---

Culture

---

Mobility Means Living

Something different. A film about mobility from elephant on Vimeo.

---

Building relationships with people outside the office and IM

When I left my day job 2 years ago one of the biggest shocks for me was realizing just how much I relied upon my co-workers for social interaction, inspiration, and motivation. It's one of the drawbacks of working from home - lack of contact with people outside of social networking sites, IM, email, and mobile phone. Interacting in this fashion isn't really interacting at all. It's very impersonal.

While many people face this challenge, my circumstances are fairly unique. I am an expat. living in Asia in a house far from any city center. The area in which I live has little in the way of professional interaction and in general outside of a few pubs there is little opportunity social interaction. There are few professional associations here, at least in the industry I am in. There are meet-ups organized for groups of people loosely related (various expat. get-togethers) but they tend to be hours away and require not just a significant investment of my time but time away from my family.

I don't have the answers and it's something that I am working on but luckily there are many people with great advice. Here’s what a few sources have to say on how to develop and find 'real' relationships outside your home office.

Go to where the people are! Volunteer for a big event, attend a conference or join a club. While it’s possible to meet people hanging around the local coffee shop, it can be harder — your prospective contact may not be interested in interacting with anyone except the barista. However, at events and club activities, people show up ready to talk. Lifehack.

Make your solitary activity social. If you have an interest that you normally partake in on your own, you may be able to introduce a social element into it. For example, if you like running, then put out a call for a running buddy. If you normally mountain bike by yourself then you could find a group that rides together on the weekends. If you like reading you could start a book club. If you like playing an instrument then start a band or join one. If you're a writer you could organize a group where people meet to share what they've been working on and help each other improve. If you're into comics or card games maybe you can hang around the store with the other hobbyists instead of staying at home.

Go to church or other spiritual event. This may seem too self-serving but I have found that people are far more outgoing and willing to accept a stranger when the context is a church activity. Perhaps you are interested in exploring another belief system or your own with more depth. Where I live it's one of the few places you can make friends without the influence of alcohol.

Use a web-based service to find people to do things with. Use online services like Upcoming.org, Meetup, Socializer, or a local discussion forum. Forumosa, a Taiwan online community, hosts regular happy hours for it's members. If you like photography look for Flickr group meets.

Maintain current relationships. Re-contact people periodically. Let people know what you’re up to, and show a genuine interest in what they’re up to. Don’t drop a connection because they don’t show any immediate need for whatever you do — you never know when they will, and you never know who they know who will. More importantly, these personal connections add more value than just a file full of prospective clients, customers, or voters. Lifehack.

Further reading:
Building Healthy Relationships
How to Make Friends And Get a Social Life
Places And Ways To Meet New People

Photo by cypherone @ Taiwan.

---

10 tips for being calm

I think my 4 year old daughter was trying to tell me something when she brought me a Chinese translation of The Little Book of Calm by Paul Wilson. I don't usually make it a habit of reading books like this, unless you count all the productivity manuals I've digested, but my daughter was pretty persuasive. Generally its too 'new age' for me but like many texts like this there are enough bits of commonsense to make the effort of leafing through the pages worthwhile. Here is a selection of 10 tips contained within the book which I found to be the most relevant.

Leave it to others to be perfect, to be wonderful. Be content with who you are - you will be much more relaxed as a result.

Take a lesson in calmness from children: watch how they live every moment for the pleasure of the moment.

Clear out the clutter. Physical disarray adds to the tension of life. Clearing out the clutter is an orderly way to calm.

To bear ill-feelings towards someone else is more damaging to the bearer than the recipient. Forgive quickly and freely.

There comes a time when you need to shut yourself off from interruption, to concentrate on your own needs and responsibilities. Do it for at least one hour every day.

Keep plants where you work, sleep and live, and you'll enjoy more oxygen. The more oxygen you get the more calmer you will become.

Anything that interferes with your sleep - coffee, cola, alcohol - interferes with your ability to become calm. Do whatever is necessary to get as much sleep as you feel you need.

Walk everyday - not because you have to , but because if you combine it with the right attitude , it can be the most relaxing way to get from A to B.

Be rigorous in differentiating between what is achievable and what is a waste of time. Then devote your energies to only those tasks you can achieve.

Any task you can do on remote control has the potential as a way of helping you feel good. Treat it as a meditation, concentrating wholly on the moment, and you will be fulfilled.

What works wonders for me isn't mentioned anywhere in this book. A weekend getting massaged into submission at a resort in Thailand is a surefire way to 'calm' for me.

The Little Book of Calm

---

Men’s Handbags in Tokyo

Pingmag files a street report on men's handbags in Tokyo. While I seldom go anywhere without a bag of some sort most of what they describe are on the feminine side for me. I do dig the one pictured above.

Ping Mag.. Via Jeansnow.

---

---

The Machine is Us

It's received plenty of exposure but a presentation as fine as this deserves more.

---

Silent Ringtone

Funny and no doubt appreciated by many. An interesting commentary on technology by an artist who wisely doesn't own a cell phone. Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats has created the world's first silent ringtone - an homage to Cage's 4'33", performed live before an audience in 1952.

A remastering, "My Cage" is also a remix, introducing serendipity into the equation, delivering performances unpredictably, whenever calls come unexpectedly. The silence may take place without the listener being aware of it. Or the listener may hear a call - phantom silence - when there's no one on the line. "My Cage" all-encompassing: Even those who don't use it as a ringtone have the potential to experience it, in the silence of an unanswered call. Note: To fully enjoy this work, and to give callers the opportunity to enjoy the complete silence as well, it is recommended that you turn off your voicemail.

While noting that Mr. Keats doesn't have a cellphone of his own, and may be less-than-qualified to make global pronouncements about them, Start Mobile CEO John Doffing believes that "My Cage" may be a platinum hit. "People want a respite," he says, "and not everybody has the time or money to go to a spa. The virtues of silence are unsung.

My Cage. Via Wired.

---

Happy New Year

Tonight is New Years Eve with at least the following few days being a holiday for most people. It's going to be a noisy night! Gongxi fa cai . . . hong bao na lai . . . and all that!

Related: China's cellular operators estimate Chinese customers will send around 14 billion Lunar New Year text messages on their mobile phones during the week-long holiday, the Xinhua news agency said on Monday. Source.

---

Interface Space - Design Observer

Design Observer has produced a succinct article on how artists are exploring the relationships between the flat interfaces of the ubiquitous PC and real life/space. It's interesting to ponder how our daily immersion into this windowed environment affects our interaction with the world around us. I sometimes wish their was an 'escape key' or at least a 'command-z'.

You probably spend hours a day staring at this screen — working, playing, talking to friends, shopping. With so many creative people spending so much time on their computers it is no surprise that the computer interface itself has become source material for contemporary art. Daily immersion in a two-dimensional space has raised an intriguing question that many contemporary artists can’t resist: what is the physicality of the screen? The ubiquitous interface experience has created a symbiosis between the metaphorical space of the computer and the physical world.

Full Article. Via Core77

---

---

Remapping the Universe - multi-touch driven UI

In this video, Jeff Han and Phil Davidson demonstrate how a multi-touch driven computer screen will change the way we work and play.

It will be wonderful if these could be implemented in a public context. Subway area maps, local business directories could all benefit from such a large scale interface. That is if we weren't further restricted by the explosion of virus's and resultant lake of human contact.

These interfaces will never see wide spread use in office environments where you have to input and manipulate data for hours. It would be like when my old Chinese teacher use to have me write Chinese characters on the white board for an hour "to keep warm" - my arm felt like it was going to fall off.

---

Nokia - A View of the Future

All user interfaces look great on film.

Nokia has released a number of short videos that explore how mobile phone design may change in the next three or four years. There is a video for each of the four categories, or put more simply different lifestyle, that Nokia focuses on.

More here.

---

Post-it Wallpaper

Computers will continue to be overrated for many basic tasks until they become as easy and inexpensive to use as many analogue tools. What is easier than pen and paper? Pixelnotes "A wallpaper consisting of four layers of varying grey tones on a bright primary backing. Each layer is perforated in a grid format and backed with a tacky adhesive similar to ‘post-it’ notes. Pixelnotes is inspired by the way we work within a space. Pixelated formations and shapes develop according to our patterns of use." There are a multitude of wonderful uses for a product such as this - finally a use for walls that allow people who are constantly coming and going from a space to leave each other simple notes. Looks beautiful too.

Duncan Wilson and Sirkka Hammer.

---

True Urban Park in Bangkok

I finally managed to visit True Urban Park a digital-lifestyle-brand-experience shop located on the 3rd floor in the upscale shopping orgy called Siam Paragon. It's an impressive mix of cosy intimate comfort, big brash billboard displays, analog and digital convergence, and hip young staff. It's like someone asked what is hip, through it all together, and instead of disaster created something cool. Favourite part? Definitely being able to ditch my small screen display for the comfort of funky chairs, wireless keyboards, large screen lcd's, high speed internet, powered by some flavour of Apple. It's replete with cool books, dj, expensive coffee, cameras and accessories, and ipod charging stations. Don't miss the small flower shop in front.

The idea of the Urban Park is to be a trendy brand beacon and lifestyle platform for marketing activities, for example starring as set for MTV shows. It is about meeting the consumer and inspiring him, offering him a “third-place” to spend his leisure time. (source)

It's location and constant mtv style big screen marketing activity may dissuade serious use but as a place to impress and shop it certainly succeeds.

More photos in the flickr set.

---

World Usability Day Posters

World Usability Day may have come and gone but the posters will last as a visual statement of what life might be like without it (it being usability). The examples are good but one only needs to look at almost any device today and see serious problems. I do think they work well.

The idea behind the 2006 campaign was to build an appreciation for usability by showing what life might be like without it. This was demonstated by visually removing or changing elements of everyday objects and consequently rendering them unusable.

More images from the posters after the jump.

Continue reading »

---

Hulger Wooden PIP

A beautiful departure from the disposable concept of just about every other phone made today. This phone is designed to wear in not wear or be thrown out. Produced by Hulger, their first ever wooden pip*phone is fashioned from the distinctively grained African hardwood Ziricote, "normally used for decorative objects, this phone blends innovation with tradition. The Ziricote* comes in it own wooden box and is accompanied by a pot of wax, for treatment". Cost for this one time item is about $3850US - courtesy of Digital Wellbeing Showroom.

It will be some time before we see a break from the throw away model of consumer electronics. Where will your iPod shuffle be in 10 years?

Hulger.com and Zircote One Off.

---

---