Ian Fitzpatrick writes, collects and shares things here.
Some of these things have to do with brands, some of them have to do with buildings and places or machines or computers (which are, you know, machines, too). Each of them has to do with people, and the ways in which we respond to the stimuli around us.
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The way it works now is that an engineer often does structure, an architect does skin, a space planner does interiors, and an industrial designer does product. It’s a nasty mess. The quality of life that it produces is also a nasty mess, and we all suffer. The problems are where those things rub up against one another.
Read the full post...Categorized as: People and Other People, Quotations Published Dec 15.09
via Johnnie Moore, Jack Ricchiuto on potential new models for change in social network behavior:
The possibility space for change opens up when we connect different people who can begin resonating together around shared stories, opportunities, and dreams. It’s a process of liberating people from the confines of clusters of sameness and ideological colonialism so they can move toward more diverse connections and pragmatic alignments.
Ricchiuto makes these comments in regard to a post on which he collaborated on Network Weaving, exploring the evolution of introduction in social networks:
When we make introductions, and close triangles, we are not doing it to merely create new connections. Network weavers usually have a goal in mind when connecting two new people — a project, a mentorship, a future collaboration.
Fascinating stuff.
Link: Transformational Change in Social Networks on Jack/Zen Categorized as: Links, People and Other People Published Dec 15.09
via PSFK comes this astounding telling of the history of friendship by William Deresiewicz of The Chronicle of Higher Education, through the lens of contemporary social networks. There’s a lot to digest (and like) here, but this nugget rang true for me:
And so we return to Facebook. With the social-networking sites of the new century—Friendster and MySpace were launched in 2003, Facebook in 2004—the friendship circle has expanded to engulf the whole of the social world, and in so doing, destroyed both its own nature and that of the individual friendship itself. Facebook’s very premise—and promise—is that it makes our friendship circles visible. There they are, my friends, all in the same place. Except, of course, they’re not in the same place, or, rather, they’re not my friends. They’re simulacra of my friends, little dehydrated packets of images and information, no more my friends than a set of baseball cards is the New York Mets.
The article makes the point that these networks define a utopian vision of friendship that lies far afield of traditional (and historical) notions of the same. Great great reading, to be certain.
Link: Faux Friendship on The Chronicle of Higher Education Categorized as: Links, People and Other People Published Oct 21.09
A few days back, I tripped across a brilliant idea called Thounds, best-described via the video below:
For those of you without the requisite patience for video viewing, Thounds is a social platform for the recording and sharing of musical snippets, which can be added-to collaboratively by other users within the network.
This is not a terrifically [...]
Categorized as: Notes on Things Seen, People and Other People Published Oct 10.09
When NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg launched the Big Apps competition this past June, he invited individuals and groups to program applications that make government data sets accessible to the public — solidifying that technology can contribute to improved quality of life. Applications created in response to Bloomberg’s decisions will join the crowd-sourced initiatives that already exist in New York City, and already explore methods that can offer residents not only information, but a place to gain a sense of community, to exchange ideas and to visualize space digitally.
(via Inhabitat » Crowd-Sourced Initiatives to Create a More Livable New York City)
Read the full post...Categorized as: Notes on Things Seen, People and Other People Published Oct 08.09
At the Journal of Consumer Behaviour a study has found that when we order food in a restaurant in groups we do the following:
- Tend to seek variety when making initial orders – that is we consider ordering things other people are not.
- Then we gravitate toward similar choices as others – that is we begin to conform with everyone else.
- And then, as the group consensus grows, we move away from popular choices and get our own thing anyway.
Link: We Consume to Stand Out while Fitting In on Consumer Psychologist Categorized as: Links, People and Other People Published Oct 07.09
“But, we seem to live in a world where the pursuit of popularity is burning on ample oxygen and to avoid it is to invite the anxiety one feels when ostracized from the herd. Twitter filled air-waves capitalize on tweets as a self-esteem currency where people long to be followed. Yet, I find myself reacting as a reclusive paranoid amidst this socialized narcissism. Mostly because I think that popularity has little to do with insight or intelligence. I was the kid beaten up on the playground due to late onset puberty and an astigmatism that led to coke-bottle lenses in welfare frames. Growing up poor and unattractive creates a longing for and distrust of the popular kids. I see in the twittering twits the same bullet-headed aggression. The instinctive tweeters fail to consider the possibility that tweeting too hard can often contradict their own self importance.”
–
Chuck O’Connor
Categorized as: People and Other People, Quotations Published Oct 05.09
Jonathan has an interesting set of ideas about where things are heading. Each is worth a read:
1. Corporate Technology in the hands of Citizens
2. Physical is increasingly Virtual
3. It’s about Distribution not Destination
5. Broadcast Control is now Self Scheduled
6. C2C is more powerful than B2C Communication
Read the full post...Categorized as: Notes on Things Seen, People and Other People Published Mar 21.09
In his fantastic book Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky outlines three levels of group undertaking:
Sharing: which ‘creates the fewest demands on the participants’ (think Flickr)
Cooperation: slightly more complicated as it ‘involves changing your behavior to synchronize with people who are changing their behavior to synchronize with you’
Collective Action: the most complicated, requiring ‘a group of [...]
Categorized as: Notes on Things Seen, People and Other People Published Mar 13.09
I’d not heard about this until today, but was blown away by the scope of the undertaking by the Council of Conscience – a group of leaders from the world’s five major religions, towards a document called The Charter for Compassion.
The as-yet-incomplete charter outlines guidelines for religious tolerance, under the premise that tolerance is a (some would suggest ‘the’) common unifying thread among faiths with highly-divergent practices and beliefs.
The video below, released in November, outlines the approach.
It’s a phenomenal effort – a true source for optimism in dark times.
via the TED blog.
Link: on Categorized as: Links, People and Other People Published Mar 10.09
David Armano’s stunning presentation on behavioral evolution and network effects:
Link: on Categorized as: Links, People and Other People Published Mar 09.09
Julian Cole outlines a list of common traits for cool kids – those most likely to start (or ignite) trends in the digital space:
Cool kids have a lot of friends.
Cool kids will pick up technology really fast.
Cool kids hang out with cool kids.
Cool kids can remix.
Cool kids rock at asynchronous conversation.
Cool kids meet offline.
Cool kids [...]
Categorized as: Notes on Things Seen, People and Other People Published Feb 23.09
Service Untitled posts today on the problem of getting engineers to think about customer service as part of the product development process:
The best way to make engineering groups aware of the challenges involved with customer service is to ask them to do customer service. Even if it isn’t that frequent (have each engineer answer support [...]
Categorized as: Notes on Things Seen, People and Other People Published Feb 13.09
Two very insightful interviews posted this morning:
Chris Wilson over at The Marketing Fresh Peel interviews Piers Fawkes of PSFK as part of his Future of Work series. Fawkes opens up on his views of the changes in the workplace that Gen-Y will face:
Gen Yers are going to work for scores of companies and they need [...]
Categorized as: Notes on Things Seen, People and Other People Published Feb 09.09
Three seemingly unrelated anecdotes, ultimately intertwined:
My wife and I retreated for a few days this week to North Adams, Massachusetts, to take in the Anselm Kiefer exhibit at Mass MoCA. For those unfamiliar with the remarkable work of the German sculptor and painter, a brief overview of the exhibit is below.
Anselm Kiefer @ Mass MoCA [...]
Read the full post...Categorized as: Notes on Things Seen, People and Other People Published Jan 27.09
According to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, our individual behavior in building our social networks is more hard-wired than many of us are wont to believe.
In comparing the social networks of identical twins — who share 100 per cent of their genes — with those of fraternal twins who share an average of half the genes that vary between humans, the researchers found the identical twins’ social groups more similar than those of the fraternal twins, pointing to a strong genetic effect.
The number of friends someone has and how many of their friends are friends with each other are shaped in half by nature and half by nurture, their calculations determined. People’s tendency to occupy the nucleus of their social networks or hover on the periphery is about one-third “heritable,” or shaped by genes, it also found.1
Fascinating stuff, I think. The study goes on to suggest that not only the size of these networks is based upon genetic inheritance, but also elements of our behavior within them. Says James Fowler, professor of Political Science at UCSD:
“You can’t take someone who’s naturally inclined to be the life of the party and force them to sit on the sidelines.”
This is where it gets really intriguing. A great deal of current thinking, both within the neurosciences and the marketing world, is centered on the idea that consumer behavior can be driven, in no small part, by a combination of peer group input and brand messaging. That supposition bears, it would seem, fresh consideration.
- Source: The Victoria Times Colonist [↩]
Link: on Categorized as: Links, People and Other People Published Jan 21.09
I’ve taken particular pleasure, of late, in reading a blog called Cellar Door. The posts are thoughtful and widely varied in nature, penned in a unique voice1.
Today, Johanna posts on the need to be nice – a sentiment we can surely all agree on. In this particular context, she’s referring to the missed opportunities that [...]
Categorized as: Notes on Things Seen, People and Other People Published Jan 19.09
After a particularly heavy snowfall last night, I made my way out to shovel our walk and driveway this morning – this whole endeavor being somewhat new to me as a longtime city-dweller. I’d shoveled fifteeen or so feet when my neighbor Eddie – the affable owner of a local Chinese eatery1 approached with his [...]
Read the full post...Categorized as: Notes on Things Seen, People and Other People
Links and links and more links from Dutch curator Martijn van Osch – the frequent source of those endlessly circulating memes.
This blog, published by Anthony Volodkin of HypeMachine fame, skews heavily towards a music industry in constant flux, with occasional sojourns into technical computing and social engagement.