Dubai Archives
Lessons for the Design of Mobile Money Services
Nov 09, 2009Who benefits more from the introduction of mobile money services - a white-collar worker in New York City or a migrant manual labourer living out of a dormitory in Xi'an? For many access to mobile money services is a game-changer.
The slides from last week's Dubai presentation on Designing Services for Financial Inclusion can be viewed above or:
For practitioners working in this space (hei hei) the most useful content is likely to be on mobile phone practices and behaviours: covering mediated use from the perspective of customers; agents and the service providers themselves; charging; and multiple-SIM card practices.
Designing Services for Financial Inclusion
Oct 30, 2009
For those of you who are interested in designing services for financial inclusion - a short interview with the hosts of the Mobile Money Transfer conference here.
Slides from the keynote and workshop to following in the coming week.
Photo: pre-paid phone credit salesman in Kabul.
Fix Up / Look Sharp
Sep 17, 2009
A heads up for those of you working in the mobile money space and with a bit of dough of your own to burn - I'll be giving a keynote here and co-hosting a workshop with Olga Morawczynsk, the former on future mobile, and the latter on designing financial services for the poor financially unserviced.
The quandary is this: Dubai's underbelly has a definite allure particularly now that the financial crisis has hit; but with so many interesting jumping off points from Dubai's Terminal 2 it's all too easy to buy ticket, shut eyes, make a wish and jump.
Upcoming Attractions
Jul 02, 2009
A thriplet of speaking engagement that should enthrall and excite in equal measure:
Pattern Recognition 19th July, Shanghai. On the challenges of exploring patterns in human behaviour, culture, society and technology and the art of pulling something of value out of where they all collide. Interested? Follow @janchip for the venue announcement. Very limited seating.
Designing for Illiteracy at the Mobile Money Transfer Conference in Dubai. October 26/27th. An update to this original essay and presentation based on the rampant spread/adoption of mobile technologies around the world. Will also co-host a workshop on the same subject with Olga Morawczynski
The End of The ... As We Know It October 2/3rd Providence Rhode Island at the A Better World By Design conference. The full list of, way more talented speakers here (I assume they'll update my bio at some point).
Sometimes you want the elephant and sometimes you don't - the trick is in knowing what time this is. Photos from Mumbai.
Human Fish. Tank
Jul 31, 2008
Today’s who-does-what guessing game is more interesting than usual.- with the the transient population of Dubai Airport’s terminal 2 reflecting the geo-politico-cultural spread of its destinations: Peshawar, Kish, Baghdad, Nairobi via Mogadishu, Kandahar, and Kabul. For a cultural observer it’s the kind of space where a flight delay is a ticket to the movies – locals would be in contention for Afghan Olympic lounging team, the ying and yang of contractors & NGO staff and a wide assortment of military with mix and match physiques, tans, kit and conversations.
The locals sport a preference for small hard suitcases, which would put them ahead of the to-kewl-for-school game in Tokyo where design house D & Dept has re-issued a range of the same. None of the cases include an elasticised luggage label – the local norm being to apply one or two strips of white tape with a name and address printed on the surface. Later, squinting through the haze of Kabul International arrivals – the cases could be pieces of candy on a tray.
KamAir RQ006 to Kabul pushes away from the gate.
Small Objects Travelling Further, Faster
Jul 30, 2008
As part of an issue on Emerging Markets Receiver Magazine has published a short essay titled Small Objects Travel Further, Faster (a more read friendly, though alas art free version can be found on Future Perfect here).
It's a riff off a simple observation that can be summarize thus: as objects become smaller, pocketable is about right - the speed at which they move around the planet significantly increases. The lead time between what is cutting edge in London and Lagos (or vice versa) is closing. Rapidly.
You're already well adjusted to the speed of information and data moving around the planet. A combination of massive production and miniaturisation means that increasingly you're likely to see a similar impact from the physical. Keep an eye on the physical pocketable.
Photo: a large object in Dubai no less.
What's in a Name?
Apr 06, 2008
The Gulf News was running an advertisement to buy the rights to name one of Dubai's the new metro stations.
The speed of change in any given city and the opportunities for buying the naming rights that go with it. And the opportunities when more of what we think of as fixed infrastructure shifts to being mobile.
Photo? The Burj Dubai from the 'copter.
Customisation Norms
Apr 06, 2008
Compared to, say, the customisation of PDA's in Bangkok, auto-rickshaws in Delhi and phone covers in Tokyo or nasvai (dope) packaging in Tajikistan
Centralised, Distributed Identities
Apr 06, 2008
A P.O.Box provided as an additional, free service for customers of this Bur Dubai barber's shop (photo above) - one of many such boxes dotted around the neighbourhood. Below - the centralised P.O.Boxes of the central post office in downtown Accra.
As the one person in your neighbourhood with a full fledged mobile sever in your pocket - what identity related services will you provide?
Colour, Disinfect
Apr 06, 2008
The relative uniqueness of the Bur-Dubai barbering experience? Chai before starting, Bollywood tunes over the airwaves, and a pummeled back to round it all off. Certainly better than this in Accra and no offers to sell-up like in Seoul.
More from around the world.
Objects as Vehicles for Status & Affiliation
Apr 05, 2008
For most people, wrist watches not about time - they're merely a tool to project status and peer group affiliation. And bloody good at it they are too.
What makes the wrist watch so good at everything-but-time? For starters everyone understands and appreciates it's original functional purpose - something that provides a sufficient social excuse for it to be worn; that functionality is relevant both inside and outside the home; adaptability - a watch can be shown or hidden depending on how it is worn - with everyday actions such as reaching revealing glimpses of what lies beneath; it provides a large enough canvas to for subtleties such as colour, patterns, materials, cost, and brand to be appreciated at close range; and ultimately that as a worn object it can be brought into a range of social contexts.
Wrist watches that require some form of mechanical adjustment, like say a Paneria, have a slight advantage because the act of winding/adjusting creates an additional opportunity for others to discover, and when necessary the wearer can make a show of this process to increase discoverability.
Yeah, its not all people all of the time, but it is most people some of the time.
And yeah the mobile phone is elbowing its way into this territory - a broader range of social excuses to interact with and display the object, or even for the object to be a tool to interact with other people - think taking or sharing photos; broader control whether to use in a given context; and with features like ring-tones and wallpapers the ability to increase what is projected and to whom. For now at least a suitable vehicle.
The photo above? Taken during ad-hoc interviews in Accra - came across a group of middle aged gents animatedly playing the local equivalent of mankala. A generation of people for whom the wrist watch remains the vehicle of choice.
Acknowledged
Apr 05, 2008
Distinguishing Between Raised &Flat
Apr 05, 2008
Yellow denoting speed bumps.
Business Hours: Weekday's, Fridays
Apr 05, 2008
That, plus government weekends shifting from Thursday+Friday to Friday+Saturday. For service designers: the distinction between working and non-working days, and can change over time.
From You to I
Apr 05, 2008
You're in a country where you don't speak the lingo, having just hailed a taxi and you need explain to the driver where you want to go. If you have a mobile then at some point you've probably given a local, or an ex-local in a nearby time zone, a call and handed the phone to the driver (thanks CY, FI :)
What happens when you start sharing current location information with your peer group? Situations where: someone knows the local neighbourhood better than you do; has access to better data; or a more suitable device to view that data - right now they know where you are better than you do. "Where are you now?" doesn't go away with shared location awareness, it becomes "Where am I now?"
Court, Case
Apr 05, 2008
Motivations for Annotating
Apr 05, 2008
Arabic "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear" etched onto the wing mirror in Dubai above, license plate etched on the mirror of a car in Uganda below, and the practice of leaving mobile phone number’s on car windshields in Seoul.
For Every Rule, Exceptions
Apr 02, 2008
Rules tell you a lot about a society, exceptions to the rules tell you more.
Exceptions for whom? And in what contexts?
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