Reporting from code/space on Lift12
For the second time I attended the Lift conference in Geneva this year. Last year it turned out to be one of the best conferences of the year, with some key talks, like the one of Kevin Slavin on algoworlds that was repeated often in course of the year. So expectations were high again. I cannot say of course if the conference will have the same impact, but it was certainly a great experience again with some great talks that mirror our next future.
My tweets on Storify give an overview of the complete conference. There were too many talks to discuss them all. Anaïs Saint-Jude, did a nice talk showing information overload is all times, Marcel Kampman made a successful attempt for the most smashing slides, Fabian Hemmert with some good insights in research driven design for mobiles, and the hilarious last session on extreme hacking.
For me the key talk this year was the one of James Bridle. I think his code/space story hits the central theme in the developments we are in now. There were more people that touched the subject. Sebastian Deterding mentioned code/space in his solid talk on gaming. And Ben Bashford did a great talk that set the context of our products with empathy. But the way James did peel down the concept was outstanding for me.
I saw James speak on Future Everything last year where he touched on the algoworlds ideas and saw online some presentations on the new aesthetic, a strong meme he coined. and it is interesting to see the story develop with new layers. The strong part is the way he makes the concept concrete in his project A Ship Adrift: where a ship that is lying on a building in London is enhanced with a life in code/space; every turn of the wind let the virtual mirror ship blow to that direction, in the meanwhile grabbing localized content from Foursquare, Wikipedia and fora turning it in a kind of Nordic polari when it starts to respond to people.
The code/space is all about the way we are living in this post digital context where our living space looses value as soon as the digital layer is disconnected. An airport is a clear example, but with us depending on our own digital context for our living, it is everywhere now. Bots are becoming integrated in our life. Two third of the editors on Wikipedia are bots.
The consequence of this code/space is more a complex systemic society. In the well curated game session on Thursday Tom Armitage showed us how we can deal with this society, how we can get system literacy by using games. The proces of actions and outcomes in rule based context shapes meaning.
Kars Alfrink took this a step further. Gaming is not a way to understand the systemic world, it is our mean to reach our sense of agency. We have to be aware at the same time that games are the same as life. We have simulation fever. But games can be performative like our language is. “I declare you husband and wife” changes a state in our life. We can make games that empower people, player-centric. In that sense games ca play an important role to a better world in our networked publics.
Sebastian Deterding turned it around and showed us what happens when we are in the end situation that our life is fully gamed. Gamification is the logical next phase in the code/space. The question is if we wanted to be manipulated like that. He showed us that adding game elements to the system, the intentions change. If you add incentives or goals to anything, you will get unintended behaviours. He quoted Foucault: “every technology that is used to control people, can also be used by the same persons to rule their ‘selves’”. It is all on how we relate to the rule system, whether we actively decide to make use of them or take a manual override.
It is interesting to connect this to the future scenarios of our financial system that David Birch very well sketched. The four scenarios for 2050 as build by the long finance showed different directions it can go. From a domination on virtual currencies to a barter based society (we are already see some examples). He expects the ‘Many Hands’ scenario as most likely, where cities dominate the world and competition between different moneys play an important role. How will we act in this new systemic context?
The talk of Tricia Wang gave insights in the way the social systems work here. In her high density talk full of research insights she showed for instance how trustworthiness + out circle + in network = participation.
The difference between you social circles and social network: Social circles is about the people you already know. Social network is about entities we don’t have a personal relationship with. It expands our relations based on common interest.
Your social graph is about trust. Sharing is a way to discover trust. This maps the possible roles of play.
Faride Vis gave us insights in the way twitter works with crowd control in her research to the relation between Twitter and the UK riots. What is interesting on her analysis is the way Twitter creates a new reality on the riots. As James Bridle tweeted; the analysis says nothing on the riots, only on the twitter behavior. On the other hand it could become an tool for crowdcontrol when people are reacting to the tweets. In that sense twitter is an important element of our code/space.
Another aspect is the way machines have place in this. Ben Bashford did great talk on the design of machines with empathy. With the embedding of social systems every computer is connected to people. If we see everything with a processor as computer, than a lot of the new products we are using are human. Think of this: as you cross an airplane with a computer, what do you get? A computer! Think of new products like Nest, Izon camera or Nike wristband. Still hard for retailers to categorize (miscellaneous).
Computers (and so all products) are going to talk back to us. The conversational UI. It is not anymore on what products are doing, but how they are doing it. Antropomorphism, system personas are important. The biggest challenge to avoid the uncanny valley. Clever designers go for the canny basecamp and go for the minimal viable person. How minimal you can go to become viably. Think pixar lamp, and light MacBook that simulate life by resembling a heartbeat in light.
Technology should create calm, not asking for attention all the time. We want to achieve the effect plants have. One plant is calm, more plants is more calm.
The beautiful seams. Telepathy between machines, agent centered design as computers are becoming agents. Don’t think we should make machines that empathizes with us, the empathy should be ours. Getting back to the talk of James Bridle: we should love our bots on the character they have, they will be an important part of our empathy with the products we use. They give us the sentience of our code/space.
So here lies the essence of this year’s Lift in my belief. Last year Kevin Slavin learned us how algorithms will define more and more of our life, and the disconnection we have with this world. This year we see a code/space that is much closer to us. We still need the literacy to deal with it.
This happened, the Amsterdam edition #1
For the first time the Utrecht-based This happened event was organized in Amsterdam. In the Vlaams Cultuurhuis De Brakke Grond four speakers dived into the road to some beautiful projects. The venue did a great job to host a wonderful evening again, and the Amsterdam edition has proven already to be a good addition to the Utrecht ones. As always I like to share my thoughts on the talks, and who knows, a theme of the evening will emerge at the end.
The evening started with the project of Belgium collective Unfold called Kiosk, a mobile 3D printer especially made for the Salone Mobile in Milan. The installation wants to discuss the value of products, I guess, but the presentation focused – in the best tradition of This happened – on the developing of the product. In that sense it was interesting to see what iterations the Kiosk made, some earlier models were disapproved becaused it was not enough design. This is of course an interesting statement if you are fighting the concept of high brow design with the art installation.
In the Q&A an interesting discussion evolved around the realness of the prints. Not really important of course, they make a strong point I think to offer this new future of 3D printing in the heart of the design mekka. This idea behind the installation was a bit weakened as the presenter did emphasize the differences of the original and the print due to the quality of the prints.
The second speaker was Edo Paulus who showed the lovely project of SonOrb, a sound installation made for the Klankspeeltuin in the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw aimed at children aged 7 to 12. His inspiration was the insight that abstract electronic sound normally has not the direct relation with the playing as acoustic sound does. This installation tries to add a physical handling to abstract electronic sound.
Edo showed how he used a lot of low tech solutions to create his installation. This was both caused by the circumstances, but brings also an extra robustness with the easy to replace elements. It seems as if the most of his design choices were a kind of incident like the choosing for the ballerina balls, that fits the right weight and characteristics for the children, and also make it foolproof when thet kids throw the balls around. The execution of the ideas of Edo showed a nice way of craftmanship in buidling an appealing work. With the way he was thinking on the volumes and the composition of the modular system he showed a true designer.
What was a bit underexposed was the way the installation was used by the children. In the Q&A we learned that the children could not play by themselves, an supervisor is necessary to get better experiences on the one hand and prevent misuse. It would be interesting to see if it was possible to have the same installation in a complete open play mode. On the other hand was the quote of Edo in reaction very strong: you need a clear framework to play more freely.
The third speaker was Dimitri Nieuwenhuizen of LUSTlab. In contrary to the other speakers he made more of a lecture on his visions than a talk on what happened in the design proces, however he touched some important choices en passant. In that sense his talk resembles a lot the way Daan Roosegaarde presented once at This happened. If the speaker and the story is as strong as that of Daan and also Dimitri , it delivers a very nice experience though. In the talk the consequences of our move to an Internet of Things were clearly sketched and the project that was put central was Res Sapiens, a set of the cheapest IKEA lamps that have an emotion to it by its moves. The interesting part is the energy that moves the lamps, which is public data of the Internet. Data and form was the central theme of his presentation. The objects are a translator of the data to emotions, the objects become an interpreter and a hub between people via the data.
The most interesting part of this talk was triggered by the question Kars Alfrink asked on the role these research could play to shape this kind of emotional products that are fed with data, and this enhanced IKEA lamp may well be the future of our products.
This kind of intertwining of our real world and the digital space are definitely also part of the last project that was presented that evening. Tim Knapen showed his older project Godmode, an installation where all kind of drawings are translated to animated creatures. The device itself is an old copy machine equiped with beamer, digicam and computer. The interesting part is the way he made the algorithms for the translation from the drawings to animated creatures. He wanted to make something that could work for every drawing with hardly any restrictions. It was nice to see how he is inspired by the creatures of Theo Jansen, because I see some resemblance in the way Theo Jansen made algorithms to simulate evolution in order to find the perfect dimensions of the legs of its creatures. In that sense was the solution of Tim less sophisticated because it misses the self learning aspect. But the way the animation learns is beautiful. And so is the result.
Tim Knapen did a real This happened presentation both in the presenting of the working process and the road to the result. In this first Amsterdam edition we saw less variation in projects. No games or applied products, all the projects were well thought-through installations. That did not make it a weaker (or better) edition, it was interesting to see though.
All talks had a kind of relation to our emerging post digital world we are shifting into now, the code/space context we are living in. Post digital could be defined bluntly as the reversal of digital and reality: in stead of a digital world that copies reality is our real world more and more acting following the rules of the digital. The projects of Tim Knapen and LUSTlab are directly related to this, and the Kiosk of Unfold is of course the mirror for the believers of a superior real world. Edo Paulus mentioned it as his inspiration for his project; how to make the digital abstractness into a physical world. He showed a form of interfaces that will be an important first stage in our will to get in touch with our digital context.
The guys from This Happened (@kaeru, @ianus, @dmos) did again a wonderful job in orchestrating such hands-on tangible interpretation of the transformations we are experiencing in our digitized life. Hope to be present again at the next edition on March 30 in Utrecht or at a possible THAMS #2!
The essence of real-time is rightnow
A quick repost from a my contribution to Fast Moving Target last week. Erwin Blom asked me to share my vision on the Real-Time Revolution, as he calls it and is writing a new book on. Below you find the text (in Dutch) as posted on his site. In short I make the point that one of the biggest consequences of our new real-time media context is a different experience of products and services. We expect an instant made product. This has implications for the way we design products and services. Trust, data, control and integrity replace things like privacy. Relevance, rules, context, openness, play are important elements.
Erwin nodigde me uit mijn visie te delen over de transformatie naar een realtime wereld, of de Realtime Revolutie zoals hij het zo treffend noemt. Dat doe ik graag. Het fenomeen houdt me al een tijd bezig, en ik zie dat het een belangrijk ingrediënt is van het ‘post-digital’-tijdperk waarin we belanden. Hoe de realtime context eruit gaat zien, vind ik mooi geschetst in het verhaal van Kevin Kelly met de zes werkwoorden. Het vierde werkwoord flowing vertelt hoe alle media transformeren naar collecties van realtime streams die in knooppunten bij elkaar komen. “If it is not in realtime it does not count”, zegt hij.
Right now
We zijn met z’n allen nog aan het ontdekken hoe we daar mee om moeten gaan, wat het beste te zien is aan de traditionele media die meegaan in de hijgerigheid van het nu, terwijl de rol van samenvatten en duiden alleen maar belangrijker wordt om de streams context te geven. Maar dat is een ander verhaal. De gevolgen voor onze beleving van media en de manier waarop we er mee omgaan is verandert onder invloed van realtime. Daar is veel over te zeggen. Een aspect dat parallel loopt eraan vind ik interessant om eruit te lichten: het fenomeen van Right Now. Daarmee bedoel ik dat we ons gedrag hebben aangepast aan een werkelijkheid waar we alles nu meteen willen kunnen hebben en waar we ook steeds minder onze activiteiten plannen.
Mobiel
Dat heeft niet alleen met de opkomst van realtime media als Twitter te maken, de adoptie van de mobiele telefoon was de eerste drijvende kracht. Afspraken maken we in het moment, niet meer van te voren, dat is een bekend voorbeeld. De realtime media hebben dit gedrag zeker versterkt. Het fenomeen Right Now is direct verbonden met de trend naar ‘access-based’ diensten. Omdat we gewend zijn geraakt dat alles direct beschikbaar is, durven we ook producten alleen op basis van toegang te gebruiken, bezit is niet meer nodig. De bekende voorbeelden van Greenwheels en Spotify kennen we allemaal, maar dat zal steeds verder gaan.
‘Slimme’ producten
Rob van Kranenburg van de Council Internet of Things gebruikt altijd het voorbeeld dat we straks ons hippe jasje niet meer kopen maar betalen voor de plek waar we hem gebruiken. In de club heeft het meer waarde dan ‘s zaterdags bij het boodschappen doen in de supermarkt. Dit laatste is natuurlijk nog niet mogelijk nu, maar gaat wel een realiteit zijn als producten meer en meer verbonden worden; het Internet of Things. Dit zal zich op productniveau snel ontwikkelen, steeds meer nieuwe producten zullen ‘slim’ worden en gebruik maken van data uit de cloud of gebruik maken van internet voor een betere dienst. SFPark is een voorbeeld uit San Fransisco waar je op een app kunt zien welke parkeerplaatsen nu beschikbaar zijn doordat deze zijn uitgerust met een sensor.
Voorspellen
Producten krijgen daarmee vooral hun eigen dataclouds die een soort metalaag van informatie toevoegen aan onze werkelijkheid. Die informatie zal steeds meer worden gebruikt om slimheid te verhandelen tussen producten. Justine Marseille had het hier op dit blog over de voorspellende waarde van data die we met z’n allen genereren. Dat gebeurt zeker, en gebeurt nu al. Maar we zullen steeds bewuster verrast willen worden. De balans die ontstaat tussen de almaar groter wordende datasporen enerzijds, en de daarmee toenemende voorspelbaarheid van diensten, en aan de andere kant de wens daar uit te breken.
Flexibel
Daar ligt een interessante ontwerpuitdaging voor de makers van de nieuwe producten en diensten. Juist het perspectief van het Right Now principe is hier ook interessant. Hoe gaan diensten en producten veranderen als ze zich aanpassen aan dat precieze moment van gebruik? Worden ze automatisch hyper relevant aangepast op eigen profiel dat we meedragen of zijn ze juist heel ‘open’ en flexibel zodat we ze zelf kunnen aanpassen op dat moment? Beide zal plaatsvinden. Hoe verwachten wij dat onze producten zich gaan gedragen? In elk geval moet je anders nadenken over ontwerp, want het is altijd dynamisch.
Motivatie
Je moet weten wat de gebruiker op dat moment zou kunnen willen doen. Wat zijn de motivaties, welke stemming heeft hij/zij, waar bevindt hij zich. Kortom, een goed beeld van de context bepaalt de uiteindelijke gebruiksvorm van de nieuwe producten en diensten. En vervolgens moet je een adaptief product hebben. Daarin zijn op zich de principes van open-ended play een start. Rule-based systemen die de flow en uitkomsten openlaten, kort gezegd. We hebben daarin wel een ijkpunt nodig. In de presentatie van Thomas Goetz op het afgelopen DLD12 gaf daarin een hele praktische vertaling: feedback loops zijn essentieel om alle continue veranderingen te duiden en relevantie te geven.
Second screen
Met het toenemen van de sensors om ons heen organiseren we die feedback. Die feedback zoeken we ook in referentie van onze peers. De opkomst van second screen apps is daar een gevolg van. Kevin Slavin laat dat mooi zien in zijn presentatie over ‘laughter from knowhere’ dat in de second screen niet (alleen) een functioneel toevoeging is aan de kijkbeleving, maar vooral ook werkt als emotioneel referentiepunt voor ons eigen gedrag. De gebruiker moet een bepaald vertrouwen kunnen krijgen, dat moet je expliciteit meeontwerpen. Bij het ontwerpen van de Right Now diensten in het realtime tijdperk denk ik dat dit de elementen die het succes bepalen. Het vraagt een andere benadering van het ontwerpen wat het super interessant maakt. Factoren als vertrouwen, data integriteit, controle vervangen begrippen als privacy. Relevantie, regels, context, play en openheid zijn de nieuwe dimensies waarmee de producten worden vormgegeven. Het besef dat de shift naar realtime een shift is naar right now helpt de goede keuzes te maken.
People are the sensors
Last Friday Kevin Kelly did an interview via a Google Hangout for Fast Moving Targets. In this part of a interview with Kelly he is talking on the quantified self and a new form there where collecting blood is an indicator for the toxic in our environment. Starting from about 45:46.
This is interesting and reminded me to some things Usman Haque said that same day at the Social Cities of Tomorrow conference: the people are the sensors. He refers in that sense to the way people that process the data from the sensors are more important than the data that is sensed. And the value emerges not before the processed data is shared.
The example of Kelly goes even a bit further, but the concept is the same. You will see that when we will be collecting more and more it is not directly benefiting ourselves, but in the end we are taking the role of sensors for the community cause, for the collective intelligence in a way.
The rules of thumb for successful social software that Tom Coates made years ago, are valid for the new sensor world too. A successful connected service is only achieved when:
- it benefits yourself (quantified self)
- it benefits your social peers (as reference for instance)
- it benefits the system to leverage all the collective data
Interesting stuff to elaborate on.
Focus on design for notifications
Design for mobile has one important aspect that is overlooked often: notifications. I think that the connection with an app and the functionality is highly defined by smart use of notifications. Mostly notifications are applied directly connected to the in app streams or to the functions of the app in general. I think however that you can win a lot with doing a separate design track for these notifications. Building a relation via the right (and not the wrong) notifications is a chance.
This will even become more important with the merge of OSes to cloud-based operating systems, like the new Mountain Lion indicates clearly. Notifications everywhere are a result of the trend to mobile first and well put in this article on SoMoClo.
When I have to judge designs for mobile apps I always pay extra attention to the notifications. And with designing service ecosystems with coherent touch-points the notifications can be the binding element, the element that is key in the relation with the service of the organisation.
Some basic rules for good notification design that I propose.
- think of the relation a user has with the service as the start
- make a concept; based on motivations of use
- be humble and relevant; with notifications as default
- be personal and adaptive; let the user define the level of notifications
- design the landing separately; connected to the intention of the notification
- adapt to the context; ideally a notification on your phone on the go should be different from the one when your are on the couch. At least make a difference between devices
- provide good copy; make copy personal, fitting the service. Choose carefully what to put in the notification for direct reading.
I have to think hard on good examples. Some apps do it right on parts of the notifications. I like the way Foursquare let me filter on users instead of only on functions for instance. And boxcar does a good job to set filters. But I don’t can think of one compelling example. Let me know if you have any!
Connected video trends
Online video and connected TV were hot topics last week. I visited the Immovator CrossMediaCafe and the Online Tuesday, and FastMovingTargets invited also two players in this field. For me this field of connected TV and second screen apps are a longer interest, and I blogged before on this concept [here, here]. We will see a breakthrough this year and a possible definite change in the concept of watching video content if Apple is entering this market later this year. I wrote something on it also in my year forecast.
Four important elements defines the new online video experiences, close connected.
- moving to a personal on demand consuming by default
- the second screen as integrated part of realtime tv
- crowd generated curation
- authentic stories as binders
We have entered a time-shifted TV-viewing experience. We use the on demand services from our broadcasters more and more and watch our own selected TV-series. The next step is the personal relevant guides that will generated suggestions or even complete evening programs based on your data profile and social behavior. Tools like Peel will be common and build in our screens and work like Nest does, continuous becoming smarter. The payment model will change to a access based pay-per-use, where we can lower the costs by interacting with commercials.
Personal on demand behaviour we do on our own or with our family. But we still like to share our experiences with others. The on demand services will have an integrated social layer that connects others that are watching the same in the world or from your contacts, like the Into_Now app does, and it will even suggest to watch certain programs together with your peers at work so you have a topic for the next day. This can go as far as going watching together in a location like a cinema where you program you own evening.
This will be all part of your second screen mainly. We will have a second screen as integrated part of realtime tv (something we used to call live tv), but it will also be your tool to connect to others with time-shifted TV.
With the second screen it is important to understand the first and second screen are one. One experience, one story. At the same time the notion of first and second screen implies that one of them is dominant, and the other supportive. And that is the case indeed. A second screen that draws the attention away from the first screen is not a good experience. Our abilities to share attention will change by the way. For me there are a couple rules if you are designing this second screens.
First is that you should peel the story of the program down to its essence and build the different touchpoints on this story. The first screen will be the lead in the story, the second screen can play different roles. It can be a part of it to make it your personal story, or, and this is the most important function, it will generate a social emotional layer to the watching. In that sense the presentation of Kevin Slavin on this phenomenon is essential; we will have a kind of reference point for our own emotions with the emotions of the crowd that we experience via the second screen.
This can be passive like giving indications on the number of watchers and tweeters over the world (you see only filtered and relevant tweets complete) or it can be more active by creating a extra layer in the story as the Thuiscoach app is a nice example.
We will see a mayor development with the second screen apps this coming year, for instance as families are integrating their second screen apps together in one experience. And we will see integrated concepts between first and second screen apps from Apple, GoogleTV and Samsung.
On the content part there is a long winding trend tipping now; the use of amateur content in mainstream programs. Or better said; amateur content becoming broadcast content. With the on demand watching we will see that curating by peers is getting dominant. Apps like Showyou will get a place under a button on your remote control. And the channels made by people themselves will be part of TV evening.
The last aspect are the authenticity of the stories that becoming the brands of video content. This is important to create compelling multiple screen experiences, as well as it is the way to connect people in on demand viewing and more important, to let them generate profile data entries. Because just like all mayor trends generating, collecting and processing data will be the key in all concepts made for the new connected video.
Singularity as post digital life
Monday January 30 I attend the kick-off event of the Dutch branch of the Singularity University. I had to miss the first two speakers but the rest of the program managed to deliver a pile of information that presented the visions of the Singularity University.
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2012, the year of relevancy
It is 2012 already. It is a tradition on this blog to look ahead to the coming year. Thinking on what will happening is a good start of the year. But first, for the record, let’s look back at the predictions I did last year and in general what happened in 2011.
The breakthrough of tablets and nearby computing was a good feeling I think. In 2011 I think we saw some serious steps where digital lifestyle is becoming default for our approach to services and products. The way people adopt the home coach app in the Dutch version of The Voice of Holland for instance. Or the growing use of on demand media. And all cumulating in a new smart product like the Nest thermostat and Peel tv-guides.
I predicted (and hoped) newspapers would improve their apps to much more interesting digital content experiences. We saw some examples like the Guardian, and some magazines do good jobs like Autovisie. But many still hold on to the old models. What really did happen however was the emerge of new personalized services based on algorithms, social peers etc. Like Zite, News.me, Summify, and Livestand. This is just the beginning of what to come, I expect more of these kind of services in 2012, in all kind of categories. And we will see a Nest-like product release probably every month.
My optimism for the economy was not completely right. Halfway in a sense. Europe did get a hard time indeed, but I did not expected the Europe paralyzing act. I am not optimistic for the coming year this to change dramatically; we will suffer this pessimism, even if the real numbers will be better than expected. It will trigger some bigger trends that we saw rise in 2011; the sharing economy and the access based products and services. In 2011 Spotify reaches the masses, and different new services for car sharing next to Greenwheels appeared to the market. Car2go, Wego, Snappcar. And also in other branches like tools. This model will be more and more popular in all different kind of branches the coming year. Not all that successful, but there is a fertile ground for sure.
The virtual money layer that functions as play money and mean for exchange of profile data turned out not be as prominent as I expected for 2011. Still a trend that will be a fundamental development I believe. In different manners. If we would have a real economy crash, which I hope (and expect) not to happen, it will be triggered sooner as alternative for our devaluated real money. We will see the first steps however to virtual social currencies with the release of the NFC phones (an iPhone 5 at last) combined with more access based products and services for sure. But this will last till the end of the year and become really big not until 2013.
An interesting field could be our energy consumption. We will see that we are growing into a system where we contribute much more to the production of energy and a market place of electricity will be part of our sharing economy. Electric vehicles will trigger this, a service where private households are offering their fast charger to electric car owners via a service could be well in place soon, probably in 2012. But I think that this will not fly till 2013.
I think I was quite right with the prediction that gamification became hot in 2011, but stayed a hype at the same time. The hope for services that are designed with playfulness as one of the design principles in stead of cheap badgification is something that has indeed not been seen before 2012. There are some signs for this to happen indeed in de the coming year, hopefully with not to many lame implementations that danger the possibilities. The ROI of gamification will be a hot topic. Just like we got with socialification.
The social angle become default indeed in 2011. We see even some fatigue emerge from all social experts that did pop-up. Nevertheless, no company is neglecting to think about social and making it part of their strategies. Bigger corporations did this in 2011, in 2012 also SME will follow. At the same time we as users are grown up and will model our use to specific situations even more. The circles Google+ launched will evolve to a standard approach – that is more basic than the circles – and smaller social private groups will live next to the temporary ties we have more and more. The shift of users becoming part of the organizations as policy makers and product developers will be default.
The big data movement is developing a bit slower than expected. Google with plus and Facebook with timeline are however paving the road for even more data driven knowledge and the war of the ecosystems with Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon is acknowledged all over the industry and will sharpen. There will however be no real losers (expect maybe a disappointing IPO for Facebook), they will together shape the fundaments for the services we make. And data becomes really data science as nicely shown in this presentation. With the serious steps in emerging smart products the flood of data will be only more and we will see the first ‘profile management’ services appear that can manipulate your data presence.
I have to say that the prediction on Facebook launching a Groupon killer did not came true. In stead of trying to save Places Facebook discontinued the development. The dispute on their privacy and profiling continues as expected last year, and the new Timeline function makes us as users even more the product, that is a widespread observation. A voice function and even phone that was a rumor is still on the shelves. Let’s see what the coming year brings for that. I expect that the focus is on leveraging the timeline to all corners of the service with the connection to the pages. 2012 could be a consolidation year for Facebook, connecting all the dots and deepening existing services over all touch points.
So to sum up I think relevancy will be a leading theme. If Apple introduces the expected iTV this summer (big sport events are always a good moment) it will set a marker for relevant services. I agree with those that predict a TV-experience that will be much more a personal experience (in the context of the family) and combines the best second screen integration with tablets and cloud. Apps for the iTV will be not used on the TV set but on your personal remote, phone or tablet. And just like with iTunes connect to the PC platform, iTV could connect to other mobile platforms. Google and Windows will follow soon and integrate in their ecosystems the second screens and tv-operating systems, but Apple will set the tone in the user experience as expected, and add gesture and voice interactions.
In the mobile context I think we will see a growing importance of Android becoming more hip and happening with the developers too. Apps still rule web apps but in the second half it could change triggered by two important developments; with the market share of Windows growing to 20-25% it is becoming even more hassle to develop for all the different platforms, especially in economic weak times. And highly related with this; the ‘mobile first’ paradigm will rule 2012 and transforming full website for mobile use will be via webappsification of online services.
In 2012 we will continue to evolve in a complete digital inspired lifestyle (post digital so to say) and relevant services are the corner stones in these new experiences. With economic pessimism we will hold on to cocooning social and sharing based services. Another interesting year in prospect.
The many aspects of a new post digital era
But first, what do we mean with post digital. Dries Verbruggen gave a presentation in which he defined the new era with some examples. In essence the concept is built around the idea that we are now entering an era where digital context is common and part of everything. The special characteristics of digital products and services are now adopted in everything and shapes our role to products. Digital is becoming tangible in that sense.
Dries showed some more conceptual examples from the art scene like the teapot shaped like a rendering that you could see as an archetype of this post digital thinking. Much more interesting is it when we use the digital benefits like easy reproducing, profiled services to real products. In that sense the views of Evgeny Morozov are interesting. He was interviewed in NRC a month ago and could be seen in a TV documentary earlier. His skepticism towards techno utopia was the central theme and relevant for sure, but his concluding remarks on our grow into atomized individuals in stead of the hallelujah networked social concept is interesting. We growing into a society where everything is personalized and fitted to the me, with a danger that we disconnect even more.
This hyper personalized tangible product is also very present in the examples of Russell Davies on the conference. He showed of course his very interesting project of the Newspaper club where you can print your own newspaper in small numbers. And the latest product FRSTEE is a special-for-you printed snowman that is shaped based on the number of twitter followers you have. As Bruce Sterling kicked off with a model with four types of art-tech combinations, all shaping some scenarios. High tech and low art for instances, or low tech with high art. Russell Davies introduced CrappyComp as a definition for cheap stuff made smart. Low art with high tech in a way. The new project of BERG could be considered as low tech and high art. A simple printer prints small paper notes based on the connections with online services. Very sweet and smart in the execution of the concept but using rather basic tech at first sight. Which is of course not really the case, it looks easy but is very smart technology if you take the platform in account. It is a complete system that will grow into a plug and play data driven cloud for smart and sweet products. Something where we will see a new competitive field emerge. Who will rule this new domain of products and who owns the inbetween products that are appearing in the cloud.
At TEDxDelft Theo Jansen showed also how his quest for evolution of his Strandbeest has moved and supported when others make 3D models and prints from his creatures. The very tangible feel becomes enhanced with a digital thinking and will lead a new life. Literally.
At TEDxDelft the work of architect Kas Oosterhuis showed that we are entering a new phase in computer shaped buildings. Where his work is already known for years, with shapes that are only made possibe by using the computer to draw the buildings. Now he adds an realtime adaptive aspect. An example is the sound barriers for trains that react on the train and only operate when the train passes.
Ben Schouten closed the day of the conference with his inaugaral talk on playful interactions. A good story with some fine statements. Play bridges us with the new context and our identities are in constant flux and play as key to our culture. As the game space becomes a personal space. A game space is the ultimate definition of a game, spaces of interactions. Intelligence products mean interactive products. Ben showed us that play will have a very important part in making post digital culture possible by creating new structures
Post digital principles will also get a place in mass products. Like the new Apple TV concept that might be introduced next year. You can expect a product that will take the best of digital inventions around the old technology of watching TV. Things like Peel that makes your guide really personal and the second screen experiences with twitter and so on, will be integrated I expect. Apple will have the clue to disrupt this market by using the best of our digital achievements into the analog experience of doing mass TV consumption.
But more interesting will be all the new tangible products that embody smartness. Like the Nest thermostat and the Sphero ball that is introduced not so long ago. Post digital will stand for hybrid products and cross overs that we gonna use and will evolve into so called New Aestheticwhere we will see that digital behaviour is defining our expectations on how things work. And we will live more and more in a context of systems of things and people as was stated at the Internet of thing conference with the things as the mediators.
We lost our bright future. Did we?
What the reason is, I don’t know, but in a couple of events I visited last weeks the main topic seemed how we see our future, and more in particular, how we lost some of the bright images of the future we used to have. The Club of Amsterdam event was completely dedicated to the future of the future. It was not a positive story. Andrea Wiegman of Second Sight gave an overview of the industry of futurists as first speaker and sketched a new era that already started in 2008 with books like the Black Swan. Arjen Huisman of Gendo went even further, like in this concluding slide. And the last speaker – Anders Sandberg of Oxford University - went through a bunch of biases we have in looking to the future. From probability biases, status quo biases to hindsight biases. “We like to shape the future like unrealistic scenarios because that is why we like the future.”
It was also one of the themes of the conference Playful. Brendan Dawes used a quote from William Gibson to express that feeling: “Upon arriving in the capital-f future, we discover it, invariably, to be the lower case now.” We are living a middle aged future as Marcus Brown put it. All our dreams for the future as we were children are fulfilled, and there are no new futures to dream of, except for more optimized worlds.
Never before I attended Playful, a sweet conference “all about games and play — in all their manifestations, throughout the contemporary media landscape”. The reports on the conference by Kars and Nicolas make a extensive report almost obsolete, I agree at large in their observations. The theme of the lost future also resonates on the evening on Visible Cities of last week. During the first presentation of Lorenzo de Rita focused on our need to keep imagination. The future of today has more to do with preparation than imagination, he said. His complete talk was build around this theme. He connected the movement to ultimate visibility to this lack of imagination; total transparency don’t leave any room for imagination. Literally.
The idea of the lack of new imaginary images of the future seems to be true. That does not mean there is no interesting future ahead. Also just in this week an Interesting new product was introduced: the Nest Thermostate. Made by some designers from the iPod it is the ultimate example of the future products. It is super simple to use, but at the same time super complex under the hood to enhance our experience. And besides the beauty of the smart experience, it is also a product with a story, initiated to stimulate a better use of our house hold energy use, because this is a big spoiler of energy.
The Nest Thermostate fits a category of smart products that is introduced the last month. Also brand new is the Lytro camera that let you take a shot with one push without worrying on focusing the image; the camera captures all different focus points so you can adjust the right focus afterwards. And you can even keep changing that.
And there are the earlier introduced products like the Peel remote control that creates smart guides based on your behavior, and Sifteo and Cubelets that make interactive toys in a robotic way. At Playful Chris O’Shea showed us the post digital world we are entering with what he called the appcessory-concept; how the digital services get tangible accessories to operate them. Everything is going to talk back to us said another.
Are these products the bright new inspirational future or just the preparable future? For me it is inspiring, but at the same time I see the development emerging to the danger of a relevancy paradox as I described this at PICNIC earlier. If we go on with making our life completely adapted to our projected wishes, room for unexpected experiences will disappear. And in the end it will be even hard to have a good profile to make stuff relevant. I think that we will see a lot of deliberate disturbances in the ideal relevant world to let you make choices to improve the profile. Play will in that sense be the tool to create these experiences. And therefor it was so interesting to see how Playful was dealing with this ideal relevant world.
Matthew Ward showed how you can use our imagination to create a great experience with a balloon that is disarmed like a bomb. Green=boom is a great project that shows how we build our own world based on perceived behavior fed with the consumed media context. Media mediate reality in that sense.
The experiment resembles our future world where we get more disconnections between the actions we play and the consequences they have. We need this playful layer to stay in touch with the consequences.
As Loise Downe said; we will have more intimacy with machines. That requires trust that the machines think in the same way as we do. The reliance depends on the way we can predict the complexity. We will make up rules to deal with the new products.
At the Visible Cities event Michiel de Lange announced an interesting conference coming year on the social city. Inspiration is the development of the smart city, and the fear that we will focus on this smartness and create unlivable perfect worlds. The city as a platform for social behavior is however the driver for the technologies.
So, is the future one where everyone has his own shed to fabricate stuff, like Brendan Dawes describes in his story on the invention of his iPhone photo button device. Do we get the shift to a future where we get ultimate personalized products. Where the haves been able to have their own factory at home and the have-nots will use the prefabricated stuff. The concepts of interactive production are numerous this weeks. Like Myrobotnation and the sweet Twitter Snowmaan Frstee.
Our (near) future could be a world with a second layer under our tangible life that steers us, or in a more positive manner, are at service for us. Playfulness will be give us tools to deal with an impulse-less hyper relevant context. Both Playful and Visible cities showed the importance to create an inspiring model of the future to lead us in the developments.
For our work I think that these playful interactions are a key element in creating the user experiences of the future, the smart experiences. A future where smart products and shared services rules are a great inspiration to develop on the coming online ecosystems. Let’s take the statement of Anders Sandberg as an inspiration: “Make the future, do not predict it”.
