"Think about this: walk into a class of primary school children and - with the teacher's permission, of course - ask the six-year-olds how many can draw. Every hand will go up. Now ask how many can read: perhaps two little hands will go up. Now walk into a secondary school and ask the 16-year-olds … Continue reading Who can draw?
Ah hello, may we come in madam, it's the police. I'm PC Smith and he's PC Jones. Yes, you can take the chain off. Oh, and the other one, my that's a big bolt. Thank you, cosy in here! Tea, don't mind if I do. Don't worry about the batons and body armour - standard … Continue reading Reverie on the difference between perceived service and actual service
To the RCA for Innovation Night, tied in with the college's summer show. The evening included awards for students in the Helen Hamlyn Centre, which uses people-centred design to support independent living and working for ageing and diverse populations. Focusing on the needs of people often ignored by mainstream business and design is obviously a … Continue reading Dementia and Dopplr – how designing for extreme users benefits us all
Working for a company in a rapidly changing industry, it's easy to overlook the contributions of the team members who deliver the goods day-in day-out. It's important that these unsung heroes are recognised, and their milestones marked. So when my coworkers spotted that the office coffee machine was approaching its 100,000th drink they decided it … Continue reading The unsung office hero
Old / new media mash-up part 2 Here's the proof (geddit?) that the worlds of inky fingers and fat thumbs can coexist. Last week I purchased a 1.5 inch type-high zinc block of the QR code for this blog, http://matt.me63.com. I wanted to see what happens when the beautifully tactile letterpress of my boyhood meets … Continue reading Old / new media mash-up – first impressions
2d barcodes were everywhere on our recent trip to Japan, and seem to be gaining more attention here in the UK in some unexpected places. I recently downloaded Kaywa's QR Code reader to my Z610i. I find it really exciting that communications media have changed so much in my lifetime. At school I played with … Continue reading Old / new media mash-up
At the weekend we went north to the Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle, the highlight of which is James Cox's Silver Swan automaton. Made in 1773, it was nearly 100 when Mark Twain wrote: ‘I watched the Silver Swan, which had a living grace about his movement and a living intelligence in his eyes - … Continue reading The Silver Swan
Two recent news stories continue my theme that social media doesn't so much change people's behaviour, as expose pre-existing behaviours for all to see, often with unexpected consequences. Exhibit 1: 'Dumbest criminal' records crimes A Leeds man has been dubbed the city's "dumbest criminal" by a councillor for posting videos of anti-social behaviour on the … Continue reading Second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse
... that the internet was ever tethered to wall sockets and floor boxes. Now obviously the participants in a Mobile Internet Portal Strategies conference are a self-selecting bunch of enthusiasts, but last week there was a distinct sense of confidence that our moment has arrived. People who've spent the best part of a decade expounding … Continue reading In the future, people will think it strange…
It's taken me a while (and 83 more pages of Here Comes Everybody) to understand my unease with the "technology changes everything" discourse around social media, and now to reach an alternative hypothesis. In my last post I questioned whether the advent of the internet in the place of television could, as Clay Shirky suggests, … Continue reading Erm, excuse me, but I think Everybody was here all along
The new media revolutionary in me so much wants to believe Clay Shirky's "Here Comes Everybody" hypothesis, that the web heralds a new era of mass participation, collaboration and creativity. With our mobile phones and broadband connections we remade society, so that my five-year-old son cannot conceive of a world without the web ("Daddy, if … Continue reading Television may be the gin of the information age, but that doesn’t mean the web is pure water
A few years ago when we extended our house to create a new entrance hall we greatly enjoyed flicking through the relevant pages in Christopher Alexander's "A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction". So much of it rang true with those "oh yeah" moments as we looked with fresh eyes at the way we used our … Continue reading The Waist-high Shelf
visited lots of temples shopped in the markets at the temple gates travelled by Shinkansen ate green KitKats trod a fine line between kawaii and genki got told off by a monk walked in our socks across squeeky floorboards frequently confronted the question of Theseus' ship ate cherry blossom ice cream took an outdoor bath … Continue reading 20 things we did on our trip to Japan
I loved this post pointing out that "You can't move in London without someone giving you the news". It struck a chord with me - first because of my own interest in how the way we get the news has changed, yet stayed the same, but also because this seems to be a particularly London … Continue reading Can’t turn off the telescreen
My sister Katharine is blogging again - this time on the subject of Yorkshire food. She promises: ...tips, recipes and links to favourite producers, restaurants and shops, and describing delights and disasters of food in Yorkshire. Go to yorkshirefood.blogspot.com - it does what it says on the tin :)
Matt Edgar writes here 