When Google Speaks, and When we Speak About Google

Occasionally, people at google write something long and interesting and when they do I tend to find what they say well informed and mostly true to form. Some people argue that they are being hypocritical however I find that they are generally being human. 

In any case, recently, Jonathan Rosenberg, wrote a nice long post about openness as a market strategy, how it should all come together and how google plays or at least hopes to play in this game. Have a look at the Meaning of Open to see what I am talking about. 

An interesting piece, posted by a non googler, Devin Coldewey  from Crunchgear, made the comparison between google and the roman empire which ended up also being mostly about openness and creating contextual improvements, not just making better products. Read Google, Rome and Empire. 

I have posted about these kinds of things before, in particular, one of my favorite articles from google, also from Jonathan Rosenberg, as a similar kind of state of play perspective from earlier this year, From the Height of This Place. 

I guess I quite like Jonathan Rosenberg's writing. What do you think of all this?

See the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Mark Whiting's posterous

Programers and Designers

The romantic image of an über-programmer is someone who fires up Emacs, types like a machine gun, and delivers a flawless final product from scratch. A more accurate image would be someone who stares quietly into space for a few minutes and then says “Hmm. I think I’ve seen something like this before.”

via johndcook.com

This is a snippet from a short and interesting piece on why programmers are not payed biased on productivity. I think he raises some interesting points and I think this snippet is sort of the key to it. Interestingly I think that this kind of situation applies to designers too. Good design is often about building your own kind of efficiency out of awareness of design in general.

What do you think?

Posted via web from Mark Whiting's posterous

Art Lebedev - designers who admit to working

via artlebedev.com

I really love Art Lebedev studios. Not because they are the best, nor because they are the most interesting or the company with most valuable perspectives. What I love about them is the playful connection with consumer design, something that very few consumer product design companies seem to have. However there is more that makes them a valuable company. They regularly report on process and on conclusions about design in a rather interesting context.

In this image we see a new product called Fleximus they have designed as a kind of flexible camera. On it's website they provide a design brief, which is wonderfully simple "Problem: Design a flexible camera," and they also provide a link to their process which is arguably more interesting than the product its self. Conveniently they go further than simply telling you how they did it and have a rather nice selection of progress images. In this way Art Lebedev is a model design house.

Another effort of significant value is one of their blogs, Mandership. This blog is seldom updated but when it is, they speak of great conclusions or suggestions about doing design. Quite a great think I say.

What do you think of this company?

Posted via web from Mark Whiting's posterous

노래방 - Learning to Sing Again

In korea 노래방 (norebang) which literally means singing room and translates to Karaoke (which does not mean singing room in japanese interestingly) is rather popular and people often go late in the evenings and sing with their friends in private rooms. Several interesting things emerge from this.

1. People often start singing at a young age and practice frequently. One friend told me she used to practice songs hundreds of times each in order to be able to sing them well. In any case, the result is that some singers are exceptionally good. Several of my friends are so good that hearing them has a physiological affect. This is not just party tallent this is incredible, well practiced expertise with years of practice to back it. In some cases I think the 10000 hour mark would have been met. 
2. Because in Korea there is a strong connection between business succes and night time activities, drinking and the like, it is expected that you will be able to sing well with your colleagues. For this reason there are 노래방 schools designed to teach lader climbing executives to sing more competitively. 
3. There are many levels of quality and expense for singing rooms and there are various nefarious activities which sometimes occur within, however, an interesting fact is that there are even very small singing rooms, for one or perhaps two people. These are often found in arcades or a similarly game oriented kind of location. I have yet to try this but it seems interesting and good for practising. 

In any case, I have lived here, and in China where similar singing rooms exist, for some time now and of course I have been to the 노래방 quite many times. I have however, until recently not been very good at it. One issue is that I spent many years in voice lesons and choral groups of different kinds however I did not do much solo work and I did very little  singing of non classical or a capella music. Additionally, as a child I listened almost exclusively to classical music and thus know almost none of the english language music these venues offer.The singing rooms of course offer words however they do not offer a score or some other indication of timing and pitch so if you do not know a song it is not easy to site read it, which I could probably do in most instances.

Anyway, I am now starting to practice several songs, in the hope I can become a rich executive in Korea, with the help of some Korean friends. As soon as I am as good as the average Korean I will share a video I think. (this will probably take years) 

The images are from a highly stylised singing room I was at with 2 friends several days ago. The thing that looks like a fan, but is not, is actually a heater wich constitues of a metal paraboloid and coil that reflects eat off it into the room. These are common here, though I have not seen them in the west (granted I have only really lived in warm places, Florida, and Australia in the west). They do also often oscillate like the similarly fashioned fans do and they produce a huge amount of heat.

Tell me about your wonderful times in similar situations. 

See the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Mark Whiting's posterous

Change is the advantage

10. Change Your Idea

To benefit from engaging with users you have to be willing to change your idea. We've always encouraged founders to see a startup idea as a hypothesis rather than a blueprint. And yet they're still surprised how well it works to change the idea.

via paulgraham.com

This is an excerpt from a rather good pice by Paul Graham on startups.

I think this point is rather crucial. Change is such a big part of actually creating value. Pushing and pulling too hard are not. I would almost say that change is a key innovation strategy.

Posted via web from Mark Whiting's posterous

Why are icebergs so photogenic?

via treehugger.com

Icebergs and iceland seem to both be great things to photograph. Why is this?

Posted via web from Mark Whiting's posterous

Designing Luck

via Future Perfect Jan Chipchase

This image was used by Jan Chipchase to note Ritualised Luck, situations where rituals exist which aim to increase someones luck. In this image a prayer card is shown which the driver touches before every ride.

I think however, this speaks about a greater source of luck, valuable rituals strategically designed to enable luck to integrate into your life. What I am suggesting is a bit like a serendipity strategy, a strategy designed to expose you to conducive situations, new information, creative ideas and extraordinary people to help you find great opportunities regularly.

I think some examples are: watching TED, taking part in community building, regular and diverse reading, enforced seclusion and bordom, and continuous context shifting such as traveling.

Any ideas about other such strategies?

Posted via web from Mark Whiting's posterous

Time for TED (TEDxSeoul)

This week TEDMed is happening in San Diego in California and of course I wish I could be there, however, TEDxSeoul, an even I have been working on for a few months with a great team is priming to hold our first event on November 28th.

We will have onsite realtime translation to English and Korean depending on the language of the speaker and we will be live streaming the event online. I will post more details when we have opened registration but for now if you are interested, follow us on twitter and join our facebook group. 

The video is just a TED teaser which I am sure most of you are familiar with. If you are new to TED, please get watching.

Posted via email from Mark Whiting's posterous

And Google will make Waves

There is something great about people who try and people who speak up to start change and end ongoing issues that are sucking the blood of everyone around them. In so many cases, these kinds of issue are ignored or avoided by everyone. Those who turn around and make waves are the ones who are remembered. 

Google, one of my favourite ideas, organisations, and brands,  is one of those groups who consistently makes waves in all areas of their business and the business of the world. As many people know they do it with a simple motivating mantra, "Don't Be Evil" and sometimes we can see this notion being implemented with deadly accuracy. There are of course many great examples however this article relating to comments on the Google Voice product from AT&T is a rather elegant extreme. 

If there is one blog you should read it is the Google Public Policy Blog. 

The images are from Google's Logo repository. They make meaning, alongside their waves, and they also make something they call Google Wave which I am starting to use to run projects in. 

See the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Mark Whiting's posterous

Nonspecific Definitions

via metropolismag.com

Recently, in my classes at KAIST we have discussed fundamental definitions of key terms, like research, knowledge, and of course design. This process is quite interesting and has occasionally led to some really interesting perspectives. However this process has also repeatedly reminded me that we can not make good definitions and clean models for everything, and sometimes it is not worth it to try.

In the Tim Brown article this image comes from he discusses what design thinking is really about and interestingly, in doing so, lets us see a fundamental notion of design... one kind of design.

What he has done is good however it reminds me that I think there is a better model than always trying to know and trying to put things in their place. I think that a lack of understanding and a vagueness of notion allows growth and for areas like design, that can be important.

Today, in a discussion on this matter I claimed that Design is sometimes a little like Religion. If we try to know too much it stops being important and becomes something else. Both have had significant roles in society and human development.

This is of course just one perspective, but I think it might be an interesting one for some kinds of thinking.

What do other people think about this?

Posted via web from Mark Whiting's posterous

Creating Creative Communities

via lookbook.nu

For those who do not know, I am working on my masters in Korea at a university called KAIST. The topic I am looking at right now (still being in early stages of the overal degree it is still not fixed) is related to the methods of integrating and working with external creativity from users and other external components of a company. With a strong interest in Design Management and Innovation Strategy, I want to think about how we can optimally integrate and facilitate this external creativity.

In any case, today, while reading through Google Reader and stopping at an interesting peice from NussbaumOnDesign, I was introduced to what seems to be a great success in the construction of a creative communities.

Lookbook.nu is a simple site that lets young fashion thinkers show their work in a simple yet integrated community. I particularly like how Nussbaum discribes this setting in his post.

Anyway, I am interested to think of how to make good communities and good integration between companies and external creative communities. Any ideas would be treated with kindness.

Posted via web from Mark Whiting's posterous