March 2009 Archives
Privacy & Marginal Costs
Mar 30, 2009
Ah spy networks - when every web cam, every microphone records.
To what extent do you assume that your communication is monitored, and by whom? How should a service be designed differently in a country where ~people assume their communication and transactions are being monitored and those where ~people broadly assume (giggle) that it remains private? Would you prefer live in the former or the latter?
Despite your protestations - the line between what you consider private and what you are willing to share is not fixed, you've just not heard the offer yet. When is the last time you responded positively to the sales clerk whose cash register script included asking for your phone number and zip code? Extrapolate. Companies such as Google are in the tricky position of treading the fine line between respecting our societal/legal/actual/perceptual notions of privacy and pushing the boundaries enough to deliver new forms of value in the form of great services (and old forms of value in terms of increased share price). (Given the commercial pressures at the bleeding edge I suspect the analogy I'm looking for with their development teams is a blind beggar clutching a still beating heart sprinting along the edge of a cliff pursued by a pack of mongrels).
The question of privacy has long since moved on from "is anyone listening?" but "who is listening" and "what are their motivations, both now (in the past) and in the future"? Our notions of 'privacy' have evolved from ~them not knowing to ~them not being able to draw the right inferences in an appropriate time frame.
At what point does the service know more about you than you do? At what point do you become (even more) marginal?
Photos: Singapore.
Purchasing Identity
Mar 27, 2009
Mobile phone numbers for sale Chengdu - paying a premium for lucky 8's, a discount for unlucky 4's. At what point does it become desirable to give number's away for 'free' - making a profit on actual use? What factors will lower the cost of setting up a new account/number? Is there a point when numbers and accounts are thought of separately?
To get a sense of the future perfect - assume that obtaining a new phone number will be as easy and as cheap i.e. free at the point of sale, as opening a new email account. As easy as obtaining a credit card last September, heh.
Sound Advice
Mar 26, 2009 | 8 Comments
One for Los Angeles based readers: our design studio is looking for a talented sound designer for short/medium term concept development work. If you, or someone you know are based in Los Angeles, really know how to kick it with audio, and enjoy working alongside a busy studio - contact info at janchipchase dot com.
Photos: buying audio in Kabul.
Paid Crowdsourcing Via Mobile
Mar 24, 2009 | 6 Comments
What happens when you combine crowdsourcing with mobile phones and a ready money transfer/billing platform?
Following on from today's theme of micro-payments - Nathan Eagle's talk at eTech on crowdsourcing via mobile phone - touches on numerous examples of mobile innovation in East Africa, spanning give-away SIM cards, USSD and voice to text transcription.
What happens when it's easier to pay electronically in a taxi in Nairobi than in NYC or London? When your (mobile) identity can be given away (to would-be high-spending customers) for free? Some of you are old enough, bless, to remember surfing the web with dial-up - how did your usage pattern change when you switched to always-on broadband? What happens when you take the same shift in experience and apply it to text messaging? That open USSD session is no less powerful than an empty search box waiting for your next command. Sprinkle a couple of billion mobile phone into the mix.
Video link via Eric Herman.
Photos: from our field study in Cairo - the chained Nokia 5100's are the default mobile phone kiosk operators weapon of choice.
Shirking Clay
Mar 22, 2009
One re-occurring lesson from our emerging markets research is that one person's micro-payment is another person's payment it's just a matter of scale and context. You can nearly always find someone who situation means that they are willing to take on a job for less, or take a tiny part of the job for the same - with a social infrastructure there to support it.
Something to bear in mind as you browse these solid essays by Clay Shirky on the non-future of newspapers and on why micro-payments don't work.
Bonus: Nathan Eagle's talk at eTech on crowdsourcing via mobile phone that touches on numerous examples of mobile innovation in East Africa, spanning give-away SIM cards, USSD and voice to speech transcription (via Eric Herman).
Photos: making books by hand in Ahmedabad.
Today's Office
Mar 22, 2009
Today's office is a bench perched on pavement outside our new Los Angeles apartment. It's surprisingly cool for a So Cal winter's day on that fine line between warm-enough-to-wear-a-t-shirt and cold-enough-for-goose-bumps, with a haze in the air not as you might expect the result of a particularly strong city wide smog - but from the winter's mist rolling in from the Pacific. If, perchance you needed a dose of bright sunshine (hei Helsinki) then the winding commute up Topanga Canyon soon takes you out of the mist and, eventually to Nokia's Xanadu - the home of our advanced design team, my work-base for the next two years.
The reason I'm out here braving goosebumps and not in there scorching my lips on a fine cup of earl grey and trying to solve the biscuit-dunker's conundrum is that the delivery truck has left the ~50 boxes that represent our physical possessions spilled on the pavement and road - moonlighting as a security guard frees up an extra pair of hands to get the job done. That and needing to get my thoughts down fro an upcoming presentation in Boston.
In a stoopless part of the city my bench provides an ample and possibly only opportunity to kick back and enjoy the street view: from the petit Asian lady who has jogged by four times and counting and whose rhythm is as regular as clockwork; to the white lo-rider that keeps cruising the block - it's occupants slowing eyeballing me and my cardboard cargo.
In some cities you learn how to drive; in LA you learn how to drive by.
The Promise of Human Contact
Mar 20, 2009 | 31 Comments
The following photos from Taipei's Eslite Bookstore - one of the world's most comfortable large bookstore spaces for hanging out, reading and human watching. Not that I have a photo to hand - but most convenience stores in Japan have magazine racks inside the glass fronted window - the people browsing the rack are a draw for anyone outside - a big hit in a 24 hour city where an increasing number of people live in small single-occupancy apartments.
Los Angeles is a city where most people hop from island to island in single occupancy vehicles and the promise of honest-to-allah human contact in this environment is a particularly juicy draw - the prime 'corner-office' real estate of the local Border's book store includes a magazine section with deep-window ledge seating, strewn magazines and littered with the bodies of breathing. fleshy. people. The pace, variety and lack of pressure to buy makes book and magazine racks sticky, the clustering of humans makes them stickier.
I'm not a believer in the discount-coffee-voucher-to-your-phone location based advertising this being a particularly bad example of the genre. But we're not too far from someone offering a mainstream compelling you-here-in-this-space-now service.
Is there a point when book stores offer online services that leverage people's deeper driver's i.e. Border's make's more from online match making services than the magazine's themselves? And given the potential for real time awareness (think Sense Networks+) what factors increase the likelihood of creating an ad-hoc honeypot?
Your recommendations for best people watching shops in your city?
Why We Lie About Our Age(s)
Mar 17, 2009 | 10 Comments
It's hard to believe that the US government officially believes in re-incarnation. How else to interpret the following question on the social security application form: "Enter any different date of birth if used on an earlier application or card"
When you're designing a service it's natural to assume that the date of birth is a fixed entity, particularly when it comes to official documents like applying for a social security number (DoB's and web site logins are another matter entirely). But are they? In what contexts is the date of birth likely to shift?
Date-shifting can be intentional: youth-team footballers whose physical development suggests a long, profitable career for the club that hires them; (Ghana, China+, allegedly); gymnast's who become old enough to compete in the Olympics (China+, allegedly); babies born on inauspicious days or close to auspicious days; kids whose parents want them to attend an earlier school year (most countries). Consider all the benefits that can be accrued if you shift your date of birth earlier or later - pensions, child care, booze, porn - who hasn't felt the temptation to shift a few years here and there?
Then there are the people who simply forget; confused by the mm/dd/yy quirk of the US date format, or simply confused by the notion of a Gregorian Calendar. I could never remember my Heisei dates in Japan, required for numerous government documents, for every vice a versa.
The mere presence of this question suggests date-shifting occurs more frequently than you imagine, everyone able to bend time to their own needs. In what contexts
How does the relevance of a single, fixed date of birth change in a world where there are so many more ways to record? Where the memorable is that much easier to track?
Sno Job
Mar 16, 2009
Philip John Lumbang of Studio Number One doing a bit of exterior decoration in Silver Lake.
The physical constraints of applying paint to hard-to-reach walls tend to be pretty obvious not least in Sao Paolo where almost any white space in the city in reach of a balcony appears to be tagged. And whilst crews enjoy the kudos of reaching the-unreachable it is, frankly a practice waiting for its liberation moment.
Me? I've pre-ordered my Nike Gecko's.
A Pocket Guide to Self-Immolation
Mar 15, 2009
A heads-up for those of you based in Boston, or heading to CHI.
I'll be presentating a missive tentatively titled X UX and drawing on experiences of the last few years to explore the role of design in affecting corporate strategy.
It's fair to say that the exploratory design research we've been conducting in Nokia has attracted mainstream media attention [spoiler alert] disproportionate to its actual affect. It's time to talk more where the value lies, to introduce more of the players.
Cheers to CHI / Robert Fabricant for providing a platform from which to immolate.
If I can figure out how to warp the time continuum, there may also be a second public presentation in the Boston area. Watch this space.
Photo? That'll be Henry Newton Dunn who heads up the Sony's Interaction Design Group here in the City of Angels, prepping for a night out in Inglewood.
Task Efficiency
Mar 15, 2009
A sponge used for dabbing fingers prior to pulling open a fresh polyurethane bag. Unsure whether the sponge helps clean the fingers to make them more grippy - removing build up of plastic residue from repeatedly touching the bag, or whether slightly damp finger tips are more capable of opening the bag? Or both.
The positioning of the sponge in relation to the bag - for oft repeated tasks there is no such thing as too efficient.
iTune Hacks+
Mar 13, 2009 | 8 Comments
Take time out for 3 things today:
The one-phone-number-for-life aspect of Grand Central / Google Voice is decent enough - but the real, everyday impact of this announcement is the integration between what is spoken and other data streams. This (and other companies that offer similar service e.g. Yac) will subtly, yet significantly change the balance of what carry, use, and how we interact.
What happens when a village is provided with a digital platform such as Google Noticeboard? Variations of this have been out there for a while, but nice to see the big G push it out the door. Worth seeing how this evolves, and how long they have for it to gain traction.
And finally, this missive on iTunes hacks is worth a read. Are content owner's punting goods through the iTunes store paid for for content that was paid for fraudulently? In what scenarios is it beneficial for Apple to allow fraudulent 'purchases' of it's content?
The tip jar runneth over this morning
Rules, Exceptions
Mar 12, 2009
"No cycling except police department". Downtown Palm Springs no less.
Power Independence = Location Independence
Mar 12, 2009
A solar compactor with "up to five times the capacity of a normal waste receptacle", the ability to function off the grid enabled by increased solar efficiency and a drop in price.
Distribute the power source, distribute the task flow.
Location: United States » Palm SpringsThe Moving Image
Mar 10, 2009
Gas station with video advertising - the cost of putting moving images in front of you is shrinking, rapidly. For every space that you pause, wait, reflect - a moving image is waiting to (profitably) fill that space. To what extent is our perception of the world based on it being relatively stationary? What happens when everything around you is a constant moving stream? Head to South Korea, unexpected pockets of China, bits of Tokyo.
Some people are willing to pay extra to make mobile phone calls from an airplane, whilst others are willing to pay extra to sit far away from people who make phone calls from an airplane. Ditto advertising - charge to deliver ads, and shift the public perception about the ownership/use of public spaces to the point where people are willing to pay to be ad-free.
Napalm for the senses. It's part of the Google++ endgame.
And it'll raise the art of sensory cocooning to new levels.
And talking of advertising - future perfect click-fraud experiment is drawing to a close along with your opportunity to partake - by wantonly clicking on the ad's on this page.
Acclimatising with a weekend in the desert.
Tray Messaging
Mar 10, 2009
Rules, Exceptions
Mar 09, 2009
Communicating Boarded
Mar 09, 2009
The less/obvious clues that communicate whether something is active or not - a shut down Palm Springs motel, and digital/connected equivalents. The mechanisms by which we understand the last time digital content was accessed - real time heat web site maps.
Absolute/Relative
Mar 09, 2009
That point in any process (project deadline, giving birth, about-to-go-on-stage, near-death-experience) where there's a moment of reflection, and time steps outside regular parameters. The activities that are strongly associated with that moment of reflection - cigarette, radio show theme tune, ...
Just need a watch that says 'now'. Or 'too late'.
Urban Arcs
Mar 09, 2009
Find a patch of tarmac on the edge of an urban community, add bikes, start spinning. Compare uniformity of tha' wheelspin' to Kobrasol, Brazil here.
Motel Textures
Mar 09, 2009
Where? Here.
As a comparison a Japanese ryokan, a Vietnamese stonemason and a Indian courtyard.
Genetically Modified Utensils
Mar 05, 2009 | 17 Comments
My London design studio colleague, Younghee using a coconut shell chip to scoop out the soft flesh, from Accra. Similar to the practice of using a folded joghurt pot lid as a scoop. What is currently the best fruit or vegetable with built-in/grown-in eating utensil?
Given our ability to (genetically) modify foods what would make the ultimate fruit/vegetable for resource efficient growing + nutrition + quality assurance + shipping + display + carrying + consumption + disposal?
What other factors should be included?
Hands Free
Mar 03, 2009
Safe Surrender Sites
Mar 02, 2009
When the UCLA ER bring their signature perfume to market it will be a subtle blend of antiseptic, human fatigue with a just a hint of fear. The more promiscuous amongst you will no-doubt recognise this as the perfect cologne for the perfect 2 point uh-oh date*. Whilst the original plan was to spend this beautiful LA Saturday getting to know the foothills, fate, or to be more precise xxxxxxx has brought us on this alternative tour of a university hospital ER.
When you're more used to public transport and bike lanes, valet parking at a hospital is a bit of a mind-phuck to be honest and with new job / family insurance coverage starting tomorrow my eyes are peeled for the Visa / MasterCard sign pasted at the entrance. Except that there are none - the most visible (bi-lingual) sign indicates that this is a Safe Surrender Site - where a newborn up to 36 hours old can be handed over medical authorities no questions asked. Actually they do ask questions - but the giver is under no obligation to answer.
At least I know they'll take my first born if I max out my credit cards.
You might imagine that an ER would the optimal place to hand over a 'surplus' baby, but by all accounts the highest number are in fact turned over at fire stations in this fair city - reflecting perhaps a desire to put distance between themselves and 'the system' - hospitals being perceived as more track-traceable than the fire department, or maybe its simply that fire stations are easier to find.
There are numerous factors that make this site appropriate for safe surrender, not least trained staff with access to adequate medical facilities, and an understanding of process. It's worth noting that the opposite is also true - that other locations are inherently less appropriate places to leave a baby - the counter of a gas station convenience store, bathroom in a department store, or the drive-thru Taco Bell on W Rosecrans Ave. If there's one thing that the spread of pocketable, connected objects have taught us it's that fixed location services can be taken mobile and that new services will rise. Does this apply to safe surrender of baby? How about for other objects where we wish to put a traceable distance between us and it?
It is one thing to geo-tag a newborn with the "give up for adoption tag" in the knowledge that collection and protection services will be monitoring the appropriate channels (the child-for-adoption layer on Google Earth) but that still doesn't make it OK to leave it anywhere. But tagging might work for a gun or knife amnesty and, in countries where consumers pay to have electronics collected for tagging pre-paid recycled objects.
Of course a tag is only worth the authority that stands behind it - who is to say that the person tagging the child is legally able to give him/her up for care? How to prove you are indeed you? You could upload a digital data signature for procreation, insemination, pregnancy, labour and birth left as link with the crying child. Or you could score the same data signature online.
Thought for today: in a world of fine tuned, context sensitive advertising are we going to witness a rise of newborns left in front of the prophylactic display in Rite Aid? All this is not a million miles from the sounds of the city.
* If ever there was a data feed in need of its own sufficiently-geo-tagged twitter stream casual encounters is it.
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