Nicolò Borghi: My Blog

Like a Bycicle for Our Minds

Expert's Corner Part I: Nokia Researcher Younghee Jung at Lift Conference '08

A video from Lift Conference '08 by Younghee Jung.The title is "What can we learn by inviting people to be designers?" and it's really interesting. You may have an idea of the subject if you already know Jan Chipchase work.

Who is her? if her blog isn't enough here she is in her own words:

"I am a product and interaction designer by education, exploratory design researcher by practice. I work with or get help from people of various profiles - typically called consumers or customers - in most of my projects. My role is to sketch new possibilities enabled by mobile technology, by understanding people's current everyday lives. Sometimes my work is about showing the potentials, but sometimes it is about being the devil's advocate for the direction of technology and product development.

My research topics have no boundaries as long as they center around what people do and communicate: People who use digital media, people in love, people who take digital photographs, teenagers texting a lot, people who commute and might explore their home city, people who use phonebooks and calendars on mobile phones, people who have mobile digital tools to socialize, Asian women, people who live in shanty towns,.... Those topics are selected equally from our insights as trend readers as well as our company's strategic direction.

Inherently developing new ways of working with people is an increasingly important part of my job. Recently my team has been working on a few projects that invited people to be designers of their future technology and talk about why it is relevant for their lives.

I earned my master's in interaction design from Carnegie Mellon University as Fulbright scholar, and studied industrial design in KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). I fled to the world of design on the verge of becoming a mathematician, realizing that my everlasting curiosity about people can only be satisfied by studying design. I joined Nokia in Helsinki in 2000, and currently live and work in Tokyo"

Starting the Expert's Corner Series

A while ago I read an article by the NYT on Hollywood producer Brian Grazer. To me one of the best part was this:

"In part, this eclecticism is a product of how Mr. Grazer works, turning his own passions into fodder for a film or a television show. For the last 20 years, Mr. Grazer has met each week with a person who is an expert in science, medicine, politics, fashion, religion — anything other than entertainment. He is so serious about the meetings that he has a staff member whose job it is to find interesting people.

The weekly get-togethers have led to some of Mr. Grazer’s most successful ideas. After meeting with five of the top trial lawyers in the country, Mr. Grazer came up with the idea for “Liar Liar.” “Eight Mile” came about because he had met Chuck D, the lead singer for Public Enemy, and Slick Rick, a rapper from the 1980s. A meeting with a former F.B.I. agent, Christopher Whitcomb, led to “The F.B.I.,” a new show for Fox"

Maybe (maybe!) I am not going to win an Oscar, but this thing of meeting experts in different fields seems interesting, funny, and useful. Fortunatly,many people today are willing to share their life through different platforms-blogs, a flickr account, social networks, a youtube channel. So even if it will never be like meeting  them flesh and bones, we now have a good change to meet and know interesting people just with our laptop (and without a dedicated staff member). So today I would like to start the Interesting Expert's Corner collecting profiles of people I found around the web...

 

A Million Little Pictures

"We sent 227 disposable cameras around the country. People took pictures based on the theme of "adventures". Then they sent them back, we developed them, and then booked a show in the city with the most participants - which turned out to be San Francisco, California. We're happy and honored to be guests at the 111 Minna Gallery."

[from arthouseshop, via Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection]

The New Fame

I was thinking whom  would I ask for an autograph today (I' ve been somehow inspired by this headline, not the entire post, by Marc Andreessen: "I mean, really, who needs fiction?" ) . Here is a starting list:

Guy Kawasaki
Seth Godin
Jacqueline Novogratz
Ben Casnocha (already have his signed book..)
Diego Rodriguez
Bruno Giussani
John Maeda
Marc Andreessen  
David Alan Harvey and Magnum Photos
Jan Chipchase
Garr Reynolds
and many many others...

Just a few years ago my list was totally different. Aren't you experiencing the same? Blogging and technology are opening doors to people's personal lives and we' re discovering  they are really much more interesting than fiction. Real, intimate thoughts and ideas are far more engaging and interesting than anything else is running these days on TV...

I call it "the new fame", but call it as you want ("the long tail of personal idols?"...)...
But really, who needs fiction?

Sweet Soul Music... Tower of Power, Milan, feb 20th

I first heard the Tower of Power at 17,skipping school days and taking a train from Milan to Zurich... and did the same two years later, still in Zurich. This time, they will play their sweet soul music in Milan. Don't miss them... feb 20th, Rolling Stones, Milano

Just Bought...

...and I will review it shortly, seems promising. Meanwhile, I found a Boing Boing link  where you can read the chapter on Mark Frauenfelder.

"TED Custodian" Chris Anderson

This video is a little bit different form all the others TED Talks. No scientists, no crazy entrepreneurs, no musicians here. But this is the moment when Chris Anderson announced his new role at TED and defined the new way to spread around the ideas shared during the future Conference's editions.

Trackbacks? A Simple Explanation By Andrew Cafourek

Just a few weeks inside my blogging life, I really like to undestand how things work below the Internet surface. Trackbacks: not always easy to understand, Andrew Cafourek has a post on how they work. So, from now on I will use them to get some traffic. Of course I will start from Andrew's post...

Customer Experience Part IV: Why Men Cannot Design For Women's Needs

Two years ago I read a book by the great Tom Peters where (pg.25) he said product design is so important that men cannot design for women's needs. This is a just a quote of the book (which I strongly recommend to anyone who..is working or will work!)

"Because...from mundane to the profound...from residential housing to financial services...when it comes to designing products and services that women use, Guys Are Seriously Impaired"

An example? Someone just forwarded me this:

AN OPEN LETTER TO
MR. JAMES THATCHER,
BRAND MANAGER,
PROCTER & GAMBLE.

February 6, 2007

Dear Mr. Thatcher,

I have been a loyal user of your Always maxi pads for over 20 years, and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the LeakGuard Core™ or Dri-Weave™ absorbency, I'd probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I'd certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts. But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can't tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there's a little F-16 in my pants.

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? Ever suffered from "the curse"? I'm guessing you haven't. Well, my "time of the month" is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body. Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I'll be transformed into what my husband likes to call "an inbred hillbilly with knife skills." Isn't the human body amazing?

As brand manager in the feminine-hygiene division, you've no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customers' monthly visits from Aunt Flo. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it's a tough time for most women. In fact, only last week, my friend Jennifer fought the violent urge to shove her boyfriend's testicles into a George Foreman Grill just because he told her he thought Grey's Anatomy was written by drunken chimps. Crazy! The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in capri pants. Which brings me to the reason for my letter.

Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: "Have a Happy Period."

Are you fucking kidding me?

What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness—actual smiling, laughing happiness—is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James? FYI, unless you're some kind of sick S&M freak girl, there will never be anything "happy" about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlúa and lock yourself in your house just so you don't march down to the local Walgreens armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory. For the love of God, pull your head out, man. If you just have to slap a moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn't it make more sense to say something that's actually pertinent, like "Put Down the Hammer" or "Vehicular Manslaughter Is Wrong"? Or are you just picking on us?

Sir, please inform your accounting department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flexi-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bullshit. And that's a promise I will keep. Always.

Best,

Wendi Aarons
Austin, TX

[via mcsweeney's]