Nordic Exceptional Trendshop 2006

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!

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.

Sofa talk

In the two black leather sofas on the stage are seated Louise Skyggebjerg, George Dyson and Colin Bulthaup. Together they have just lectured on inventors and creative environments over the last one hundred years. Skyggebjerg on the Danish inventor Ellehammer. Dyson on his father Freeman Dyson and the team of scientists who invented the nuclear bomb and the computer in the 1950s. And Bulthaup – a young American inventor of the new millennium.

Essential to all inventors is funding.

- The tragic side of the story about Ellehammer is how difficult it was for him to get his work funded, as Dyson noticed.
Skyggebjerg replies: - It was actually easy to get finance in the beginning of a project. Ellehammer’s charismatic person convinced many investors. But the investors were disappointed when Ellehammer could not show results right away. And then they took away their funding.

Host Henrik Føhns turns the conversation.

- What about morality? How can you work day in and day out on building a bomb and in night time concentrate on e.g. working on the computer – as the team around Freeman and van Neuman did.

George Dyson: - It was a moral issue that the scientists at Princeton struggled with. But the military financed the project. They said: - “Well, if you design our bomb, then we will finance all your other crazy ideas!” And many essential inventions were made. The government doesn’t think that way any more. Today we just get the weapons. Not all the other crazy and innovative ideas.

Colin Bulthaup: Just do it

Colin Bulthaup (US) talked about how to create an environment that allows you to come up with the next big thing. And how do you do that?

You need to go beyond thinking about what the future can bring. Instead we need to do it. When you walk in academic environment we don’t normally have the offertunities of making real impact. But we need to.

A few innovation examples from Squid Labs, where Colin is from: Smart Rope (the rope that knows if its about to break), Educational Cartoons, Instructables.com (A way for people to work in collaboration on projects)

Potenco.com
Cell phone use is exploding in Africa, but only 10% of the population has access to electric power. People have to walk many miles for access to power.

Enter The Pull-Cord Human Power Generator! A small devise that looks like a playing top, but can produce electricity when you pull the string on the generator. For 1 minute of pulling you get eg. 25 minutes cell phone talk time! The best thing about The Pill-Cord Human Power Generator? This device is real! – and millions of units will be distrubeted within the next years in developing countries.

$100 Laptop is an example of The Pull-Cord Human Power Generator in use.

Who invented the small boats in the Tivoli Park, Copenhagen?

It was the same man who also revolutionized the fire engine. And invented one of the first (well functioning…) aeroplanes. Meet 'the Danish Edison', inventor Jacob Ellehammer (1871-1946). Presented by Louise Skyggebjerg from the Danish Technical Museum.

Ellehammer worked on everything from new types of engines to an egg opener! One of his greatest inventions – 'the forgotten success', as Louise Skyggebjerg calls it – was The Ellehammer Pump. A fire engine that could be attached to a Ford T and therefore be used in rural areas and not only in the city. Ellehammer was a true innovator who lived in an exciting age.

The Danish Technical Museum (webpage in Danish)
www.tekniskmuseum.dk