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nike-entering a new era? (40.01078714046552 , 116.54296875) Nike is a brand that was built on the back of raw emotion of sports, but is it about to change?

Are product performance and technological innovation going to be the drivers from now on?

Take a look at the amazing exhibition the brand is putting on in Beijing that celebrates the 100 most important innovations in the company's history.

In the past, the company has been reluctant to let technology dominate the story, but in this show, it's the star.

Perhaps, the brand feels it needs to demonstrate the substance that lies at the heart of the company and put fear into anyone, especially the smaller Chinese upstarts, that Nike's success isn't something that can be easily copied.


Posted by Ed Cotton It seems we are now at a  very interesting moment in the environmental movement meets green marketing, trend.

The cynics and skeptics are coming out of the woodwork and are ready to bash anyone who isn't thinking this thing through properly and merely trying to "Greenwash".

This isn't just coming from the expected sources.

This is from Core 77, yesterday.

"At first glance, Feel More Human seems to have everything for the conscious consumer with a modern design sense. The online store has an eco-friendly home and lifestyle section, with tables from Scrapile, sofas from Dutch designer Björn Mulder, and even a Buddha cat perch made from renewable bamboo plywood. There is a content section featuring interviews with inspiring eco-entrepreneurs, a classifieds area where visitors can buy or sell their pre-owned modern design goods, and the whole operation is powered by 100% wind energy.

Yet scratch beneath the surface and you'll find that even those with the greenest of intentions have a hard time making the most environmentally sound choices. Mixed in with all of the bamboo, reclaimed wood, and toxin free fabrics are not-so eco foams, lacquers, plywoods, and plastics, like the NotNeutral Melamine Snack Set for kids. How did a kid's dinnerware with melamine, a resin manufactured by mixing urea with formaldehyde, get onto a site devoted to sustainable lifestyles? Or chrome, a material known for emitting toxic elements into the air, land, and sea, which can be found in several items in the store, such as the Tokyo Shelving Unit or the Valis Chair. Jill Stalowicz, the company's founder, says, "smart design goes beyond aesthetics now, people are questioning how products are constructed."

The lesson here is that the practice of green is harder than the promise, and that Feel More Human might want to take a look at how all of its products are actually made."


Posted by Ed Cotton Core 77 has a great podcast on the new MOMA exhibition "Design and the Elastic Mind".

It features a few interviews from the opening night and a longer sit down discussion with famed curator Paola Antonelli.

The interview is Paola is especially good, as she talks about the idea behind the exhibit, the process of curating and highlights some of MOMA's future plans for bringing a Boeing 747 into the collection.

My big take-away from the broadcast is the emergence of two interesting forces that are now shaping contemporary design thinking.

1. The shift from the decorative to the serious- designers are no longer content creating beautiful objects- they want to have an impact. Design and the Elastic Mind is all about the intersection between science/technology and design.

2. The idea of "beta" is now present in the design world- work in progress is good and objects no longer need to be finished to be presented.


Posted by Ed Cotton influx interview-designer series-verena dauerer-editor-pingmag japan (37.82849729680379 , -122.52159118652344) Verena Dauerer is the only foreign journalist working at PingMag, the inspirational and influential Japanese art/culture/design website.

Here's an interview I did with her recently where we talked about PingMag, it's unique ownership, design and Japanese design.

1. Can you briefly describe your background and explain how you ended up at PingMag?

I've been working as a journalist for ten years now, the recent years I was freelancing in Berlin. Apart from that I have been doing production for short films for a while, briefly Lingo programming in the 90s, and eventually started giving lectures about VJ culture at design schools and festivals and organized a VJ festival with two friends there in 2006.

At one point, I got bored a bit of myself being in the city and decided to work abroad for a couple of months. I liked Ping, sent these lovely people an e-mail - and came to Japan to work as editor of PingMag in November 2006. Originally I wanted to stay for three months only, but they provided me with a contract and a working visa. Tempting! And I stayed...

2. Tell us a little about PingMag (its ownership, editorial policy, etc)?

In terms of our structure, we are 3 editors in total: My 2 lovely Japanese colleagues
care about the Japanese homepage, and I run the English site alone.

Each of us contributes with our own topics, and I handle most of the freelancers and possible pieces.

Regarding these: Anything can be interesting depending on the approach. I'd say our trait is being hysterically fond of anything that is special to us. There really are no limits, be it from the field of art, design, technology, architecture, fashion, crafts, etc. It doesn't even have to be Japan related, but it has to be done with a great love for detail.

Of course, each piece is decorated in the cheerful PingMag style since translation usually requires adaptation.

In terms of ownership, PingMag is part of Yes Communications!, our parent and run by our producer Tom Vincent. Financially we are in this very lucky and even rarer position that at the moment we are sponsored by a Japanese investment bank called RISA Partners. I know that this makes us kind of unique, as content wise we
are totally independent and far from being a corporate blog.

Also, we just got a little sister one month ago: PingMag MAKE is done by another colleague, a Japanese editor that reports once a week from regional Japan about traditional craftsmen, and small businesses.

3. What do you think is happening with the world of design? Are developed nations over-designed?

Over-designed? If the natural development of a civilization is its aesthetic refinement,
cutting back would be a step backwards or a possible indication of decay. There is no end to this refinement, as you can surely see in Japan... Provided that environmental factors are included.

4. How would you describe the current state of Japanese design and where do you believe it is heading?

Huh, I can maybe enlighten you with some aspects of its structure that might help you
understand its output: On one side, there are the star designers that design practically
everything from mobiles to furniture to any other gadget you can imagine with utmost
perfectionism.

Think of Naoto Fukasawa or Iwai Toshio (who just developed the Tenori-on.) As Sensei, they have an army of designers working for them - and this system is strictly hierarchical and as solid as the tough structure within the mainstream design establishment.

On the other side, design events like the annual DesignTide  try since a couple of years to promote the young upcoming ones.

Then I have the feeling that some designers aren't interested at all in a wider exposure outside of Japan, others would like to but they don't speak any English.

Where it might all be heading could also depend on how far people keep perceiving the country as an isolated island and themselves as a closed community in the future.

5. What developments are important and interesting to look at in Japan- is tradition and history now more important that the thrill of the future?

I'm interested in Japanese society and its rapid (or not) changes.

So in this very special case, tradition is the overall tie that firmly grips everything quite rigidly.

Compared to Western countries this is a by far stronger driving force that keeps
preventing changes - of the attitude, of the approach to design, or work methods. And
since this applies to any nation with a long tradition, of course, everything is
connected with the past and will surely affect the future.

Every part of Japanese society is based on the collective and this hasn't changed a bit.

Combined with the way the corporations still work, their internal octopus-like structure that provides everything for their workers, this seems to be a kind of capitalism done the communist way.

And it works because of the concept of the collective. It's interesting to see what will happen in the next years, like how far will this be softened, and on the other side how far tradition could loosen its tight grip a bit.

6. Where do you find your inspiration?

I'm an info junkie thanks to rss feeds. The rest is journalistic handcraft:observing.
 

Posted by Ed Cotton Steve Portigal runs Portigal Consulting, a company that helps clients develop smarter thinking by bringing together user research, design and business strategy. I spent some time talking to Steve about his overlapping world of strategy and design.

Steve's client list includes the likes of Nestle, eBay, Palm, Berringer, General Electric and many others.

His other claim to fame is his creation of one of the first online communities (Undercover, a Rolling Stones fan group) in 1992, nurturing it from a time when the Internet was an underground academic technology through to today, as part of a global info-infrastructure.

1. Can you tell us briefly about your background and what you are up to these days?

I studied Computer Science because I liked the idea of making something- software- that had new functionality. But I soon realized that academically, Computer Science was extremely abstract and theoretical. Then I discovered Human-Computer Interaction, the part of Computer Science that dealt with people. After graduate school, I felt that the professional work of designing interfaces was too concerned with the details for my temperament. But that pointed the way to where my passion lies: starting with people, organizational behavior and culture, and asking the big-picture questions. For the past six years I've run Portigal Consulting, a boutique firm that's just outside of San Francisco. We like to say that we help organizations to discover and act on new insights about their customers and themselves.
 
2. What do you believe are the greatest challenges involved in inspiring great design?
 
Well, what makes something a great design? If I think about design as a total package- “an experience that addresses some functional and emotional need that also meets the business goals of the organization that created it (i.e., it's profitable, it's right for their brand, it helps them grow a category, etc.)- then to inspire the creators means we need to help them tell a new story. That takes facts, but it also takes emotion. The creators who we want to inspire are designers, but also marketers, managers, technologists, engineers, and every other part of the organization. Our challenge is often getting access to all those people and, once we have access, figuring out the best way to communicate to them so that they are engaged, and ultimately inspired.
 
3. What is it that makes a great design strategist?
 
A great design strategist may not see themselves as a design strategist. They're  probably someone who has had a few different professional identities and gets excited by the spaces where disciplines, schools of thought, and methods overlap. They are curious and easily intrigued: they like to observe what's going on around them and they're good at listening to people. And they know how to use all this data to synthesize new patterns and communicate them clearly to a range of audiences. Charlie Stross, in the sci-fi book Accelerando, describes the profession of a "meme broker" and the intense amount of content they have to assimilate every day in order to do this. Bruce Sterling calls this activity "scanning“ looking at all the sources one can and constantly asking what does this mean for my clients. Being able to work through all those data sources and pull out the implications is crucial for design strategy.
 
4. As we become more cultural attuned to good design, does designing become easier?
 
I have an interaction designer friend who worked for Apple in the between-Jobs era (long before iMacs and iPods), and he used to tell me how challenging it was to be in his role at a company that had such a strong design culture, because everyone thought they were naturally a UI designer. It was a lot more challenging for him to get buy-in. If we generalize from that, more awareness of design may not make it easier.
 
Taking it one step further, the stuff designers are being asked to design is sometimes deep in uncharted waters. What kind of information designer figures out the dozen layers of text and graphics that get layered on top of Taiwanese television? Where do user interface designers pull from to create virtual world e-commerce? How does an 80-year old check their email on a mobile device? The shifts in what technology affords and what behaviors people are seeking that are definitely not making design any easier.
           
5. Do you believe research can play a role in helping designers, if so, what does the best research look like?
 
Absolutely. How else are you going to design for real people?
 
The best research brings to life the imperfect and messy stories of real people and presents generative frameworks that lead the way forward for new designs, products, services, features, communications, or whatever is needed.
 
6. Who are today's "thinkers"  who are challenging designers to push boundaries?
 
I suspect that many designers are more influenced by the doers than the thinkers. That said, you've got some visionary people out there who do come up often in design circles: Bruce Sterling, John Thackara, Sir Ken Robinson, Roger Martin, Malcolm Gladwell, Edward Burtynsky, and John Maeda. 


Posted by Ed Cotton thinking about the electronics we consume (37.83263257682617 , -122.57600784301758) The other day, Piers at PSFK posted an angry editorial about CES.

"Another year, another electronics and gadgets conference that is out of whack with modern concerns around sustainability and the planet. The C.E.S. is an arrogant refusal to admit to the problems the electronics industry has created in terms of material waste, poisonous polution, energy waste and over-consumption."

He is not alone, today's New York Times Magazine has a great piece by Jon Mooallem called "The Afterlife of Cellphones".

The piece explores the world of cellphone recycling and tries to understand why we need to constantly upgrade our phones. Reading the article forces you to think again about waste.

Jon concludes;

"Even the most idealistic visions of how e-waste should be recycled and reused take for granted that consumers and businesses will never reconsider why we are buying and discarding so many of those products, so quickly, in the first place. If the rush of castoffs isn’t likely to stop, we need to clear a proper path for it, considering all the inevitable compromises and costs along the way and delivering those products to as consequenceless a place as possible."

Most companies seem pre-occupied with creating "lust' for their objects that ensures continued market share and admiration.

While on the surface, this doesn't appear to be a responsible attitude, it reflects the realities of the marketplace.

Consumer electronics are the new fashion, so much so, that they are taking share from the fashion business and it's one of the reasons the US sports shoe business is so soft right now.

The presentation below is from the design team at Nokia and it does a fantastic job at explaining how the company creates lust objects. It's all insights and needs driven, but it does nothing to bring sustainability into the mix.

This is a battle about hearts, minds and marketing.

With Macworld coming up this week, Apple and Steve Jobs are masters in the creation and marketing of lust objects, they do it so well.

Governments aren't going to force the issue, pressure groups like Greenpeace have limited voice, change is going to need to come from the market.

If companies want sustainability to be considered, they are going to need to do as good a job as Apple in making it sexy.

On the positive side, it appears to be easier than ever for new brands to enter the consumer electronics space, just look at flat panel TVs for that.

Could here will be a new electronics brand with real sustainability built into its DNA that emerges in the next couple of years?

Could, somewhat ironically, that brand come from China?

Posted by Ed Cotton