Friday, 15 January 2010

The Real Life of Knowledge Exchange and Design


Building on the post below, it's worth understanding the practical benefits of this negotiated appreciation of the nature of meaning and knowledge and why this is especially pertinent to a design-led approach.

Anyone with a passing understanding of design will be familiar with the need todeal with emergent, unfocussed and fundamentally unsolvable problems on a day to day basis (see Wicket thinking).

This comfortableness of good designers with not being in control of processes, use, reaction to, or reading of the design of knowledge exchange activities where the actual knowledge transfer is very much uncertain a pretty comfortable thing to get to grips with.

This is not an academic analysis (although there is a paper I have written about this subject here), it's the result of the interaction of philosophy with working with over 50 companies in the past 12 months in a series of knowledge exchange events and activities.

The experience from there is that the skill is ... digital marketing agencies, to high-tech SMEs to new projects with the nuclear decommissioning industry that the skill is engendering a context and approach that facilitates the flow of information between parties. This can be hard information or softer things like perspectives/opinions.

This is much more powerful than trying to 'imprint' knowledge on people, also because you are 'flowing' with participants and releasing their potential, the process is more enjoyable for everyone.

Thursday, 19 November 2009

Journal Papers for 2010

Here are a few of my forthcoming papers on design, meaning and sustainability - to be published in 2010:
Sambo's Stones: sustainability and meaningful objects, Design and Culture Journal;
The Chimera Reified, The Design Journal;
The Spirit of Design: notes from the shakuhachi flute, The International Journal of Sustainable Design;
Wrapped Attention: designing products for evolving permanence and enduring meaning, Design Issues.

Monday, 2 November 2009

Keynote Speaker: David Constantine of Motivation

David Constantine, Co-Founder and Executive Office of Motivation UK has been invited by ImaginationLancaster to give a presentation about his work around the world.

Motivation, established in 1991, has worked in over 30 countries and developed 50 designs of low-cost mobility solutions, including wheelchairs and related products. Motivation is one of the few organisations to deal with both the provision of disability products and services and the wider social and economic needs of people with mobility disabilities. The details of the talk are as follows:

Title: "Is he a peasant or just Abnormal": Mobility for Inclusion - Design for mobility solutions in less resourced settings.

Lancaster Leadership Centre (LUMS) LT3, Lancaster University
Wednesday December 2nd
6pm sharp till 7.30

European Futurists Conference

I was recently invited to give a keynote at the European Futurists Conference in Lucerne, Switzerland. Many of the presentations from this conference are available in pdf format at:
http://www.european-futurists.org/wEnglisch/programm/Programm2009/programm2009.php

Saturday, 19 September 2009

Italian Design


I’ve just come back from a visit to Domus Academy, where Claudio Moderini (in the picture on the left) and Renzo Giusti run an MA course on Interactive Design. http://www.domusacademy.com Love the philosophy of design as a ‘problem setting’ activity.


Monika