"1. If you want to understand how our planet will turn out this century, spend time in China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Brazil.

2. If you’re wondering how long the Chinese economic miracle will last, the answer will probably be found in the bets made on commercial and residential developments in Chinese 3rd to 6th tier cities in Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai and Tibet.

4. Touch ID doesn’t work at high altitude, finger prints are too dry.

5. You no longer need to carry a translation app on your phone. If there’s someone to speak with, they’ll have one on theirs.

6. A truly great border crossing will hold a mirror up to your soul.

9. The art of successful borderland travel is to know when to pass through (and be seen by) army checkpoints and when to avoid them.

10. Borders are permeable.

12. The premium for buying gasoline in a remote village in the GBAO is 20% more than the nearest town. Gasoline is harder to come by, and more valuable than connectivity.

13. After fifteen years of professionally decoding human behaviour, I’m still surprised by the universality of body language.

14. Pretentious people are inherently less curious.

15. Everything is fine, until that exact moment when it’s obviously not. It is easy to massively over/under estimate risk based on current contextual conditions. Historical data provides some perspective, but it usually comes down to your ability to read undercurrents, which in turn comes down to having built a sufficiently trusted relationship with people within those currents.

16. Sometimes, everyone who says they know what is going on, is wrong.

17. Every time you describe someone in your own country as a terrorist, a freedom is taken away from a person in another country.

18. Every country has its own notion of “terrorism”, and the overuse, and reaction to the term in your country helps legitimise the crack-down of restive populations in other countries.

17. China is still arguably the lowest-trust consumer society in the world. If a product can be faked it will be. Out of necessity, they also have the most savvy consumers in the world.

18. After twenty years of promising to deliver, Chinese solar products are now practical (available for purchase, affordable, sufficiently efficient, robust) for any community on the edge-of-grid, anywhere in the world. Either shared, or sole ownership.

20. When a fixed price culture meets a negotiation culture, fun ensues.

21. The sharing economy is alive and well, and has nothing to with your idea of the sharing economy.

25. Chinese truckers plying their trade along the silk road deserve to be immortalised as the the frontiersmen of our generation. (They are always male.)

29. The most interesting places have map coordinates, but no names.

30. There are are number of companies with a competitive smartphone portfolio. The rise of Oppo can be explained by its presence on every block of 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th tier Chinese cities.

32. People wearing fake Supreme are way more interesting than those that wear the real deal.

33. An iPhone box full of fungus caterpillar in Kham Tibet sold wholesale, is worth more than a fully specced iPhone. It’s worth 10x at retail in 1st/2nd Tier China. It is a better aphrodisiac too.

35. One of the more interesting aspects of very high net worth individuals (the financial 0.001%), is the entourage that they attract, and the interrelations between members of that entourage. This is my first time travelling with a spiritual leader (the religious 0.001%), whose entourage included disciples, and members of the financial 0.01% looking for a karmic handout. The behaviour of silicon valley’s nouveau riche is often parodied but when it comes to weirdness, faith trumps money every time. Any bets on the first Silicon Valley billionaire to successfully marry the two? Or vice versa?

37. For every person that longs for nature, there are two that long for man-made.

38. Tibetan monks prefer iOS over Android.

40. In order to size up the tribe/sub-tribe you’re part of, any group of young males will first look at the shoes on your feet.

42. After the Urumqi riots in 2009 the Chinese government cut of internet connectivity to Xinjiang province for a full year. Today connectivity is so prevalent and integrated into every aspect of Xinjiang society, that cutting it off it would hurt the state’s ability to control the population more than hinder their opposition. There are many parts to the current state strategy is to limit subversion, the most visible of which is access to the means of travel. For example every gas station between Kashi and Urumqi has barbed wire barriers at its gates, and someone checking IDs.

43. TV used to be the primary way for the edge-of-grid have-nots to discover what they want to have. Today it is seeing geotagged images from nearby places, sometimes hundreds of kilometres away.

44. Facebook entering China would be a Pyrrhic victory, that would lead to greater scrutiny and regulation worldwide. Go for it.

45. The sooner western companies own up to copying WeChat, the sooner we can get on with acknowledging a significant shift in the global creative center of gravity.

48. Green tea beats black tea for acclimatising to altitude sickness.

49. The most interesting destinations aren’t geotagged, are not easily geo-taggable. Bonus points if you can figure that one out.

50. The first time you confront a leader, never do it in front of their followers, they’ll have no way to back down.

51. There is more certainty in reselling the past, than inventing the future.

55. Pockets of Chengdu are starting to out-cool Tokyo.

56. To what extent does cultural continuity, and societal harmony comes from three generations under one roof?

58. If you want to understand where a country is heading pick a 2nd or 3rd tier city and revisit it over many years. Chengdu remains my bellwether 2nd tier Chinese city. It’s inland, has a strong local identity and sub-cultures, and has room to grow. Bonus: its’ only a few hours from some of the best mountain ranges in the world.

60. The difference between 2.5G and 3G? In the words of a smartphone wielding GBAO teenager on the day 3G data was switched on her town, “I can breathe”."

"TEAM

Studio D has no full-time employees and no plans to take any on. We build teams on a per-project basis and have a core of trusted staff that enjoys working together. In 2015 we hired 35 people on projects, 29% male and 71% female. Our crew represents 13 nationalities, a reflection of the diverse locales in which we operate.

…

WORKPLACE

We continue to pioneer the use of popup studios, which we ran this year in 12 locations, from Pune in India to a coastal retreat/sauna in Berbera and pretty much everywhere in between. The duration of a single studio ranged from a few days through to a month.

Approximately 95% of consultancy project time is spent in field with the rest being devoted to remote sensing and other project preparation activities at home base. Wherever possible we conduct project planning on the ground where the team can more easily acclimatise to the locale—something that benefits both the team and the project.

Whilst in-field, our crew worked 12 to 15 hours days, 6 to 7 days per week. Time off is decided by the team, depending on the goal that they have collaboratively set. This year decompression spaces included The Orcas, Bangkok and Tokyo.

METHODS

Operating in diverse environments requires a diversity in tools. We regularly learn new processes and software on the job, and design workflows to suit a particular context and project. We shy away from traditional recruiting methods, and prefer to communicate and participate in the digital vernacular of our locale. Regularly-used platforms for logistics, recruiting, collaboration and team comms include Viber, Facebook, Instagram, WeChat, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Slack, Google Apps, Careem, Hi.co and Tinder.

We strongly recommend experiencing the dating dynamics in Saudi Arabia, using increasingly intimate levels of social media."

"The killer app to someone who doesn't have connectivity, is a slither or connectivity.

e.g. credit advance ªªhttp://www.digicelgroup.com/lc/en/mobile/help/plans-and-services/credit-advance.html ºº"

"Much has been written in recent months about winds of change in the business of design — the possible decline of Agency versus the flexing muscle of In-House design. Influential consultancies like Smart Design (in SF) and BERG shut their doors. Others like Teehan+Lax, Adaptive Path, Fjord among several others were adopted by bigger forces.

These changes prompted the design community to wonder who’s gaining ground— sparking some interesting discussion. Two great articles earlier by dear and vastly experienced friends Mike Kruzeniski and Tobias Van Schneider captured their views on this discussion eloquently. I wanted to add 5-cents to a discussion I’ve had for some years now.

Is there ground to be gained? Isn’t this just a process of natural design evolution — part of growing up? Isn’t what we’re witnessing in design institutions just the inevitable process of being children once, growing up with lots of help and soon becoming parents ourselves?

I’ve been fortunate to work as a designer in some of the world’s best known consultancies, agencies and in-house design teams. I see connections in what I’ve learnt from valuable time spent in design teams at Veryday (RedDot’s Design Team of the Year 2014), Teague (who’ve innovated since 1926), R/GA in New York (AdAge’s Agency of the Year 2015) and now in-house at Spotify’s Design Team (which recently crossed 60M active users and 15M paying subscribers).

Like people, products were once just babies. They were conceived and brought into the world, mentored, educated and supported all the way to adulthood and beyond."

[See also:
https://medium.com/@mkruz/11-misconceptions-about-in-house-design-9e4a22579e95
https://medium.com/@vanschneider/the-agency-is-dead-long-live-the-agency-d53365e0dd9
https://medium.com/todays-office/a-year-of-reflection-820d228d999c ]

"A lot of consumer research methods will show you what people are doing. A few will uncover how. Well-run field research will reveal why people behave as they do and provide the stimulus, prioritised understanding and direction to design engaging experiences, compelling products and services.

In a world that is awash with data the trick is to understand the smart questions to ask to whom, what and when."

"Adam Harvey, an artist and design professor at the School of Visual Arts and an early creator of stealth wear, acknowledges that countersurveillance clothing sounds like something out of a William Gibson novel.

“The science-fiction part has become a reality,” he said, “and there’s a growing need for products that offer privacy.”

Mr. Harvey exhibited a number of his stealth-wear designs and prototypes in an art show this year in London. His work includes a series of hoodies and cloaks that use reflective, metallic fabric — like the kind used in protective gear for firefighters — that he has repurposed to  reduce a person’s thermal footprint. In theory, this limits one’s visibility to aerial surveillance vehicles employing heat-imaging cameras to track people on the ground.

He also developed a purse with extra-bright LEDs that can be activated when someone is taking unwanted pictures; the effect is to reduce an intrusive photograph to a washed-out blur. In addition, he created a guide for hairstyling and makeup application that might keep a camera from recognizing the person beneath the elaborate get-up. The technique is called CV Dazzle — a riff on “computer vision” and “dazzle,” a type of camouflage used during World War II to make it hard to detect the size and shape of warships.

Mr. Harvey isn’t the only one working on such products. …"

"Imagine, in any given context opening your mouth and watching a life-time’s worth of sentence/s autocomplete before you.

Now imagine, in any given context standing in front of someone and watching a life-time’s worth of their sentence/s autocomplete before you.

How does what you say change?

How your job and role will change if you are in the business of asking questions?

What happens when (with some degree of certainty) you know every question that’s ever been asked?"

"I just returned from fieldwork in China. I’m excited to share a new way I’ve been writing ethnographic fieldnotes, called live fieldnoting…

At one point in time, all ethnographers wrote their notes down with a physical pen and paper. But with mobiles, laptops, iPads, and digital pens, not all ethnographers write their fieldnotes. Some type their fieldnotes. Or some do both. With all these options, I have struggled to come up with the perfect fieldnote system…

…the problem with a digital pen, notebook, and laptop is that they are all extra things that have to be carried with you or they add extra steps to the process…

I still haven’t found the perfect fieldnote system, but I wanted to experiment with a new process that I call, “live fieldnoting.” …

…updates everyday from the field. … compilation on Instagram, flickr, facebook, tumblr, and foursquare. I made my research transparent and accessible with daily fieldnotes. Anyone who wanted to follow along in my adventure could see…"

"There are a number of misconceptions about consumers in highly income/resource constrained (poor) communities that seem to repeat themselves with a depressing regularity and is often directed from passionate minds with a particular, accusatory venom:

» Consumers on low levels of income are incapable of making rational or “right” choices for themselves
» These same consumers are duty bound only to make rational choices (“rational” as in on things that have an immediate benefit to their current socio-economic situation, as defined by the person making the argument)
» Any time a consumer makes an “irrational” choice the “fault” lies with the company providing the products
» Companies that target consumers in countries with very low levels of income are inherently evil"

"Far, far more interesting are people who peel themselves away from their screens, get off their butt, and put something of themselves on the line in order to change the world out there."

"The decision of whether to opt into or out of a product or service is increasingly becoming one of whether to opt into or out of society."

Chipchase suggests two disruptions:

1. Who owns an identity? Relating to one's photo, image, and data.

2. How does personal DNA testing change/challenege our notion of family? Particularly with regard to parental discrepancy - finding out that your biological father is not your father.

caveat emptor - buyer beware

uberrima fides - to enter into a contract with utmost faith

"This photo may not seem like much – just another shot of Omotesando kiddies giving it the “niii”. Except that this was taken by my 22 month old daughter, using a Canon dSLR. That she can lift something that heavy, look through the viewfinder, align the shot, find the button and press it with enough force to trigger the shot, and then peers at the back screen to view what she’s taken is at first glance pretty amazing. Like a kid cocking a Magnum. This is not proud parent post – it merely follows in the wake of many parents commenting about their babies/infants use of tech – swiping/jabbing/drooling on touch screen devices, the ‘my kid can use an iPad’ moment.

This are the tools that make up our children’s landscape – and they are as natural as forks and electronic calculators and electric car windows are to you and me.

At that age we mimic, if there’s enough pay-off we rote learn, and if there’s enough payoff we evolve that learning."

"The phrase “a photo or it didn’t happen” is very much of this time – if someone from 2021 were to remember it…it will be because it was still in that time when we still relied on, and trusted in visual information as being sufficient evidence, a primary source of information.

Today we are particularly enamoured with churning out visual material – well over a billion image capturing sensors are being churned out in camera phones, cameras, computers and TVs every year – the growth of recorded and shared visual material would stun someone as little as 10 years ago. Photos make excellent containers of information – we are highly evolved at decoding and consuming visual material we have, in the words of Kevin Kelly, developed an acute level of screen literacy. But there are a number of technological trajectories that will change how we validate whether something is real, ‘the truth’ – and the relative importance of a photo in this validation."

"For example:

- Look out for the person at an event who hovers by the door greeting people as they enter – regardless of whether they are the event host – the implied host.

- Subtle put-downs that trivialises the contribution of others

- At Pop!Tech Johathan Greenblatt (Director to the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation) prefaced his talk with a classic power play – by thanking the organisers for being invited to the event, and by then leading the audience in a round of applause for the organiser’s good work – reinforcing his authority to bless the work of others

- Award ceremonies."

"The trick on the ground is to be able to read both the persons and the context and to create a situation where interaction with the stranger in their midst is the natural next step. It’s like picking someone up in a bar but without the sexual intent. Show respect before, during and after the conversation, leverage non-verbal cues and pay attention to the details. It’s not just about reading the street – you need to let the street read you.

One informal research method that you won’t find written up in any manual is called the Meanest Motherfucker – seek out the meanest, most unlikely candidate for an interview (whether or not they have an oedipus complex) and open them up to a meaningful conversation. Child’s play, if only because mean is subjective, and bound by the limits of our experience of the human condition…

Everyone has a story to tell, most people don’t have someone to listen.

Never ask the question if you’re not willing to listen to, and act upon the answer."

[See also: http://janchipchase.com/2011/09/the-meanest-mofo/ ]

"Inspired partly by Herr Siebert’s printed name cards, and partly by the availability of the moveable type in this Ibadan shanty town community – decided to make some old-school name cards. In the age of real-time/near-time search, persistent data and (for this writer) a unique enough name – what is the minimal level of information that needs to go on a name card?"

"Day 1 in Lagos – setting up our pop-up design studio. 2 weeks on the ground with a strong local crew, so much to learn, to much to do. Highlight? Taking an okada across town to pick up supplies and outrunning the union guys trying to collect their daily levy – somehow managing it despite their optimal vantage point at the edge of a gridlocked round-about. These are the days."

[See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okada_(commercial_motorcycle) ]

"Coming revolution? Those that don’t understand the causes, dynamics, will mis-read what happens next, will be surprised at what occurs down line. Revolutions are relative to your reading of the situation, which begs the question what do you read?"

"[A]t what point are the skills of your parents no longer needed in today’s world? Is there a point when literacy, numeracy as we know it today is no longer relevant."

"One of the more enjoyable aspects of watching an infant in her first year is that the smallest everyday tasks are filled with adventure…walking beside her on path of discovery also stimulates her parents’ aging neurons otherwise dulled by repetition & apparent insight. For her everything is new, fresh…For the professional observer it is like signing up to a year long workshop on everyday life…

…I grew w/ assumption that a birth day was a fixed entity – but over the years…I’ve come across many examples of parents shifting children’s DoB both formally & informally w/ motivations for change ranging from getting child into particular school year; obtaining benefits; increasing likelihood of being signed up for professional football team.

How will emerging technologies affect rituals & traditions in celebrating birth days? & parent’s ability to change date formally or informally?…

What happens when you’re inherently aware, reminded of not only the birthday but the birthsecond?"

"There are 3 audiences to every presentation: the people in the room; the people tuning in online in real or close to real time; and history. The presenter needs to consider all three.

‘History’ is increasingly the digital memory of event – it starts with the conversations leading up to, during and after the event – it’s the photos posted online, the retweeted quotes, the barbs, the likes, the references, the downloads. The presenter can’t control history but she can nudge it in the right direction.

For any given presentation what artifacts do you leave behind? Where are they linked from? How can they be repurposed, reused? And what is the thread that links them back to you and what you’ve done?

Who is the gatekeeper of your history?

What is their motivation both now and in the future?"

[Related: http://snarkmarket.com/2009/4056 AND http://snarkmarket.com/2010/5979 ]

"A week of international travel on 18 litres capacity, with room to spare.

Packing discipline frees the mind, body and soul."

"In countries where car insurance is the norm someone calls the police and the drivers wait for the authorities to turn up and ink an accident report. But on the jammed streets of Afghanistan the solution is surprisingly elegant: the person who is most obviously to blame accepts guilt and agrees to fix the car – as long as both drivers go directly to his friend’s workshop who’ll carry out the repairs."

"What happens when a large reflective surface (high resolution outdoor display) is able to call upon: people and eye+ tracking; and has an ambient awareness of it’s context including a fine-grained understanding (photographs, 3D data) of its immediate surroundings; and knows your augmented reality preferences i.e. whether and how to augment. Given that what’s right for you is wrong for the next person in what contexts will this best work?

You know that feeling you get today when a text box is just a text box – no auto-complete, to spelling correction – one day you’ll feel the same twinge of frustration when you’re interacting with a surface that you mistook for a surface+."

"China is now the fifth country I’ll feel comfortable calling home...each time the process of relocating has become a little easier. Whilst each of the moves was under very different circumstances, life stages the following tips picked up on the way might help smooth your next relocation:

1. You don’t need a job or apartment lined up to make the leap. Sure it might mean sofa-surfing or taking career diversions – these are the tangents that reveal & shape the new you.

2. International relocation is the ultimate excuse to have a brutal clear-out...

3. Heart first, then wallet: first figure out where you want to go, the logistics & money to make it happen will stretch & contract to your budget.

4. Never apply for a single entry visa when multiple entry is an option. Any additional cost is easily outweighed by the flexibility it provides...

6. Keep a digital scan of all your important documents...

7. Backup your most important stuff to the cloud..."

"I haven’t published too much formal research (yet) though given the choice between understanding the lives of interesting people in different parts of the world in and trying shoe-horn ‘life’ into lifeless journal submission formats do you blame me? Doubtless this will change, or maybe the publishing formats will change? Let’s see…

Pushing technologies on society without thinking through their consequences is at least naive, at worst dangerous, though typically it, and IMHO the people that do it are just boring. Future perfect is a pause for reflection in our planet’s seemingly headlong rush to churn out more, faster, smaller and cheaper.

We get to shape the future."

"Three simple rules to surviving corporate life with a smile:

1. If you look forward to fridays, you’re not doing it right

2. Leave the rat-race to the rats – don’t live for the pay-check, job grade or expense account

3. Never let processes get in the way of doing the right thing

Everything else just falls into place."

"Triple A's decision to monetise/sell/pimp the information provided by customers applying for an insurance quote - creates a short term monetary gain for long term erosion in trust in their brand.

For every service/process - what information do you share as part of the negotiation of whether to use the service? What happens when the organisation selling your data to the highest bidder is a government agency? How long before consumers are able to sign up to a personal data brokerage that manages and provides information to the services you are applying for? One where the BigCorps need to click on the I Agree To These Terms and Conditions checkbox before the data is handed over.

Think small-print reversed."

"Most people assume the past to be a fixed, known entity whereas the future is there for shaping. Except that the past is in fact pleasantly malleable - not in the sense of wanting to rewrite history which is interesting enough, but simply in terms of being able to recall history. Increasingly we offload the need to remember the minutiae our day-to-day lives to services such as Gmail, Dopplr, Evernote, Reader, and Facebook and the trend will only continue in this direction as we are increasingly able to draw new rich streams of data such as location and transactions.

What happens when these services become the front-end to a life-times worth of memories?

Recollection through the oh-so-monetisable Facebook interface? Welcome to history's newest gatekeepers."

"As much as we might imagine our designs in the hands of our constituents & customers - ready to be touched & molded to unique circumstances of their context, they arrive w/ a set of assumptions & acceptable boundaries of use. The design landscape is rapidly changing: speed at which mainstream has adopted today's social networking tools; the connectivity of people & people & things & things - means that the question of whether to opt into using something is increasingly becoming one of whether to opt into or out of society. We often talk of technology amplifying existing behaviours - whether it's enabling us to remember more, shout further or run faster - but the designs that tap into the people & things we use & value are infused w/ social assumptions, including assumptions around adoption. In a socially & anti-socially connected world how to innovate in such a way that keeps our constituents in control? Is it even possible? And how does this change the skills & role of a designer"

"Bangkok does a pretty compelling gridlock. Tokyo skips to the rhythm of subways and cyclists. Los Angeles? It throbs to the thwop-thwop of the news-copters . In LA, when celebrities are involved the network media are the first responders everyone else is playing catch-up."

"inspires, informs & delivers insights that can shape & sustain ideas/products/services/resources through the organisation all the way to the consumer, it's cost effective, timely, responsive. Its as much about bridging corporate culture as bridging cultures...it's all about finding the right people w/ skills that stretch across multiple disciplines & the right blend of project management, strategic thinking, diplomacy, leadership, humility, media awareness, extrapolation, psychology, street smarts combined with an instinct for bridging experiences from the field & understanding what it takes to make them relevant. I probably forgot listening. Damn. (ability to apply academic rigour to task at hand is a bonus, but [can] get in the way of best interests of project & client.) It's what my design studio colleagues would probably call an in-between job - living in a space between existing disciplines...Not sure quite where that sits in the corporate career path. Not sure I care to know."

"Crossing into a new practice idiom, especially if it offers the chance to feel the process of learning, is a crucial path toward undisciplinarity. The chance to become part of a practice — with all of its history, ideology, languages, norms and values, personalities, conferences — is an invigorating process. Embodying multiple practices simultaneously is the scaffolding of creativity and innovating, in my mind. It is what allows one to think beyond the confines of strict disciplinary approaches to creating new forms of culture — whether objects, ideas or ways of seeing the world." ... "Objects, I have learned, are expressive bits of culture. They make meaning, help us understand and make sense of the world. They are knowledge-making, epistemological functionaries. They frame conversations and are also expressions of possibility and aspiration."

"In a 'connected' world the cost of having everything of digital importance in your life on hand with next-to-zero latency will be the thing that separates the haves from the have-nots (That and being able to afford going off he grid). ... We're not there yet - but the interesting trend to watch will be the mainstreaming of just-in-time discovery and consumption of highly focused and contextually useful applications. Think applications with an expected installed life measured in minutes not days."

"There are of course strong cultural, contextual and personal differences in the importance of defining and presenting oneself through a job title. ... Of course the role of the business card is also changing - in an interconnected world it becomes more of a tangible reminder, a conduit to the online you - where ever that may be, and with it - the age of the anonymous researcher is rapidly drawing to a close.

My rule of thumb? The more an individual relies on their particularly senior business title to project what they are capable of the less self confident they are at actually fulfilling that role.

So, what is it that I do? Does it matter? Kinda. Sorta. But when it comes to you, I care, I really do."

"In some cities you learn how to drive; in LA you learn how to drive by."

"What happens to the recorded search terms? A massive dataset will be needed to improve the service & will Google forgo the advertising opportunities that will come from archiving the oral you? There are many ways for those recordings to make their way into the public domain: through surreptitious 3rd party applications on your device; recording the overheard; or simply on the (personal) assumption that everything that passes through the network is monitored by something or someone - the only question is whom, and their intent now and in the future. In our orally enriched future perfect what new services does a lifetimes worth of voice searches enable? Well for one, that phone call you just had informing you of a new bar opening around the corner sounded just like your ex-girlfriend right? With a large enough data set it's just a case of mix and match. What message would be best delivered by what voices from your past? From our past? Can you hear me now? Do you have a choice? Indeed."

"ever more of life is pocketable...it will always be easier to design something for sole use rather than shared use...so much more of what we carry is or will be connected...whether and how we share location...question of opting out of adopting a technology becomes one whether to opt out of society...enables us to reduce the time between asking the question and having the answer...Technology is being adopted at a younger age...boundaries such as personal and work life that still exist today will continue to erode...for some services the lifetime will be measured in days or hours...pocketable [is]...stepping stone to becoming invisible...emphasis on social cues and how we plan to use them becomes even more important"

"The extent and sophistication of the street repair cultures have changed the way we think about how our products are made, distributed, disposed of and recycled. And occasionally we come across something so elegant and in tune with the local conditions that it could never be designed for – like Sente, the informal practice of sending and converting airtime into cash, effectively allowing anyone with a mobile phone to function as a rudimentary ATM machine. Not least if you want to create a service that people value, you’d be hard pressed to find a more critical group of consumers than people with limited and infrequent levels of disposable income...Small objects travel further and travel faster – their meaning adapting to the ever-changing context. Every step an opportunity."

I like how Jan Chipchase frames the results form his work: not facts but “informed opinions”...knowledge construction about the evolution of technology is rarely absolute. There are contingencies and idiosyncrasies that plays an important role."

"What interests me most about cell phones is how fast they are displacing PCs as the center of mediated life. And how unpredicted this overthrow was when cell phones first appeared."

article: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/europeinsight/archives/2008/04/nokia_and_desig.html

"In our increasingly sensor rich world the arms race for your sensory attention is stepping up a gear. As a consumer sometimes the only way to step back is to kick back. New weapons for the disengaged consumer and the engaging retailer are just around the

"Put simply - the ability to communicate over distances in a personal convenient manner is universally understood and appreciated, and it's easy enough to get the basics without going to night school or taking a PhD."

“Pushing technologies on society w/out thinking through consequences is at least naïve, at worst dangerous...IMHO people that do it are just boring...Future Perfect is pause for reflection in seemingly headlong rush to churn out more, faster, smaller,

"Jan Chipchase spent a week recording his own nomadic life for us in Tokyo and Seattle, taking pictures and leaving phone messages"

[http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10950394 ]

"academia...way too conservative...challenges...if it wants to participate in idea/knowlege/insight/culture circulation networks...insularity of publishing practices...shortage of emphasis on critical thinking, analytic writing...[need for] “practice-th

"sharing current location information with peer group...someone knows local neighbourhood better than you; has access to better data; or more suitable device to view it - right now they know where you are better than you do."

"psychology of stepping into bath & feeling water overflow versus cultures where aim is to keep water in bath...given intensity & ritualistic nature of bathing experience on senses whether & how this affects how we perceive the world?"

"When it comes to surveillance most people think big brother, but increasingly its your (early adopting, tech savvy, sensor loaded) little sister. Which makes whole notion of opting out of technology adoption one of whether to opt out of society."

"What is the location equivalent to familiar strangers? Places so familiar that your first visit gives a sense of deja vu?...last time I had feeling was on first trip to LA - bumping up against locations captured by popular and unpopular culture."

"Remade offers a realistic and beautiful interpretation of upcycling and a tangible starting point for discussion. A discussion we have already started a few weeks ago when two designers from our team joined Jan Chipchase and a few others in Accra to disc

"The intent was to create a device made from nothing new....use of reclaimed and upcycled materials that could ultimately change the way we make things...designed to help inspire and stimulate discussion on how mobile devices might be made in the future."

"Is it possible to make an upcycled mobile phone entirely from recycled materials? One that consumers want to buy? At a price that puts it within reach of the mass market? The discussion is well underway."

"What happens when people share an object that is inherently designed for personal use?...based on how & why people share in what ways can devices & services be redesigned to optimise shared user experiences?...should they be re-designed?"

"unintentional precursor to new class of object that you'll wonder how you did without, another small thing with a big future. The post-it or thumb drive of its time...Secondary & tertiary displays - optimised to support your (short term) memory."

"Reacting to prevelance of informal practice carrier's introduced service...send one of 4 pre-defined text message for free...Chinese post was pay-on-delivery...sender included short message on outside letter....receiver read message but rejected letter."

"developer's assumption that sufficient numbers of people would be willing to use this service to access user-generated opinions about that space, whilst knowing little or nothing about the individual who generated the link. Risk versus reward."

"The ability to track a person or thing is often mistaken for the ability to affect what happens to the tracked object."

"For a European with a penchant for simple devices spoken feedback of what is happening on the device is often a step too far, but here in Japan it can be found in anything from ATM's, ticket machines to having the time and date spoken when the key turns

"In what contexts is there a business case for travel agents to encouraging you not to fly? How about in a corporation trying to cut the frequency of employee travel. Or a health insurer who can offer discounts based on the correlation between sick days a

"And with lo-power no-power digital displays turning up in ever more places, the ability to customise the symbols/message to increase its impact. Would you pee on a wall with a picture of your lover looking down? Mother? Boss? Diety?"

"Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase's investigation into the ways we interact with technology has led him from the villages of Uganda to the insides of our pockets. Along the way, he's made some unexpected discoveries: about the novel ways illiterate people i

"A lot of rich qualitative user research loses its soul by the time it's been squeezed into conference and journal submission formats and in addition, work involving concept generation tends to remain confidential. So what you see here scratches the surfa

"There are a number of reasons why humans personalise things not least that it is a reflection or their personal or group identity"

"Today's movie goers are penalised for recording segments of movie on their mobile phone. How long before movie goers are rewarded by the movie studios and theatres for that same basic recording-what-I-see behaviour?"

"In this context Softbank is stretching their brand to encompass more experience orientated objects and activities such as clothes, books and a cafe to what extent will non-English speakers appreciate the subtleties of this new broader offering?"

"looking towards a future imperfect where digital storage capacity is...unlimited, and government...consider it their duty to track/observe the minutiae of consumption. How long before digital delete button disappears completely...has it happened already?

"looking for a word to describe that sweet spot in the field study process when you know you've found the thing you've been looking for even if you can't yet articulate it, but prior to the long dark descent into information overload."

"Which is why the electric toothbrush is a selfish object - it demands to be held the whole time it is used and the alternative that works with regular tooth brushes - to be clasped in the mouth for those moments when you need both hands is not an option.

"Technology and society: Anthropologists investigate the use of communications technology and reach some surprising conclusions"

"...then you may be right, because this man is using you to plot the future of mobile phones"

"Mobile phones have shaped global communications. But who shapes mobiles? BBC News speaks to Jan Chipchase, principal researcher at Nokia Design."

"working Nokia phones hacked/customised by Mehmet Erkök, industrial design lecturer at İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi's Department of Industrial Product Design"

"Should touch-screen keys fade the more you use them? And if you lend your 'digitally worn' touch screen device to someone else should the keys appear as new?"

"Jan Chipchase of the Nokia Research Center talks about how behavioral research feeds into the phone maker's design strategies"

"the best way to predict the future may be to invent it, but the easiest way to predict the future is, simply to predict it. Or keep tabs on those who are inventing it."

"There's so much wrong with this future-perfect-connected world situation its difficult to know where to start. Good intentions, technological illiteracy, in-elegant failure. And its all coming soon to a culture near you."