Off Course-On Target

What if the Impossible Isn’t?

As I mentioned in my recent post “Reflective Reduction Sauce”, returning to my work universe after months at sea has led me to reflect upon some themes I encountered as a result of my attending the Learning 2009 conference. One theme I’m delighted to see more attention on is “What if the impossible isn’t?”

This theme is about the need to understand that we are living at a time where almost anything is possible. While I would still wager that the majority of people are not quite believers yet, I continue to have great fun exploring  what is the current “state-of-the-art of the possible” with others in my presentations and conversations.

What makes something possible includes such factors as:

• Does it exist? (invented/discovered yet?)
• Am I aware of it?
• Is it available to me? (out of private beta, out of the research lab, etc.)
• Is it ready for me?  (good enough for my use)
• Can I afford it?

Fundamentally, my sense, my message, and my belief is that the only thing holding us back anymore is our assumptions of what it possible, what we should be demanding and expecting as consumers, and the overall attitude we need to take that if something is not possible today, it will be tomorrow—almost literally. 

Living in the Age of Abundance

But I am not suggesting that just because something is possible or available, you need to use it. Quite the opposite actually. Our choices should be driven by our needs, our passions, and our curiosity. Yet this habit of trying anything new is a holdover from the previous era of scarcity whereby we would often feel a need to use something just because it came to our attention, arrived on the market, or was pushed at us as new and improved. 

As we transition into the age of abundance, I believe we need to assume that everything and anything is available and possible, and work from there. In doing so, I find it necessary to invert these earlier approaches and avoid the tendency of starting with a solution in search of a problem.

As many of us* start living in an era of abundance where anything becomes possible, it puts a wonderful pressure on us to think and focus more on:

• What do we really need?
• What are the essential characteristics we are looking for?
• What are our top priorities?

In grossly oversimplified terms, the way we have historically planned and designed is:

• To start with some ideal end state in mind and then develop back from that based on what is impossible.
• To build a solution based on what we think is possible and accept what is often a very significant degree of compromise in the process. 

In doing so, most of our sense of what is possible is quite dated and is based on unconscious assumptions.   Both of these problems are causing us to squander opportunities to improve and do things we believe are still only dreams, and the way to change this is to go after both of these problems.

Learning to Adjust Our Sense of What is Possible

With the rate of change increasing exponentially, our sense of what is possible and what is impossible requires almost constant real-time updating, and necessitates a new planning and project management model. This new model allows for dynamic updating when something that was impossible when the current plan was developed becomes possible. When this happens, the project should start using it and taking advantage of it.

This kind of updating can largely be addressed through technical means if all such requirements are well-articulated in the initial planning process, such that the needed capabilities and other requirements are quantified and stated and can thus be tracked for relevant changes.

However, our unconscious assumptions are a much more troubling and challenging problem because they lurk below our level of awareness and because they become indelibly ingrained into our habits, behaviors, and thinking. For example, my focus on the Snowflake Effect—the transition from an era of mass production to one of mass personalization—includes many such assumptions. Mass production is not reserved for the domain of manufacturing, but rather has permeated most societies and our overall way of thinking. 

When I talk about this meta theme of the Snowflake Effect, one of the most common and provocative questions that I ask is, “If we all seem to agree that each of us is unique, and furthermore that each moment and situation is unique, then why do we live in a world that is designed for sameness?” 

When we design something, we typically start by identifying the “target audience”, a group of people who are  defined by a set of common characteristics. The larger this audience, the better. Think about this for a minute. Imagine you are designing and developing any new product, such as a lesson for students, a book, a website, a car, or service. Do you find that designing all of these involves the same basic model based on an assumption of sameness?

And I get it. This model used to make complete sense. Mass production was a brilliant model in its time and we largely got to where we are today because of it. However, the great news is that most of the conditions and constraints which made mass production such a successful model have changed or have been eliminated, yet the model persists. Add to this the equally wonderful dynamic that truly amazing new capabilities, products, and services are becoming possible and available every day. We are increasingly moving to the point where the impossible isn’t.

It’s Time to Get Good at Believing in the Impossible

What to do?  What needs to change? First and foremost I think it is we who need to change—our thinking and our assumptions. We need to get good at believing in the impossible. In true synchronistic fashion, I recently received this quote from my good friend Murry Christensen which resonated strongly and added to my sense that this meta theme I’m discussing here is growing:

"We must learn to deal with possibilities instead of probabilities."

-- Verna Allee

And one of my favorite thinkers and writers is Kevin Kelly and he has been making these same kinds of observations for many years now. One of my favorite Kevin phrases is:

“Impossible in theory, possible in practice”

Kevin makes this observation in light of the many capabilities we are now immersed in  yet which only a few years or months previously we would have regarded as impossible. You can read Kevin’s piece on “Believing the Impossible” or watch his TED talks such as “The next 5000 days of the web” (included here), and “How Technology Evolves”.

Still not convinced?  Watch these other TED talks and see if you change your mind a little or a lot:

• Pranav Mistry demonstrating his “Sixth Sense” device

• Juan Enriquez’s tour of some views of “mindboggling science”

• David Hanson showing his robots that “show emotion”

Believing that “the impossible isn’t” is what has led me to conclude that the dream of being able to seize every “teachable moment”, to have personalized learning experiences available for every person on the planet multiple times every day, and get to a “just the right” end state where we can get just the right stuff to just the right person at just the right time in just he right context, has become an achievable goal.

What about you?  When it comes to capabilities, products, services, etc., what is on your “wish it were possible” list? What, were it to be possible, would make the most significant difference in your professional or personal life?  My experience in pursuing these questions is that by articulating and sharing them, we will discover that many are already possible and those that aren’t can be put on our watch list, so that we will be notified in days, weeks, or months that it has just become possible. 

Sound impossible?  Just watch, it isn’t!

Wayne

______________

* Let’s keep in mind that in terms of world population (almost 7 billion), we are still the privileged few who live in in this era of abundance, and although this group is also growing exponentially, we all need to continue to work to distribute abundance.

PhotoSynth: Mashups of Our Collective Intelligence via Photos

I don’t know about the rest of you who have your own blogs, but I seem to add many more items to my list of things to write about than I get around to finishing, so my list just grows. Here is one item that I am finally catching up on and which I feel even stronger about than when I was first writing it up several months ago.

I've found a particularly compelling example of the power of mashups. Here is one of those capabilities that you think you understand quickly and then, as you think about it more, you come up with whole new possibilities on how to make use of it. Truly an enabling technology for me!

Intrigued?  I’m referring to the recent release of a combined set of tools (in itself a mashup) called “Photosynth,” which was developed at the University of Washington and by Microsoft Research. Photosynth can take a large collection of photos gathered through a browser search for example, analyze them for similarities, and display them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space with each of the individual photos properly registered to their respective location in the 3D model.

For example, type in the word “Notre Dame, grab all the photos that come up, and run them through Photosynth, which will then display them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.

As is often the case, seeing is believing, so I strongly encourage you to first take a few minutes (7:42 to be precise) to watch this video of a TED Talk given last year (2007) by Blaise Aguera y Arcas, one of the main developers of the technology,

Photosynth provides an enormous enhancement of automated registration and metadata tagging, finding the commonality of images, the creation of these 3D models, and the network effect that comes from combining photos from any source. As you begin to understand it better, start to imagine how powerful this new means of creating 3D models from existing information (photos) is, and how it enables design to start with what is already in existence and then work from there, by subtracting and adding to it.

Among other things, this type of technology enables you to zoom in from “outer space” down to earth using tools such as Google Earth and MS Virtual Earth, and then when you get to ground or street level, you can start looking around any area with not just satellite imagery but the added information from thousands or millions of photos from “you and I” that are posted up on any of the many online photo storage services.

Think about this for a minute, and you'll start to understand that this means we can now go INSIDE of buildings by “seeing” things through all the photos which are stitched together to create these 3D models and have each photo registered in the right place.

Watch the video clip below to see a fascinating depiction of a scenario where Photosynth is used to help solve a crime.

 

How could this form of a mashup-creating tool be applied to teaching and learning? You and your students could build some amazing history, geography, art, or other learning resources on the fly on an as-needed basis. You could reconstruct a field trip after the fact or set out on a field trip with the express purpose of capturing a location of interest, and then you could construct these highly detailed models from all the photos. Just imagine the new collections (or “synths” as they might be called) that would start showing up by the thousands and then millions as this kind of technology catches on.

Best of all, you can do this right now.  Download Photosynth and take it out for a spin!

The most powerful takeaway for me is that the merging of individual bits of knowledge—in this case photos—creates both better and unexpected new results, such as 3D models and a new form of collective intelligence. The information one can glean or discover within is a huge step forward in human knowledge. Take some time to both wander around in some of these examples and ponder these potential of new developments.

Mashups in Miami Beach

I’m in Miami today finishing up my most recent set of business trips around the planet and catching my flight back to El Salvador. I had the great fortune of spending last night and this morning with a business colleague who lives on the waterfront of the always interesting Miami Beach area. Thanks Eric!

For me, Miami is one of those grand cities of the world that exemplify uniqueness. As with cities such as Istanbul, NYC, and Paris, it is truly a unique combination of cultures, architecture, experiences and people, with little connection to the country it is in...a world onto itself, a city that you need to simply enjoy and try to learn from.  As so we did just that as we walked around the South Beach area, enjoyed some local food, people watching, architecture and the pulse of life. 

While exploring this area, I ran into what struck me as an interesting example of how to combine customization with standardization. In this case, it came in the form of a Publix supermarket, which is part of a chain of supermarkets that is very popular in the southeastern USA. As best as I can tell, Publix is popular with those who shop there because the reputation they have built up for consistent quality, large selection of mid- to high-end food items and the overall design and ambience of their stores.

What I’ve picked up on in my visits to several of these stores in the past few years (and from talking with friends and others who shop there) is that they have built up a very loyal following of customers who seek out these stores wherever they are. That’s the “standards” part of the equation—delivering on the expectation that you will have a consistently good experience in any one of their stores. However, this particular store is located in a very affluent and “stylish” residential marina area on the waterfront of Miami Beach, and so there were significant concerns by those living in the neighborhood (and those looking to move there) that this store would be very out of place architecturally and at odds with the feel of the neighborhood which is filled with condos, waterfront walkways, parks, etc. 

The solution that Keene Construction came up with was to take a very standard Publix building and layout and wrap it in a very unique exterior that fits well with the neighborhood. As you can perhaps make out in the photo above,  the exterior is very striking, based on a nautical theme with the suggestive shapes of boat hulls, sails, and decks. Yet when I passed through the exterior doors, I walked into a very familiar and standard Publix supermarket. I thought it was a great mashup of the best of both customization and standardization. From the outside, the store is a delightful part of the area and it's ambiance both fits in and stands out at the same time, adding value rather than subtracting from it.

It was also interesting to read some of the comments on this store on Yelp, the community review site, by those who shop at this store. Interestingly some of the comments were from people living nearby and others were from those visiting the area from far and wide.

This is just the latest example of the growing importance of design: how to mix opposite ends of the spectrum, such as old/new, standard/custom, or consistent/unique. It has left me asking my usual question, “What is this trying to teach me?” and so I’m pondering how we could abstract from the lessons here and apply this type of mashup to things beyond architecture, stores, etc. How could we apply this to human interactions, to software development, to content development?

Our goal is to figure out how we can use the concept of mashups to create solutions that are not a compromise, thereby avoiding mediocrity, and instead creating unique combinations of the best aspects of otherwise opposing ends of these spectrums that are truly greater than the sum of their parts. This approach ties nicely into the Snowflake Effect where our goal is to get it all “just right”. *

*  Just the right things, for just the right people, at just the right time, in just the right place, in just the right context, etc.

The Fourth Screen and Counting

I don’t get to see much TV in this new grand adventure I’m on, not that I ever seemed to have time to watch much before either, so many of you may have seen this before but it was new to me. 

Here is great example of why I’ve often suggested that new perspectives are so powerful and valuable and I try to find and create as many as I can.  Oh, and yes this is an advertisement; get over it!  Great content often comes from the most unlikely sources.  This one comes from Nokia.

As you’ll see when you watch the video, they present a fascinating and I think very useful way of seeing the evolution of “screens” and media as moving from:

1. Movie theatre screens
2. Television screens
3. Computer screens
4. mobile/smart phone screens

It’s been rather amazing for me to watch how the screen has quietly embedded itself into our understanding of what a “phone” is. Not so many years ago the word phone would have been would have been thought to mean a device for talking only.  The notion of “watching a phone” would have sounded ridiculous and still sounds rather funny when you say it like that.

By Any Name; Handy is the Game

They now go by many other names such as mobile, cell, smartphone, PDA, and yes even the iPhone of late.  There is even this long list of “Mobile phone terms across the world”.  But I think I like the one common in many European countries the best where they are often called a “handy”

Handy (plural form Handys), pronounced /hɛndi/, a pseudo-anglicism that is used in Austria and Germany for a mobile phone (rare alternative spelling: Händi). In German, the word "Handy" has the meaning of "Hand-Telefon" or "handgehaltenes Mobiltelefon" (translated to English: "handheld mobile telephone"). The term possibly derived from the 1940s product name Handie-Talkie for a handheld military radio. (The backpack version was introduced as Walkie-Talkie.)               - entry from Wikipedia

Whatever the origin or spelling “handy” is certainly an accurate description of these amazing devices we used to call phones and only use to talk on.  And it is this dramatic increase in utility that I think is the really important part of the transformation of these “screens” have brought to our world.

Mashing, Melting and Morphing

More than just the addition of a screen these devices are the mashup or melting pot of a lot of different devices and capabilities from many different directions and original purposes including digital cameras, MP3 or music players, TV and video players, and PCs.  This is what I thought was most clever and useful about the way the Nokia Fourth Screen video presented the evolutionary stages, as you can see how each successive screen swallows the one before it.

* Please also note that none of these stages has eliminated the one before it and  ALL remain valuable and in great use!  As I’ve often pointed out our history is one where technology never really dies and while disruptive, the next new stage does not eliminate the one before it.

While the addition of a screen that is capable of displaying most any kind of content is important, so much more so than the screen it has been the freedom that comes from mobility that has been the game changer.  In fact the screen, while necessary is most often quite inferior to the ones that came before.  A reverse trend if you notice going through the four screens is that each one has been smaller and arguably inferior in visual quality to the one that came before!   However in each case of the steps along the way we gained more freedom, choice and opportunity of both what we could have on the screen, where we could have the screen and our control over the interactions with with other people and their screens.

These new phones have also brought us the closest thing to wireless, untethered and unfettered we’ve ever been.  WiFi can be useful when used with things like desktop PCs and laptops for other reasons, but it only really delivers on its true value IMHO when it enables you to be completely free to have what you want whenever and wherever you are.  Even with the shrinking size of laptops and the new “netbooks” they are still large enough and cumbersome enough that you often don’t have them in your hands at your fingertips when you need them.  The “4th screen”, with it’s ability to slip into your pocket or clip onto your belt or just stay in your hand, is the most likely to be there whenever you need it and brings us closest yet of truly having the world at our fingertips anytime, anywhere.

Evolving the Screen to Death

And will there be fifth screen?  I think so and more after that.  What I’d see coming next is the further shrinking and transparency of the overall physical devices and the elimination of the fixed nature of the screens and input devices.  In the case of the screens what I mean is when there is no limit to the size of the screen and you can view, and you can have whatever size makes sense for the situation you are in.  Sometimes all I need is a screen big enough to tell me the time, temperature, a phone number or a factual answer to a question.  Some times black and white is fine too.  But other times I want screens the size of whole walls or the size of buildings, with very high definition sound and visual fidelity.  And I want them to be there when I need them.  So for example in a previous post on Coming to our Senses: Touch we saw some advances heading toward having screens that can be stretched to any size you’d like, so you could have one rolled up in your pocket or purse and whenever you needed a screen you could simply stretch it out to whatever size you’d like from postage stamp to a wall.  Or perhaps we’ll see mainstream versions of “virtual screens” that might fit on the rim of your glasses or slip over your ear and let you see any size screen in front of you that you’d like. 

After that, the Sixth Screen perhaps?  By this stage I think there will be no screen at all!  Again in my posting Coming to our Senses: Touch in the section on “Digital Clay” I laid out the coming of fully 3D images that might be along the lines of holograms for example and which would also include haptic bi-directional feedback so I can both feel what I see and shape or change it with my hands. 

WYSIWYG superceded by WYNIWYG

The trick however to having all this amazing advances in “screens” is not so much in the screens themselves but in the freedom to see who and what I need whenever and wherever I want to.  This is all part of the trend I’ve been calling the Snowflake Effect or getting it “just right” and what I believe Gartner first started calling WYNIWYG: What You Need Is What You Get.

“Context driven networks will connect us in new and more meaningful ways than the bandwidth-focused networks of today. The idea is no longer WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get), but now we look for WYNIWYG (What You NEED Is What You Get)! Networks will be able to anticipate your needs and make information available to you when you need it.”   
 - Gartner Emerging Trends 2008

For me, the destination of this evolution of the screen is when it disappears completely leaving me free to see (hear, touch and even smell) just what, who, when and where I want.  I don’t know or care if this will be the 5th, 6th or 21st “screen” but it will be just right 4me and it will be here much sooner than most people suspect.

Lurching Towards More Natural Interfaces

In “Coming to our Senses?”  I introduced the topic of finding ways to make better use of our human senses to interact and interface with tools, technology, and machines, and even between ourselves. The LiveScribe Pulse digital pen and paper provides a good example of more “natural” and sense-based ways of interacting, communicating, and connecting.

For more of an overview of this new product, read my article  “LiveScribe Pulse Digital Pen + Paper”. This relatively new addition to digital pen and paper offers exciting capabilities, such as the ability to create sketches and drawings and embed audio explanations or sounds within them, or the ability to write in one language and have the words spoken through the speakers in another language.  Its combination of sight, sound, sketching, and writing reminds me that we are making progress, however slow and lurching, towards more natural interfaces and interactions and in particular, those which are and sensory or sense-based.  In addition, the Pulse pen lets you create some fascinating new "mashups" by mixing and matching written words with sketches, and drawings with speech and sounds.

Deafening Silence Coming to an End?

When you stop and think about it, isn’t it rather odd that we have been working this long with computers and other forms of capturing our thoughts and ideas without much effective use of sounds and speech?  We have the ability to capture audio so clearly and so easily, and yet we are only just now seeing an expansion of its application through podcasts, text to speech, speech to text, and voice recognition.  I suspect we will look back in a few years and view this time as akin to the days when movies were silent or before before audio recording and playback were possible.  Our children will surely ask how we could have ever put up with “silent” notes, sketches and drawings and to have managed to live without the ability to just create whatever interfaces and interactions we wanted on the fly.

In light of this, I’m hoping this article and others to follow, will make you aware of and encourage you to try for yourself, some of the additional new capabilities this digital pen puts into our hands.

Draw Your Own Interface

One of the best new features recently introduced by digital pens such as the Pulse and the Fly Pen is the ability to “draw your own interface”.

I’m fascinated by this overall capability for combining writing, drawing and programming. The Pulse pen lets you create your own interfaces anywhere you want (on digital paper) by just drawing them. For example, you can draw a cross symbol, which the Pulse pen understands for navigation of the pens various features.  You can then use this simple graphic interface to scroll through the programs on the pen, playback, and recording of audio, etc.

Programs can also be developed for the Pulse pen that enable the creation of any kind of interaction between the “ink” and sounds.  For example, a demo has you create a piano by drawing an eight note keyboard, which you can then “play” by touching the pen on the virtual key on the paper and hearing whichever note you touch through the speaker in the pen or via headphones that you can plug into the end of the pen. 

Another powerful capability lets you to write in one language and convert it to spoken words in another.

These examples of "draw your own interface" are limited and minor at this point to be sure, but just start to imagine what this opens up as we begin to draw our own interfaces.  And not just for literal human-computer interfaces but the ability to make anything we draw come to life, draw and play our own instruments, draw and listen to our own stories, etc.  Try out some of these new capabilities yourself.

My Very Own Purple Crayon at Last?!

These capabilities are about the closest thing yet to making one of my all-time favorite children’s stories, Harold and the Purple Crayon become a reality!  If you don’t know this 50-year-old classic by Crockett Johnson, then you should.  It is an absolute "must read "in my book.

In the story, whatever Harold draws with his purple crayon becomes real.  He wants to go for a walk so he draws himself a sidewalk.  He’s hungry, so he draws an apple tree and then adds a ferocious dragon to protect it for him. So scary is the dragon that Harold’s hands start shaking, causing the crayon to create water and waves, so Harold needs to draw a sailboat to climb into...and you get the idea. 

I encourage you to stop right now, and imagine you have this ability to have whatever you draw come to life and interact with you. What do you come up with for some other practical uses?  What does your wild imagination conjure up?   I suspect that you will soon have a list of amazing and truly exciting possibilities, and I hope you will take a few minutes to post them to your own site or share them here.

Natural Interfaces at Last?

These recent advances with digital pen, paper, and sound provide yet another significant marker on our journey towards truly “natural” and sense- based interfaces. I believe that there are some characteristics that are essential and relatively timeless when it comes to anything we humans are going to use effectively to communicate, live, learn, and work together.  Sketching and drawing will continue to be some of the primary means we use to communicate and will be highly effective ways of capturing, sharing, and explaining our thoughts and ideas. What could be more “natural” to us as humans than drawing, writing, and talking?  So too will the spoken and written word, acting, gesturing, storytelling, feeling and forming things with our hands,  and so on. 

Anything and everything that can be done to capitalize and leverage our very human senses and natural ways of interacting, communicating and connecting will be a move in the right direction. Stay tuned for many more postings I’ll be doing on this overall topic and trend towards more natural sense-based interfaces.

Coming to our Senses

If you have been kind enough to listen to me or read some of my entries on OCOT or my other writings, you may have correctly concluded that I suffer from a severe case of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Contrary to popular opinion (and even some “experts”), ADD is not about a LACK of “attention” but rather, an excess of it! 

And Now a Word from My Symptom

Those of us with ADD are unable to pay attention to just ONE thing at a time and are instead forced to pay attention to every sensory input all of the time. We try to make sense of things when EVERY thing is demanding our focus. All of our sensory inputs are dealt with equally and simultaneously. 

What we can’t do, for example, is turn down the volume on every sound except the one we want to focus on. We can't tune out the movements we see around us or choose not feel every input through our skin. In other words, we can only pay attention to EVERYTHING, all at the same time and all at equal levels.

I’m one of the fortunate few with ADD who, long before I knew what it even was, began to develop  coping skills and techniques to survive with these traits. They didn’t seem like anything special to me.  For the longest time, I just assumed everyone else was having the same experience.  And somehow I managed to start turning these “bugs” into features that have enabled me to be as successful as I am and to do what I do. If everything demands your attention and you find everything interesting, then life is very full!

If you are interested in learning more about ADD, look at some of these  alternative descriptions.  And on the topic of attention itself, I know of no better source than that of my dear friend and fellow ADDer Marcia Conner and her Ageless Learner site’s section on Attention and on How Adults Learn.

But now, back to the topic at hand (see what I mean?!)

It All ADDs Up

So why are my ADD tendencies relevant here?  Because its a way to introduce a meta theme that I'd like to address on OCOT. Just as my own natural sensory interface presents challenges, so too are the challenges of developing human/machine sense-based interfaces. Over a series of postings, I'd like to address:

• The use of our human senses as ways through which we communicate and interact with machines, computers, and technology, and ourselves. 
• Other interrelated topics both individually and as a collective whole. 

I’ll do my best to stay "on target" as I wander around "off course" and divide my pursuit of this trend toward more natural and sense-based interfaces into several separate posts. I see it playing a critical role in the future I am both designing and imagining.  

The Missing Link?

Interestingly, this whole topic of natural or sense-based interfaces does not seem to have any common singular term or definition. Or perhaps I just have not found it and some of you can point me to it?  I’m aware of categories such as:

• HCI  Human Computer Interaction/interface
• HMI Human Machine Interface/interaction
• User Interface

But these all seem to be differentiated based on interactions with specific types of technology, computers only, or segmented into individual human senses, such as touch with the use of haptic interfaces and technology with tactile feedback . And I can find definitions of HCI, HMI such as this one from Wikipedia that describe them as:

“...the 'layer' that separates a human that is operating a machine from the machine itself.”

However, my interest is in the larger meta theme of using all human senses and eliminating the “separation layer” between machines and ourselves so that they are invisible and we can directly connect and communicate through our senses. I’m want to ensure that we are taking the more holistic and inclusive view of the use of ALL of our senses, not only because we have so many that are being underused, but also because it is often the combination of multiple senses that make up our best experiences and interactions.

Making Sense of and Better Use of Our Senses

So here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll address the meta theme of sense-based and more natural interfaces through a variety of posts, podcasts, and perhaps some interviews over the next few months. I’ll alternate between the big picture view of the use of senses in general and the use of them collectively, then look at the use of individual senses such as touch and feel, audio, visual, and so on. I will also cover the use of combinations of senses for better, more innovative designs and solutions for interacting with technology...and each other. Add to this the coverage of tools, technology, and examples of real world applications of sensory-based and natural interfaces and I think we’ll have a lot of fun and learn a lot in the process. These posts will be intermixed with other topics on a regular basis and spread over many months for as long as my and your interest continues to be high.

Oh!  Look at that cool blue butterfly that just flew by!  Hmm, I wonder what kind of plane that is flying overhead?  Now what was I saying?  Oh yeah, senses, interfaces, human interaction... 

Hang on, fasten your seatbelts low and tight, we’re about to take off on what should prove to be a fun and very "off course", very "on target" sensory journey!

Experts...like you and me?

In previous postings, I’ve pointed out that we're living in a world of exponential change and that this is affecting all of us in many different ways. You can find my thoughts and references on this with a quick search on exponential change on OCOT as well as my overall article and podcast. 

To continue with this theme, today I'd like to explore how this world of exponential change has affected our concept of expertise and experts. Has it changed as well? What do you do when you need some assistance and there are no experts to be found based on our traditional definitions? 

The rapid introduction of technologies such as entire new programing languages, new software and hardware; or on the social side, things like social networking, un-conference event models, and so on, challenge our understanding of expertise,  and our traditional models and techniques for obtaining expertise and for finding those who have it.

While it is often true that there are very few completely new ideas and so many very new things are based on very old ideas, previous work, models and products, it still seems as if we are seeing more that are truly new and different. Being so new, we have no Ph.D programs,  certification programs, or other credentials in place, and in many cases, not very much experience or expertise at all because these technologies  and models are new to everyone. It helps in part that large scale adoption of anything new typically takes 10 or more years (see this “Long Nose” post by Erik Duval for more on this) but it often takes even longer for us to establish the traditional forms of denoting expertise and creating the experts themselves. What do we do in the meantime and even more so what do we do as the rate of change trends ever upwards?  Will our traditional models continue to work at all? For example:

• What does this mean for “boards” or other committees of experts for an organization, company, association?  If these are becoming less effective what is the better choice?
• In the absence of any “formal” credentials, how to you find and deploy individual experts and consultants? 
• Is there a value to a “panel of experts” at a conference?  If so, who should be on the panel?
• How does our understanding of new more contrarian models such as “wisdom of the crowds” and the “Blink” approach affect our definition and use of experts?

You get the idea, and I’m sure you can come up with your own list as well. 

Finding Solutions

I quite like and often quote Einstein’s observation that:

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

More often though, I think our problem is that we are restricted by our thinking which as been shaped by the previous paradigm and so we search for solutions to the new paradigm from within the old. As we seek to find and develop solutions to this new challenge of identifying and finding expertise and experts, we can take advantage of the way other things are growing exponentially.  For example:

• The degree to which these technologies can help us find and connect with others who are focused on the new “thing” we are interested in.  There are usually many more experts and more expertise out there than we assume or were previously able to find.
• The increased exposure more and more of us are having to new products, programs and ideas and therefore pursuing our curiosity with them thus taking the first steps towards developing more expertise.
• The increased access and availability for learning about and experimenting with these new ideas, products and services.  This is especially true in the form of the more informal learning we are increasingly doing through our daily forms of (re)search, reading, listening and otherwise consuming the exponential growth of “content” available to us.

Experts "R" Us!

So how do we find the right experts and expertise at the right time?  First, we need to get better at finding expertise that often goes unnoticed or remains unknown to us.  If you don’t know it’s there, then it essentially doesn’t exist!  In my experience, we often fail to find experts because it doesn’t appear in most people’s job description or title.  Have you ever had the experience of meeting someone AFTER a project was over (typically in an informal setting) and realizing that they have this incredible expertise and experience? Have you caught yourself saying something like “Where were you when I needed you?”  And worst of all, did you find that they were right under your proverbial nose, right next door or even already working for or with you?

I’ve long advocated that we need to work to dramatically scale up the amount of metadata we have for each of us. By this I mean the enormous list of individual attributes that define and describe us as unique individuals—deeply detailed metadata inventories of our skills, competencies, experiences, aptitudes, attitudes, knowledge and so on—and have it all being dynamically updated on a constant basis as we acquire new skills, have new experiences as well as those we lose from lack of use.  Just imagine how valuable it would be to find just the right person at just the right time when you need to add someone to a project team or have a question you need answered or an idea to test out.

Exponential Growth of Experts?

And perhaps most of all, we need to consider the potential of developing more expertise within each and every one of our exponentially expanding world population (currently 6.7 Billion and counting!).  We need to learn to see and find the expertise in all of us, both collectively and individually. By collective, I am thinking of the growing awareness and understanding of the latent expertise that lies within a large group of people. This idea is nicely captured in James Surowiecki’s book “Wisdom of the Crowds”.  This is increasingly happening as we become more and more connected to more and more people and things. 

Individually I am thinking that if something is very new, then an “expert” could be defined as whomever has the most experience—often the individuals who have been early adopters, high risk takers, and those who jumped in from the beginning and have the most experiential learning as a result.  If you believe, as do I, that every one of us has some degree of expertise and our numbers and our amount of expertise is growing at an ever faster rate, then therein lies much of the solution to the problem of finding experts for the exponential growth of new ideas, products, and services. It all sounds very “loopy” (consider the source!), but it seems to me that we can indeed invert Einstein's observation and best find solutions for a new paradigm from within the NEW paradigm.

We probably need to get much better at learning in real time as we jump in and try out these new products, services and ideas.  We need to get better at doing a lot of post-mortems to analyze what worked, what didn’t would be smart.  Getting over our apparent reluctance to admit to or review failures, and instead learn from what doesn’t work well. If increasingly more things are very new and we have less and less experience with them, should we not expect to be in an almost constant state of exploration and discovery and expect “failure” to be more common than success? 

I don’t mean "failure"in a negative sense, nor do I mean that failure should become the goal. Rather, learning from what doesn’t work seems in my experience to be at least as valuable or more so than that which does. We’ve long known about the value of “practice” but usually separate and distinguish this from “the real thing” and regard practice as what we do to get ready for the real performance.  Perhaps we now live in a world where ALL we do is practice and strive for continuous improvement.

But I also believe in the old adage that “the more things change the more they stay the same”, and so we will continue to have the more traditional types of experts who are deeply specialized.  They will remain highly valuable and sought after.  However, given the enormity of the number of problems we have to solve, both large societal ones and small daily ones, and the fact that these are growing exponentially, we need, as they say,
"all the help we can get."  And I for one simply can’t imagine how we can be effective in solving problems through linear approaches, such as continuing to depend upon our traditional model and definition of expertise. 

As we start to live and work in this world of exponential change, we need to think exponentially as well. We need develop solutions and models which scale exponentially. Rethinking our definition of expertise and experts to be on more of a sliding scale and where we assume that each and every one of us have valuable expertise to offer seems to me the best direction to head as we search for more experts like you and me!

Designing Your Own Future!

Carrying the rather magnanimous title of “Strategic Futurist”,  I try to always clarify that I have no crystal ball, no special powers for prediction of the future (nor any other special powers for that matter!), but I do believe that “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” as Alan Kay said.  However, I have become somewhat skilled at discovering and observing trends and patterns that I believe will help us to shape and design our futures to be bright and positive ones.  Today I’d like to highlight some recent examples that add credibility to this model of designing your own future, and I for one could not be happier with the progress and trend. 

It seems that the topic of the future is particularly popular of late.  In my recent posting “Inventing the Future?” I wrote about the fascinating new joint venture between Jane Congeal and the Institute for the Future called Superstructure, "the world’s first massively multiplier forecasting game" which is about to start September 2008 . With a tag line of “Superstructure! Play the game, invent the future”, you can see why I was immediately attracted.

Rather than fatalistically accepting that the future as something that happens to us, I believe that we can both individually and collectively invent and design our own!  I also see this as part of using serendipity as a serious strategy for success.  More on that later.

Web of Fate; NOT!

Mark Alert recently (July 16, 2008) did a good job of highlighting several of these new examples of what I would see as “designing your own future” in his e-Clippings: Learning As Art blog post called Forecasting the Future:  Prediction Markets & MMOG's.  In particular, check out the Web of Fate(Wof).  Despite the title, I see WoF as serendipitous and by design rather than fatalistic. It is, in their own words:

“.. a social experiment that harnesses the collective intelligence of the web to visualize and uncover hidden relationships among future and historical events."

They do this by providing everyone (yes you too!) the opportunity to add their own thoughts in a variety of ways. You can make your own predictions, quote a prediction from someone else you agree with, set a future goal, or create a time capsule.  Web of Fate also offers another way of looking at this with their “Semantic Future: explore the meaning of everything”,  accomplished by their semantic analysis engine that extracts meaning from historical, present and future events and draw connections among them.

Since I'm a very visual thinker, I particularly liked the way that WoF is synthesizing all of “our” input to create the Web of Fate visualizations.  Given enough input, I think these will go a long way towards helping us spot trends and patterns that I find so enlightening to the process of designing your own future. 

World Mural Project:  Youth is Not Always Wasted on the Young!

But I’ve saved the best for last.  Chris Dawkins, another blogger I recommend, wrote a terrific summary of the “Intel World Mural project - just what will the next 40 years bring?”.  Chris is behind the Ziff Davis blog on Education and I’ve written more about him and his blog in my previous post “Scan, scan, scan as fast as you can”. I recommend that you subscribe to his feed, if you don’t already.

But the treat today is to direct your attention to the World Mural Project, which is part of Intel’s celebration of their 40th anniversary as a company (July 18, 2008) when they will unveil what they describe as:

“...one of the world’s largest web based digital murals designed by youth.  More than 530 young people from 21 countries around the globe share their vision on what computers will allow us to accomplish in the next 40 years.”

To see for yourself, just click the “View Mural” link on the World Mural site. I hope you will have as much fun as I did exploring the various visions from the young contributors.  The interface is fun and whimsical, and it allows you to move around to different countries and regions and then click on the individual contributions.

Chris pulled out this quote from Intel spokesperson Agnes Kwan, which gives a great glimpse into the future that some of these “kids” see:

"Some of the themes that the kids have expressed are: having multi-function, wearable computers, achieving a greener environment on Earth, greatly improved healthcare, vastly improving our brain power, experiencing virtual education, communicating through holograms, teletransport, living more relaxed, peaceful lives, and living on Mars.”

Also worth checking out is the Intel Computer Clubhouse through which the mural project was developed.  This network is an after-school community-based technology learning program that enables youth in underserved communities to acquire tools necessary for personal and professional success.  The Clubhouses were an ideal way for youth to collaborate on the mural and create a dynamic and unified piece of art that represented a global world view.

I think this is also a great example of another trend that I highlighted in my post “Future Sources of Innovation, Discovery and Design” where I see more and more innovation and ideas coming from the underdeveloped and underserved groups and regions of the world (many of them located inside otherwise very “developed” regions and countries, I might add!).  In any case, a very good use of your time would be to check out both the World Mural project itself and the Computer Clubhouse project.  Consider getting involved yourself as a volunteer, mentor or trainer in these projects.

Who better to involve directly in designing our future than those who are going to spend the most time in it and who likely have entirely new and fresh ideas and perspectives than those of us who may be more often shaped by the past?

I particularly liked the line and the link found in the Web of Fate site:  “The Solution:  You have the solution”    OK, OK, so it’s a form and you know I subscribe to the “all forms must die” attitude, but in this case the potential for the benefits of your input outweigh the format and I’d strongly encourage you to add yours to the collection and check back regularly to see how our future is shaping up!

Make This Personal!

I hope you too find some of these new examples inspiring and insightful and that you will check them out.  However, all of these are acting at a very high level. Most change occurs much closer to the ground and with more specific applications.   Therefore perhaps most important and valuable is the potential for YOU to adopt some of these examples to your own work and areas of interest.  What is to stop you from creating your own game along the lines of Superstruct to drill down on designing the future on a much more focused level of your own industry, profession, hobby or other areas that you are passionate about?  It “only” takes a good initial premise or scenario to cause some of that incendiary “Spontaneous Creative Combustion” in your own organization. How could you involve younger minds in helping to see and shape the future of these worlds you are a part of?  How could you instigate an outbreak of input and feedback within your groups and utilize the semantic analysis from something like the Web of Fate to spot trends and directions that will help you direct and design the future?

At the risk of beating this theme to death, let me restate that I am NOT interested nor optimistic about these examples I’ve highlighted for their predictive capabilities, but rather for their assistance in helping each and every one of us to play a part in designing a future that is both bright for all and is one we can be proud of and part of.

But most importantly I’d like to know how do YOU see the future shaping up?    You know where I stand but how do you see it?  Bright or dark?  Is the future fatalistic of serendipitous?  Done to you or something you have a hand in?

Inventing the Future?

I've been a big fan of Jane McGonigal ever since I had the chance to talk with her at the Learning 2007 conference where we were both speakers. One of the many reasons I so like her work is her focus on what is called “alternate reality gaming” or ARG (gotta have an acronym or it ain’t real right?).  While Jane is a very fun person (who else would carry the title of  "Head PuppetMaster"?), trust me when I say that her work on games and their consequent results has been very “serious” indeed. Harvard Business Review called her theory of "alternate reality business" one of the "Top 20 Breakthrough Ideas of 2008".  Check out Jane's company AvantGame and her blog for more information and I think you too will soon be a big fan.

I’ve been promoting augmented reality over virtual reality for a long time, and Jane’s unique approach of adding gaming to the equation is brilliant. I believe that Jane and her games are the best examples that I know of for showing off some of the true power of applying game theory. I especially appreciate the truly unique approach and out-of-the-box thinking she has brought to gaming. Jane’s games are also great examples of a common theme here on OCOT—the power and beauty of simplicity. Unlike most game examples, which typically involve a lot of hardware and software technology and are highly dependent upon the game developers and platforms, Jane's games are an extremely “low tech” model that puts the game players in charge. It all starts with and is based upon a simple opening statement or premise and is then left up to the players to provide all the excitement and direction online, usually with simple tools such as e-mails, blogs, and IM. You can see this for yourself by checking out some of her past successes such as World Without Oil, Cruel 2 B Kind, and I Love Bees.

Superstruct is Super!

All this is just an introduction though to a new joint venture that I'm intrigued by and which Jane is leading with the Institute for the Future called “Superstruct”. They describe it as “the world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game. It’s not just about envisioning the future—it’s about inventing the future.”  As with all her alternate reality games, this one starts with a scenario. In the case of Superstruct, it begins with the following:

"Humans have 23 years to go:  Global Extinction Awareness System starts the countdown for Homo sapiens. PALO ALTO, CA — Based on the results of a year-long supercomputer simulation, the Global Extinction Awareness System (GEAS) has reset the "survival horizon" for Homo sapiens—the human race—from "indefinite" to 23 years."

You can read the rest of the details in the link above and this Superstruct FAQ.  Highly recommend that you take a few minutes to check out the link to Superstruct to learn more. Although the game doesn’t officially start until September 2008, they have already started a precursor in the form of comments to the announcement and an initial premise of:

"It’s the summer of 2019. Imagine you’re already there, and tell us a little bit about your future self. Where are you having dinner tonight?"

For more on Superstruct and other AR games check out the ARGNet for more alternative reality games.  While it is obviously still early in the process, I was struck by the degree to which the initial comments seem to see and predict a very negative future, and it's all the more reason for us to all take a role in changing this by envisioning and designing one that is positive. If you believe as I do that WE are ultimately in control of the future, then why would we design and aim for anything less? PLEASE be sure to check out the comments and add some of your own!

Forget Predicting the Future. Let's Get Busy Designing It!

What I'm most passionate about, and my reason for alerting you to this new glimpse into the future, is the whole idea of not predicting the future, but "inventing it" as Jane has also been known to say. This of course parallels one of my favorite Alan Kay' quotes:

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it."

This hands on, get involved, take responsibility and action approach has always spoken to me loudly, and so I’m struck by the increasing number and diversity of ways that this is actually happening and how we collectively can and are creating the future. It sure beats the more typically fatalistic attitudes I seem to run into so often that "they" are causing everything or that technology is somehow in control of our future. I'm desperately hoping and sincerely believe that as these recent examples show, we are seeing the turnaround of the "victim mentality" that seems to have become so prevalent and we are going to seize both the opportunity and the responsibility to make the future one that we want to live in and be a part of. 

Game on!

Redesigning Rather Than Crying Over Spilled Milk?

On a recent trip back to the USA for a few weeks, I noticed something new in the dairy section of the grocery store—a new milk container. The milk was the same, but the container was completely new—square in shape and made from recyclable plastic. A quick search online produced all the details, such as this NY Times article “Solution, or Mess? A Milk Jug for a Green Earth” and revealed what I thought was another great example of the rising role and increasing importance of design for a bright future. 

As I looked into this story of these new milk containers, I was struck by:

• The simply staggering improvements that were realized by a relatively simple redesign of the everyday milk container
• The role that consumers need to play in both the design process and the successful implementation of these changes into mass usage.

For those who have not seen these new containers, here is a quick overview:

• More efficient storage; new jugs store 50% more milk by volume and are stackable.  More milk can be shipped per truck and requires less refrigerated storage.  One retailer now stores 224 gallons of milk in the same space that used to hold 80.   Combined these reduce fuel and energy use dramatically.
• Does not require crates or racks for shipping and storage due to its stackable, flat-top design.
• With no crates to wash or transport, labor is cut by half (loading, returning, washing) and water usage is reduced by 60 to 70 percent. One dairy mentioned in the NYT article was using 100,000 gals of water per day just for washing crates!
• More milk per truck and with no crates to haul back, the number of truck trips to the store has been reduced from 5 per week to just 2, which is a major fuel saving, and it lowers the overall cost of milk 10 to 20 cents per gallon.
• Overall efficiency is increased; milk from the cow in the morning is on the store shelves by afternoon. When I was young I spent many summers on my uncle’s dairy farm and always long for the taste of truly fresh milk.

To summarize, these new milk jugs result in cheaper, fresher milk that requires much less energy, water and labor and is better for the environment.

Creating a better world through a different design approach

This example also gives me even more confidence and optimism that we can create a better world through a balanced approach that benefits all those involved in the entire cycle—from initial idea to design to production, consumption and recycling.

Has to be an instant success, right?  Not quite. The real challenge may well be our ability as milk consumers to adapt to these new containers, to UNlearn some of our ingrained habits, such as how we  do something as basic as pouring milk from a container. It turns out that many people spill some milk when they first try to pour from these new containers. Why? Because they try to pour milk the way they are used to doing it. Many people end up rejecting these new containers and go back to purchasing the older style of containers. To address this problem, some stores are even offering in store lessons on how to pour with no spills—by tilting the jug forward rather than lifting it up, a technique described as "rock-and-pour instead of a lift-and-tip."

Spilled milk is clearly frustrating and wasteful, but rather than crying over it (sorry , couldn’t resist), the solution would appear to be twofold:  short term this appears to be a good example of one of my favorite themes of unlearning and relearning how to pour milk from these new containers without spilling and longer term, I suspect that there are additional design improvements that will make these containers even more spill proof and easy to use.

I think there is also a larger lesson to be learned from this example. I have to imagine that if a more holistic approach had been taken by involving consumers in the design process, the new containers would have been easier or more intuitive to use without spilling.

Maybe I’m just being my hyperbolic self and I’m seeing more than there really is, but I don’t think so. Look at some of these numbers and start multiplying them by the amount of milk consumed every day around the world. Seems like an amazing improvement to me, and all from a relatively straightforward rethinking and redesign of an everyday item.

Tapping into the "Prosumer" model

There is a lot of talk these days about the environment, being green, sustainability and so on, most of which is well intentioned and much needed.  However, it seems to me that these changes are often implemented along the lines of the historical roles for consumers and producers where the producers come up with the ideas, make the changes, and the role of consumers is to buy and use these new and improved products.  Not a bad model necessarily and one capable of producing good results as the new milk jug attests. However I’m advocating the need for a more “prosumer” and  collaborative approach to design where we are simultaneously producers and consumers. 

The term prosumer  was first coined by Alvin and Heidi Toffler in their 1980 book “The Third Wave” where they predicted what I think we are now seeing—a society where the previously separate roles and responsibilities are increasingly being combined or “mashed up”  to create a very new and different role for all of us.

I see a distinct trend towards a prosumer society where all of us will play an increasing role in the design process of everything around us. Keeping in mind that pretty much everything in our world that isn’t living matter has to be designed and built by us, this has very major implications for all of us and the world we inhabit.This is a theme I’ll be expanding on more in upcoming articles and podcasts here on OCOT.

More than anything else though, this new milk jug example has me pondering what other everyday items besides the lowly milk container could produce similarly staggering results. What if we were to look at them more closely and rethink the design and unlearn some of our habits for using them?  Packaging alone is an enormous area ripe for major improvement, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg of benefits to be had from redesigning and rethinking our current products and practices. 

How about you?  Look around your home, office, car, or other places you frequently inhabit and try seeing using a newly critical eye to see what opportunities you can find. You don’t need to have a degree in design nor have it appear on your business card or job description to be a designer. All it takes is adopting a more critical and new look at everyday things, thinking differently and thinking about seeing anew those things we take for granted. Who would have thought that something as basic and “unimportant” as a milk container could produce such staggering improvements?  Let’s hear some ideas from the rest of us about what should be next in line for such redesign.