LOOKBOOK.nu – genius.
LOOKBOOK.nu is an online community which allows members to upload photos of self created fashion looks, to tag the brand of the clothing and to hype (vote) others looks thereby increasing karma (reputation). So from a network economics and participatory psychology approach LOOKBOOK.nu ticks the boxes and has consequently grown into a considerable fashion presence. (Attention economy and social media/network theorists such as Yochai Benkler would love this.)
The standard of the ‘looks’ and creations on LOOKBOOK.nu rivals even the best of current fashion photography and professional creations. Go look if you don’t believe me. This crowd sourcing, consumer generated content approach to fashion blogging draws in social groups across the spectrum, think preppy, fashionista, hipster, & scene kid, they are all there with their dedicated followers. From each ‘look’ it is possible to click through to the retailer, to search looks according to colour, brand or style.
That LOOKBOOK.nu is home to a 200,000 member strong community and a global worldwide readership of over 3.5 million unique visitors per month indicates that this resource is worth unfathomable value to the retail and fashion industries. And of course they have begun to realise this.
Gap for example has been running a competition through LOOKBOOK.nu Team Skinny Vs. Flare which called for members to post looks declaring their team (including Gap clothing of course) the prizes awarded are in the hundreds of dollars and Gap uses the images in their upcoming advertising campaign. Mass exposure of Gap products, masses of traffic generation, free fashion shots, sounds like a whole lot of free work to me.
I am really interested to talk with LOOKBOOK.nu about the ins-and-outs of their model, the possibilities of revenue generation are many with this site, exciting. Well done Jason Su and Yuri Lee.
Neutrinos, GirlGeeks, FabLab & MadLab.
This weekend I will be attending “To Catch a Neutrino” by Dr Marieke Navin on Sunday at the 9th Manchester Girl Geek Tea Party.
‘Neutrinos are the most enigmatic and elusive of particles. They can transmit information from the furthest reaches of space and it is this unlikeliness to interact that makes them so interesting to study. Marieke will give you a whistle stop tour of the world of neutrino astronomy then bring you back to Earth to man-made neutrino beams and why we are firing them through the Earth, across Japan and why the study of neutrinos will help us solve some of the mysteries of the Universe.
Marieke Navin took 3 years out after doing an MPhys in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Sheffield. In this time she travelled, volunteered and worked as a debt collector. Marieke returned to Sheffield and has recently completed a PhD on the neutrino oscillation experiment T2K in Japan. She spent 6 weeks working down a mine in the Japanese Alps refurbishing part of the detector. Marieke was runner up in the 2007 FameLab competition and now works as Science Communication Officer at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.’
If you are there come say hi!
HighWire update: Last week we took some of the new HighWire cohort to FabLab Manchester to let them play. FabLab is somewhere you’ll be able to find us if we go missing. On this venture we escaped to eat and discoveredMadLab hidden away in the Northern Quarter also. We have also been discussing the idea of ‘impact’ and what this means for HighWire, academia and industry. Lots to come. Watch this space.
Poking retail kids & designers with a big stick. Wake up, wake up!
MakerBot have announced that their Botcave™ Retail Store in Brooklyn will open on November 26th. This is a physical retail space that will retail MakerBotsand Arduinos as well as kits from Adafruit, Evil Mad Science, Jimmie Rodgers, Sparkfun and Liquidware.
This reflects increasingly obvious emergence of retail and commercially focused models growing around open source, crowd-sourcing, social product design and citizen led approaches. [Perhaps better understood as citizen/retail/production models.] Examples include Ponoko, Shapeways, Nervous Systems and perhaps most obviously DOIY and Quirky.com.
Here innovation is observed in the research, design, supply chain, production and distribution mechanisms employed. Quirky, for example, employs crowd sourced (social) product design, research and development. This is complemented by a pull production system, requiring a predetermined level of sales before products are actually produced. This low risk (agile, pull) approach is an interesting development for production and retail of consumer goods.
My research has been looking at models such as these for some time and in doing so I have found many failures and obviously sub-standard models. While it is early for such models it is obvious that Quirky (for one) is something to watch out for.
For the models that didn’t survive or are destined for the retail administration/bankruptcy graveyard I suggest that their primary failings or short comings are related to the client/citizen side interaction, how the citizen/consumer interacts with the model, the effort required, barriers to participation, incentive to participate and a simple lack of consumer awareness.
My forth-coming paper* with Dr. Leon Cruickshank begins to address the client/citizen side of such models through consideration of the role of design as applied to such models. We suggest that through appropriate service design, design of (citizen) processes, provision of toolkits, design or supply of proto-designs** these citizen/retail/production model will be substantially enhanced. (Throw IoT into this mix and we have a perfect storm.)
Retail kids WAKE UP!
>>More to come<<
*SVID 2010
**Related to the known concepts of unfinished, modular and under-design.
Industry versus Academia
Over the next three generations of HighWire (that is five separate cohorts of which two are currently present) HighWire researchers will through their industry facing approaches to innovation develop an evermore insightful viewpoint on this debate. Situated between academia and industry partners HighWire researchers occupy the perfect middlespace.
HighWire as a platform is an interesting space within which to navigate the barriers between industry and academic. Being footed on both sides exposes HighWirees to the nuances, politics, trials and tribulations of both sides. This unique position has to date raised tensions within the cohort and has presented both opportunity and problems in longer term projects.
HighWire students are placed in a SME in their first semester of the Masters in Research, here, students participate in a quick and dirty project determined by their research interests but also the interests of the SME concerned. It is interesting to observe the students during this time, as they are required to fulfil the needs of not only the SME but also academic requirements which do not necessarily form a coherent point of departure. Herein lies the greatest challenge for a HighWiree.
Academia by its nature requires fulfillment of academic criteria, academic success and ultimately passing, while working within an innovation space (as many of the projects required) requires use of a different language, process and goals, risk taking and ultimately potential failure.
But while this process can be problematic it has been noted through HighWire that this middlespace can at times create the ‘perfect storm’ for innovative outcomes. Learning how to successfully navigate such a divide will surely then be the strength of the emergent HighWire researchers.
Academia has much to learn from industry, and industry has much to learn from academia.
John Maeda & Becky Bermont add to this debate
HighWire at the home of Ruskin
In an emerging tradition HighWire is today welcoming it’s second cohort of students in Brantwood at the home of Ruskin. The new cohort is embarking on the Master of research stage of the course which will of course be an exciting and challenging time.
During this time we warmly welcome the new students to the fold and provide insight as to what they will face throughout this year. This may also be the first opportunity that some of the cohort will encounter the trials and tribulations of post disciplinary research which has been the focus of workshops this morning.
Importantly today also marks the transfer of the first cohort to the PhD stage of HighWire where we are pleased to report that the entire cohort has successfully progressed. A few busy months ahead then.
Entering the Doctoral phase
Shortly the first cohort of HighWire students will enter the full doctoral stage of the HighWire Doctoral Training Centre. As such, fellow HighWirees are currently working to finish project work and construct developed doctoral proposals. In what is emerging as a tradition of sorts plans are underway for the initiation of the next cohort and the 2011 Doctoral Training Summer School. Watch this space.
Proposals then? I’m currently navigating a divide that has occurred in my research during my time in London with TinkerLondon. This time was somewhat changing both personally and research-wise and, as always, it seems that navigating splits and divides is something that I must do .
One approach to a proposal is driving me to look at ‘reconstructing’ (repositioning) the role of the designer. It has become increasing clear to me that designers in many fields are missing the development in ‘discipline’ that the digital economy, new technologies, economic development, social progress and cultural change afford. As a research proposal this is one that resonates with industry and policy and enables exploration of new models, services and approaches.
Secondly, ‘democratic design’ (also innovation) simultaneously the thorn in my side and my new found play thing is leading the development of the second approach. Research and literature reviews in this area have been interesting, frustrating, and surprisingly provocative. Thus the idea of writing a ‘democratic design manifesto’ appeals currently. (Harking back to my ‘discontent with design’ days – Johanna Van Daalen may remember these.)
Designers and writers ranging from Leon Cruickshank to Gaetano Pesce hold disparate views or definitions of ‘democratic’, in the sense of design. This approach has potential for development of an interesting thesis and philosophical perspective, with perhaps the potential to engage in a practice based element and development of a ‘democratic model of design’.
A fork in the road; more decisions ahead it seems.
‘Concretophone’ – Troglodismo
In my time in Tinker I have been exploring the developments made possible by the Arduino kit one of which was developed by Troglodisme, London.
Le Concretophone is an interactive and poetic telephone. The idea behind it is derived from a ‘brazillian art movement contemporary to Beat poetry which started as Poesia Concreta’.
The telephone is an interactive, retro transparent 1980′s, which simply begs one to lift the receiver. On picking up the handset the listener is ‘promptly surprised by a disturbing set of forcefully suave voices, a deranged blend of familiar instructions. Instead of sought after customer relief the listener hears poetic recitals including Ginsberg, Decio Pignatari and Eliott.’
The possibilities arising from democratic toolkits such as the Arduino and Tinkerkit make possible development of weird and wonderful concepts as the user is creating only for themselves, with lesser considerations of adoption and production cost that are core concerns to those developing on a grander scale. Making for a market of one if you will.
Tinkering in London
I have just arrived at the end of a few weeks in TinkerLondon helping on, and observing the beginnings of a project called ‘HomeSense‘. This is an open research project, enabling user led innovation in the Smart Home sphere. It is a collaboration between TinkerLondon and EDF. Why? This is where my PhD seems to be directing itself to and as such I have been observing a more industrially focused attitude towards this type of approach to innovation. My findings have been interesting and somewhat surprising to say the least.
Homesense brings the open collaboration methods of online communities to physical infrastructures in the home. Instead of having products forced on them through a top-down design process, selected households will create their own smart homes and live with the technologies that they have developed themselves without any prior technical expertise. My role in this has been to consider the toolkit design.
I’ve had a lovely time with the Tinker team, they really are the people to watch. Thank you!
Go follow @TinkerLondon and @Home_Sense now!
Design your own smart home?
Hello!
I’ve been observing the beginnings of a project by TinkerLondon involving DIY smart homes which will run over autumn of this year, and I wondered if you might be interested (or know other folks who would be)?
The project involves giving 6 homes across Europe a research kit of the latest open hardware tech, and training in how to use them. They then have up to 3 months in the autumn to play with the tech, make interesting things, and share their experiences through blogs and videos. Each household will also be partnered with some local technology experts who will help them throughout the autumn and provide support where-ever’s needed.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t know anything about technology – all of the kit and the training is designed so that folks with any amount (or not) of tech know-how. We’re actually really interested to see what kind of things non-techy people would make and how they make it. There’s no constraints on what toys people can build: people could track their cats, their plants, measure how often the fridge door opens, and anything else they fancy.
There’s more information here - www.homesenseproject.com – and do give me a yell if you need to know more. We’re on a pretty tight deadline to find our final round of households so do let us know soon if you fancy it, and please please do pass this on to anyone else who might be interested!
Cheers,
Natasha
Details available here:
http://www.homesenseproject.com/about/
Sign up here:
_Households
http://www.homesenseproject.com/make-me-a-smart-home/
_Experts
http://www.homesenseproject.com/become-an-expert/
Democratic Design
Ikea lauded as ‘democratic design‘ is a commonly cited argument, but one which has not rested so well with me recently. It must be noted that those arguing for Ikea as democratic design do make convincing arguments. Ikea’s pricing model is democratic in that it clearly enables ‘the masses’ to own designed goods. Ikea enables users to ‘participate’ in the construction of the final product in it’s supply of flatpack, while Hacker and Maker communities demonstrate ‘participation’ (a fundamental element within democracy) in ‘design’ in widely blogged ikea hacks.
So while it is reasonable to suggest that ikea enables democratic consumption of design, and that by virtue of it’s pricing model reduces the barriers to hacking and customisation. I suggest that this is not strictly democratic design. Participation in the construction of flatpack furniture is not democratic design, nor is hacking a product designed as complete.
Obviously this is a difficult and perhaps contentious argument to posit, rendered difficult to defend as there is no universally accepted definition of democratic design. So why do I make this argument?
To work from the following definition, ‘Democratic implies ‘characterized by, advocating or based upon the principles of democracy or social equality’ thus, as demonstrated, arguments of democratic design as applied to ikea are flawed. Of course, truly democratic design is not necessarily achievable or desirable, however beyond Ikea, there are better examples of democratic design.
These include but are not limited to; crowdsourcing, as found with organisations such as Innocentive, Hypios and Local motors. Social product design models as found with Quirky. Democratic design spaces such as FabLabs. Platform or toolkit provision such as Arduino or Shapeways creator. Generative design systems such as those provided by Nervous System.
Provision of blueprints, such as those provided in the stores of Shapeways and Ponoko. Modules in which the final product is built by the end user. Incompletes where the user must participate in the design of the product to finish it, such as Droog’s ‘Do Create’.
Time to define ‘democratic’ design?
Tag Cloud
Blog Directory
Our sponsors
