It’s nice to see it’s not all work-work-work at Polaris House, the bastion of research funding in Swindon. Check out the positioning of the braille on the gents sign.

Building on the post below, it’s worth understanding the practical benefits of this negotiated appreciation of the nature of meaning and knowledge and why this is especially pertinent to a design-led approach.

Anyone with a passing understanding of design will be familiar with the need to deal with emergent, unfocussed and fundamentally unsolvable problems on a day to day basis (see Wicket thinking).

This comfortableness of good designers with not being in control of processes, use, reaction to, or reading of the design of knowledge exchange activities where the actual knowledge transfer is very much uncertain a pretty comfortable thing to get to grips with.

This is not an academic analysis (although there is a paper I have written about this subject here), it’s the result of the interaction of philosophy with working with over 50 companies in the past 12 months in a series of knowledge exchange events and activities.

The experience from there is that the skill is … digital marketing agencies, to high-tech SMEs to new projects with the nuclear decommissioning industry that the skill is engendering a context and approach that facilitates the flow of information between parties. This can be hard information or softer things like perspectives/opinions.

This is much more powerful than trying to ‘imprint’ knowledge on people, also because you are ‘flowing’ with participants and releasing their potential, the process is more enjoyable for everyone.

I was lucky enough to be invited to participate in a creative thinking event run for the large international electronics and maintanence company Premier Farrell recently.
The person organising the event adopted a more presentation heavy approach than is usual in these sorts of things (normally for instance I keep ‘soaking-things-up’ time to 10 minutes at a time maximum). The event went well with a very positive vibe and some interesting outcomes for further development.
One noteworthy connection grew around the presentation approach, the (vibrant) Global Head of Marketing remarked that she once worked in a company where one could only give a presentation if you used some sort of prop. This seems an excellent idea. From this and building on the post, see OHP Massterclass it got me thinking about the props I have used or seen used in presentations.

The list includes:
Paper hat (me to a group of SMEs last December)
Magic wand
2m inflatable ball (by virtuoso motion graphic designer Paul Nicholas, Bait, who started the presention inside the ball)
Flame thrower (the highly eccentric Prof. Heinz Woolf)
Live Gold fish (on an Overhead Projector)
‘Lion feet’ trainers
Blackboard

The advantages of a good prop are that they break into reality (and out of ppt hell), not just for the audience but also in grounding the presenter in a physical space and so thinking of the audience more. Think about the real world and particularly the physical context of the presentation, so – for a while at least – my lecture motto is going to be ‘keeping it real’.

Over the past 2 years, I’ve devoted myself to understanding innovation and to an extent I think I’m just about getting there with a paper published in Design Issues (one of the top 2 design journals) reviewing the relationship between Innovation and Design, and through my IDEAS collaboration, am working with some of the top academics working in Innovation in the UK, particularly Prof. J Howells,Director Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (Manchester Business School).

The realisation I’ve come to is that fundamentally Innovation is too nebulous and general a thing to really grasp. There are deep-rooted academic traditions and perspectives for example to the OU and the University of Surrey from 60’s and 70’s and subsequent activity that make it difficult to have an impact in the area, but more, that it’s not possible to get grip on it as an entity it’s too polysemic. Building on this realisation the thing I’m most interested in, and I think is most significant to the broader innovation debate, is the process that enable innovation and fundamentally this means some aspect of knowledge exchange.

I’m always drawn to the fundamentals, the core texts, the paradigms that shape understanding and only then drawing these into design practice not just for grounding in the real world, but also to test and prompt new abstract theories understanding and further applications. An example of this approach is an engagement (tussle) with Michel de Certeau and his tactical/strategic differentiation (see The Practice of Everyday Life for more). I reacted against his rather gloomy assertion that engagement in non-hierarchical ways was inherentl limited to the fleeting tactical engagement with little prospect of progress or impact beyond a fleeting two fingers to authority. In the past I’ve proposed an approach that counter-strategies drawing on Situationist ideas of recuperation, arguing that this itself in itself can be turned to a positive approach, instead of recuperation (or strategic activity defusing radical thinking it can be subverted to make ideas and actions more impactful , engaging and significant.

The reason for this digression is an excellent seminar Jeremy (Howells) gave on Knowledge at a recent research retreat I helped organise for IDEAS. The underlying premise of his seminar was that knowledge cannot by its nature be transferred, so problamitising the whole concept of knowledge exchange or transfer. He argued that only information can be exchanged and it becomes knowledge in the recipient of the exchange. This has profound implications for the nature, fidelity and content of the knowledge that is ‘defused’ between members of any network of exchange.

Jeremy was drawing on economics, philosophy of knowledge and sociology but several members of IDEAS with backgrounds in business and entrepreneurship theory were diametrically opposed to this view that seems very comfertable to someone with my background. The exciting thing for me was the fact that this debate has to draw in notions of authorship and meaning that introduce a new dimension (and one I’m instamatly familiar with), into the debate about knowledge exchange. Things like de Certeau’s concept of proprietary distributed meaning and the value of negotiated meaning and exchange in communities and emerging framework of knowledge or understanding exchange becomes very significant in developing understandings of knowledge exchange in the more generally (ab)used sence.

There are two interesting things to draw from this (beyond the peculiarity of niche groups).

1) It’s oddly pleasing to see that apart from a very small minority even within ‘hi fi ‘ country, CDs are where it’s at in terms of sound quality (who knew that my battered Bangles CD was still at the cutting edge?). Of course, debates around quality of mastering are lively, but both SCAD and vinyl are pretty much off off the radar.

2) If you want to explore the limits of an audio experience, a set of headphones and an Amp, get you there in a massively more affordable way than looking at speakers, perhaps 50 times as cheaply if you use a digital source rather than a CD drive as the input for headphones. It’s also refreshing to read in even the notoriously pedantic forums that any reasonable USB cable will do to connect your system – no exotic ‘mono-filament, low oxygen’ mumbo jumbo here!

As a result, I’ve taken the leap into a world of audio that’s pretty startling in terms of clarity, of just hearing more detail and nuances in the sound. This is with my Denon AHD-7000s, still breaking in and using the not bad/great Apple Powerbook as a source. The next step is a good headphone amp with the ability to handle digital audio. Then I’ll really be in audio heaven, and even my Bangles will sound good.

If you are interested in really good quality audio you get aview of an exotic landscape where you can pay over £100 for 1 metre of cable (converters extra), or £60k for a CD player. Like physics at this stratospheric end of things verification becomes difficult and we go into the realms of philosophy (do you want your music warm or mellow?)There are two interesting things to draw from this (beyondthe peculiarity of niche groups).1) It’s oddly pleasing to see that apart from a very smallniche even within ‘hi fi ‘ country, CDs are where it’s at in terms of sound quality (who knew that my battered Bangles CD was still at the cutting edge). Of course, debates around quality of mastering are lively, but both SCAD andvinyl are really off the radar.2) If you want to explore choice to the limits of an audioexperience, a set of headphones and an Amp, get you there. Massively more affordable (perhaps 80 times as cheaply if you use a digital source rather than a CD drive as the input for headphones. It’s also refreshing to read in evenniche, highly pedantic forums that any reasonable USB cable will do to connect your system – no exotic ‘high-carbon, mono-filament, low oxygen mumbo jumbohere!As a result, I’ve taken the leap into a world of audiothat’s pretty startling in terms of clarity, of just hearing more detail and nuances in the sound. This is with my Denon AHD-7000s, still breaking in andusing the not bad/great Powerbook as a source.The next step is a good headphone amp, with the ability to handledigital audio. Then I’ll really be in audio heaven, and even my Bangles will sound good.

For the most part I find the Muppets very much an acquired taste, but there is one exception. The Muppet Christmas Carol is a classic that trots out every year on UK TV. This is charming throughout, with Michael Caine a suitable crusty foil (but let’s try and forget the singing). The characters are pretty rounded, certainly as developed as the many other remakes and versions.

My favourite part is something you probably don’t notice, even if you’re very familiar with the film. The reason for this post is to pass on this hidden gem. Look out for the scene where the two charitable fellows approach Scrooge. When Beaker and the Professor are thrown out, you can very clearly see Beaker giving what can only be described as ‘the finger’. Thanks to Empire magazine for publishing this last year, now you all have the ultimate fall back present, the Muppet Christmas Carol meme.

True Blue (thinking) is a response to our accumulating environmental problems championed by Kevin Roberts Worldwide CEO at Saatchi and Saatchi. It represents an approach strongly contrasting with Green Thinking/Desing with its connotations of denial, guilt and negativityabout stopping doing things we like and (for me… hessian underpants). True Blue presents a positive solution orientated pragmatic (read more here) approach that has links (also links with “Bright Green” approaches) and from Harvard The Awesomeness Manifesto, more about this here but this has 4 main pillars

Here are the four pillars of his Awesomeness Manifesto:

1. Ethical production: without an ethical component, awesomeness isn’t possible. The buy low, sell high mentality is yesterday’s mantra.

2. Insanely great stuff: put creativity front and center and you’ll get an emotional reaction from anyone who sees it. Delight the customer.

3. Love: Apple creates products people love. Their employees love to show off how awesome
these products are and customers love shopping in Apple stores. Compare this with Best Buy.

4. Thick value: this is real, meaningful, and sustainable. Thick value, not thin value, actually makes people better off.

The emergence and promotion of True Blue is not unsurprising coming from Kevin, a recent grandfather realising that rampantcapitalism is causing problems. It’s attractive for me for more fundamental reasons.

For me this engages with a bigger picturte of human happieness and citizenship but side stepps the rather moralistic approach that stopped me buying (into) Adbusters and similer iviry tower evangalistices. Philosophically I have a problem with domination/subjugation relationships and so with evangelism. This is prevalent in eco-design thinking in education. I have even experienced lecturers openly relishing the chance to indoctrinate students to adopt their particular view over the course of 10 weeks to their best to impose their view on a cohort (at the expense of the development of students).

In this respect I think True Blue is more ethically responsible and sustainable in the long term than green or echo indoctrination.

This is a snap from a local supermarket known for it’s low lighting and low prices. It’s an interesting gambit but you have to wonder if someone taken in by this is going to have the necessary co-ordination to move a semi-sentient shopping trolley in the first place.

– Post From My iPhone