EPIC 2010
In Tokyo for EPIC – Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference. 6th edition. [Link] How to improve the design of things – take people seriously – be human-centered look beyond the artifact – design systems, scenarios, stories, experiences, interactions don’t assume the designer knows it all – find out, pursue research and conduct fieldwork Ethnography, anthropological [...]
does innovation have a method?
The Hamaguchi Protocols I am in Tokyo University at the iSchool [Link], a new research and teaching initiative focused on creativity/innovation and human centered design. Visionary leadership provided by Hiroshi Tamura and Hideyuki Horii. I am here as part of a symposium with Hideshi Hamaguchi, Director of Strategy at Ziba Design. The topic – does [...]
Automotive futures
This weekend Stanford “Leading Matters” ran one of its alumni events in Santa Clara. Members of CARS (Center for Automotive Research at Stanford), now including myself, talked about the past, present, and future of auto-mobility. Great presentations came from Sebastian Thrun (robotic cars and Google), Chris Gerdes (driving at the limits – he brought his [...]
human centered design – the “T” character
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] Real world problems don’t fit into neat disciplinary categories. We hear much about the importance of interdisciplinary or even transdisciplinary work. (Multidisciplinary implies keeping the disciplinary distinctions we need to bridge?) [...]
Archaeological project design
Encountering the work of FARO in Flanders (see blog entry – [Link]) prompted me to think about our own project in the Roman borders at the Roman town of Binchester – VINOVIVM.org – and particularly in relation to the Council of Europe’s Faro Convention [Link] I talked about the implementation of broad principles and policies [...]
fields not objects
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] Pragmatology [Link] – the (non-existent) discipline of things – doesn’t deal in objects. Things are not discrete, but nodes, gatherings of otherwise distributed flows, relations – fields of connection, not objects [...]
archaeology > design
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] Pragmatology and Pragmatogony I like to say that archaeologists deal in the history of people’s relationships with stuff, with things. And this covers a lot – basically 150,000 years of human [...]
design thinking – House MD and the eureka moment
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] The diagnostician – a contemporary archetype – Gregory House MD [Link] Design thinking is problem oriented and human centered. The aim is to identify needs, often not even recognized and requiring [...]
design and behavior
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] Leslie Witt of IDEO came to talk to us about design and behavior change on January 13. Last week I also posted a comment about Banny Banerjee’s exhortation to use design [...]
design thinking – pragmatics
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] Design thinking is a systematic process for generating innovation. Last week we offered a crash course – learning by doing – designing a briefcase – [Link] Design thinking is a pragmatics, [...]
designers – the archetype – Odysseus
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] Today I got to thinking about the character type of the “designer”. Not so much a craftsperson or artisan, nor an inventor, nor a fine artist. Someone attuned to particular circumstances, [...]
what is design thinking?
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] We can certainly connect the emergence of the field of “design” with the growth of industrial manufacture in the nineteenth century – designers work with mass manufacturing processes in the industrial [...]
design thinking – the bootcamp
This post is in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] Workshop From problem orientation – “design a better briefcase” to design thinking – observe/interview, identify issues with someone’s portable life, then address them iteratively sharing the results rapid prototyping station
IDEO, design, the everyday
This is the first in a series of commentaries on a class running at Stanford, Winter Quarter 2010 – “Transformative Design” ENGR 231 – [Link] I made a visit to IDEO last week, the design consultancy with its head office in downtown Palo Alto, by Stanford. I’m teaching a class next term with one of [...]
Globalization – Mike Moore
Mike Moore, once new-labor Prime Minister of New Zealand, then Director General of the World Trade Organization, champion of neoliberalism, has written a new book about globalization. And he has made me think again about our world today, about the big picture. I wouldn’t have looked at the book if I hadn’t met Mike in [...]
artereality
“Artereality: rethinking art as craft in a knowledge economy” – a manifesto for arts and humanities pedagogy, and indeed research, was published today in a collection of essays about the future of arts education in the US, edited by Steven Madoff for MIT Press. I wrote it with Jeffrey Schnapp, drawing on our experience of [...]
Performing Presence
Our project to investigate “presence” in live performance and media draws to a close with a final conference – March 25-30 Exeter University UK – summing up a tremendous five years of work … [Link] Link – Presence – the conference Next comes a book from Routledge – “Archaeologies of Presence” – due out in [...]
Mobile media 2015 – thinking design through archaeology
When the graves of ancient Macedonians crossed with the Dodge Charger … Back in 2005 my lab ran a collaborative project of research and consultation with RTNA (Research and Technology North America) – the research division of DaimlerChrysler. What will be the media experiences of the car of 2015? How can we assess what people [...]
