Visiting Designer Liad Baniel

Designer Laid Baniel made a great presentation last week on branding and the kind of questions we need to ask ourselves. He presented some of his favorite designer's work— which was quite impressive. As my project was a bit behind schedule I, unfortunately, had nothing of any significance for criticism. I was a bit disappointed that his presentation didn't included and digital branding, as that is the thrust of the class. I went home, logged onto lynda.com and spent the majority of the night going through tutorials — and actually made some headway. Laid did leave us with a great list of inspirational websites. Thanks much, Liad.

marketing video — styleframes

A little behind schedule, but here are my styleframes, still in progress. I've started editing the video, for which i hope to use a stroboscopic effect. the basic concept is using a heads up display, the rider can have real-time feedback as to where he is in the course, where the other riders are; the time and date for recording; a time from when the run started; heart/pulse and whatever else makes sense. the second images is in development. the end will fade into the new name/logo. stay tuned. more to come

A Different take on Augmented Reality

In casting around trying to stimulate some ideas for our marketing brand platform, I ran across a slightly different direction. I thought it fun.

Making Ads that Whisper to the Brain or Brainwashing for the Masses

An article in today’s Times talks about the high art of neuromarketing. This breed believes that traditional market surveys and focus groups are inaccurate because participants can never articulate the unconscious impressions of attraction and repulsion. Volunteers for the think tank NeuroFocus don fabric caps with EEG sensors and eyetracking devices while watching TV commercials that measure neuro stimlation.

“By measuring brain waves, we are able to measure attention, emotion and memory,” says Dr. Pradeep, who holds a Ph.D. in engineering. “We basically compute the deep subconscious response to stimuli.”

Before laughing too hard consider some of the organizations who are taking this all very seriously: Google, CBS, Disney, Frito-Lay and A & E Television, as well as some political campaigns — even Neilson has invested in NeuroFocus, raising their credibility ratings.

Mayhem or a magic bullet, you decide.

Crystalizing theAugmented Reality Brand Platform

To summarize the direction of the Augmented Reality Brand Platform.

Theme.
A distilled explanation of concept is that Augmented Reality is the ability to superimpose meta data and sensory enhancements over a real world environment in real time. More simply, it means having access to the planet's knowledge base wherever you are, and whenever you need it.

The colorboard.
The image and color choices were deliberate and intended to evoke associations of financially stablity, advanced technology, cutting edge, best-of-breed, innovative, global knowledge on a personal level.

Soundscape.
The thoughts were to give the impression of something well orchestrated — maturing and coming of age of a technology — achieving synchronicity, arriving, release (easing), upbeat and positive.

Feedback from AR ning network.
Most guests 'got it' and had some degree of enthusiasm about its possibilities. Almost everyone took the time to think of an application that would enhance their lives. Nobody seemed terribly concerned about AR further diminishing their social interaction — i.e. your iphone taking over your life (though not sure i'm convinced, seems anything can become an addiction). Through the types of applications my guests suggested, I was able determine enabling technologies (existing and emerging) that would/are needed to make the apps functional. By the nature of applications and technologies, one could see the industries (companies) that would profit through industry growth — as well as looking under the hood of the web at infrastructure and thinking about how it's financed.

Improved Reality?

This idea definitely has a lot of merit in my mind....

Augmented — already

Many people equate future thinking with making more stuff. Much of what will be coming down the pike will be playing on platforms already established. Some new technologies will require new devices, but much is already available on smart phones... apps can simply be plug 'n play.

Augmented Reality — Data Visualization

In developing the ning network, it was clear that I needed to solicit feedback and opinion as to the validity of the AR concept. I figured some people would think all this technology extremely cool, and some, weird. My poll question which, which didn't actually yield much data, was involved with: is this a good thing or bad? — or a trade-off? Gee, most people thought it was a trade-off — a surprise:)

Ultimately, I asked guests on my forum what kind of AR application would rock their world? From those responses I was able to look at the enabling technologies that would need to be in place for them to become realities. This was somewhat revealing in terms of technologies, industries and markets that might be affected over the next decade or so. After listing out and organizing the common technologies, and which were needed for each of my requested applications, one could see which areas of the tech environmental are already mature and which are just emerging — and which technologies are so prevalent that they will eventually become part of the network infrastructure.

Augmented Reality—A Ning Network

As part of our Digital Design class we've created a virtual product or service which is being developed into a Brand Platform. If you've been following this blog, you've been introduced to Augmented Reality, seen my initial identifying type treatment, heard my sound scape and seen my color palette. This post is about the creation of a social network, its communications possibilities as well as opportunities for feedback and ideas.

The experience of building the network made us flush out the concepts enough to communicate our ideas more clearly. The content developed/researched included videos, images, a text overview, blog, forum and our own survey poll--through poll daddy. We invited friends, colleagues and classmates to participate.

We then used the poll or forum to collect information from out 'markets' and represent that information through data visualization (next post).

My augmented reality soundscape

Augmented soundscape by ronzisman

DoCoMo Shows Prototype Augmented Reality Display

On Kurzweil's blog, there was a short article on a tiny display device that clips onto an ordinary pair of glasses and provides information and navigation services on its head-up display without obscuring regular vision. The device is connected by wireless technology to a smart phone with GPS capability. The device knows the direction it's facing and provides information based on the user's location and position. The article notes that a potential use might be museum tours or tourist attractions. But whose to say it wouldn't work equally well pointed at the night sky identifying constellations and their mythic histories. The research has been developed in collaration with the Olympus Corporation.

Scientists and Soldiers Solve a Bee Mystery

Today's New York Times ran an article on how academia and the military, working together, were able to discover the cause of honeybee "colony collapse", which for the last few years has decimated 20 to 40 percent of the honeybee population in the U.S. It took the unique partnership of military scientists and entomologists to recognize that the collapse syndrome was the result of both a virus and fungus working in tandem. Identifying the fungus causing the problem and the conditions that it needs to grow, brings us one step closer to a positive intervention.

One of the biggest problems has been that the honeybees, when infected, leave the hive flying in all directions — and die alone — making collecting corpses for autopsies, a necessity for investigation, difficult at best.

Collective intelligence in small teams

An article appearing on Kurzweil's blog discusses a recent study by MIT researchers on the effectiveness of teams, and the make-up of those teams in solving problems. The conclusion was that small teams with the right kind of internal dynamics perform well on a wide range of assignments having potential applications for business and other organizations. The caveat, of course, is the right kind of dynamics. Groups whose members had higher levels of "social sensitivity" — the willingness of the group to let all of its members take turns and apply their skills to a given challenge — were more collectively intelligent. Groups where one person dominated were less intelligent than groups where tasks were more evenly distributed. It was also suggested that women tended to be more empathetic and helped to balance the group.

Over the summer, I was involved in a residency program where small groups (in my case 4 people) were assigned clients and projects. My group happened to be three women and me (a guy). I can attest to the fact that even though there was quite a bit of friction, the outcome was far better than any of us could have acheived individually — to an amazing extent. We all approached the project from different perspectives with our own checklists of what features were mandatory for the project's success. After initial conflict, and some agreement on direction, we each found our places and natural strengths. As it turned out my partners were quite amazing — an appreciation that wasn't initially apparent. But in truth, without a good bit of give and take — and blind trust — it could have been a disaster.

Another conclusion of the study was that a group's collective intelligence accounted for 30 to 40 percent of the variation in performance, and that individual intelligence of group members didn't necessarily determine the effectiveness of the group. Having a bunch of smart people in a group doesn’t necessarily make the group smart.

U.S. Wants to Make it Easier to Wiretap the Internet

This morning I was reading an article in the Times telling us why we should support the government, allowing them a back door to the internet to eavesdrop on private citizens at their whim. Even if I trusted the government, I would do everything I could to discourage this kind of policy. As it is, it's almost impossible to believe what i read in newspapers without considering political and corporate minipulation. It's been the decentralized nature of the internet that has allowed information from inside China and Iran to find a public forum to post a different perspective of reality than their administration's agenda would allow. With the publishing of wikileaks, Americans for the first time are seeing what is going on in Afganistan — and the federal government has gone bullshit at having these facts surface. And how did we all hear about Haliburton defrauding the American public (in Iraq) for billions of dollars without any investigation? Was it because our vice-president was CEO of that company before he took office. Torture — we don't believe in it in the U.S., right? And do we know any congressman who hasn't taken political and/or corporate contributions with no strings attached. Personally, I think we should clean house—representatives shouldn't be on the take. How can congress look after our interests, when the thrust of their job is to simply be re-elected. The internet is the only non-political channel available, and I am personally reluctant after the Bush administration to trust that the government does anything in the people's interest. Especially in light of the TARP which financed Wall Street bonuses and a Healthcare bill that still permits wholesale rape by the healthcare sector and now demands that every citizen pay for health insurance or pay a fine — all increasing the insurance industry's market at public expense. Based on these policy changes, do you really think the fed is capable of honoring privacy? Fight this proposal for all you're worth, I plan to.

Seth Rule('s)

Scanning through BusinessWeek.com, I came across a small post from an attendee of one of Seth Godin's seminars entitled Seth Godin on being indespensable. Over the course of the seminar, he delivered his secret to sucess — in four simple rules. Consider these:

1. “If there is a map or a set of rules, reject it. You will not get paid fairly if all you do is follow the rules.”

2. “What you must do is [create] generous art, gifts that change people, connect with people, lead with people, make change that matters.”

3. “Ship it.”

[This referred to the tendency we all have to talk ourselves out of doing something, instead convincing ourselves that it’s too soon/not ready/not a good time/we’ll be laughed out of town if we try it now, clearly we should delay. The idea of shipping something that might not be perfect isn’t just creatively liberating, it’s really the only way to exist in a world where if you don’t launch your great idea, you’ll miss your moment altogether.]

4. “Treat the platform as an opportunity to give gifts and make change, not something to survive to get to tomorrow.”

I thought they were good guidelines.

Brand Platform Color Palette

from stuff to platforms

A blog post on Panopticon was talking about how working with 'future scenarios' provides a contextual source of inspiration in developing new concepts for products/services/experiences. The article suggests that recent insights indicate a shift in thinking from designers who now seem more inclined to build upon existing infrastructure or platforms for solutions. This is 180 degrees from when innovation and creativity were solely associated with the building of new stuff. Designers concerned with sustainability have taken a more critical stance on building new objects/products — instead, think apps, modular components, open source. Future challenges will be more complex and deal more with behavioral change — shifting focus from object-based, to people-based. As I say, it's all about me.

The unfolding of Context: Augmented Reality

"Context awareness is regarded as an enabling technology for ubiquitous computing that can learn and make assumptions about the users current situation. Characterized by having access to information wherever you are and whenever you need it — its like having the ultimate personal assistant."

A Tech World That Centers on the User

In a Times article adapted from Nick Bilton's (NYT tech blog Bits) recently published book "I Live in the Future & Here's How it Works", Mr. Bilton describes how a user centered internet is changing how we access information. The internet generation is looking for "personalized" experiences, and it's the quality of the experience that makes the difference.

If you pull out your smartphone and click the button that says “locate me” on your mapping application, you will see a small dot appear in the middle of your screen.

That’s you.

If you start walking down the street in any direction, the whole screen will move right along with you, no matter where you go.

This is a dramatic change from the print world. Now we are always in the center of the map. It's all about me, my interests, my convenience, my immediate needs.

For instance, if I am reading the newspaper at 4 p.m. in Brooklyn, the content I see should reflect the time of day (near dinner), the place (what’s nearby) and more.

...and most importantly, these systems should do this without my having to instruct them. Maybe this is why they're called 'smart" devices.

Clinical diagnosis in the palm of your hand

 

A revolutionary hand-held diagnostic instrument is being developed by Cambridge Consultants. The inexpensive device (under $100) senses telltale fluorescent glow from specific disease markers.

AIGA —The designer of 2015

In my first post on this blog, "Well, we're not in Kansas anymore...", commenting on Steve Baty's post, you may have detected a note ambivalence about yet one more post extolling the need for designer's to re-examine their professional roles. Perhaps that's because i recently re-read AIGA's commentary on "The designer of 2015" which also had little meat to chew on. Maybe it's because i read a post in 2003 by Clement Mok, then president of AIGA, entitled "Time for Change", which did actually have some meat and meaning. In my personal opinion, it's a worthy read for anyone aspiring to work in the 'graphic' design profession. It's worth a few minutes, even if it just articulates what we think we already know.

Check-in, Chicken

In a short post by the same name, Seth Godin (sethgodin.typepad.com) prods us to verbalize what it is that we're afraid of.

"Two kinds of afraid, actually. Things that might fail and things that might work."

He suggests acknowledging your fears and looking at possible outcomes and worse case senarios — and ask "Would that take us down?"

On the other hand, what are you afraid of that might work? — back into the scary unknown...opening into yet more unknowns.

So, how can we make peace with unknowing and develop a healthy curiosity for what is?

Well, we're not in Kansas anymore...

Steve Baty's post on Core 77, "The strategic arc of interaction design", joins the choir in singing that the role of the designer needs to broaden beyond designing components and products, and begin to think more holistically about designing interacting systems or communities. The future role of design is less about crafting objects and increasingly about designing tools and systems. This starts with thinking about the people for whom we design as participants in the design process — that we need to be able to synthesize diverse needs in order to produce workable and actionable solutions.