A little bit of an introduction….

Philip Beesley Architect in Toronto (Beesley’s own architecture firm).  He’s also associated with University of Waterloo (isn’t Waterloo, Canada where the Blackberry is from?).  ”A true renaissance man.”

8:52 – Beesley takes the stage.  ”Responsive architecture” and post-humanist discourse.

Building that follows and absorbs energy from the sun, outputting twice as much energy as it takes in (why is this technology not everywhere?)

Thinking of objects as an anchor; transitional objects & transitional fields.  Babies have security blankets before we understand what it is.  We treat them as a part of us.  These things are with us as we become ourselves; helps separate us from others (does this come from our intense individuality?  Is it that ingrained in our culture?).

Hylozoism – from Lucretius – life comes out of material; it’s not transcendent, but from material qualities.

Chthonian Projects – the deep underground; “the underworld.”  In Canada, the ice has scrapped away the crust and the mantle is exposed.  Presents a unique architectural opportunities.

9:03 – Haystack Veil – Deer Isle, Maine; 1997 – created a “second skin” over the earth; a sort of lattice work over the ground to shelter new growth in a forest.

Orpheus Filter – this is hard to describe… but essentially an artificial lung made of synthetic material; rhomboids connected together in a semi-periodical pattern.  Literally breathes.

Cybele – somewhat similar.  These individual pieces of this and the Orpheus Filter are connected enough to hold themselves up and give themselves structure, but loose enough to allow a lot of movement.

9:09 – Endothelium – robotic geo-textile – individual hooks and barbs set up on tripods (these tripods “cover the Earth”) – driven by tiny motors (like cell phone vibrator tiny).  It then spreads through the field of tripods and grows.

These are funky art projects, and I don’t think my descriptions are doing any sort of justice to this presentation.  And I don’t think Mr. Beesley’s presentation is doing any justice for his actual art exhibitions.  From the looks of things, you really need to see these art installations in person.

9:16 – Carbonate formation in a proto-cell; compares this process to a 1525 painting of a knight transcending into Christ who then transcends into the ether.  In the Carbonate formation, the cells look to be feeding off each other; Beesley anthropomorphizes them.  This anthropomorphization is then further compared to the relationship between Frankenstein’s Monster and the little girl with flowers.  This gets to the idea that we should not hold natural life over engineered life; it’s all life.

9:20 – Implant matrix (another exhibition; from 2006).  Very similar to the Orpheus Filter; however it’s more complex in its “lung” functions.  Utilizes shape-memory alloy wire.  Tracks your position and it sort of “breathes” in waves relative to your position.

Epithelium – displayed in quite a few places (Ball State being one) – tracks your motion and delivers an “emotional” response.  Crowd behaviors.  One part responds and then, like ripples in a pond, it spreads throughout the rest of the installation.

9:27 – Hylozoic Soil – combines many of the systems described so far – “symphonic immersive system” – probe-like fronds listen then respond, and this response, like Epithelium, spreads.  Through weak actions chained together, we get quite coherent motion.  It’s quite beautiful to see the videos.  Very ephemeral.  ”soft, intimate”  It does not do one’s bidding; it will respond to you, but perhaps not the way you intended.  ”…lingering sense of being consumed while at the same time being served…”  Compares the whole thing to a coral reef.

9:34 – summing up – architecture through self-generating systems that appear to be living.  responsive architecture.

Q&A…

Mimicking the deeply inter-woven systems of the human body – a good way to describe his responsive architecture.  Instead of just putting a building in an environment, and having a very disconnected relationship; buildings should be interconnected with their environments.  A mutual relationship.

9:45 – power generation and self-replication.  power inside and outside are a fundamental Q along with how does the environment affect it (and vice-versa).  Even the Osmiotic (sp?) Filter is a basic example; you’re bringing in turbulence which then affects the system

During the Q&A session, I had the epiphany.  The spark of realization of what this technology could really do.  Mr. Beesley is using this tech in art installations to get the initial idea out there, however, I suspect that he has great things in mind for how this could be used more in the future in actual buildings and housing once the tech is more developed.

Final thoughts… Again, I don’t think my blog post does any true justice to Beesley’s work.  Check this out to get an idea of Mr. Beesley’s artwork.

“Design for the Future” :: Tom Kelley, IDEO

—–

Tom Kelley’s keynote presentation discussed the blurring of the line between design and innovation, and perhaps more importantly, the notion of pace in relation to these two elements.

He begins with a venn diagram that suggests principles that guide IDEO: Design Thinking —> :: People [ desireable ] :: Business [ viable ] :: Technical [feasible] ::

Kelley describes a project analyzing the supply chain for Kraft Foods, and notes that “we start here,” meaning that the Design Thinking venn diagram constitutes an operative framework for tackling professional problems :: begin with the humans in the supply chain :: approach problems from the human side, not solely trucks/infrastructure [ for me, this is similar to the language ~ communication efficacy ~ documentation ~ circulation problems discussed in Actor Network Theory, and in projects from researchers at places like WIDE ].

Kelley discusses The Red Queen effect, a notion from Carrol’s Through the Looking Glass: “if you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.” The pace of innovation has changed: “Sony didn’t stop innovating,” says Kelley; they just slowed the pace of their innovation, and were passed by Samsung.

The 10 Faces of Innovation

The Learning Roles

• The Anthropologist [ ethnography :: observation ]
• The Experimenter [ taking risks :: make :: do ]
• The Cross-Pollinator [ knowledge work :: distributed work :: homophily + dissonance ]

The Organizing Roles

• The Hurdler
• The Collaborator
• The Director

The Building Roles

• The Experience Architect
• The Set Designer
• The Caregiver
• The Story Teller

Kelley hones in on two of these components of innovation, the first of which is The Anthropologist :: “The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes” ~ Proust. “On a per capita basis,” Kelley says, “we’re probably the biggest employer of anthropologists in America.” “Anthropology is too important to be left to anthropologists.”

Kelley is basically arguing that people don’t notice the quotidian aspects of experience design; this is where observational study, ethnography, and applied anthropology come to the fore [ I'm thinking here specifically of Dan Lockton's Design with Intent methods ].

Kelley moves to a discussion of The Experience Architect, one of the faces of innovation which is paired nicely with the work of The Anthropologist. The Experience Designer is concerned with addressing needs, while The Anthropologist is concerned with identifying those needs.

Story :: Narrative :: Discourse :: Rhetoric

From the perspective of my own disciplinary expertise, experience design is always already a conflation between the material and the lingustic ~ the stuff and the discourse about that stuff ~ Stuff + Stories.

Like Herigstad, experience design for Kelley is about the vanishing interface :: the interface mediates, but the effective interface elides that mediation.

]]> http://www.idmaa.org/idmaa2009/blog/design-for-the-future/feed/ 0 http://www.idmaa.org/idmaa2009/blog/tom-kelley-designing-for-the-future/ http://www.idmaa.org/idmaa2009/blog/tom-kelley-designing-for-the-future/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:51:38 +0000 Ryan Carney http://www.idmaa.org/idmaa2009/?p=309 Tom Kelley of IDEO; “help build cultures of innovation” within various industries.

Got started a little late….

8:48 – “Blurring the line between design and innovation”

three things to think about…

• people (desirable)
• business (viable)
• technical (feasible)

Technical factors are not enough (look at Japan with their Betamax and mini-discs; lots of great tech that no one adopted).

The people factor is often overlooked.  IDEO increased Kraft Food’s sales by $700,000 per week by tweaking the human factor; not the trucks or the nodes.

8:52 – Two problems with innovation – it’s important but not urgent.  This is a problem, because there are so many things that are important and urgent.  So then you put it off till tomorrow, and all of the sudden, someone has taken your idea.

8:55 – Other problem is “the Red Queen effect.”  Based on “Alice in the Looking Glass.”  Alice pals around with the Red Queen, who always in a bad mood.  After making no progress on their journey, Alice asks why they’re not moving.  The Red Queen says, “to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.”  Innovation moves very fast and you have to outpace your competitors.

8:59 – If you’re on top and you’re the only one in your game, you get lazy.  Your competitors sneak up on you.  Example Tom gives is tire manufacturing in Akron, OH (which used to manufacture 100% of the tires in the US).  The big tire companies had essentially no competition; then comes France with radial tires.  They ignored the “Red Queen” effect.  The whole tire industry folded in Akron because they slowed their pace of innovation.

9:03 – Looking at the “value” of two brands: Samsung and Sony.  Sony was on top of the world in 2000; they got cocky, got lazy, and Samsung made its move.  Samsung started changing its practices (innovating) by listening to their younger workers.  Since 2004, Samsung has been on top of Sony.

9:06 – And Sony did not stop innovating… ever.  They’re a great company, but they slowed down their innovation, which is all their competitors needed.

9:09 – “innovation made personal” … The ten faces of innovation…

1. The Anthropologist
2. The Experimenter
3. The Cross-Pollinator (getting outside your world)
4. The Hurdler (realizes there will be obstacles, but doesn’t slow down)
5. The Collaborator
6. The Director (searches the world for the best talent and turns them into stars, not themselves)
7. The Experience Architect
8. The Set Designer
9. The Caregiver
10. The Storyteller (data can’t speak for itself but stories make lasting impressions)

1-3 are learning roles. 4-6 are the organizing roles.  7-10 are building roles.

9:19 – Tom’s favorite is the Anthropologist.  Tom’s worked with engineers, and he’s worked with anthropologists.  Anthropologists would do something like watch kids fish at a river, and come back to the main office and tell everyone about fishing.  The “single biggest source of innovation at IDEO” because they go out into the field, identify problems, and can figure out a way to fix it.

“The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

Vuja de – opposite of deja vu – you’re in the same place that you’ve always been, but you see something new.  ”I’m not sure who it is that discovered water, but I’m sure it wasn’t a fish.”  In other words, you get immersed in your environment and don’t see the obvious.

9:34 – Ultimately all innovations get copied.

An example about cake…

• Commodity – eggs, flour, sugar, etc.
• Product – Betty Crocker pre-made mix
• Service – cake is already made at the Bakery
• Experience – Chuck E. Cheese birthday party

This is about understanding others better than they understand themselves.  People will be happy to pay more if you deliver a service or, even better, an experience.

Find something that is important to you and design something that “sings.”  In 2000, Westin Hotels came up with the idea of the Heavenly Bed.  As soon as they introduced, not only did their overall market-share increase, but the amount they can charge per room also increased.  And 5 years later, numerous hotels copied the idea.

“Aspiring to the ‘wet-nap interface’” – the instructions for a wet-nap are “tear open and use.”  This is Tom’s goal for all products he designs.  IDEO took the idea of the defibrillator, and made it simple enough for anyone to use in any emergency situation.  And his 6-year old daughter was able to use it properly after giving it the “wet-nap interface.”

Final thoughts… this was an AWESOME presentation.  Very entertaining.  Very informative.  Being a usability nerd, I very much enjoyed his closing idea of the “wet-nap” interface.  Too many interfaces (Tom’s example is alarm clocks, I generally think of websites and software) are clunky and impossible to figure out.  I wish more people would take Tom’s advice on the usability factor.