Mastermind

The brain is one of the last undiscovered territories of human science, it continues to trigger our curiosity and imagination, we are only just starting to understand what’s going on in there, and the more we get to know the more we realize how little we know.

Unlike what many of us maybe are used to thinking, the brain is not just a pre-programmed given at birth with short term memory (REM) and long-term memory (hard-disk). A left and a right side. A center for instincts and a center for ratio and ethics. Recent research is increasingly making clear that one could actually think of the brain as a muscle that can be trained. If we use and challenge it regularly, it improves its performance, if we get lazy and let it idle it deteriorates. Scientists find out by putting people into MRI scanners and let them do different cognitive tasks.

In his new book The Shallows, Nicholas Carr argues that our brains get rewired by the shattered focus that our digital lifestyles stimulate. Our digital lifestyle and always-on culture is fostering continuous partial attention, the desire to be a live node on a network. Office workers can feel the compulsion to check their inbox 30-40 times an hour; research has shown that the average office worker never pays more than 3 minutes of focused attention to one thing. We are changing our brains functioning; we train it to not think deeply anymore. The anecdote of Isaac Newton thinking up the gravity theory whilst lying under a tree is often used to illustrate this. We need to give our brain some time off, if we want it think.

Yogis have known for ages that they could reach nirvana by practicing yoga and meditation. Brain scans of yoga practitioners have shown healthy boost in levels of GABA neurotransmitters immediately after a one-hour yoga session. Low levels of GABA are associated with anxiety and depression. These yogi actually know how to reach happiness. And happy people live longer. The reason is that they have a healthier lifestyle, sense of purpose and are more socially connected.

Understanding the brain is our gateway to be able to regulate mental health. Obviously mental health and fitness of the brain are closely connected, so I see here an important emerging area of attention for a company that focuses on health & wellbeing. It’s going to be an interesting quest, and the brain-machine interface is going to be a crucial enabler for us to read the brain in a less intrusive way.

Epoc Headset

Epoc Headset

Published in edited form in Philips Design New Value News August 2010

http://www.design.philips.com/philips/sites/philipsdesign/about/design/designnews/newvaluebydesign/august2010/mastermind.page

Doing-it-Yourself

Already in 1980 Alvin Toffler coined the term ProSumer in his book The Third Wave, when he predicted that the role of producers and consumers would begin to blur and merge. In todays world we are experiencing how the increased empowerment of individuals activates the dream of a new self-sufficient small scale economic model.

Technology and creativity is the driving force behind the change. The maker-ship of individuals is powered by new smart autonomous business models that enable small scale production. Fabrication Labs that pop up around the globe are the grass-root of what 3D printing can become for the consumer of the future. Another example of this is the “The Digital Making Network”; 100kGarages.com. Shapeways is already here and demonstrates that it really is possible to have your stuff made on demand. The threshold for a 3D printer in your kitchen just became lower with the RepRap that can be made for just 350 euro. It makes you wonder what it will mean to companies that make stuff. Will stuff simply become free or open-source digital files that can be downloaded and printed from the local kiosk? Are we at the verge of a transformation similar to what happened to the music industry?

Doing- or making-it-yourself gets a completely new dimension.

Today big companies and brands offer mostly late customization, an option for consumers to step-in at the end of the production process to impress a bit of personality to a product. Such as designing your own Senseo or TV frame, a guided customization process with outcomes that have the approval of the brands (design) custodians. The consumers of the future will have increasingly high expectations of how they can be part of the creation process, how their ideas can be heard, and how they can customize and personalize from A to Z.

So is there really a future where everybody becomes a producer and consumer? Is it really an attractive idea to many to create and provide their own ideas, plans and designs? The truth is probably somewhere in-between. It takes more effort to customize than it does to mass-consume.

Sometimes we are in the mood for choices, sometimes we want to be guided towards attractive standard solutions. Sometimes we feel creative enough to want to be part of the creation process; sometimes we want to let a professional think it through. The small and long tail economy for sure is here to stay, the drivers are very strong. Big companies need to start thinking of how they can involve their consumers more in their innovation processes and brand, so that they stay loyal and engaged and so that they harvest the collective intelligence that is present in their crowd.

Published in Philips Design; New Value by Design June 2010

Designing death

You might think that new media is all casual conversation, but I regularly also receive messages about life and death via the internet tamtam or sms. Recently this triggered a thought; what will happen to our online profiles when we die? Will our virtual self and life continue forever?

Nowadays we can write our own lifestyle biographies, and we can orchestrate our own death. Warren Buffet has designed his funeral and run rehearsals. Other celebrities are asked to do that too and share their ideas with us in the TV-program; the coffin. Even normal people can easily design their own End with Monuta using an easy on-line tool that makes an atmospheric instant movie of your desired End. One of our last tabu’s has just ceased to exist. Death and funerals have become a life-transition event that you can control and organize yourself, just like i.e. marriage. Should you be out of ideas about of how to design your afterlife you could let yourself be inspired by the unusual rituals and ideas that Nadine Jarvis is suggesting with her post mortem design research. She is f.x. suggesting that you turn your cremation remains into carbon copies. Pencils. One body makes approximately 240 pens.

Nardine Jarvix - carbon copies

Now how about our virtual lives? Many people live numerous parallel lives through identities and avatars in on-line communities. Most network sites have very little that describes the conditions in case of death in the terms-of-use. Some profiles are turned into memorials if somebody passes away, others get abused, and obviously loved ones might find it disturbing to be confronted with the virtual selves of their beloved ones on social websites, even ages after they died. And often the loved ones are powerless to get the profile removed.

How are you going to manage your online life in posterity? There are not many of us yet that have anything in-place to orchestrate our virtual deaths. However recently a couple of sites and services have popped that address the problem. The Mediamatic has introduced a service that lets you create a document called ikRIP; your virtual testament; what to do with your virtual affairs after you die. Your last wish is visible to the crowd and The Webmaster will carry them out. The Swedish start-up MyWebWill promises to put you in control even in your afterlife. They offer simple freemium models, that just wipes your virtual identity away and they have paid services that will let send your message to the world, after your dead, or you can donate your virtual belongings such World-of-Warcraft armor to your friends.

Is your virtual life one life one life too many? Want to End it now? Then Suicide Machine will help you kill your virtual profiles. Now.

The Accelleration of Ideas

The big Jon Lebkowsky, contributor to the Well; prototypic on-line community asked me over lunch in Austin this summer;”how do you think social media has influenced the world?” I had not prepared for this, and had little time to reflect, so I instantly brainstormed: “the acceleration of ideas” Jon and Dave, his partner from Socialwebstrategies, both above 60, nodded their heads, reflected for a second and quickly moved onto the topics of the day, living proof that brain-agility has nothing to do with age.

The web 2.0 has made the exchange of ideas instantaneous. Technorati has indexed blogs since 2002 and in 2009 they had indexed 133.000.000 of them. 346.000.000 people are reading them. Still growing exponentially, imagine what this will be in a few decades. There was a blog-war during the Design-week in Milan 2008.  designws committed to being the first, fastest and furious to blog. Milan 2009 was brought to your screen by web sneak preview, why bother going there when an army of bloggers can tell you everything before it even happened?  Victor & Rolf skipped the Parisian fashion-week and showed their new collection exclusively to the on-line crowd. The Gucci fashion-show was instantly given commentary by crowd-twitter. We are all in-crowd now, instantaneously in- the-know.

The web 2.0 has democratized the creation of ideas, Creatives used to have exclusive access to creative tools; this gave them a competitive advantage. But the access to software has been democratized, Photoshop and render-tools such as Google Sketch-up have become free-ware and can be downloaded and used by everybody, even on your smart phone. How-to’s and libraries are shared freely in user-forums. The crowd has come one step closer to professionals.

Progress in IT has empowered users to perfect ideas. Many ideas that are being published on designer-blogs are really just ideas, not materialized yet. Artist impressions used to be sketchy, clearly communicating that they were just impressions. The renderings of today look better and more perfect than they ever could in reality. Impeccably attractive and slick. Technologic and mechanical impossibilities, defying laws of gravity and other natural laws. The visualization of dreams: This is the promised land of designer-paradise. These impressions are becoming a system of reference in itself; a new parallel reality. They raise our level of expectations for the real world. The real world must be as good as this. Our imagination gets saturated with these new ideas and impressions, on the day when they finally materialize; we are more bored than excited. The idea gets worn-out, out of fashion, before it was ever born. Crisis or not, a never build hotel in Dubia has left its mark already.

It’s not the first time in history that fiction turns out to be more interesting than reality.  To be or not to be, is that the question still? It seems irrelevant nowadays.

Published in Philips Design New Value News in Feb 2010.

local, intimate and old-fashioned food

In some newer restaurants and take-aways you can see a turn away from lounge. There is a new atmosphere of intimate eating in living room like atmospheres with retro feel, and a return to good old-fashioned food. No more lying down on cushions, no more finger-food. It is also clear from these newly opened restaurant and take-aways in particular that people want better, more tasty and healthy take-aways. we are either too lazy to cook ourselves, or we have too little time and when we then have to buy take-away we want better, more responsible food.

cést ca, neighbourhood restaurant (Bollenhofsestraat 142, Utrecht)
In this recently opened restaurant in Wittevrouwen, Utrecht we eat as if we where in a living room, almost as if we where visiting somebody in their home. Every night there is a fixed meal of 5 dishes. The chef and the servant take turns working either in the kitchen or in the eating-space. The place is rather unpretentious and informal, with a decor that is somewhat old-fashioned, grand-ma's like wallpaper, plates and cutlery. also the dishes are somewhat granny, good old-fashioned food with a modern twist, always made out of ingredients bought the same morning on the market.

Tante Joke (biltstraat, Utrecht)
The name almost says it all, good old-fashioned food like your aunt would cook. This is a great new take-away concept, no more fat, greasy, unhealthy take-away, this is affordable fresh dishes and real good food. Tante Joke actually turns out to be a man.

 
















Gastmaal en de Tafel (Griftstraat, Utrecht)
also a take-away with good old-fashioned food, but with a more French or Mediterranean take on it. The dishes are really delicious, made with craftmanship and great care and more expensive than at Tante Joke.

Stamppot-to-go (nobelstraat, Utrecht)
stamppot is an old-fashioned Dutch dish is typically made of mashed potatoes, veggies (typically carrots) and smoked sausage. Having said that have to add that it exists in many, many variations, and is of course typically something made at home. Stamppot-to-go is offering this homely meal to take-away in an attempt to offer better, more healthy and nutritious take-away meals for busy urban people. The look-and-feel of this concept is fresh, bright and white, with a strong connection to health. but not really having much connection with the idea of the old-fashioned home-made dish,

New Wonderland

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A lunch experience full of wonder. Full of juxtaposition, full of the unexpected, full of fantasy.

When the door opens at the Prinsengracht 468, a kind magician welcomes me, she seems to have come straight out of Alice in Wonderland, however she doesn’t cast any spells, she just makes you feel welcome by releasing a tsunami of friendly hostess small-talk. She invites you to step into another world and when you pass the threshold, it almost feels as if you are tripping with your eyes open. Senses start to work overtime as your eyes, ears and nose meet the absurd and surreal acts, people and décor.

The scene has been set in an abandoned office-space, filled with carefully curated mini-exhibitions of unusual scavenged and created objects. A guy completely undisturbed by the event moves his ladder around whilst painting a yellow stripe following a track with its own inexplicable logic, crossing floor, walls and ceiling. This is Esben Ingeslev, his act is inspired by the timekeeping rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. We are spectators to two teenagers that seem locked up in the control room. They are playing games that are being projected on the wall behind them. A peek-a-boo for adults into the imaginary worlds of on-line games.

We enjoy a tantalizing and mind-twisting appetizer in the main hall;

Oyster-cocktail, Oily Anise Ice Cream, tea to chill our mind, and chili as a metaphor to tickle our thoughts about cooking as a tool for personal coaching. All are served in sand-filled wheelbarrows and work like mini business cards for one-person companies.

Then the moderator Neske Beks wondrously dressed like a modern tale princess with an 80’s edge, appears on stage and greets us all welcome. She explains how New Wonderland is a Nu Monument, a monument that is created by us, the participants, our dialogue with the exhibitors and each other. We are encouraged to start our journey through the rooms that have been filled with mini-exhibitions to trigger senses, mind and soul.

We first encounter the Fountain of Wishes; we write our wishes on scraps of paper and throw these in a symbolic paper-fountain. The artist will publish these later and start a revelation log. Then we Play with Your Food, Eating our menu that has been printed on edible paper, this happening is a tongue-in-cheek take on the traditional Dutch Cookie Snapping played at children’s birthday parties and Queens Day. We then enter a space that has been converted into a Cinema room; again we are being played with. We crawl under a cloth to designated watching spots, indicated by printed feet, popping our head through a cloth to watch a slide show “the making of New Wonderland”. The decapitated heads float on top of the symbolical water line. The body is strangely alienated and uninvolved below the water line. 

Then we are confronted with the subtlest wonder of the day; a poem has been put on the carpet with chalk. As we carelessly pass through the room, we start to ruin the beautiful thought. In a small claustrophobic room we find The Bite of a Smell. It looks like the mad scientist laboratory, it’s actually a disintegration laboratory where the smell of… has been mapped out, all the components have been trapped in a small bottle. Even such things as intangible emotions are caught here; i.e. father. To close our journey through the senses we watch stunningly beautiful flower-arrangements created with an unusual yet mundane ingredient; vegetables. It would more rightly deserve the name; veggie sculptures.

We all end-up at the lunch, created by DUS architects, famous for their interventions in public space where they stimulate spontaneous and serendipitous dialogue. They have created an enormous “cooking island” The hosts and servants are seated in holes in the middle of the table, the center of attention and the center of conversation. Bread has been baked in the Amsterdam mugs they created for Ittala, and everything else that is being served obeys the concept of unusual; wine is served by being pumped up from Demijohns, vegetables are served from table-recesses. We close off with Choco-Garlic; raw garlic cloves coated in thick bitter chocolate. What a surprising taste sensation, the chocolate completely neutralizes the garlic.

Whilst enjoying lunch my eyes linger on the art-installations by Kevin Power, he has hijacked the boring and mundane office light fixtures and used them as shelves on which he has installed grotesque compositions, completely in the spirit of Hieronymus Bosch. New Wonderland is like walking into a curiosity cabinet, there is no end to the curiosity.

During lunch Meike Ziegler, inspirator and curator of New Wonderland, opens a central debate about the event. Together we evaluate what we liked, what we missed and how this concept can further be put into practice. The hospitality and catering industry needs innovation; Facebook is a giant cocktail party, always on, but it makes some people feel even more disconnected from real people and real conversations. Can a café, restaurant or gallery be set-up in such a way that it encourages conversation with strangers? The original intention of the concept is to make this conversation therapeutic for both host and visitor. Can a change of context provoke such a sense of liberty that individuals will open up and reveal their personal aspirations to discover their latent talents, in a dialogue with strangers? These questions remain unanswered today; this first pilot of New Wonderland was intoxicating for the senses, mind and soul. A next trial could maybe focus more on the mind-spa; the social interaction, that could help modern people find balance, harmony and purpose.

I step out. The wonder is over. The touristy shopping crowds soon close in on me, this wonderful afternoon already starts to fade away.

Zeeman = hip

My eyes blinked twice, the yellow was almost too bright to handle. And no this was not a semi-naked David Beckham on the billboard. Closer inspection revealed that the model was a tad less sexy and that this was a Zeeman advertising for a hipster. A hip hipster from Zeeman. How do you do that? I mean how do you take a cheap and uninteresting textile supermarket and turn it into a brand?

Calvin Klein - Armani - Bjorn Borg - Zeeman

Several things goes into the mix;

1. update and upgrade your product offer. Zeeman had already added a component to their website where you can make your own t-shirt. Well, make is maybe a too big word. There is a very limited option for customization; simple t-shirts, simple texts. But the options the tool give away, ignites the hope that there might be more to come. Then add a “David Beckham” hipster. In yellow, everybody will notice.
2. Give something away for free. Free is nice, particularly in times of economic crisis. It almost makes you think of Zeeman as a kind friend that is helping you in difficult times. Even if your own particularly times are not that hard, you can still notice a warm wave of comfort rolling over you.
3. Give people something to talk about. Like a yellow hipster on a billboard, that arouses talk. Everybody is talking about the yellow hipster, that’s free advertising. And when people start talking about something, then a brand starts to mine itself in their brain. They remember.

Now then you have turned perceptions around a bit, from cheap textile supermarket to cult of the trash, and maybe next brand.