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I Think, Therefore I Am (a Self-aware, Superhuman Cyborg)*
3rd October 09
Posted in technology, transformational change
*John Markoff, “The Coming Superbrain”, New York Times, May 2009
This post exists to house the material we digested to write the “The Coming Age of Augmentation” Labs post which follows this one.
We have to come clean first. Yes, we do like tech innovation and even sci-fi. We count amongst our Labs midst a few fans of Philip K Dick and one who still reads Yevgeny Zamyatin, so we may appear to be on less than entirely rational, objective ground here. Then there is the fact there is something fabulously seductive about the language and imagery used to describe prospective real & imagined scientific frontiers: Dystopia, Utopia, Rapture (of the Nerds), the Singularity, that extraordinarily gripping, nightmare sequence in Terminator 2 when the playground is blown to smithereens… But we’re drifting from the point.
Here we’d like to create a virtual library of all the very best content about the Technological Singularity and related topics. Please add links to other good stuff worth reading in the comments. We’ve arranged the content here on a make-shift scale from Tech Evangelist all the way to Sceptic, starting with the former. Here goes -
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Campaigns, Programs, Platforms – The Way Forward According to R/GA
1st October 09
Posted in creativity, technology, transformational change
In this film, recorded in NYC last week during Advertising Week, Bob Greenberg (Chairman, CEO & Chief Creative Officer) & Barry Wacksman (EVP, Chief Growth Officer) provide smart, grounded, food-for-thought around agency model re-invention, and particularly around the role of technology in the emerging shape of agencies, post-recession.
It’s of value for a number of reasons. First, because they’re talking from experience rather than about theory – always preferable. But second, they’re not just talking about themselves or about how great they are (though they are clearly very good within the niche they occupy). And so it doesn’t feel preachy. It feels honest and useful. And so no matter whether you’re a tiny & groovy start-up with six people or a networked mega-shop, there are provocations here.
The dissection of the very real differences between CAMPAIGNS, PROGRAMS and PLATFORMS is useful, not least when it comes to resource implications, processes and structures. This seems the key take-out. And two numbers have stayed with me: 25% of their headcount are technologists (where do they get *that* much great talent?). They produce 95% of their output in-house.
Their model won’t be right for the great majority of agencies – they’re still production specialists in many ways – but they at least seem to have a model, and can talk coherently around why it’s right for them. They seem to have worked out how technology can work for them, rather than the reverse.
Smart people. Worth watching.
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Glove Love: Truly, Madly, Deeply Sustainable
25th September 09
Posted in creativity, Sustainability
All you need is glove: yours for just £5 (plus VAT & packaging)
We like nothing more than a brilliantly innovative creative idea that does its bit for the planet, as fans of iSaw and Papercut will know. Throw in a fashion angle on top and we’re totally sold…. so when our friends at Green Thing told us about their Glove Love initiative, we were delighted on at least three levels.
Launched to coincide with London Fashion Week, Glove Love is part of Green Thing’s anti-waste initiative All Consuming and is their first sustainable product to help people do the Green Thing in the physical world. Very simply, they will take lonely single gloves that have lost their original partners, wash them and then pair them up to create new and unique Glove Love pairs. You can get involved by donating a lonesome glove yourself and/or buying a pair for just £5 plus postage & packaging.
Glove Love has received some great support from the likes of Emma Thompson, whose voiceover immediately gives their ‘Glove Story’ promotional film a decidedly Working Title rom com-esque feel:
We particularly like the fact once you place an order a mystery pair of gloves are despatched to you lovingly labelled with their life stories. And of course you can add comments to the site and as a proud owner you’re invited to upload a photo to the site gallery.
Gloves Reunited
Glove Love is creative, ethical, slightly silly and has the ability to offer that little frisson of surprise life so often lacks. What’s not to love? Go donate a lonely glove or even better buy a pair at the dothegreenthing.com shop
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Work we like – Nike’s ‘The Game is Never Over’
22nd September 09
Posted in awesomeness, creativity, online video
Wonderful lo-fi (yet somehow, strangely hi-fi) work from Nike for their new Patrice Evra football commercial, ‘The Game is Never Over’.
Everything about it is right. Awesome.
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Will The Web Make Us More Honest?
3rd September 09
Posted in culture, social media, transformational change
In a world where it’s too easy to get used to things coming in 140 character-sized packages, everything happening in real time, and thinking about the future and what it might bring means having a debate about whether Tumblr is better than Posterous, it’s always refreshing to have something more substantial to chew on. A proper three-course meal versus repeated, ultimately unsatisfying, trips to the snack cupboard.
We’ve been digesting – and debating – a post by Walter Naeslund on his very excellent blog. Naeslund is, in his own words, ‘an internet freedom fighter and CEO of the Stockholm based communications agency Honesty. [He] also give lectures and runs workshops on Internet Trends, Modern Communications Strategy and Social Media.’
Naeslund’s post, from Tuesday, was grandly-titled “What the World Will Look Like in 25 Years“. The whole thing is worth a read (it’s not long). He offers a range of more speculative thinking around the way the world might be going, and the emerging role of the web within those scenarios; as I said, a welcome contrast to an increasingly myopic focus on the now.
But what struck me in particular was a short paragraph in which Naeslund speculates on what one might call future ‘ethics’:
It’s an interesting contention, that there are fewer hiding places in a world of instant access to perfect information, and total transparency. Even if it is likely to never be that flawless in practice (& actually, would we want it to be?), the pronounced increase in sharing of everything about one’s personal life in digital form (what Naeslund characterizes as the merging of physical and digital identities) will undoubtedly bring both costs and benefits.
It’s the last line of that paragraph that intrigues me and that has stuck with me.
Is there any evidence of better behavior and less cheating?
How do we think that might manifest itself, if and when it does happen?
On one hand it all sounds a little Utopian (and some might argue, less fun). On the other, it does sound rather attractive.
What do you think?
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“Do not glorify aesthetics”: a manifesto for Data Visualisation?
2nd September 09
We’re moderately obsessed with the world of data visualisaton here at Labs for a number of reasons: the ability to generate fresh insight from extraordinarily complex data sets, the ability to trigger radical reappraisal of familiar problems, the ability to put consumers in control of the vast quantities of personal data they generate every day. Not to mention the extraordinary fusion of technology and creativity it represents.
We firmly believe that data visualisation has a wealth of exciting commercial applications, from communicating in new ways to developing new tools, apps and utilities for clients and consumers alike. So we’ve grown slightly frustrated by the rise of visualisations that are moderately pretty but add little in terms of real insight, utility or illumination.
We’re also, as we may have mentioned, big fans of Manuel Lima here at Labs. So we were intrigued to see that he has authored an “Information Visualisation Manifesto”, a provocative (but characteristically generous and nuanced) take on the future of data visualisation which tackles head on the thorny questions at the heart of this ever-expanding field:
- Art versus Science
- Intrigue versus Immediacy
- Aesthetics versus apprehension.
Manuel comes down firmly on the side of clarity of communication versus visualisation for visualisation’s sake, citing the discipline’s roots in the desire “to facilitate understanding and aid cognition” and a growing frustration with the “eye candy” approach to the craft. Many of his principles are rooted in this utilitarian approach, reading almost like a Bauhaus manifesto (and none the worse for that):
- Form follows Function
- Do not glorify Aesthetics
- Look for relevancy
- Aspire for Knowledge
It’s a bold, purist and punchy vision yet also acknowledges the power of narrative and the role of intrigue. Indeed the question of narrative seems to lie at the heart of this Manifesto; the need to pose a specific question of the data and to weave coherent themes and stories from it. These themes then drive the aesthetic approach. As Manuel puts it:
“Form doesn’t follow data. Data is incongruent by nature. Form follows a purpose, and in the case of Information Visualisation, Form follows Revelation”
This is perhaps the key distinction between Information Visualisation as defined here and what Manuel suggests we start thinking of as “Information Art”. Within this approach, artists will freely allow form to follow data, using the random-ness this creates to add texture and interest. Take, for example, Aaron Koblin’s desire to embrace the random-ness of a data set and indeed the richness and texture added to his famous Radiohead video by “interrupting the data”:
“I think it really gives character, because I think it’s really that kind of intricacy and detail that builds character and in a sense it’s the errors and flaws that make art”.
Incongruity making art: Aaron Koblin's "House of Cards" promo for Radiohead
Both approaches are undoubtedly valid. Within any medium there will be times when we seek immediacy and times when we are prepared to be intrigued and to explore. There will be times when we want to understand our world better and times when we want to turn perceptions of it on its head. I can think of few practical applications of, say, the “Synchronous Objects” visualisation series but it mashes up art forms and messes with my mind in a truly delightful way.As ever, then, we need to return to objectives, to ask what we are trying to achieve:
- Do we want to educate around an issue, making complex questions simple?
- To shift perceptions and provoke a response?
- To offer a fresh perspective on an infrastructure question for our clients?
- To offer our consumers better comprehension and control of their behaviours?
Simply put, are we going to offer something that is either very, very useful or very, very beautiful? Either way, greater clarity of intent and greater discipline throughout the industry can only be an advantage in building credibility and engagement. Building that credibiltiy is vital if data viz is going to become not just an entertaining diversion but a vital tool for navigating a world generating more and richer data by the second.
If what we are building is neither very beautiful nor very useful, to Manuel’s final point “Avoid Gratuitous visualisations”: “Simply conveying data in a visual form, without shedding light on the portrayed subject, or even making it more complex, can only be considered a failure”.
Or as William Morris put it: “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”.
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Designing for a quarter billion people – Design at Facebook
28th August 09
Posted in awesomeness, design, social media
The firehose that is the social web pumps out thousands of links, articles and potential insights every day and we often find ourselves missing strong, provocative thinking.
This is something we stumbled across in the last 24 hours which is worthy of yanking out of the river and saving (if I was going to stretch the analogy I’d say ‘saving in our little Labs lake’ but I’m not prepared to say that).
It’s a fantastic short piece about the design process at Facebook. Simply called: ‘Design at Facebook’. We found it compelling not only because of the insight it provides into the design process of such an important interface as Facebook, but also because it’s not about theory, about speculation, about supposition . . . it’s about doing.
The four key hypotheses outlined by the author, Luke Wroblewski, are as follows:
1) Designers need to be there start to ship: from strategy to launch. This is different from other companies.
2) Share early and share often. Sharing with the team and users helps make the design better.
3) Get your hands dirty. Important that you understand how Web code works. All designers write a bit of HTML, CSS, and maybe PHP.
4) Don’t fall in love. Software is impermanent –it is always changing and you need to accept that.
Resonating with us and challenging us right now are the following additional points Wroblewski makes:
- There is no creative director at Facebook (we find this particularly challenging, and wonder how processes work with the speed they clearly do without the focus that a decision-maker provides).
- There is a culture of continual internal sharing between and across the group, and they utilize software to help this happen more smoothly and inclusively.
- In his view, Designers tend to err on side of over simplicity. Engineers tend to err on side of more functionality.
- The culture sounds exhausting: ‘More than ever our work is never done’.
Excellent stuff, plenty for us to learn from. Have a read of the full post at: Design at Facebook.
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From Art to Apps: Data Visualisation finds a purpose
27th August 09
Posted in creativity, data, design, guest
Author: Jim Carroll, Chairman, BBH London
I recently attended an excellent Made by Many event hosted at BBH which featured a re-presentation by Manuel Lima of his 2009 TED talk on data visualisation. Manuel is the curator of visualcomplexity.com and is an eloquent, modest, charming pioneer in this fascinating field.
As a novice myself, I could not help wondering why we are all so immediately and instinctively attracted to the best of data visualisation.To start with, I’m sure there is some fundamental truth that for most of us data become meaningful only when we can see scale, change, patterns and relationships. Seeing is understanding.
It’s also very reassuring to discover that complex, seemingly chaotic data sets and networks can be expressed as elegant, colourful, ordered maps and models. Perhaps there’s something akin to what the Enlightenment scientists felt as every new discovery revealed the endless beauty of nature.
Indeed the best examples of data visualisation have their own aesthetic beauty. (I felt a nostalgic pang as I recalled time spent with spirograph in my bedroom as a child.)
Like spirograph, but better: Email map by Christopher Baker
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Is LEGO the world’s coolest ever toy?
24th August 09
Posted in awesomeness, creativity, music
We’re major fans of LEGO here at BBH Labs. In fact, we spend far too much of every day actually playing with it.
This is great. 1500 hours of investment to deliver 3:49 worth of joy for LEGO lovers of all ages. Truly awesome.
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GOOD Magazine crowdsources world-changing ideas
13th August 09
Posted in creativity, crowdsourcing, culture
We like this, and look forward to seeing what comes from it.
GOOD Magazine are asking people: “If you were to invent anything to push the world forward, what would it be?”
The jury’s still out on whether collaborative creativity can provide a viable business model (high enough quality; low enough costs) for creative businesses, but this seems to us to be a smart way of focusing the minds of artists, inventors and other thinkers on some of the more important questions.
We’ll watch with interest – what would your idea be?
(Thanks to John Winsor of CP&B – @jtwinsor – for the heads-up).
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