment. Is there a Happy Ending?
• Enid Mante-Meijer/Eugène Loos: Innovation and the Role of Push and Pull
• Valerie Frissen/Mijke Slot: The Return of the Bricoleur: Redefining Media Business
• Serge Proulx/Lorna Heaton: Forms of User Contribution in Online Communities: Mechanisms of Mutual Recognition between Contributors
• Aphra Kerr/Stefano De Paoli/Cristiano Storni: Rethinking the Role of Users in ICT Design: Reflections for the Internet
• James Stewart/Laurence Claeys: Problems and Opportunities of Interdisciplinary Work Involving Users in Speculative Research for Innovation of Novel ICT Applications
• Marinka Vangenck/Jo Pierson/Wendy Van den Broeck/Bram Lievens: User-Driven Innovation in the Case of Three-Dimensional Urban Environments
• Mijke Slot: Web Roles Re-examined: Exploring User Roles in the Media Environment
• Philip Ely/David Frohlich/Nicola Green: Uncertainty, Upheavals and Upgrades: Digital-DIY during Life-change
• Eva K. Törnquist: In Search of Elks and Birds: Two Case Studies on the Creative Use of ICT in Sweden
• Levente Szekely/Agnes Urban: Over the Innovators and Early Adopters: Incentives and Obstacles of Internet Usage
• James Stewart/Richard Coyne/Penny Travlou/Mark Wright/Henrik Ekeus: The Memory Space and the Conference: Exploring Future Uses of Web2.0 and Mobile Internet through Design Interventions
• Sanna Martilla/Kati Hyyppä/Kari-Hans Kommonen: Co-Design of a Software Toolkit for Media Practices: P2P-Fusion Case Study
• Ike Picone: Mapping Users’ Motivations and Thresholds for Casually «Produsing» News
• Stijn Bannier: The Musical Network 2.0 & 3.0
• Enid Mante-Meijer/Jo Pierson/Eugène Loos: Conclusion: Substantiating User Empowerment

Authors

• Jo Pierson is Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel – Department of Communication Studies / SMIT (Studies on Media, Information and Telecommunication)
• Enid Mante-Meijer is emeritus Professor at Utrecht University – Utrecht School of Governance
• Eugène Loos is Professor at the University of Amsterdam – Department of Communication Science / ASCoR (Amsterdam School of Communication Research).

Abstract

In 2010, the RSA published Connected Communities: How social networks power and sustain the Big Society, which explored a new approach to community regeneration based on an understanding of the importance of social networks. It argued that such an approach has the potential to bring about significant improvements in efforts to combat isolation and to support the development of resilient and empowered communities.

This paper follows on from that report, deepening the analysis to look at networks of power and influence, and in particular those who are isolated in the community. The paper argues that the government’s efforts to build the Big Society are too focused on citizen-led service delivery. An approach based on utilising and building people’s social networks, which largely determine our ability to create change and influence decisions that affect us, may prove more effective.

In a complex world, products that are easy to use win favor with consumers. This is the first book on the topic of simplicity aimed specifically at interaction designers. It shows how to drill down and simplify user experiences when designing digital tools and applications. It begins by explaining why simplicity is attractive, explores the laws of simplicity, and presents proven strategies for achieving simplicity. Remove, hide, organize and displace become guidelines for designers, who learn simplicity by seeing before and after examples and case studies where the results speak for themselves.

Audio interview with the author

Based on the deep research and collective experience of PARC and other practitioners, both books draw on extensive case studies or field experience to make the areas they cover more accessible for broader audiences. The books highlight how innovations and business applications in these areas have and can give companies a real competitive edge, especially in today’s environment, where products are always at risk of being commoditized, the services sector increasingly dominates economic activity, and global competition is intensifying.

In Making Work Visible: Ethnographically Grounded Case Studies of Work Practice (Cambridge University Press, April 2011), Peggy Szymanski and co-editor Jack Whalen share how “ethnography” engagements are conducted, and how findings from these studies can lead to business impact. By applying naturalistic observation in different contexts to understand what people actually do – as opposed to only what they say they do – ethnography makes the unknown known, makes the tacit explicit, and reveals insights that would not otherwise be revealed. The embedding of social scientists in technology companies (often referred to as corporate ethnography) was pioneered at PARC in the 1970s, and has evolved here and elsewhere since. Drawing on contributions from PARC, Xerox, and other researchers throughout the world, this book demonstrates how ethnography can improve technology design and help develop better ways of working. The book focuses on case studies in production, office, home, and retail settings – including the critical “customer front.”

In Ubiquitous Computing for Business: Find New Markets, Create Better Businesses, and Reach Customers Around the World 24-7-365 (Financial Times Press, March 10, 2011), Bo Begole shares how companies can incorporate this game-changing technology into their products, services, processes, and strategies while mitigating their risks, making better decisions about “build vs. buy,” and sorting hype from real value. Conceived at PARC in the 1990s, the paradigm of ubiquitous computing – pervasive, mobile devices; embedded sensors and data; and seamless integration across physical and digital worlds – has recently exploded in the form of pervasive personalized devices and services. From the Web to the iPod, smart phones to social networks, “Ubicomp” technologies continue to interweave computing more deeply into human life than ever before, enabling massive new industries and destroying companies that can’t adapt. The book describes the general capabilities that Ubicomp technologies create, the limitations they face, and their impact across industry categories. Begole shares proven strategies for leveraging Ubicomp technologies to drive business value, illustrated with a number of real-world innovation case studies.

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Natural user interfaces (NUIs) have been hailed as next evolutionary step in human-computer interaction. As software companies struggle to catch up with one another in terms of developing the next great touch-based interface, designers are charged with the daunting task of keeping up with the advances in NUI technology and this new aspect to user experience design.

Product and interaction designers, developers and managers are already well versed in UI design, but touch-based interfaces have added a new level of complexity. They need quick references and real world examples in order to make informed decisions when designing for these particular interfaces.

Brave NUI World is the first practical book for product and interaction developers and designing touch and gesture interfaces.

Written by the team from Microsoft that developed the multi-touch, multi-user Surface® tabletop product, this book gives you the necessary tools and information to integrate touch and gesture practices into your daily work, presenting scenarios, problem solving, metaphors, and techniques intended to avoid making mistakes.

Daniel Wigdor is UX Architect and Platform Architect at Microsoft and an Assistant Professor of computer science at the University of Toronto. Before joining U of T, he worked at Microsoft in nearly a dozen different roles, among them serving as the User Experience Architect of the Microsoft Surface product, and as a cross company expert in the creation of Natural User Interfaces. Dennis Wixon is currently Discipline Lead for Microsoft US BPD. Prior to this role he was the head of research for Microsoft Surface, and has also managed research teams at Microsoft Game Studies, and MSN/Home Products.

Sample chapter