A desire to put some theoretical acro props under my vague unease with the determinist narrative of so much of our technology discourse has led me to the writing of the French anthropologist Bruno Latour. His work on the social construction of science, an ethnography of the R&D lab, has a special resonance for me, … Continue reading On the way to dConstruct: a social constructionist thought for the day
Sorry, I couldn't resist. Interesting North is "a one-dayer of interesting, unexpected and original" stuff at Cutler's Cutlers' Hall, Sheffield, on Saturday 13 November 2010. It's like the other Interestings, only in the North. Credit to Tim Duckett for making it happen. Among other things there will be talks about Eyjafjallajökull, cake, riding side-saddle, feral children … Continue reading Matthew Murray: what next?
A day in Helsinki with my wife and three lively sons included a visit to the Design Museum. We enjoyed the permanent exhibition on the ground floor. It raised questions about what is designed and how. Also, what belongs in a design museum: Aalvar Aalto, kitchenware, ceramics, chairs, lots more chairs, and - being in … Continue reading The Best Thing in the Helsinki Design Museum
To my middle, most media-savvy son, the record player is the stuff of legend. Could a needle bouncing through wiggly grooves on a disc of black plastic truly recreate music as faithfully as the bits and bytes that play the part today? On a rainy July Saturday afternoon I stagger from the loft with my … Continue reading You’re in the future now, Konvergenz Boy
Late in the last decade I promised a blog post on the idea of the prospectus, of writing about something before you write about it. This is not that post, but I think it's related. I also flirted with the noble idea of writing personal weeknotes, until I researched the subject in depth and realised … Continue reading Five things I’m thinking right now
As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I moved offices in Leeds earlier this year from Holbeck Urban Village to Clarence Dock. The stark contrast between the two areas has set me thinking about a city's built environment and how it can make a difference to people's lives. First some context for those who don't know … Continue reading You wouldn’t burn a book, or some reflections on narrative capital
An article by my former colleague and TEDx Leeds speaker Norman Lewis reminds me of an ingenious device imagined by Douglas Adams in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Yes, I know you all like a good Douglas Adams quote. First, though, listen to Norman, writing about ‘Millennials’ and Enterprise2.0 on his Futures … Continue reading When too much perspective can be a bad thing
I think there's a coherent narrative to be woven between all of the following, but for now, I offer them to you as a puzzle of jumbled bullet points. Fuller posts on some of them may follow. 1. It's been a few weeks since my colleagues and I at Orange moved offices from Holbeck to … Continue reading Around the city, joining the dots
Numbers: they can be beguiling things, especially when they tell a story we really want to hear. The bigger the numbers the better, ideally so mind-bogglingly big that they totally overwhelm our critical faculties. Best of all, take a series of numbers getting ever bigger: a dynamic that makes us feel as if something significant is happening … Continue reading Fact-checking the information exa-ggeration
User testing is always illuminating. The mirrored glass, the dimmed lights, and the unreal relay of sound from one room to the next. These things become familiar. But the users, no matter how carefully screened and segmented, are all different. They make every session both humbling and surprising. Last week I dropped in on a … Continue reading All fingers and thumbs, an observation
Last Wednesday's Ignite Leeds gave me a perfect excuse to reprise my talk, How to Get Ahead in Business the Boulton and Watt Way. As ever, I'm grateful to Imran Ali and Craig Smith of O'Reilly for making the event happen, and to the audience at the Rose Bowl for giving me five minutes of … Continue reading Watt versus Murray, some open questions
Over the last few days I've had a chance to reflect on the relationship between the mobile web and service design. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the two are tied together, in a way that was not the case with either the PC-based web or pre-internet mobile services. Why? Well … Continue reading A tale of attention and abundance: Why service design matters on the new mobile web
Businesses and organisations the world over are seizing the chance to re-imagine the way we do everyday things, to make them more accessible, enjoyable and productive for everyone. The tools and techniques they're using vary widely, but some of the best fall under the umbrella of service design, and its flashier cousin design thinking. This growing … Continue reading Announcing the first Service Design Drinks in Leeds
More than 150 years ago John Ruskin imagined the experience of flight. Now, thanks to Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano, we can begin to imagine the possibilities without it. Robert Paterson provocatively suggests in Volcano & Air Travel - A Black Swan? What might happen: At the moment we are all treating this event as a temporary inconvenience. But … Continue reading If the dust doesn’t settle: Gin, Jetplanes and Transitive Surplus
On a day without a plane in the sky over Europe it seems appropriate to recall this breathtaking leap of imagination by John Ruskin, a full 50 years before the Wright brothers' first powered flight (my italicisation): "The charts of the world which have been drawn up by modern science have thrown into a narrow … Continue reading Grounded, Ruskin takes to the skies over Europe
Matt Edgar writes here 