One of the challenges of running a large scale field study is staying on top of all the incoming digital data that can easily include interview transcripts, ambient audio, video and between 15 to 20 thousand photos that are typically generated per city.
Because the field team can arrive from and eventually disperses to the four corners of the earth the aim is to have everything processed and backed up prior to leaving the location. It's a process that often requires a dedicated data manager and laptops solely for batch processing - a task that, power-cuts allowing, often runs through the night. With a field team of up to 25 people and with much gear flying around its hard to track what equipment should used by whom, hence giving names to otherwise inanimate objects.
The photo above? One of the slides from last week's Behind the Scenes presentation - thats Lolita working away during our Dharavi field study. Laptops = Names beginning with L.
Writing from Mishuku | May 14, 2008 | Permalink
Human Flows
Helsinki for the week, and the opportunity to have face to face conversations that will shape the next field studies. Almost as busy as these rush-hour Helsinki commuters.
Writing from Helsinki | | Permalink
Under a Thousand Watchful Eyes of Chairman Mao
Run a decent sized (two week, 25+ person team) field study in emerging markets it's highly likely that you end up handling a lot of cash. Services need to be paid for, expenses and bills settled. And whilst as a SOX compliant corporation the preference is for subcontracting and invoices the fact is that in some contexts and cultures this simply isn't possible. You don't invoice a taxi right? Extrapolate.
After two weeks in the field most of the field team are a little bit frazzled, the hard work is done and the mind is already drifting towards home. For our locally hired assistants it's the end of, what for many is an intense working and learning experience - their work hours need to be signed off and their ready to re-join the wrap party that usually already underway. If the accounts have been well kept during the rest of the study it takes a long half day to process everyone: settle up and conduct a short exit interview to garner feedback on how we can run things better next time.
Local money changing facilities can vary considerably - in some countries travelers cheques, credit cards and ATM's are fine, in others they simply don't exist without a high risk of fraud - credit card misuse in Ghana for example, or with impractical constraints such as daily traveler cheque exchange limits of two hundred Euros.
So on occasion we end up in these slightly surreal situations in the field office/hotel room with piles upon piles of carefully counted cash, receipts waiting to be signed and with members of our local team knocking, entering and leaving 15 minutes later with kind words and a smile. Easy enough to take out of context that. Collecting enough local currency to settle accounts can be non-trivial: in Rio de Janeiro a city known for its street crime it involved multiple visits to a local bank and shuffling nonchalantly back to the office in flip-flops and shorts trying to look like pockets weren't stuffed with thousands of Euro's; in India carrying plastic bags literally bulging with bricks of cash, in China sorting receipts under a thousand watchful eyes of Chairman Mao.
So now you know.
And since I know you know, it's time to move on.
Related: the ethics and practice of providing blank receipts.
Writing from Tokyo | May 13, 2008 | Permalink
Monday Morning Commute / Emotions
Once more into the fray - braving Tokyo's Monday rush hour commuter traffic on the way to Narita. Finland for the week. One Monday morning is much like another right? So why the extra feeling of pessimism?
Japan is a country with a significant number of national holidays - in a culture where respect for your colleagues means you're unlikely to take your full vacation allowance, the government stipulated holiday's give everyone a chance to take a few days off, guilt free. Early May includes a string of national holidays - Showa Day, Constitutional Memorial Day, Greenery Day, Children's Day combine to make Golden Week after which there is nothing until late July. Hence the collective back to work sigh known locally as 'go gatsu byoo' - May disease.
Does your culture have an equivalent of 'May disease'? In Finland November is (apparently) the toughest month - it's cold, dark and wet and in Helsinki at least the snow doesn't settle enough to stay firm underfoot. And a long dark winter of the soul awaits.
Thought for today - the extent to which a personal feeling of malaise are generated from the emotions of those around you? Whether newish ways of working - such as telecommuting disrupt the critical mass, and in which contexts? And in a world of time travel the extent that 'skipping May' becomes an acceptable norm?
Writing from Shibuya | May 12, 2008 | Comments (6) | Permalink
The Making of, Behind the Scenes
Last week our London Design Studio invited journalists from around the world for a glimpse of the design process - the story behind the numbers if you like. Younghee and I took the opportunity to present something old, something new and the slides from the presentation (mostly for the benefit of the note taking journos) are posted above and can be downloaded from here (PowerPoint, 7MB).
Some of you may remember Remade - the phone literally made from nothing new. Well, my guvnor Rhys Newman shared some of the thinking behind the project that internally has gone by the name of Homegrown (for it's origins think starting at home rather than something herbal). Read up on the thinking, other concepts and people behind the project here and here and download the Homegrown presentation here (PDF, 1MB).
More on the different threads of Homegrown, no doubt later. Rhys managed to put our permalag into perspective by completing a 24 bicycle race (the team gained a podium place), hopping on plane in LA and upon landing at Heathrow heading straight to the studio to present. Designers? Stamina? More than you think.
Writing a presentation and getting it to flow is more art than science and is that much more difficult when the double in your bill is separated by time zones/rational sleep patterns. No surprise then that 'last minute' edits started at 2am sternly overlooked by head-standing dwarfs in the hotel lobby (nice rooms, crap in-room WiFi btw), continued over a decent full English to be wrapped up as the journos filed into the building. No stress then.
And wrapping up the behind the scenes thread - Fortune has posted a story-lite and some of the faces behind the N810 tablet here. And if any internals reading this have a spare '810, wouldn't mind borrowing one for a bit...
Writing from Tokyo | | Permalink
Fur Hoody
Writing from Back of Ebisu | May 11, 2008 | Permalink
Unlikely Combinations
Sort of related: rational clusters of shops in an Inglewood strip mall.
Writing from Sangenjaya | | Permalink
Transparency is for Suckers
If, like me you place writing about blogging on a par with staring at your own excrement you’ll want to skip this post.
Future Perfect is a modest little site, but has grown to the point where bandwidth costs are now non-trivial - helped in part by a hosting a fair amount of photos, research downloads and having the occasional traffic driving article. Consequently I’m in the un/enviable position where people place enough value on the site to keep coming back, and I enjoy the privilege of paying for it.
I’ve looked at different ways of off-setting bandwidth costs, including: shutting down; posting material so tangentially up my own posterior to drive away almost everyone except perhaps my long suffering (colonic) irrigator; and have even half-heartedly toyed with advertising - more to get a, um, sense of how Adsense works than to make money, but its enough to turn me off the idea for now at least. If you feel compelled to persistently click on the advertising on this page - it’ll no doubt help me learn how difficult it is to return from click-fraud purgatory. There’s nothing like going out in in blaze of nickels and cents... I don’t have a book to sell and the six figure conference circuit is on hold until I retire.
I’ve recently discussed ways to have my employer underwrite my hosting costs and am caught between wanting to maintain independence in mind and wallet and finding an easy solution. Taking the 's money is not a done deal but neither would it take a lot of pimping to make happen. In many ways my employer already underwrites Future Perfect - showing flexibility in tolerating/ignoring the frank discussion about work related topics that sometimes appears here. In the early days I also had the support of various colleagues (hei TE, HN) to turn my back on the traditional academic/journal publication process and explore ways of bringing research to a wider audience - not an easy or obvious thing within the rigorously scientific confines of the Tokyo corporate research lab.
If like me you're a sucker for transparency this is where I'm at. So where to go from here? Would taking a corporate hand-out compromise the integrity of the site? Ping your missives to bandwidthoffset at janchipchase dot com or stick ‘em in the comments below.
Now stop staring, flush, and don’t forget to wash you hands
Stacks of cash on a bed? For that you'll have to tune in Monday...
Writing from Tokyo | May 9, 2008 | Comments (34) | Permalink
Inside Outside Norms
A common sight with so many single room apartments in Tokyo - the washing machine outside the home. Helps put this into context.
Writing from Mishuku | May 8, 2008 | Permalink
Accidental Empires
Late last week tried to get a sense of the snow conditions on the top of Mount Fuji - the official climbing season starts in July but the pre-season provides an opportunity to beat the crowds and perhaps, heh, catch a little powder on the way down. Whilst 'everything' is only a Google away therein lies the rub for the hurried researcher - you not only want the most appropriate site, but want the data in a sufficiently familiar format - from language to layout. The quick and dirty solution? Search Flickr for Mount Fuji sorted by date.
The point at which content/social networking sites accidentally become sufficiently definitive sources of tangential information.
Photo: Storm drifting over a wintery Lhasa.
Writing from Tokyo | May 7, 2008 | Permalink
I/We Be Here, Then
A stamp in the trekking hut at the beginning/end of the Akadake mountain trail (above) and a two Tokyo high school girls annotating a print club sticker (below, photo by my then colleague Aico Shimizu).
The highly evolved practices of gathering proof of where you've been with whom and why - supported by formal stamp treasure hunt in Hokkaido's Chitose airport; walking sticks branded on the way to the summit of Mount Fuji to making and collecting print club stickers relatively common amongst teen girls in a number of east Asian countries.
And how these practices will be reinforced and amplified as life goes increasingly digital - - everything from the way we navigate our urban environments; what we search for; the things we interact with; and the services we pay for.
Writing from Akadake | | Permalink
Life. Is. Short. About to Become Shorter
As you climb the bamboo fields become pine forest and eventually rock face, the gravel turns to ice and snow. Golden week here in Japan but ultimately the crowds are somewhere else. About a month before the climbing season starts proper - elderly Alpinista couples lead the way.
Wake up above the clouds, a pretty tough summit for breakfast, aching limbs for lunch. For all of life's digital, it's the physical that has the alure.
Writing from Akadake | May 5, 2008 | Permalink
Honesty Box
The going rate? 100 yen to spend a penny. Why bother compared to the great outdoors? Heated seats.
Related: donations and percepts of honesty in London and Tehran.
Writing from Akadake | | Permalink
Font Erosion
Writing from Akadake | | Permalink
Mainstreaming Mobile Payments
The mainstreaming of mobile payments - bus tickets in Akadake above, parking meters in London below.
Writing from Akadake | | Permalink
Everything Right There
Advertising for Japan's CATV gives a snapshot of local TV norms.
Writing from Akadake | | Permalink
Newspaper Stacked, Displayed & Prioritised
The extreme battle for space on this Shinagawa station convenience store dictates that newspapers are either folded and stacked vertically or, in the case of the more popular titles stacked like ice-cream cones. And whilst it’s possible to find more expansive newspaper displays that include clearly visible headlines - it is very much the local Japanese norm.
Compare to the display of full newspaper pages in newspaper kiosks in Milan or Rio de Janeiro (kiosk photo below) or the relatively common practice of posting entire newspapers in China?
To what extent does the Japanese newspaper form effect people's ambient awareness of (headline) news? Are the display norms a reflection of the particularly habitual purchasing behaviour of Japanese newspaper consumers? What attributes of how the newspaper is displayed e.g. densely folded, carry over into how the newspaper is browsed and read? And as with this discarded newspaper from the London underground (above), how does the disposal method affect ambient awareness?
Donning the service designr cap for a moment and given the answers to the above, how does ambient awareness affect the likely adoption of mobile news related services?
Writing from Shinagawa | May 3, 2008 | Permalink
On the Way Out, Pull the Door To
It's been a stop-go-stop-go-go kind of week bouncing between hotel rooms, meetings, and ad-hoc work spaces - including the calming Espoo design studio, pictured here. Yes thats a lake the sea outside the window. Hei. One thing I didn't count on was the Vappu where a large % of the adult population collectively hit the bottle for one night.
Or four days
Most people plan to take Friday off.
20 minutes before boarding the meatball express for Tokyo. See you on the other side.
Writing from Helsinki | May 1, 2008 | Permalink
Open Studios
One of the research methods Younghee and the research team have been experimenting with in the past year of working in shanty towns is setting up Open Studios in an attempt to engage a broad cross section of the community whist offering people different ways to articulate their wants and needs. We used a competition to design your ideal future phone as a vehicle for collecting data and the photos here show three of the 200+ entries from Buduburam near Accra, Favela Jacarezihno in Rio de Janeiro and Dharavi in Mumbai. It's easy to fixate! on! design! sketches! but bear in mind these are but a small part of the Open Studio - a lot of the research value comes through follow up interaction to help understand why participants chose these designs and how their design decisions are relevant in their context.
To browse 15 of the designs plus lite background information on the designers head to this Business Week slide show.
In due course we plan to write up and share the methodology. To be notified of this and other newly published research send an email to subscribe at janchipchase.com.
A full list of acknowledgments to follow when the research is published. Top photo - taken by our studio assistants in Buduburam.
Writing from Helsinki | | Permalink
Open Studios Related Research
Reader's arriving from the Business Week Nokia and Design article by Kerry Capell might be interested in related research from a study conducted in Uganda and Indonesia on how people share objects, including mobile phones. Slides below or download (PowerPoint, PDF, 7MB) and this essay explaining the slides in more detail.
For a taste of life what its like to run these kind of projects take a peek at the thread on today's office and of course Younghee's site.
A full list of publications can be found here.
Writing from Helsinki | | Permalink
Consequences of Actions
The obese kid says "Stay away from sweets", muralled atop of our Soho design studio vending machine. (Given the high volume of decent food joints within a sharpies throw of the studio and the disproportionate number of colleagues cycling to work I can't see a huge amount of vending action happening).
"No Dumping - only water down the drain" in San Francisco, below.
For every (potentially harmful) action, the mechanism through which the consequences of actions occur. The ability to introduce more reflective moments into the design process. And the the future perfect of consequences.
Writing from Soho | April 30, 2008 | Permalink
Kstm Designer Laptop
This designer specifically. Yeah, his other one's a thin slice of fruit.
Writing from Soho | | Permalink
Sign of the Economy/Economy of the Sign
From the corridors of power.
Writing from Spitalfields | | Permalink
English Caff Condiment Norms
Today's office starts early ends late.
When we walk in at half five in the morning - the only other punters are a couple of road sweepers their hands wrapped around hot and heavily sugared tea. Our orders arrive - my Korean eating companion being introduced to the culinary tomfoolery of bubble and squeak, and we spend the next 90 minutes working through breakfast and a presentation that in an perfect parallel universe would have been finished days ago. A few hours from now we'll be standing and delivering to 6-score journalists from around the world, invited to a 'behind the scenes look at our new London design studio. No pressure then.
It occurs to me that time travel is made for moments like this to either rewind back a day or two and work on the presentation or fast forward to the muted post-delivery applause.
Bringing work conversations into this place of full-English worship is passable when most of the seats are empty, but grows increasingly unacceptable to this author as the tables fill. That's not strictly true - its not the conversation that's an issue as much as the presence of an opened laptop.
I'm reminded of an interview with a cafe manager in Brighton who talked about the different ways that laptop wielding customers would be 'encouraged' to leave - through repeated cleaning of the table around the customer, asking whether they wanted to order anything else, then under the customer's plate, then (jokingly) that he would clean the table with bleach. From tutting to bleaching. Part of the issue with laptops being perceived as anti-social is that it is a black box - you could be engaged in a task that takes 5 minutes or 5 hours, an uncertainty that creates tension. What is it that makes using a mobile phone or reading a newspaper acceptable, but using a laptop not?
Back out on the street we realise we have no idea where our new London design studio is. In the rain and in a hurry is not the time to piss around with a newly installed map application. The GPS equipped phone is parked in the back pocket and we ask a friendly cabbie for directions.
Some days are bigger than others, apparently.
Luckily we both pack a decent supply of adrenaline.
Writing from Soho | April 29, 2008 | Permalink
Stiffness in an Otherwise Flexible World
The length of time it takes for objects to mold and give to the contours of your body? In a world of smaller objects made from more flexible components - the motivations for keeping objects stiff to the point of being uncomfortable?
Why this photo? The newish biometric passports includes an RFID tag that stiffens the entire passport to the point that it can no-longer comfortably be carried in a trouser back pocket. Though given the rigours of the road I have my doubts how long the RFID tag will last anyway.
And the footwear? One week to wear in a new pair of crampon-stiff-soled boots - a snow covered Mt. Fuji beckons. So if you see me walking-like-a-dork around the mothership today, that'll be why.
Writing from Helsinki | April 28, 2008 | Permalink
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