A new school of Interaction design is being born as we speak: the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. Simona Maschi and Heather Martin, 2 former Interaction Design Institute Ivrea staff members have started, with a team of graduate students and supporting staff, this exciting endeavor. They plan to begin research projects this fall and accept their first Masters students for the fall of 2007.
“This high profile design institute, which is small but dynamic interfaces with academia and industry. The institute will become an international setting for new thinking in design and technology in Copenhagen. The institute will encourage multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary learning, teaching and consulting in Interaction Design. We imagine that people both from the academic and the industrial world will come to Copenhagen to work with us on innovative products, services and technology for the future. The institute aims to become an international centre of excellence in interaction design and innovation by 2010. The uniqueness of the institute is that it will incorporate an integrated plan of teaching, research and consulting - all in the same building, at the same time allowing them to influence each other in their vision and philosophy.”
Spread the word!
The
ICIS/LUND project is a joint endeavour intended to create the
foundation for a innovative new Scandinavian Master’s programme in
Sustainable Design. ICIS and the Department of Environmental Strategy
of Campus Helsingborg (Lund University) are the principal founders in
the creation of this educational programme. The Municipality of
Helsingør, City of Helsingborg and Frederiksborg County are
contributing financial partners to the Project. As such, this joint
educational project is designed to elevate the level of sustainable
design competence in the Øresund, Scandinavia and Europe.
Read more at susdes.org
Design Observer has republished an article by Michael McDonough listing
the top 10 things they never taught Michael in design school. Design is
a fundamental capability in a complex world and I think you’ll find
Michael’s list useful. Here are the bullet points. For the explanations
I recommend you pop on over to Design Observer.
- Talent is one-third of the success equation.
- 95 percent of any creative profession is shit work.
- If everything is equally important, then nothing is very important.
- Don’t over-think a problem.
- Start with what you know; then remove the unknowns.
- Don’t forget your goal.
- When you throw your weight around, you usually fall off balance.
- The road to hell is paved with good intentions; or, no good deed goes unpunished.
- It all comes down to output.
- The rest of the world counts.
I got it from Anecdote
There’s an interesting opposition of ideas when it comes to customer service in an era of web 2.0. On one hand we have a ton and a half of “user-generatable” content and companies are understanding more and more how to leverage that content to the advantge of their brand, but then we face large industries with little to no customer service. Worse is we do very little about it as this Emergence marketing post discusses. Why do we feel that it’s alright to use a companies APIs and customize it to no end, do cool things with the creative tools they give us, but then when we actually need something from them, the door is slammed in our face? I once heard that for every complaint that a person filed to a company, there are 1000 dissatisfied customers who have never complained.
If we have so much power as some would have us believe, how come we get so little in return?
Another conference at the end of September, in Amsterdam this time around, Picnic has a stellar list of speakers. An “annual event for all those interested and involved in cross media content and technology in Europe, North America and Asia.
Under the theme “celebrating creative genius”, PICNIC ‘06 will provide you with the opportunity to discuss major trends, see innovative content, formats and channels, and develop new opportunities.”
This will surely be exciting, it’s too bad it’s so darn expensive… ill have to listen to the podcast then 
Mark Hurst has asked me to talk about this exciting conference coming up on September 1st in Copenhagen called GelConference which stands for “Good experience Live” and will explore good experience in all its form: business, art, society, technology, and life. I’m sure some of the pilots here would have great things to say or should definitely attend. : ) live blogging!!!
After reading this World Changing article via Putting People first I started to realize how much stands in the way of a service economy. The article in itself did not reveal that much about the innovative ways in which we could be considering our possessions for one. I find it a bit depressing that we are still talking about basic and impersonal services like car sharing, tool sharing, lending and renting services, things that Ezio Manzini has been talking about for the past 10 years.
Yes people like to own things, they socially define themselves by what they own, so services that would challenge and question our worldly belongings and the way we interact with them (Rentathing comes to mind) would be more useful to the whole discourse i think… especially when you read the types of comments that accompanied the article. I think that people seriously need to start considering what their impact on the environment is but also for designers to start getting a lot more creative about the options that we offer people. If some services have changed the face of video rental, air travel, music sharing, surely there is a fabulous design space beyond sharing your lawnmower with the neighbor! Club cards aren’t the answer to everything.