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Scale down society during Corona Virus to what J.C. Ballard wrote in Highrise

Bold prediction to a worst-case scenario in the time of the Covid-19 where technology fails people and they reverse to basic instincts. This is what Ballard wrote in his amazing novel “Highrise” in 1975 after power went out in the fictional high-tech housing plex, while tenants slowly descended into chaos because they couldn’t live peacefully without electricity.

The story was adapted into the 2015 movie starring Tom Hiddleston along with Sienna Miller and Jeremy Irons. Humans have this connection to technology where, once missing, it brings to the surface the inability of society to adapt and to live in harmony. This can be described as the forfeit of people to take back certain tasks and responsibilities to their core, where too much has been delegated to automation to the point of loosing any ability to recuparate it.

Can we turn to candle-making or to plow and harvest fields solely using our memory and hands? Perhaps only a small percentage share of population can do that, wether by trade or through inner passion; however, we are confined to become hopeless whenever a fuse goes off for a few hours. A lot of faith and our modern existence has been placed on electricity with everything else that comes with. The generations born into the digital age have forgotten how to use cursive because they don-t write that much, they type and we cannot blame them.

Survival in case of major power failure is held by certain moral standards of avoiding descending into panic. Composure of the masses will be the hardest task, but it’s what will lead us to safety should the worst-case scenario happen leaving us without technology for weeks, if not months.

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Hyperconnectivity: people, objects, places

Now more than ever we can witness first-hand how global and linked information has become. With the ongoing spread of the Corona Virus we are witnessing this phenomenon where the sum of people, objects, places, has become the essence of modern times. From here we can see information moving and influencing in real-time those who are connected on the web without geo-limitations.

This virus has infected thousands of people from China to Europe while slowly creeping  into North America. The pattern indicates the travel flow of people and goods being shipped from Asia, with China in the middle of a vast web of commercial routes across the globe. Now this COVID-19 disease has followed this very same pattern as airline destinations have become further apart, meaning passengers can directly arrive to places where before a stopover was needed.

From China to Europe through Iran, the Silk Road is still relevant today more than ever.

This translates into a faster spread of any disease as we grew more dependent from Asian markets to sustain western economies. COVID-19 is now affecting people’s lives and marketplaces on a global scale; something SARS failed to do back in 2003 because China wasn’t as influential as it today, but also because air routes were fewer and more limited than they are now. One important datum is the spread in Iran and neighboring countries, where from east to west the virus followed the ancient Silk Road to Europe.

Each day during these events dictated by the Corona Virus the movement of information and its influence can be directly seen. Beyond the traditional information medium there’s a whole realm of social platforms, where true and false data quickly spread to millions of users. We will see the law affecting our lives furthermore, governments will apply a soft and direct censorship in the near future to prevent the spread of false news; however, this will also impact the rest and content creators will have to deal with it on their own terms.

The relationship creates important data useful to understand behavior.

In terms of hyperconnectivity we can reference the virus map and see the network of data on a global scale. People are connected to objects and object to places. A person is sharing content through a smartphone that at the same time is providing geo-data to determine location. The sum of these three elements creates behaviors to explore and to exploit. Explore because we can refine information and use it to understand how people move, this can grant to act with better tools should the next endemic disease happen. Exploit because fear can be worked to push masses towards one direction instead of another, so we can predict shady uses of people’s reactions to affect events like government elections, markets, and the public opinion.

Augmented reality can display data in 3d providing more accurate predictions and visualization methods.

Through Internet Of Things (IOT) we have a large network of people, objects, places, and it is the next frontier of human and technological studies. Phones connected to tablets, sensors connected to computers, thermostats connected to smartphones, traffic lights connected to cars, and so on. Artificial  intelligece can now extrapolate behevioral models to predict the future with more accuracy; therefore data can now indicate 3d models providing unprecedented levels of details. Imagine this technology becoming an essential tool to understand diseases’ patterns of their spreading, it would help contain and minimize fatalities reducing damages to this economy that today knows no boundaries.

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Pandemics, technology, media

News reliability in the internet age has been under the scrutiny  with the increasing spread of data access especially through social platforms. User-created content is part of this phenomenon where source integrity has become questionable, distinctively in the wake of the weaponization of information through channels.

Lately the contradicting data over the COVID-19 outbreak has forged many questions over numbers, locations, and precautions. We had news China knew ahead of this threat but didn’t act properly, yet the fear of a global pandemic is quickly spreading through the media.

Wether it’s politics, economy, or the latest health news over the Corona virus, I’m finding difficult understanding the structure of the information. The news scenarios can at this point be in these conditions:

facts are being misrepresented by Chinese authorities;

western media is using information to gain leverage on China;

reality has countries unable to make sense of the situation of the pandemic.

All these scenarios might not just happen singularly and that would be worrisome; however, the product of the information in this age is the depth of confusion we are in that won’t allow us to see through anything. At this point what to believe: the Corona virus is manageable or data is faulty?

I’m getting newsfeed form expat aquaintances living in China how the western media is blowing numbers, and perhaps we know the story that selling newspapers copies and clickbaits is profitable for the media. Now we have little to no clues how warped the situation is because we are supposed ot believe the WHO’s data, but also the information coming from national sources across Europe.

Now I can ask myself if technology can come to the rescue and help us track the spread of the virus over the last two months. So far we know SARS in 2003 had a higher contagion effect and that at a certain point it was contained. Opposite is the scenario we have with the current health crisis from Asia where the issue of censorship in China might have played a key role. The spread of the Corona virus went under the radar until its reach went quasi global, landing as far as Italy and Egypt.

Northern Italy is in now on alert with major public events like the famous carnival of Venice cancelled. Schools, universities, and certain public places are shut down until further notice. Efforts to stop the spread of this virus are underway as Italy managed to isolate the disease and a vaccine is being developed across nations.

Information is so crucial that if China really did censor the news of the spread we might look at our second major alarm bell; the first being how this nation has officially become a playground for technology in developing a Big Brother state. So if information was withheld it’s certain Beijing understood the full value of manifacturing and distribuiting technology for the rest of the world.

I’m a little skeptic over the quantity and quality of data that could have easily gotten filtered through the Internet Of Things, and refined via artificial intelligence to better track the spread of the virus. We have all the available tools in 2020 to put to the test our technology and track better information of useful human behavior, helping us prevent worst scenario for the near future.

This translated in being able to harness what you want to tell and not to tell through the very own decives your country has been manufacturing to the rest of the world. But this tells me that China might actually have all the truth over this disease, feeding fake news to specific targets in order to manipulate the information flow and therefore be in full control of the situation.

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3D televisions, a predictable death

Where are 3D TVs now? Some of them are resting unused inside people’s homes while others are left to the dust inside unknown warehouses around the globe. One thing sure is how this technology was just a fad for tech-gullible buyers who where to quick on the wallet.

But why did 3D TVs failed? They did because of their technological limitations, costs, and timing, but most importantly because of the physical limitations our bodies impose. This means there are certain conditions for which this technology did not account for despite being their primary target: the user.

The costs of a 3D television after 2010 would be in the four-digit bracket for the average consumer, an unfortunate expense as millions of people in north America just switched to HD TV sets to meet the latest cable and internet streaming standards.

Timing was also unfortunate as the shrinking of devices and increase in content availability meant people would spend less time at home, more on the go with their tablets and smartphone becoming increasingly powerful. It’s curious to see if any research was ever made by  Samsung, Panasonic, LG, in terms of usability for the medium-short term of wearable techs such as the compulsory 3D glasses for the user to wear. Here I wrote about such technologies and their limitations.

The most important characteristic ignored by TV manufacturers was the user. It looks as if screens and 3d glasses were never considered to be properly developed for people, this because the body can tolerate so much external inputs before it starts reacting with different results. Think of you wearing boots all day and the relief when removing them at the end of the day.

Our sight depends upon the fragile organs eyes are. They already get stimulated constantly throughout the day with technology, now imagine stressing them further more for two or three hours at the time just to see approximate 3D figures out of a movie from the TV. This resulted in people ditching such high investment for the little outcome of entartainment and therefor a bad user experience..

3D television has stopped existing because there is no current technology that can properly display pictures beyond the flat condition of the screen. Yet it manages to influence this decade movie productions with great pictures like The Avengers and The Hobbit, with their sequels offering a much viable  narrative enclosed in the theater because that’s where proper movie experiences belong.

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Fighting corruption digitally

There is a whole realm of data in printed form stashed in government labyrinths where your data is stored, and before the information of your parents, grandparents, and so on. Billions of lines of information regarding any official aspect of your life was in the past manually processed, often going missing, and very often destroyed or suddenly appearing because someone was unlawfully paid to do so.

Corruption within the hierarchies of government will never go away; however it can exist in a reduced form to minimize harm to the people and infrastructures, it can be fought digitally using the right tools we can forge in today’s age of technological readiness and data availability. To do so, local governments should maximize their ability to directly connect with citizens on different levels using digital platforms, to minimize human error and the possibility of corruption to spawn at random for certain purposes.

What is the problem? The ladder of people standing from the common citizen to the government is tall and its steps might be slippery, some others missing or even treacherous. Reaching to your local representative or regional office has always been a difficult task up until the digital age drastically shrunk distance, now information has given us more resources to bypass malicious or just plain ignorant ladder steps.

Swedish company Verditra has created an advanced system of eGov to improve the Democratic Republic of Congo with its bureaucracy aiming at reducing corruption. Paying taxes, collecting credits, paying fines, obtaining forms, and other material, ought to be the straightest path to take when dealing with the government in order to trim that excessive and obsessive bureaucracy many official institutions seems to feed off. This is why smartphones, tablets, computers, are the gate to simplification of our tasks, and especially our phones today since they are totems to our daily life: communicate, travel, discover, payments, etc.

Corruption is less effective when transparency increases. From this principle it’s possible to create a digital infrastructure of several help desks where local governments can better serve their citizens. Automation through digital services increase work output and help cutting costs, so it becomes a win-win situation for both parties. This works well in developing-countries where corruption is a cancer to their wellbeing and going digital will assist their growing path, and it can also work in any other nation that wants to optimize their efficiency.

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Radical but necessary: the Cyber Truck

Elon Musk surprised us (again) with his latest creation of the next generation of trucks and a different approach on design. It looks like something out of 80s sci-fi movies, something from the Wastelands of Mad Max, but it is a good looking truck beside proposing an important aspect to the industry: practicality.

Ford leads the pick-up and truck market with their F line of vehicles that for decades has rivals chasing after. It’s a serious business in North America and Tesla wasn’t going to stay back and watch, they actually surprised the public with a radical design proposal to rattle some cages.

According the live presentation event the Cyber Truck is faster than a Porsche and comes with a pricetag just inder $40k (USD), for the single RWD engine, and then two more option for the AWD starting from $49,900 (USD) with two or more engines and let’s not forget this is entirely an electric vehicle.

Different versions will provide a range of driving from 400km to 800km, a performance 0 to 60mph from 2.9 seconds to 6.5 seconds. In short, this is a hot truck that has better specs than the Ford Raptor and it pushes the boundering of the traditional mechanics and design since the Cyber Truck is different. It’s a practical truck from the shape point of view because it belongs to the class of work vehicles, and that’s where extra loading shape is welcome along with functionality.

Tesla’s truck has a bulletproof exoskeleton frame, more or less the way a military armoured vehicle is built, keeping safe what’s inside and becoming the opposite of the standard assembly practices of other truck brands. The traditional pick-up is mounted on a steel frame with the soft parts outside, providing a relative safety standard only because of the riding height preventing passenger to get fully hit during a collision.

Even if the windows got shattered at the live presentation while testing their strenght, the door panels proved Musk’s idea on building an unconventional truck to be the right one. As of now pick-up and trucks rely on gass-guzzling petrol engine technology for their traveling and towing, often using V8 and V10 engines without the assistance of a turbo making them heavy and slow.

These types of motors are obsolete and Tesla understood it with a radical idea to build something beyond the box and available for purcahse off the internet. The revolution of commercial transactions and design approaches is in the hands of those with fresh and dare ideas, while the rest remains afloat thanks to government subsidy.

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The Health Of Retail

We are witnessing an importand change in the worldwide retail landscape. Online shopping platforms like Amazon and Aliexpress are the "west vs east" of the commercial frame, now their impact on international retail markets can be felt with slowdowns in North America as the consumers' preferences have changed. This is happening because of poor retail growth and brick&mortar brands can no longer look the other way. Sears is gone, no more, because one CEO after the other did not have a clue how to handle a crisis of confidence the digital age brought in the last 15 years. So even large names were not spared from extintion, much like the big dinosaurs of the past, in a wave of major changes where the core principle of the consumer managed to switch so drastically in the last 10 years. Customers have based their shopping habits upon online reviews from others who already bought and tested items. The new approach method for buyers is to visit the mall on weekends scout their next purchase and then buying it online as soon as they got back home. Why? Because today's shopping experience is not the lavish one of the 20th century where Baby Boomers and family could overspend their budget; plus, the global economy wasn't as shaky as it is today. It's sharp purchasing. Beside that, Millennials are working wages that forbid extras like car-ownership, let alone the cottage and the boat, these were investments that drove the economy of the second-half of the 20th century. And because of that the economy has been resenting it since 2008 (or perhaps 2001), where we witnessed the global financial meltdown. Now retail wants customers back, but it isn't happening simply because wallets are empty and the new generations don't want to drive minivans anymore, let alone an over inflated house in the suburbs. Retail could bounce back with a store experience to attract custumer and backed with an online presence worthy of the competitors. This translates into having consumers coming back to the physical store and enhence their shopping experience with the latest technologies such as holograms, augmented and virtual reality. Play first, pay later

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Between a Cylon and a Terminator: AI and it’s influence on society.

We have machines around us and we’ve been having them for decades. Some brighter than others, while some brutal than most. Destruction has always been an option in human evolution and the yield of this tool is exponential.

Fearing a sentient machine is not as bad ad fearing a sentient machine with a gun. That’s what has surface in recent times in Russia when in 2017 a video of a fully-developed robot wielding two pistols made the news. Now the company behind this project is struggling to get parts amidst a boycott.

We can’t deny technology is close to deliver a human-like robot that will provide judgment upon people some day.

With major AI breakthrough in recent years we can guess where we are heading, following this deep white rabbit’s hole where soon enough powerful algorithms will be melded with powerful hardware. Yesterday bomb-delivering drones, today robots with guns, and for tomorrow the writing is on the wall. It’s no-secret there will be a major switch into the military defense programs of the future where human beings will cooperate with machines on the battlefront.

Although AI at the moment is in it’s infancy state, machines are learning our behavior and understanding how humanity works. We won’t have one entity made of a single AI, but rather different levels of sophistication that will includes distinguished thoughts and outcomes. Some levels of this intelligence will fulfill certain tasks while others will be bound onto resolving much bigger problems.

The law will be extended upon those subjects who are not biological, yet hold responsibilities upon their actions.

But what about accountability? Who do we blame for AI’s mistake and the aftermath? A few days ago Uber was not found liable in the 2018 death of a pedestrian while testing one of their autonomous vehicle. We will likely risk of having a set of semi-sentient machines in the next 5-10 years representing a new facade of society, some sort of B-series citizen which will replace us into dangerous tasks while coexisting in our streets and eventually our lives. 

In due course law-makers will have to take AI into account, but that means extending certain rights and duties over non-biological subjects. Perhaps it will create a separate class of individuals in our society much like Spielberg’s 2001 movie Artificial Intelligence, where organic Vs mechanic people will develop whichever dystopian society they can do best without wiping each others out in order to see the next dawn. 

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Industry 4.0 bits

Yes, there’s a big scare of the upcoming years where automation will be the protagonist of the next industrial revolution. AI and labor simplification are going to shift the way we value production through the markets and how we understand modern capitalism.

The next years will be characterized by the 5G network advancing which will pull a whole new line of smart devices onto production, and therefore onto sale with their relative marketing and digital content sale through the web, press, and television. This alone will spark new interest in the next major change society will face towards the technological front.

5G network will unfold the potential of remote business opportunities.

But what’s next? After smartphones and similar we will see more automation in terms of car manufacturing, which doesn’t directly mean self-driving cars invading the streets, but more electronic components being manufactured and installed into our cars driving us to work. Phone features will be heavily integrated into car systems. 

We shouldn’t be surprised if our next car will be ready for McDonald’s drive-through payments just like our transponder when paying to ride certain highways. The vehicle of tomorrow is based on our current behavior we develop thanks to the smartphone in our hands.

AI will manage our behavior when they will govern payments through cars. 

Augmented reality is already playing it’s part with enriched User Interfaces which provide a better User Experience. Cars interiors are becoming futuristic for the need to implement new-found technology and to put it to good use, but also to market it so automakers can develop new standards.

Brands will invest into the car industry to propose custom solutions to make vehicles original. Your next car interior will feature patterns nobody else will have, thus making the brand experience more unique and long-lasting. Here 3D printing of different kinds will help making this into a reality to the point even local artisan shops will have their impact.

Individualism will be the key element in the next market change towards Industry 4.0

But what does it mean? It means we will have very soon a different approach on our product creation. We are going to upset the very fabric of how we understand social behavior in the first place; thus we will have to deal with a shift in the way individuals in the workplace interact between.

Industry 4.0 is going to reshape market habits all the way to our simple daily interaction, creating new behavior with the prospect of a new set of rules for society to absorb. The next decade will be about the user and a tailored marketing experience to fit his/her needs.

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The car dilemma

Here in this simple drawing I illustrated the principle of this issue I call “The Car Dilemma”. It’s not so much about the car or cars, but it’s about ideas and how we learn to accept them, because even if they are great they might not be ready to be used or properly explained. Yet.

The car above (Fig.1) represents the futuristic design we will see in the ahead probably ten or twenty years from now. But then again, it can be anything else than a car; while the bottom one (Fig.2) represents a much more familiar shape we already know.

So, from these two design what do we get? Ideas, concepts, products, come in two shapes: things we don’t know and things we already know. It can be displayed as something which is undiscovered facing what is already discovered. These two are part of our conscious mind which catalogs familiar shapes from those we are yet to understand.

We perfectly know Fig.2 and its familiar shape and content, yet we observe Fig.1 as an exotic pet we admire but unsure what to do with it. Just like for any creation we initially tend to take a much more original route and come out with avant-garde ideas, just like Fig.1. However, we progress through the thinking process of exposing such creation to the public and things come to a change.

Even if the car above is what we need to go ahead with, the one below is the most common chosen by us for fear of the unknown. It’s already accepted form and we think it might work for us. This dilemma shows how the reasoning system works among society: we abandon our potential thinking for new and bold ideas, so we can live in a comfortable and collective comfort zone.

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A Korea of two

If yesterday the idea of North and South Korea coming together was something out of a wild fictional dream, today we can claim it’s a project with solid foundations. The two countries have now better chances of a sweeter future than a decade or so ago.

Now imagine Seoul and Pyongyang are part of the same borders in the next future; what is going to happen? There are great opportunities in the unification process, starting from the humanitarian side which will bring adequate infrastructure and well being to millions of people.

The other set of opportunities will come in the shape of commercial venues, where large Korean brands will have their say first. Samsung, LG, KIA, Hyundai, will be the very first brand to invade North Korea because the mobile and car industry are going to reshape the country.

Cellphones and cars are the two examples of units which have high scalability, thus they yield to large population chunks with great sale opportunities. Millions of North Koreans are ready to become the next market target of different corporations, starting from those in Seoul.

Here we will have to see how Apple reacts to this shift, but unless they anticipated a great deal of moves there’s the risk of manufacturing and sale opportunities being left out. This will seriously impact Apple’s hegemony in the years to come.

Pyongyang will become the new manufacturing territory to employ those who will build the next Korean technological wave, but also from other countries too. It will be the new labor capital taking high production volumes, directly competing with China.

At the same time China will evolve with new challenges. By the time North and South Korea will be one country again, things will be different in Beijing. China will replace their labor force with Artificial Intelligence governing robots, thus creating the next wave of ultra cheap labor.

All this will represent the Asian booming of the Industry 4.0 age, which will revolutionize the way we understand production, automation, and the future relations that will come with. An upcoming social, cultural, and economical shift is within reach and it has already happened.

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The clustered UX/UI of today’s cars

Your parents had a car when you were growing up that stayed with you enough time to give you fond memories. Going to school, weekend groceries, trip to the lake, and then eventually that car eventually became your very first experience after getting the driving license. From there other beautiful memories of emancipation, freedom, and love, characterized your relationship with the four wheels.

That car belonged to your family for something like ten years, because it represented that kind of important purchase right after buying a house. From the financial point of view it always made sense into finding the right finance opportunity and get a good car. If you treated it well you would keep that car until its final days where it couldn’t move anymore.

The 80s gave a glimpse of the clustering today’s cars would be facing.

From the invention of the car, driving meant the physical extension of the human body and mind onto the road with a straightforward interaction. The simpler mechanical processes of the car allowed drivers to focus more on their ability to conduct the vehicle, technology was passive and was only introduced to avoid the arm of those inside.

However in the last ten years the realm of electronics drastically changed our relationship with the road. Cars have become much more expensive and loaded with features we don’t have time to use nor to get acquainted in order to take fully advantage of, and they have became more sophisticated systems to buy and to maintain. If yesterday you begun driving on a car that fully relied on gears and levers, today you are immersed into a realm of digital enchantment and electronics that are there to distract you from the road.

The Opel Astra dashboard is an example of bad layout that doesn’t aid the driver at all.

Every five or so years cars get implemented with the latest gadgets in terms of safety and entertainment, increasing the UX/UI workload for the driver to catch up. Dashboards and steering wheels become more and more clustered with extra features and buttons, the driver at the same time is asked to split his visual and body tasks more and more focusing away from what’s in front of him/her.

Buttons to press on the dash create a momentary distraction for the driver to prioritize. Even if it’s just a second or two it still removes the attention from the surrounding traffic. Using only the hand to activate the dash features without looking at them isn’t always easy because of they way buttons are designed, but also the position they take might interfere with the shifting stick or other obstacles.

The Lamborghini Urus dashboard is a Christmas tree on wheels.

Expensive cars tend to have the most of features and UI increasing the UX workload for the driver and passengers, resulting in more distractions while driving; also expensive cars tend to be those with the highest horsepower and speed, thus increasing the risk factor furthermore.

Car makers don’t always keep in mind best practices in terms of interior design and tend to patch their mistakes adding expensive safety features. Collision avoidance, radar, breaking assistance, biometric evaluation, are part of extra packages that spike up your final estimate when you go visit the dealership for a quote.

Some might ask if you are putting a price on the safety of your family and yours, but the gimmick is old and redundant. But the issue is not difficult at all to fix. What is needed is a simple layout of the UI in order to simplify the UX of the driver and passengers, reducinig critical tasks to the minimum of danger and distraction.

Audi A4 dash presents 7 focus points the driver has to pay attention before fully getting used to. In the past 2 to 3 focus points were the standard.

There’s no need to design all the dash buttons the same shape and colour, nor to place them too close where the hand cannot naturally interact with them (aka too close to the shift lever). The distance the eyes have to travel also poses a significant element of distraction pattern: the more the focus points on the dash the more the eye has to constantly jump from one to the other and away from the traffic ahead.

Tesla model 3 has a clean dashboard with only one focus point, removing unwanted distractions from the eyes.

How much technology is enough and is it really needed?- Modern cars are removing the experience away from the driver and placing it in the hands of on-board technology. This process has disconnected the individual from fully understanding how the physics of driving work, and the obligations involved being on the road. Drivers and passengers will continue to trust the car’s technology to the point they will surrender even their legal responsibilities in case of any accident.

This has already happened with self-driving technology with some intoxicated Tesla owners blaming the car for creating an accident, or Uber’s vehicle collision radar not working when in March 2018 a pedestrian was struck and killed in Arizona. So here we have an issue of balancing the driving experience so we can still enjoy the tech featured in side a vehicle, without removing our duty towards driving according to the laws and common sense.

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Bike sharing aftermaths

By now you’ve all seen in one city or another bike sharing programs usually sponsored by banks, or new startups creating two-wheel fleets trying to curb car traffic. It’s a very interesting idea that has made its way around the globe landing in many large cities across countries.

Pilot projects begun very well and pushed their way through their following phases introducing more bikes and moving onto other cities. Riding around downtown has become one of my favorite traveling methods, especially between spring through the fall, where you get to experience the city under a different lens.

It took me a good ten seconds to realize these are not flowers, but an endless stack of abandoned bikes.

Unfortunately there have been some major side-effects where users picking up bike wouldn’t return them from their starting rack. Some were found abandoned inside water canals, other in landfills, other stolen. This is the case of Chinese companies oversupplying the market despite the increase activity of bike sharing.

Bluegogo was the 3rd largest company providing this service but has shut its doors after running out of money, so the rival brand Didi acquired it and absorbed the fleet. Now large cities in China are experiencing a flooding of bikes that have no place to go but the landfill.

China’s emancipation begun with the bike and ended with the bike. You can’t teach old dog new tricks.

Some experts are worried we are incurring a bubble in terms of bike apps and startups, and it’s not even a confined issue in Asia anymore, Europe has its own programs and will likely face the same problems. It may be more a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’.

The shared economy we just entered has showed us all the goodies, but now what it’s surfacing are the aftermath of business who expanded too fast and contracted even faster, leaving behind the unwanted spoils of war cities haven’t had the time to realize it already happened.

Perhaps we ought to go back riding horses since they are living creatures that need to be taken care of, also because without the attention they won’t properly function and cannot be tossed in a ditch when we don’t need them anymore.

[Photos: theatlantic.com]

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Design has outperformed Industrial Design

The job description “Industrial Design” should be retired. Automation and 3D printing technologies have outclassed this profession that once required creativity and physical labor. Today all is needed is an individual capable to use -within a certain skill set- 3D software; the rest is done by the engineer and the machine. Soon the engineer will be removed too and the machines will do the rest.

This profession had a great life the entire 20th century because there was the need to create a whole new reality of products that did not exist. Industrial designers of the past placed together art and crafting so the development and production process could exist in a small, yet more controllable environment. Alessi, Kartell, Braun, were all characterized by important authors at a time productivity wasn’t global like it is nowadays.

Industrial Design has become an anachronistic job title in today’s global economy (Ettore Sottsass design for Knoll).

Today companies think in large scale and in order to be able to continue so they integrated different profiles in their conceptual process: stylists, intellectuals, writers, artists, professors, CEOs, have all contributed to this change. Even if you might think IKEA as a brand fostering just industrial designer, you are wrong.

The field of design has spawned other path choices creative people begun to follow and improve. Yesterday graphic designers were painting and cutting papers, today they are designing websites; those who didn’t make the jump perished and found out the hard way the world had no use for them.

Plenty of job ads wanting industrial designers are actually requests for candidates with extremely good software rendering skills first. Why? Companies requiring this profile are manufacturers of parts and components like window/door frames, electrical components, or some other hazy unspecified custom production line. Some others dare to ask for an engineering degree so they can place the candidate to occupy two positions for one salary. And btw, they all offer a fast-paced environment…

The only fast-paced thing is the delivery of your CAD files to your boss yesterday.

Nowadays the field of design has outgrown ID and placed it in the backseat. If industrial designers are required to develop silk screens and cabinet doors, I’m afraid these companies have been looking for the wrong candidates. What they need is an AutoCAD operator graduated from any college that offering technical training, or a technician specialized to operate a set of software/machines. Creativity is not required and is quasi-absent from these job ads.

However at the source of this snag there has been a change in academia where university courses begun introducing other elements inside ID programs. Environmental and health issues are part of the equation and suddenly the traditional development path of the industrial designer faces other inputs requiring other sets of skills, some of which the majority might not posses, so here’s the need for other type of designers to help the process. 

After 4 years of university and thousands in student loans, you can finally apply all your creativity in this aluminium frame...

In a short period of time from the beginning of the year 2000, ID lost relevance in the market founding itself replaced by others in the design field. Articles denouncing the peril of this happening were already emerging more than ten years ago, putting in the same basket similar careers at risk of disappearing like Chief Design Officer for example. Why? Because industrial design cannot exist in a vacuum, and the binary helix of form-function has departed from its mold.

Products of today have become so multilayered they demand other expertise to evolve, expertise the industrial designer must acquire to become hybrid and shed away it’s ‘industrial’ prefix in order to survive. Innovation is not anymore the traditional 6-face dice but a multi-faceted one that resembles more a dodecahedron than anything else.

[12hedron]

Platforms that change: Pornhub

The famous porn video-hosting website Pornhub has once again made headlines for its peculiar content, but not what you think. This time it has nothing to do with XXX titles or soft-core, but the website is hosting some of the forbidden topic YouTube has taken action against; this time is about guns since the incremental weapon assault against civilians happening in the US from Las Vegas to Florida.

Here’s the link to one of the gun video from the channel In Range TV Show (WARNING: NSFW link video!!!). If you cannot watch the video I’ll explain it briefly to you. Two guys in camouflage uniform are at a shooting range discussing about pistols, in this case the famous Glock manufacturer, with all the pros and cons of the weapon. Each of the guys pitches in what’s their opinion their view and the video continues with them in action at the range (not THAT action).

It’s interesting how change has affected the online platforms after real life events unfolded in tragic occasions, defining discussion policies that are influencing what video channels can host and what content creators can discuss. In light of this shift of wind, several Youtubers have been posting for the past months essays and v-logs arguing that free speech is important, that forbidding certain topics like guns, Islam, terrorism, shootings, violence attacks, is censorship and there ought to be a transparent conversation in order to address these problems to resolve them.

Sex, guns, violence, are being marginalized once again into a specific platform just like it happened 60 years ago with pulp magazines.

What is interesting here is how a platform like Pornhub has begun changing its behavior. Forbidden topics unable to be hosted on YouTube and other hosting sites had to converge onto pornography hosting portals to survive. The taboo effect has created a new behavior that might reshape the way we see adult-themed websites; they will diversify their capability and portfolio offering content creator the chance to upload what other platforms forbid.

This is a whole new economy for places like Pornhub that can offer a new type of service and monetize it, without the effort of advertising or actively stealing the user-base from YouTube. The need for content creators to expand their video channel has been met by an unlikely platform originally born to host hardcore material. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if YouTube looses the opportunity to fix their topic policies, or to open a whole new branch dedicated to content that cannot exist on their original brand anymore. What In Range TV Show has done was to adapt to their need to supply their viewers with uncensored material -something that has been disrupted- and they did so the smartest way that has already prompted others to do the same. This is the first and clear signal YouTube has to think about in terms of user behavior if they don’t want to loose millions of followers, views, and monetization.

[12hedron]

The kaleidoscope of creatives

It’s always a challenge to define the business model of the future. What will come next might be predictable within a certain amount of degrees, looking back to previous trends and then creating the forecast. That’s how we study the weather and tell how hot or cold tomorrow will be.

However, one thing for sure is how we can structure such model and create successful systems. We can start by rationalizing (and admitting) that in the workforce across all levels, we have creative and conservative individuals that are very good in their field, and are best when placed within their own environment because that’s the climate they will come out with great ideas or make important decisions.

If you are afraid of change you run the high and probable risk of remaining behind in innovation with all the consequences that come. You will face situations that have the power to take your business away or to come so close that it will weaken the knees out of you.

Innovation is the driving force of those business practices that understand the need to adapt, to develop new tools for the present and future, but most importantly to acknowledge the current situation that something might be wrong and needs to be fixed.

Look back at the first years of the 21st century and the expectation people had at the end of 1999: nobody had a clue what the year 2000 would come with. Many were deep worried about Y2K and computer malfunctions coming with the end of the world. It was rubbish from the beginning and worked to pull marketing products like antivirus, useless software, and to sell extra survival equipment.

Yet there was a small group of three people in California who was working night and day to revolve the new millennium. Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim built and published Youtube over the hard labor of their creative mindset. They maximized their credit cards in the process to pay for hardware and hosting services, they risked everything believing their hands held the future. They were right and shaped the way we interact and acquire new knowledge via a streaming platform which is now our favorite medium.

What drove their product to success was a creative process that disrupted the status quo of the late 20th century business model. It wasn’t trading or speculative hedge fund that started Youtube; it was the desire of creating something from nothing and developing in something that today means everything: content through data sharing on many platforms.

How much do creative people matter in a business system? Everything. They have the mindset of imagination to start processes from little or nothing, growing and expanding a simple idea into a change in the world: Steve Jobs, Shawn Fanning, J. K. Rowling, are just some of the names that comes off the top of my head. They brought pure and simple innovation across many fields changing the way we go through our daily routine.

Spot the creative individual...

Here we can see the developing pattern of entrepreneurship that has creative people starting business because they can envision leaps ahead. They understand the complexity of the idea and how it will evolve in the medium-long term, including important details that can be accessorized and later become the continuation of the vision. And those who did not bet on creative people found out the hard way too late at a greater cost.

On the other hand the behavior of conservative people fits best the classic system of running the business, because their focus glides through a mindset of analytical decisions and efficiency. That’s why those who are under this profile seek their career development in Wall Street or similar work environments, where precise blocks move in a specific pattern to build the outcome.

IBM understood the need of change and above all the thirst for innovation, so they have been hiring designers to sharpen up their tools instead of stacking up with accountants or software engineers. IBM needed creativity to rise above the status quo in their field. They understood that innovation doesn’t come from individuals who have been sharing the same manger with those who create algorithms or win math competitions, but it comes from those who see well beyond the curb not with binoculars but wit a set of kaleidoscopes.

[12hedron]

What do you call home?

When you think of the word ‘Home’ the brain takes two paths according where you are from and how the architectural environment around shaped your upbringing. There are important difference on how we define Home and what it represents for many.

Having living in Canada and exploring the meaning of urban life in the continent including the US, I understood the social blueprints that crates a familiar environment worth of being called Home. However, there are differences  that have to be analyzed so we can better understand the built environment.

Ask an immigrant from Europe or Middle-East what home means and then do the same with someone born in North America. It will be surprising to see how the former defines Home the village they came from, while the latter will answer pointing out their home property.

Why this?- Home is not just the physical structure you spend most of your life in, it’s the domain you grew up and experienced many of the important episodes that allowed you to mature,  it’s the beyond of the four walls with surrounding and those living around. And here is where we can highlight how the urban design comes to play.

Town fairs  have been the best method of bonding for people with their neighbors.

Those born in the Old Continent can recall how their upbringing did not just involved their home property, but everything that crafted and contributed individual to network their life with their nearby environment. Neighbors, the local park, the bakery around the corner, the short walk to school, the fast bike rides across streets, and so on. 

All of that represents an intense web of experiences fundamental to master their own territory and limitations. Also, the organic urban design layout made it possible for people to easily remember where locations are and what best path to take. Home for many is their village and their community with familiar places and friendly faces. 

On the other side we have a North American architecture of regions where its people call home their very own property, especially suburban families that make up the majority of households. Millions of citizens are dependent upon technology in order to exit their realm. Whether in the form of cars to reach the supermarket or other people, or via electronic gadgets to seek the opinion of others.

Low-residential homes in the shape of tract housing are and feel artificial, they bare no signature of their owners or their community. Roads and intersections are perfectly square made for mechanical solutions like the car. Each house on the subdivision looks just like the next one: same roof line, same garage door, same windows, same driveway, same builder.

Gated communities isolate households from being synchronized with the rest of the urban fabric.

This has been devoiding individuals of the meaning of home. Even if those living in the suburb can claim their gated community is their home, they are quick to forget they cannot leave unless they have a car and those walking around are stopped by security because they might not belong there.

In the suburbs of North America we have seen how generations became alienated from their neighbors because the architectural environment sets physical walls. This is preventing individuals to socialize among each others despite living feet apart.

Home is an experience crafted by the collection of places and social interactions. People need to physically connect so they can share tales for the bonding to happen, so each and one of them connects understanding their human habitat.