Nordic Exceptional Trendshop 2006

Nordic Exceptional Trendshop 2007: MINDBLOWERS

Innovation, innovation, innovation. It has become an indispensable part of every strategy statement and every self considering corporate identity. The Western world has even come to identify it as the common denominator that will take us safely into the 22nd century the way that “industrialisation” took us into the 21st. A select few never mention it. To them, breaking ways is not a chosen path or a desired emblem, it is an inclination. These individuals live to leverage others by the scope and scale of their ideas, told or tried.

This year’s Nordic Exceptional Trendshop is a hail to all Mindblowers -  the mental movers, thinkers and doers that manage to rock our way of thinking and doing. Part exhibition and part conference, NEXT2007 shifts your mind from its socket through a burst of speaking thinkers and exhibiting experimenters. Take a break from forced free thinking and feast on the few that live what most wouldn’t even dream of. Innovation Lab has been round the world to select the best specimens of expanders in the realm of technology and product development.

November 16+17+18 in Copenhagen, we buckle up to meet the makers of time to come. All official infomation will soon be avaliable on www.next2007.dk. At this blog we will bring you the latest updates on the conference and exhibition.

Mindblowers, Mindblow us!

Free Lab TV from the event

About a week has passed since Nordic Exceptional ended. It was a blast and a big thank you goes out to everyone being involved, either you were audience, exhibitor, helper, speaker, camera man etc. As program chair for the fourth time in a row, I can say with confidence that this year's NEXT was the we've held so far!

We have just released the Lab TV webcasts from the conference. So watch or re-watch the exciting, fun and thoughtprovoking talks from the entire day. It's free till December 31 and there are, I believe, exactly one webcast for each day, all the way to Christmas eve. Call it our own Lab TV X-mas Calendar ;-)

Also, we have just updated Flickr with our very own Morten Fauerby's fantastic pictures. Check them out as well.

We have already begun planning Nordic Exceptional Trendshop 2007, so stay tuned for more. The date you'll have to book for the conference is November 16th 2007. The exhibition is November 17-18, 2007. Hope to see you there.

Mass collaborative creativity

Charles Leadbeater (UK) brought no slides on stage. Instead he blew us all away with an impressive performance (rhetoric and substance in great collaboration) which pointed out essential challenges a the future, where everyone is contributing. And the future is already here.

Social, participatory communities is emerging everywhere (MySpace, Wikipedia, Cyworld, Ohmynews etc.) – but Charles Leadbeater made it clear that this is nothing new. Mass creativity and the sharing of ideas is a fundament of our culture. 

...But what we have seen over the last 30 years is the re-emerging of the amateur. People do things because they want to. So we need to see people as potential participant – not as consumers. From Adam Smith over Karl Marx and on, we have thought of value as exchange. Now instead we need to think of value as interaction and co-creativity.

Descartes said that I think therefore I am. Today its WE think therefore WE are. The social is the new God. On the other hand, the culture of self-expression will grow massively as more and more people buy computers and go online.

Humanity is now one giant hit-generating network. And we are going to see  more and more of mass collaborative creativity. The question is what to do with it. And weather it is good or bad.
But we can be certain that the industrial way of thinking and organizing the world is going to break down rapidly.

What you didn't know about GUM SPOTS

A short history of gum spots and GSPS
1. Gum spots are made from spit out gum + dirty shoes.

2. There have been gum spots around since at least mid 1800. Maybe the phenomenon was also known in ancient Greece.

3. Gum spots can be analysed with GSPS – the Gum Spot Positioning System. The system structures gum spots into patterns which can again be recognised by the GSPS recognition system.

4. The gum spot patterns can be used as mobile tags – and maybe be part of large interactive games.

For further information on gum spots, see www.gumspots.com

Jason Kaufman: - I have just always been fascinated with gum spots.

Vuk Cosic (SL)

Master of ASCII arts and head of the Slovenian festival for interaction design: Do something useless. And be very serious about it.

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The creator of PacManhatten

Kevin Slavin (US) is creator of area/code - a company making large scale real world multiplayer games. Kevin started his presentation by stating, that "Places need stories to make them feel real. Most of the places are real, and most of the stories are not." That is the basis on which he started creating Big Games.

The idea is not getting people back in front of the computer screen – we want to push people out into the world to transform networks. If we go around in the real world e.g. collecting things, we are participation in something collective and we feel responsible for the community.

Lige Jane McGonigal, Kevin stressed the fact, that gaming is extreamly powerful: "You end up running down Hudson Street with something invisible hunting you." An the potential is huge e.g. because it is possible to let the computer game be affected by where you are and what you do.

Big Gaming is not about location – it is about dislocation. It is not about information – it is about disinformation.

Is about creating and teling stories.

- The game was shaping us into something new

An Alternate Reality Game is using the real world to create a fictional reality. The users are an active part of the game – not just passive players trying to solve a riddle. Jane McConigal is developing alternate reality games - the cutting edge of gaming.

Jane McConigal:
- I’m not here to try and make you play more games. But you should be watching people playing games. I wanna help you get into the slipstream of alternate reality gamers…

Alternate reality gaming is a very different way of thinking games. The participants take over the game and become a part of the solution. They interact with the society where the game takes place. As in the AR game GUN where old cemeteries became an important part of the game setting. Suddenly hundreds of players met at the cemeteries and used the space in new ways. They were making the space relevant.

And the games changes the participants, creating a strong network - 'a collective mind' as a player has put it.
- The game was shaping us into something new. It is very beautiful: In order for one of us to move forward we must all move forward.

Sean Stewart, working with ARG:
- We just accidentally reinvented Science as pop culture entertainment

www.argn.com
www.forums.unfiction.com

Who is the speaker?

Jane McGonigal is on the stage right now. Before she started her lecture, she gave us an update on how we – the seminar participants – are doing in creating a social network. What kind of society are we establishing? (See blog entry Morning Energizer!)

Even though there are valuable prizes at stake, no one has found the speaker yet… That indicates that our group is very vulnerable. There is no transparency concerning power, and knowledge is not shared. The attitude to cooperation is bad. This makes us a vulnerable society – similar to New Orleans before the Katrina disaster, Jane says…
Have a nice afternoon!

Our skin is amazing!!!

Lucy McRae is a Body Architect working with fashion, architecture and the human body. The SKIN Probe program focuses on changing social behaviour in youth cultures. The object of analysis was an exploration of the human skin, and this provided her with a unique insight into how body products should be designed – be they garments, electronics or furniture.

Lucys inspiring speak, i think, convinced the conference audience that our skin really is amazing. Allthough her visions is purely on a prototype level, it was an eyeopening look into future.

The garments we wear are also part of our skin. Can we use this to make interactive, sensing textiles? Will we use body sensors as jewellery or even a tattoo showing our emotions. Her point was, that textiles should be more than just intelligent - they should be sensitive.

To make new technology sexy

When scientists introduce technology in everyday life they are often met with distrust and objections. Just look at the public debate on genetically modified food.But how will new technology be used in the future? And what dilemmas will we be debating tomorrow?

That is what Anthony Dunne is challenging his design students with at London Royal College of Arts. His sees his task as designer to make new technology sexy and useful – to make it enter every day life.

- The challenge for designers is to make technology relevant to people. Today we are facing new questions: Should we implement technology at all? And how do we do it?

At the seminar Dunne presented several projects that his students have been working on.

Meat of the future!
It is possible for scientists to let body cells generate and grow. Maybe in the future it will be possible to grow a steak from a meat cell from an animal. Could that be a concept of a new franchise restaurant? How would such a steak look like? And what will it be called?
Is it ethical to develop the technology in this direction? Or is it unethical not to do it – in a world where millions are starving?

Biojewellery
It is also possible to grow bone cells in laboratories - doctors are already using these artificial bones in surgery. But maybe this technology could also be used in other matters. Would you find it romantic to have a wedding ring grown from you and your lover’s bones?
www.biojewellery.com

Anthony Dunne:
- As consumers we put the moral issues aside. Often it’s a question of weather we like it or not - or if it has the right price. As designers we need to take this debate. Not just from a theoretical ethic point of view, but focusing on how the design effect our everyday life.