[no topic]

Too many events?

I learned recently that a new book is published every 30 seconds. I imagine at least that many new blogs are launched each day. Does the same rate of reproduction apply to conferences and events? I used to keep my own list of events until I discovered a bunch of [continue …]

2022-08-28T15:17:00+00:00June 10th, 2005|[no topic]|

By the way…

We do realise that this blog is located, confusingly, at the website of a past event (Doors 8) – but we’re working hard to re-organise a family of Doors sites and things should be clearer in a week or so.

2005-06-08T09:47:03+00:00June 8th, 2005|[no topic]|

Avian bird flu viral marketing breakthrough

I surmise that the W Hotel in Seattle, where I am staying, has designed its lighting to foster chance encounters: everything is bathed in (but not much illuminated by) weak blue light. Seattle seems to be obsessed by social networks and biological models of economic activity. My driver today waxed [continue …]

2005-05-20T05:11:35+00:00May 20th, 2005|[no topic]|

Surrogate blogging

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang blogged my talk at Ideo and made it sound much crisper and more interesting than the talk itself. Surrogate blogging sounds like a great businesss opportunity – and good for the environment, too, if it reduces the quantity of hot air entering the atmosphere.

2023-04-28T10:52:07+00:00May 19th, 2005|[no topic]|

Why do we work?

A half-page ad in today’s San Francisco Chronice features the words “Why do we work?” displayed over the photo of an assembly line worker’s hands, shifting a box.The text below begins with the strapline: “to keep the future growing”. A bank called Principal.com probably paid good money for this fatuous [continue …]

2005-05-19T19:08:52+00:00May 19th, 2005|[no topic]|

Breathless

Amid the swirling damp mist of San Francisco I receive news of an intriguing event in Maastricht called Breath-taking. A series of lectures about air, art and architecture include heavier-than-air pieces from Francois Perrin (‘The geometry of climate’) and Peter Sloterdijk (‘Inspiration’). The website features a bursting blue bubble, [continue …]

2022-10-02T10:12:06+00:00May 18th, 2005|[no topic]|

David Burney’s good excuse

I was disappointed when David Burney, a speaker at Doors 8 failed to show up at my book party in New York. Then I started seeing David’s face on all the television sets in town. It turned out that a landslide had blocked one of the main arterial roads [continue …]

2022-10-21T12:10:41+00:00May 16th, 2005|[no topic]|

Service design project showcase

One of the thrills of my working year in 2004 was helping a UK team develop the concept and business plan for a new service design institute in Newcastle-upon-Tyne – my home town. One North East, a UK regional development authority, is nurturing a post-coal, post-iron, post-shipbuilding economy with great [continue …]

2005-04-26T18:57:50+00:00April 26th, 2005|[no topic]|

Kiss your lifestyle goodbye

“The end of oil is closer than you think. Oil production could peak next year. Just kiss your lifestyle goodbye”. A rollicking doomsday story in today’s Guardian, by John Vidal, revisits the so-called “peak oil” contoversy about whether a global peak to oil production is approaching. According to Vidal, [continue …]

2022-10-21T12:10:34+00:00April 21st, 2005|[no topic]|

Happy in your work?

According to the City & Guilds Happiness Index hairdressers are the happiest workers in Britain: 40 percent say they are very content in their job (giving their careers a score of ten out of ten). Next in the happiness stakes are the clergy (24 percent ), chefs/cooks (23 [continue …]

2005-04-20T09:55:06+00:00April 20th, 2005|[no topic]|

One for the birds

Science tells us birds sing to attract mates and defend territories. But why do some birds make only a “peep” and others sing ornate songs that go on for hours? An intriguing event in New York on 16 April brings scientists together with musicians and poets to [continue …]

2005-04-14T08:22:15+00:00April 14th, 2005|[no topic]|

Sorry, Stefan

I owe an apology to Stefan Magdalinski, from whitelabel.org, who was one of the star turns at Doors 8 (and has nice words to say about the event in his blog). In yesterday’s emailed Doors Report, I managed to omit a “not” and thereby render a sentence [continue …]

2022-10-21T12:10:29+00:00April 5th, 2005|[no topic]|

It arrived!

Four years since I started work on it (not counting the ten years of Doors events it draws on) I received the first printed copy of my book. You won’t beleve what a relief it is that it’s finally done. Thanks [continue …]

2022-10-21T12:10:28+00:00April 4th, 2005|[no topic]|

Conference pictures

Pre-Conference workshops. 46 images.

Day 01 Conference. 18 images.

Day 01-b Conference. 49 images.

Day 03 Conference. 69 images.

2022-10-21T12:10:27+00:00April 2nd, 2005|[no topic]|

Doors 8 Holi party pix

The first 61 Holi party images are online. As Bhagwat Shah explains: “amongst India’s innumerable festivals, Holi ranks as the most colourful. It celebrates the arrival of spring and death of demoness Holika, it is a celebration of joy and hope. Holi provides a refreshing respite [continue …]

2022-10-21T12:10:23+00:00March 30th, 2005|[no topic]|

Doors 8 proceedings

So here’s the deal: You probably had a perfectly good reason not to come, and you were of course missed, but those of us who made it to Doors 8 are pretty comprehensively wiped by an amazing week. The concluding Holi party slowed our turnaround time further, so you’ll have [continue …]

2005-03-29T11:14:03+00:00March 29th, 2005|[no topic]|

Enabling simultaneity

Until now, we’ve said we could not accept credit card payments for Doors 8 at the door on the day. Now we got a machine, so we can. See you there!

2005-03-15T13:06:19+00:00March 15th, 2005|[no topic]|

Wanadon’t

It’s now ten days until Doors 8 and our cable has been down for 12 days. Thankyou, Wanadoo. Not. But enough of that company from hell. The good news is that the CKS team in Delhi is working brilliantly; some international people are already on their way to India; and [continue …]

2005-03-10T10:26:32+00:00March 10th, 2005|[no topic]|

A cure for the cable curse?

Ten days before Doors 7, our cable connection crashed and UPC were unable to fix it. Until, that is, I located the home phone number of UPC’s European CEO; I called him during dinner to share my thoughts on the matter. By a happy coincidence, our cable connection was restored [continue …]

2005-03-08T10:52:26+00:00March 8th, 2005|[no topic]|

New Poster

Today we publish a new Doors 8 poster designed by Abhishek Hazra. Please print it, post it somewhere prominent, and/or pass it on to individuals (not to whole lists) you think will consider helping us get the word out.

2022-10-21T12:09:55+00:00February 20th, 2005|[no topic]|

How to avoid time compression

Like the migratory patterns of Arctic Terns,the travel patterns of the Doors crowd are a perennial mystery.All we know is that people register later every time we do a Doors event. (At Doors 7 in Amsterdam, we sold a third of our tickets in the last couple of weeks). [continue …]

2005-02-19T09:07:29+00:00February 19th, 2005|[no topic]|

Fight this injustice!

A kindly-looking gent called Jack Welch has drawn the short straw to beat all short straws. His new book ‘Winning’ has been selected by Fast Company to compete against ‘In The Bubble’ for that magazine’s book of the month selection. It’s cruel and outrageous that such an underdog – the [continue …]

2005-02-11T20:50:17+00:00February 11th, 2005|[no topic]|

Service design notation

What does a service design look like? How are we to represent and visualize such complex artefacts as a service, a scenario, or a strategy? Francois Jegou has been investigating this challenge together with Ezio Manzini in a project called ‘Sustainable Everyday: Scenarios of Urban Life’. They looked for examples [continue …]

2005-02-11T11:19:24+00:00February 11th, 2005|[no topic]|

Life in a swarm

The theme of Doors 8 – ‘Infra’ – is indeed rather broad. Today we’ve posted a list of adjacent organisations and projects that we’ve learned about in developing the programme. Doors 8 is about collaborative innovation – not about charity, aid, or top-down development – so we [continue …]

2022-10-21T12:10:17+00:00February 10th, 2005|[no topic]|

Save the Giroud Verifier!

Speaking of infrastructure, I was shocked to read that Amsterdam’s museum of energy generating equipment and lifts – EnergeticA – is threatened with closure; there’s also a danger that its collection will be broken up. EnergericA is in an old power station and [continue …]

2022-10-21T12:08:15+00:00January 30th, 2005|[no topic]|

Distribute then socialise

A 30 million euro scheme in London will make high speed broadband connections available to 20,000 people in a comparatively deprived area.The scheme will be accompanied by local online services such as community information, message boards, and voting mechanisms to enable referendums.’This is the most ambitious experiment of its kind [continue …]

2005-01-29T13:25:28+00:00January 29th, 2005|[no topic]|

For a food mile tachometer

Truck drivers already have to endure supervision by a tachometer which logs their speeds and driving times on behalf of myriad external authorities. Why not a tachometer for tomatoes, to monitor and make explicit food miles? Food distribution can be tremedously wasteful, but invisibly so. The concept of food dates [continue …]

2023-04-28T11:42:51+00:00January 27th, 2005|[no topic]|

Pre-Doors8 workshops

Several pre-conference workshops will take place in and around Delhi before Doors 8 itself – especially on Friday 18 to Sunday 20 March. Participation in a workshop is by agreement with the workshop leader concerned, and you have to register for Doors 8 first, to be eligible to take part. [continue …]

2005-01-26T13:21:56+00:00January 26th, 2005|[no topic]|

Who will be who?

We have updated the speaker profiles (there’s a button on the right of this screen). These should give you a better idea of the kind of people you’ll meet and interact with in Delhi. Our week together features a range of activities :
– plenary think-piece presentations (Monday and Tuesday);
– Project [continue …]

2005-01-25T22:19:43+00:00January 25th, 2005|[no topic]|

Study art and never be unemployed

‘Those who enjoy what they do never have to work any more’. An intriguing article by Sybrand Zijlstra (in a new Dutch publication called Morf ) reports that 80% of students graduating from Dutch art academies pronounced themselves to be satisfied with their education. This is a [continue …]

2023-04-18T09:05:34+00:00January 23rd, 2005|[no topic]|

Danger zone?

Someone asked us if Doors 8 is near the tsunami danger zone. No, it is not. The distance from Delhi to Chennai (the Indian city where the tsunami hit hardest) is 2095 km, or 1301 miles. That’s similar to the distance from Boston to Miami, Amsterdam to Athens, or Tokyo [continue …]

2005-01-20T12:12:10+00:00January 20th, 2005|[no topic]|

Time in design

A gorgeous 500 page gold brick of a book has arrived. Time In Design is based on a 24-hour conference by that name that took place last year in Rotterdam. But the conference proceedings (printed on gold paper) are just a start. The book ranges widely over what the editors [continue …]

2005-01-20T00:50:11+00:00January 20th, 2005|[no topic]|

Closure of Media Lab Europe

It’s sad news indeed that Media Lab Europe (MLE), the European research partner of MIT Media Lab in the US, is to close.
Neither of the Lab’s main stakeholders – MIT itself, and the Irish government – was prepared to fund the Lab once it became clear that [continue …]

2005-01-18T18:38:04+00:00January 18th, 2005|[no topic]|

Don’t they look young!

For much of 2004, the Doors of Pereception conference archive was inaccessible to the majority of our visitors. (The archive was built over a ten year period for browsers that became too clever and advanced to access material which we hadn’t touched….). Well, we’ve quick-fixed a new [continue …]

2022-10-21T12:07:56+00:00January 11th, 2005|[no topic]|

Business, virtue and self-interest

There is still time for your company to sponsor Doors 8. We will use new resources from sponsors to improve the conference, and to enhance the Social Innovation Salon. We also want to provide travel scholarships to grassroots innovators with stories we want to hear.
A decision to sponsor Doors [continue …]

2022-10-21T12:10:09+00:00January 7th, 2005|[no topic]|

Presenting at Doors 8

Many employers will only pay travel and registration costs if an employee has been invited to present a paper. This crazy policy implies that nobody comes to learn – just to speak – and it leads to over-crowded conference agendas. The policy is a pain for us, too: We want [continue …]

2005-01-06T11:48:24+00:00January 6th, 2005|[no topic]|

Pyramids and campfires

A key question for Doors 8 is, how best shall we share design knowledge when and where it is most needed? Books, databases – or blogs – full of insights, tools and rules are a support, not the thing itself. The most important knowledge is embodied, and situated. There’s a [continue …]

2005-01-04T19:39:52+00:00January 4th, 2005|[no topic]|

Technology, safety, community

This year’s Computer Human Interaction (CHI) conference has as its theme, ‘Technology, Safety, Community’. The event, says the website, confronts the ‘challenge for technology to make people feel safe again’. The agenda sounds uncontroversial, but you have to ask if the resulting design effort will make anyone materially safer, or [continue …]

2012-04-02T16:22:25+00:00January 3rd, 2005|[no topic]|

Web collision space

In his new book ‘Information Politics on the Web’ Richard Rogers says that the Web can be a collision space for official and unofficial accounts of reality and, as such, an excellent arena for ‘unsettling the official’. Tools developed by Rogers, such as the celebrated issue tracker, can be [continue …]

2005-01-01T09:54:59+00:00January 1st, 2005|[no topic]|
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