“We will die, that much is certain; and everyone we have ever loved and cared about will die, too, sometimes—heartbreakingly—before us. Being someone else, traveling the world, making new friends gives us a temporary reprieve from this knowledge, which is spared most of the animal kingdom. Busyness—or the simulated busyness of email addiction—numbs the pain of this awareness, but it can never totally submerge it. Given that our days are limited, our hours precious, we have to decide what we want to do, what we want to say, what and who we care about, and how we want to allocate our time to these things within the limits that do not and cannot change. In short, we need to slow down.”

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Wolfram Eilenberger argues on Spiegel Online that Europe is prepared for these challenges.

“The dogma-free, democratic marketplace of ideas, for which Socrates gave his life in Athens, is today a communicative reality in which hundreds of millions of citizens are actively taking part. The spirit of scientific methodology and veracity embodied by Bacon, Descartes, and Newton as a measure of the collective interpretation of the world is driving a community of researchers that is unique in its diversity. The federal confederacy based on fundamental human rights that Erasmus and Kant envisaged as the “kingdom of ends” is now our political order. The collective safeguarding of physical and intellectual basic rights that Aristotle recognized as the foundation of every polity, and the ethically concerned liberalism of Adam Smith are guiding the logic of our economic activity. And finally, the vision of a secular, active, multilingual life elevated by Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Goethe as the core of what it means to be human accurately describes our cultural existence today as nascent Europeans.”

The article has been provided by Internationale Politik–Global Edition as part of a special agreement with SPIEGEL ONLINE. IP–Global Edition is the English- language quarterly journal of the German Council of Foreign Relations, published in association with IP, Germany’s premier foreign policy monthly.

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“As interaction designers, we are concerned with describing how people might interact with and experience the products, services and environments that inhabit their world. The ability to effectively tell a story, then, is an important part of any interaction designer’s skill set, and proves useful at many different points of the design process.”

Nice Vodafone Future example.

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Whereas in the past companies were protective and less inclined to track outside feedback, the rapid growth of Web communications has shown that sharing can be the basis for increased and better targeted productivity.

Watch interview

Ethnography, a field of anthropological study and a research technique, helps visual communication designers create materials that evoke meaning and inspire action in their audiences. Ethnography enables a designer’s understanding by uncovering cultural contexts and social norms.

This thesis examines the intersection between the fields of ethnography and visual communication design. First, the thesis describes the value of ethnography in developing effective strategies for visual communication design. Second, the thesis describes how designers can most effectively collaborate with ethnographers in all phases of the design process.

“I’m 31 years old. I’ve been online since I was a teen. I’ve grown up with this medium and I embrace each new device that brings me closer to being a cyborg. I want information at my fingertips now and always. There’s no doubt that I’m not mainstream. But I also feel really badly for the info-driven teens and college students out there being told that learning can only happen when they pay attention to an audio-driven lecture in a classroom setting. I read books during my classroom (blatantly not paying attention). Imagine what would’ve happened had I been welcome to let my mind run wild on the topic at hand?

What will it take for us to see technology as a tool for information enhancement? At the very least, how can we embrace those who learn best when they have an outlet for their questions and thoughts? How I long for being connected to be an acceptable part of engagement. “

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(via The FASTForward Blog)

Compiled by Roberta Tassi for her thesis at the Politecnico di Milano, the 45 tools are displayed according to the design activity they are used for, the kind of representation they produce, the recipients they are addressed to, and the contents of the project they can convey.

“The thesis investigated the relation between communication design and service design, starting from the observation of the existing practices in the field of service design. The critical points and the opportunities concerning the use of communication tools during a service design process also emerged.

The aim of this website is to share with the (service) design community the results of the research and to build an open platform of knowledge: any comments and suggestions are appreciated.”

(via Design for Service, InfoDesign and Choosenick)

“Gone are the days when snaring attention for start-ups in the Valley meant mentions in print and on television, or even spotlights on technology Web sites and blogs. Now P.R. gurus court influential voices on the social Web to endorse new companies, Web sites or gadgets — a transformation that analysts and practitioners say is likely to permanently change the role of P.R. in the business world, and particularly in Silicon Valley.”

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“According to research carried out last year by Professor Nada Kakabadse at Northampton University, a growing number of people are becoming overdependent on their BlackBerries, mobile phones and other digital devices.”

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“Clay Shirky says that the lightning-quick dissemination of news events via social media has heightened the role of emotion. The instantaneous manner with which users of platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are inclined to pick up, modify and share messages favors excitement over objectivity.”

Watch video

Related links:
- Twitter meets mass hysteria
- Free Will: How the internet Is changing us (video)

My preferred pieces:

Skills: Business must learn from the new tribe
So-called ‘digital natives’ are bringing down the barriers to collaborative working, finds Jessica Twentyman
(If you read one article only, this is the one.)

Mobility: Flexibility is driven from the bottom up
But organisations must ensure employees are not slaves to mobile devices, notes Stephen Pritchard

Overcoming the fear of connectivity
Some organisations, fearful of untoward consequences such as reputational damage, ban social networking websites. Others embrace them enthusiastically and try to persuade others to do likewise.

Developing world: ‘Have-nots’ no closer to catching the ‘haves
Cellphones are nearly ubiquitous but internet access is still very patchy, says Paul Taylor

Case study: Text messages give shopkeepers the power to bulk buy
Stroll through South Africa’s villages – as steeped in ancestral tradition as they are deprived of basic services – and you will come across the convenience store, writes Tom Burgis.

Opinion: IT makes poverty a ‘curable affliction’
Olav Kjorven of the UNDP argues that innovative programmes in developing nations have helped people increase their choices and opportunities

Donor programmes: Sponsors can now view benefits online
Non-governmental organisations and government bodies can see exactly how their money is being spent, writes Danny Bradbury

Developed world: Those with no access miss out on opportunities
Jessica Twentyman examines the evidence that digital exclusion and social disadvantage go hand in hand

Connecting the world: Ubiquity will be a hard state to reach
Network access for all requires money but there are also significant technical hurdles, writes Stephen Pritchard

(Note that without subscription you can read only 10 FT articles a month. But you can double or triple that by installing more than one browser.)

“Adrian Simpson discovers the future of TV entertainment in Belgium; how the mobile phone camera revolutionizes healthcare in Kenya; the way in which government processes are facilitated through internet access in Mexico; and the political influence of SMS and social networking sites during the Obama election campaign in the US. But that’s not all – in the second half of 2009 Adrian will continue to travel to the corners of the globe, to find out how connectivity is impacting people’s lives from Austria to Zimbabwe.”

Currently the site has five 10 minute video episodes up on Europe, Africa, Latin America, USA and India (with China and Jakarta/Tokyo following soon). Each episode comes with clearly marked additional footage, plus interviews of Nokia Siemens Networks customers in those areas.

Mira Slavova of the excellent mmd4d blog that deals with mobile services for emerging markets, reports extensively on the African episode and its additional footage.

New York, NY, April 30, 2009 – ACM has launched a new Web platform to complement the print content of its flagship publication Communications of the ACM, the leading publication in computing and information technology that is read by computing professionals worldwide. The Website http://cacm.acm.org features exclusive news, opinion, research, and information as well as extensive content from the current issue, and the complete archived issues of Communications that span more than 50 years of in-depth coverage of the computing profession. The site also offers access to searchable content from the ACM Digital Library and from other sources around the Web, and hosts a robust blog section that is updated daily. Contributions from a continually growing community of bloggers representing leading industry experts are accessible by both subscribers and the general public. [...]

A two-tier blog structure has been created for the Communications Web platform. It includes a BLOG@CACM of on-site experts covering topical computing issues who encourage comments about their posts, and a Blogroll of syndicated bloggers that reflects the geographic and intellectual scope of the computing world with entries and related discussions off-site.

Among the featured bloggers are leading authorities from industry and academia, including Scott Aaronson of MIT on theory, Jason Hong of Carnegie Mellon University on mobile computing, James Horning of Sparta Inc. on security, Tessa Lau of IBM Almaden Research Center on Intelligent Interfaces, Greg Linden of Microsoft Live Labs on personalized information, and Peter Norvig of Google on search. The Blogroll includes postings from USACM on public policy issues; the ACM-W Council on Women in Computing; the Computing Community Consortium for fostering new research visions; a blog on the discovery and application of emerging technologies; high performance computing news for supercomputing professionals; and insights on user experience and putting people first.

Thank you, ACM.

Read press release

• Head in the Cloud: computing becomes virtual
  As the costs of sending, storing, and processing information descend, these services are moving into the fabric of the Internet.
   
• Can technology actually make us more human?
  Humans are tool users, and hi-tech tools can isolate us. But in the brave new world of connected communications, they can also reinforce who we are.
   
• Crowdsourcing and open innovation
  Businesses and institutions must now recognize that innovation is no longer confined within company walls.
   
• Blurring the virtual and the real
  Technology is increasingly connecting the real and the virtual, in real time- and making it difficult to tell the difference between the two.

Also of interest is this reflection on virtual communications by Valerie Buckingham, Nokia’s director of technology marketing.

Social media may have unforeseen limits
John Jordan, a pathbreaking tech consultant and academic, measures social technologies in terms of the notion of ‘network externalities,’ which posits that the value of a technology improves as it reaches a critical mass of users. He has nevertheless observed a phenomenon of diminishing returns among platforms like eBay and Craigslist, where user behaviors – scams, unreliability and false representations – have begun to undermine the functionality of the service.

A multifunctional Web platform will enable major social advancements
Tech-investor and blogger Jeff Clavier sees a platform combining the functionality of search engines, the nimbleness of micro-blogging, and the breadth of YouTube as a way to bring communities together to accomplish goals. By combining these functions on mobile phones and computers it’s suddenly possible to draw in people who share a common passion, but might not have met otherwise, from a massive network of potential members.

An editorial by Valerie Buckingham, Nokia’s Director of Technology Marketing, discusses the topic of authority in the context of recent developments in communications, particularly the social and democratizing elements of the Internet in the last 15 years, and the sheer number of new content creators:

“Amidst all this, Larry Keeley‘s musings (video) on how young people learn to make decisions about what is true is particularly interesting to me. In this new world of communication types and authors, how do any of us decide which voices are worth considering? What kinds of standard assumptions ought we to be making about the intentions of authors? [...]
Keeley suggests that there is a lot at stake in questions like these – that the future of our democratic culture may well be tied up in how young people learn to negotiate these dynamics for themselves. [...]
Keeley’s words remind us that even as the technology changes, the need to bring a level of critical thinking to the implications of all new communication modes certainly does not.

And perhaps, as Andreas Weigend suggests (video), in his earlier contribution on IdeaProject.com about the role of metadata in the future of communication, technology has an important role to play in bringing clarity. Perhaps when individual reputation, expressed as reliable metadata, can more readily be connected in all communication, we’ll at least be on the road to providing better tools for the next generation to separate the truth from the crap.”

“In terms of IT, the three key priorities are mobiles, mobiles, and mobiles. As indicated earlier in this column, cellphones are now reaching far down into the bottom billion. At present, development solutions will need to be based around voice and text. But other possibilities are rapidly opening up.”

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The article is published online on the wonderfully redesigned Communications website.

The new site complements the magazine by providing an easy access point to all the content found in the magazine’s print pages, but perhaps more importantly the site extends beyond Communications’ current reach and helps bring us closer to fulfilling the flagship’s original promise as the primary “communication” tool in the field of computing.

Here is some more on the philosophy behind the new site.

We at Experientia are proud to say that Putting People First made it to the site’s blogroll, together with some other important players in the field. Here are some other articles that caught my attention:

Crowd control
Using crowdsourcing applications, humans around the world are transcribing audio files, conducting market research, and labeling data, for work or pleasure.

Reflecting human values in the digital age
HCI experts must broaden the field’s scope and adopt new methods to be useful in 21st-century sociotechnical environments.

Bookmark this site.

“Ericsson, the world’s leading provider of telecommunications equipment and services, and pan-African operator Zain have built a wind- and solar-powered site in remote northeast Kenya. Now with access to reliable and affordable mobile communication, villagers in Dertu can make calls, access health services and education and improve their economic future.”

Make sure to watch the video.

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Yochai Benchler has written for a long time about the internet and the emergence of a network economy and society. He has also talked about the organization of infrastructures, such as wireless communications. His most recent book is The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Sharealike license. He is also the recipient of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award in 2007.

- Listen to interview (audio)
- Read interview transcript

Related info
- Yochai Benkler speaking at TED 2005
- User ideas submitted on the Ideas Project site

Within the W3C workshop, the issues facing social networking growth could be documented and, in this workshop in particular, taking into account social networking on mobile devices/platforms with and without PC/broadband Internet services.

The workshop also explored whether it is worthwhile to consider the creation of an Interest or Working Group under the auspices of W3C to continue these discussions.

The discussions of the workshop were fed by the input of the 72 (!) position papers submitted by the participants, and animated by the Program Committee composed of experts from the industry and academics on this topic.

Companies that submitted papers include Atos Origin, Ericsson, IBM, Microsoft, Opera, Samsung Electronics, SUN, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Vodafone, Yahoo!, and YouTube, so the papers section definitely requires a quick scan. You can read the brief summaries by Libby Miller on each of them.

You can also read rough minutes of Day 1 and Day 2 of the workshop, download the slides of the various presentations (linked from the agenda) and watch videos of some of the sessions.

In a short article, the New Scientist focuses on one of the papers on the potency of mobile social networking in developing market economies (with the great subtitle: “The Revolution will be ‘mobil’-ised”), written by South Africa-based mobile social media consultant Gloria Ruhrmund.:

Western consumers are becoming used to the idea that the computing power of their phone is catching up with what is traditionally expected from a computer. But in Africa and some other poor regions it is phones that have all the computing power – mobile handsets far outnumber PCs and broadband connections.

As a result, innovative new uses of mobile connectivity are appearing in those developing areas first, possibly providing a glimpse of what the future holds for cellphone users in richer countries.

Two other Facebook groups could be of interest too: the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea group is for alumni in the broad sense of the word of the meanwhile defunct Interaction Design Institute Ivrea; and KashKlash provides you with insight, background and provoking ideas on the future of value exchange (and while you are at it, also visit KashKlash.net and fill out the questionnaire).