Design and the Ethics of Spider-Man
Spending a week in the rarefied air of Aspen, Colorado remains a treat for me, even though Aspen lies a mere 3 1/2 hours and 3000 vertical feet from my doorstep in Denver. As a representative of Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design I was privileged to attend the Aspen Design Summit, and hear [...]
TEDTalks
Now you can get streaming or downloadable audio or video presentations from TED (Technology Entertainment Design) the super-intense annual event in Monterey.
[via TrueTalk]
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Originally
from core77.com's design blog
reBlogged
by michael
on Jun 27, 2006, 3:48PM
Aspen Wrap Up…Kinda
In our coverage of the Aspen Design Summit, we last left off with the three-minute presentations given by each…
Originally
from mediabistro.com: UnBeige
reBlogged
by michael
on Jun 26, 2006, 9:17PM
Aspen Design Summit: Day 4
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4
The grueling day and afternoon presentations evaporated under the seasoned martini pouring of Skip and the retro-psychedelic ambience of the Domtar’s Share the Vision party at the Hotel Jerome. Gary Burden was signing copies of his album cover book, and people were doing their best to enjoy Aspen without talking Design or Summit. A few pitchers of margaritas later (it actually took quite a bit of Aspen to break from the design and summit parts), a handful of us reconvened at the conference bar before saying goodnight. (Ok, it wasn’t all as wild as we’re making it sound, but this was final night; we write history the way we want to remember it.)
In the morning, there was one more session: Attendees were given wireless voting remotes and asked to variously rank the various project pitches presented yesterday. This was fun, and if you went by the math there were indeed a few winners, but the sample was a bit small (several people had already taken off), the game went a bit long (as most games do), and there was no time left to really tease out the findings. A bull session might have proved more profitable, but then you run the risk of pontificateurs running a-mic. (And we all know how ugly that can be.)
So where are we now? Well, there were 2 or 3 threads that wove themselves through many of the presentations: The metaphor of the “tool kit” came up several times (our group’s was called “DesignLunchbox: Connecting Teachers with Design Thinking”…you get the idea); even more groups pitched building social-networking sites aimed at joining design professionals with people who need them, or vetting NGOs to separate the wheat from the chaff, or enabling knowledge-sharing amongst various grass-roots organizations. Other “winners” focused on specific, localized issues (the threat of a prison build in the South Bronx; meaningful reconstruction in “You Orleans”), and hopefully we’ll be able to read clear descriptions of all of the pitches on AIGA’s website somewhere in the near future. But leveraging the organization and local chapters of the AIGA and using the net to effect change seem pretty good to me, and represent a mandate perhaps within appropriate and feasible scope of the organization. The next steps are to ratify the Aspen Challenge (design challenges offered to colleges and universities), and to come up with the name of the game for 2007 (the Aspen Action).
So instead of signing off with “see you next year!”…for this conference it might be more appropriate to say “check for frequent status reports throughout the coming year, stay in touch with all the interesting people you met, take action by committing your time, and reach out locally to those in need around you.” They changed the name from Conference to Summit, of course, but we all know that it’s the footsoldiers who ultimately take that in the end.
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Originally
from core77.com's design blog
reBlogged
by michael
on Jun 26, 2006, 1:47PM
Aspen Design Summit: Day 3
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4
The rubber meets the road: Today was a mad scramble to finish up our work and put together the dreaded 3-minute Big Idea presentation for 4 o’clock. (The broad groups were Education Innovation, Sustainable Community Development, and Social Entrepreneurship.) Nobody knew how serious to take the 3-minute limit, but our group was extra cautious, rehearsed like mad, and managed to get to 3’20″ by 3:20. Figuring that people usually talk faster when they’re nervous, we felt close enough. (Turns out they were very serious, employing a bell at the 3-minute mark; no hook, mercifully.)
Thackara had his work cut out for him: between negotiating with technology-plagued teams (“we’re seriously going to give you just one more minute to solve your PowerPoint issues”) and teasing out content that was either unclear, over-time-limit, or just plain missing (he was a bit generous on this last item), the challenge of keeping the session moving and, well, “moving” was a bit of a trick.
And although the session proved fast, furious and fun, the 3-minute construct forced each of the groups to edit out and sacrifice so much content that, in the end, it just wasn’t worth it. And the killer part is that those on-the-cutting-room-floor minutes of content–a reflection of many hours of painful and deliberate dialogue, debate and consensus–will never see the light of day, were never revealed to the Summit audience, and will likely never be known to the AIGA leadership. There are notes, somewhere, of course, but we all know how legible those are.
[Check out a nice, quick-n-dirty overview from Alissa at Unbeige here.]
More pics after the jump.
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Originally
from core77.com's design blog
reBlogged
by michael
on Jun 26, 2006, 1:13PM
An Intelligent Design Dinner
Last night’s Darwin Dinner (not the Darwin Awards, mind you) at the Aspen Design Summit was a delicious respite…
Originally
from mediabistro.com: UnBeige
reBlogged
by michael
on Jun 22, 2006, 9:15PM
Aspen Design Summit: Day 1
After the morning rush-hour traffic jam (seriously), Aspen opened up to all its glory as the Aspen Design Summit welcomed attendees, leaders and volunteers to the valley. A couple vanloads took the trek up to Maroon Bells, a beyond-spectacular setting where we hiked strolled and listened to Niles Eldredge riff on Darwin. A box lunch by the waterfall and some friendly chat with two park rangers later, it was back to the Aspen Meadows Resort for registration and orientation.
After opening remarks by David Gibson, Dorothy Dunn and Ric Grefe (“We believe in demonstrating value by doing valuable things”–awesome), it was on to moderator John Thackara to get this moving. The presenters were inspiring, but too many of them went typically over time (what part of 10 minutes didn’t you understand)–and one totaled up a whopping 35 minutes! No matter. Once Thackara took to the stage with his quick whit, healthy cynicism and frankly intoxicating voice, we knew we were in capable hands for the week.
The hard content and Action Studios begin tomorrow. Fingers crossed that we can all get past agreeing that education is good.
[Day 2 here]
More pics after the jump.
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Originally
from core77.com's design blog
reBlogged
by michael
on Jun 21, 2006, 3:56PM
