How can our economy shift from a model of unlimited growth, to growth within temporal & material limits? How can we retrain ourselves to work in ways which mimic natural ecosystems? How can the concept of capitalism and its proponents be replaced with a more productive frame of thought? Less abstractly, how can we utilize familiar elements of today’s broken systems, as a stepping stone for a better tomorrow?

The Two Types of Growth

We need to grow. Growth is a natural concept, unlimited growth is not. Eventually life dies and then begins again. Uncontrolled growth in one area is cancer. Rapid distributed growth is viral. Either of the two leads to an unbalanced system, one bound to destroy itself. With this in mind, we need death.

The mycelium infuses all landscapes, it holds soils together, it’s extremely tenacious — this holds up to 30 thousand times its mass. They’re the grand molecular disassemblers of nature, the soil magicians. They generate the humus soils across the land masses of Earth…so the mycelium is the mother that is giving nutrients from alder and birch trees, to hemlocks, cedars, and Douglas firs. – A great TED Talk by Paul Stamets

It is these types of structures that we find the most fit attribute for evolution: giving. When organisms or ideas growth steadily while maintaining an equilibrium, it is because they are giving something back to their environment and the other neighbouring inhabitants. This which they are giving, is something they can both afford to give. In the case of mycelium, strength. It is also that which enables new growth of future partners, such as birch, hemlocks, and cedars. In economic terms this is profit for both parties, a good business relationship.

Current Economic Growth Model

Traditional expansion for business has been in the form of capital and personelle. In both cases the goal is to own and exploit.

Capital allows for dominance in the market, and a return on investment. It enables further production then profits, but due to its high-cost nature, is limited to only those who can raise funding. Since capital investments are expensive, and since the purpose of such investment is to allow for market dominance, its nature is proprietary. It would be counterproductive to share one’s capital investments with competitors, especially to give it away.

Personelle allow for profit margins. Without personelle there would be no way to expand the use of one’s capital investments. People need to operate business processes. Margins are expanded by undervaluing labour. If labour was valued correctly, there would be no profit margin, for it would go to the direct participants in the production. Captial investment ensures the ability to undervalue labour and manage the margins. This is simple, but what is most devious, is the time limitation. Just as giving away investments destroys competitive advantage, enabling personelle jeopardizes profit margins. Should people become wealthy enough through work to afford capital investments, or aware enough to realize their devalued roles, authority would be challenge through competition or bargaining. It is to a business’s disadvantage to enable their labour to learn more than their job description, or work less than their life.

A Proposal for change

In the ecological world, most exchanges maintain a non-zero sum relationship. In addition, most organisms do not depend on only one other. This interdependence runs contrary to the capital-labour relationship in the economic world. Clearly the dominant investor needs a labour-force to operate the investment. Just as clearly, the labour-force needs not the investor, but the investment. Such investment could come in the form of a factory, computer, sewing machine, or simply space.

What I propose is a different way of expanding. Instead of investing in capital and seeking margins, we could raise capital and share returns. Instead of buying out lives via salary, we could buy a portion of time from many and ensure such a labourer will one day replace us. (www.cambrianhouse.com/)

Models like this can be seen in co-operatives, governments, and collective action groups alike. The difference is the scale and the cross-pollination. Imagine many governments, or being part of many distributed cooperatives. Imagines those cooperatives disbanding when their todo list is complete.

Imagination time

Imagine a space which is rented, or for consistency, owned. This is the capital, it is used in the pursuit of competitive advantage. It is maintained through operating overhead, taxes, rent, utilities amounting to $1200/month. It is used to keep employees in, and competitors out.

Now imagine a space which is free. A park bench, a picnic table, a coffee-shop, a library. It is improved by its inhabitants. Their fruits go into improving this place, and enabling it to hold others at the tune of $1200/month. Much like the mycealium, the more it grows the more solid the soil becomes, which allows for other trees to grow. Soil is composed of the decomposed, without this dead matter and biomaterial, it would be merely rocks.

Next imagine an employee who maintains a routine position operating a business. This person, in 40 years, does not progress, save the lengthening of his job description. The business employs this person for $30 000 the first year ending at $60 000 the final. This person spends an average of 8 hours per day at work, 5 days a week, 50 weeks of the year. Steadily, of those 40 years, margins have increased and the business has successfully marked-up (or devalued) that labour.

Finally imagine an employee who works on their talent, growth, and greater betterment in conjunction. This person works with various employers, but quickly grows to replace them. Businesses employ this person for $3000/year consistently. This person spends, with this one of many companies, a self-determined amount of hours per day working from different places, amounting to 200 hours.

Why now?

What makes this possible in our time, is the potential to know who needs help, and who can give help. Currently, that information lives mainly in personal networks, which run too slow and are too disconnected to service the rapid-turnover described.

To paint a vision. We will optimistically expand through parts of people, fortifying their base for growth, while gaining from them nutrients to fuel the betterment. This I call half-full-time in a growing space.

Give a man better and he’ll thank you today
Teach a man to better and you’ll thank him tomorrow

..and taxes

So, to address death. We must accept it is good for entities to die. Our economy is structured in such a way that death of a business is bankruptcy for the corporation and in many cases the operator. Ecologically, death is anything but bankrupt. Death breads life of all kinds, and prevents domination of one organism.

Not only does the ecosystem value death, it puts a pretty consistent deadline on life. [cats, dogs, horses, elephants, whales]. Imagine an economy where the lifespan of an institution was limited. It had a certain amount of time to learn, growth, give, and reflect. Stagnancy would be controlled and could only last for so long. Death is a noun, but the verbs it enables are key: growth, evolution, renewal, decomposition, reintegration. New ideas and organizations would flourish in the passing of an elder. Wisdom would be shared in the interest of legacy. What we need is to kill the institution. What we need is a natural economy.

This is a proposal to find out what governs life-span in nature. To understand how that might govern our unnatural economy.

A new word order is an attempt to bring computing from an age of office informed metaphor to one of ubiquity and human relation. On the cusp of an always connected culture, and spanning across devices and platforms, our new forms of interaction will take place constantly at varied intensities.

It is our position that these new interactions must be defined in ways which encourage creativity, respect, and ultimately inform the citizens of tomorrow. A central principle in our approach is one of aesthetics. Neither surface, nor skin will hide the inadequacies of the tools we are given. We now begin a journey in suggesting and finally crafting our own tools. These tools will bred upon themselves. Through open research, invention, and application, we will make the work of tomorrow a conversation between lifestyle and possibility. In the pursuit of personal improvement, with the hope of a greater societal effect.

Diversity is central in our approach. It is not enough to propose a new way of thinking, one must make the path tread to that end visible for those who wish to create further trails. Each of our proposals is not an end, but a question, the beginning of a conversation. Each of our exploits is very much informed by the technical affordance in our time, while also suggestive of a direction for further development. Each of our thoughts is accompanied by a detailed explanation, a collection of words which might paint for us all a new image, a window looking out of our houses and into our land.

We will not work inside. We may not work again. We will create with enjoyment and passion, we will bridge the holes between personal and global. The library will be turned inside out, and our books outside in. The new paradigm of connection cannot be prototyped on a screen, it must be placed, it must exist in a space, among people. The best computer lives in a server room, what we are working toward is not a computer, it is at best invisible, and at least accessible.

Language will change. Images will be used as words, links will become paragraphs, listening will create stories, and writing will never start with a blank page. Everything we do will be remembered, all we collect will be valued. No one will be disconnected, and we all will be in a grey area of disagreement and resolve. Large decisions will crumble to interested parties, and become small tasks. Our main aim will be to seek togetherness, our main thoughts will be overlapping. Assumptions will be visible, and our influences will be openly accessible.

Our learning will be based on context. We will refer to patterns, events, and factors. Stories will be clearly abstractions of real repetition and will help us deal with our lives. Investigation will be done by everyone, and constantly. Each new development will build a mountain, and never will pursuits of original thought be lost among a mess of mediocrity. We will not use our technology, we will use each other, we will be used willingly and rejoice at the chance.

Public will become the default. We will let people into our homes, and that will make us comfortable. We will open our blinds, and maintain a history of their contents, open to all. We will move toward people we can build with, but always be aware of those who are far from us. Weary of private wealth we will hold our representatives accountable. We will represent ourselves when others fail. We will undo mistakes. We will happily disclose our plans, priorities, and reasoning, asking the same of those who take advantage of that generosity.

Everything will be granular. Everything will be connected. Everything will be us, and we will be different. Visible thought will be the binding force of our collective understanding. Shared actions will be the basis for our movement forward. We begin that conversation now, with you, and all.

 

 The first convening of A New Word Order: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Recently google has come to see the light: their favicon sucks. This is true. It does not mean google sucks, but it does say something for the value of design.

There are enough people using google, that when they switched their favicon from bad to worse people made a fuss. Funny enough on their blog they had an article about design variation. It was a point where my heart sunk. It seemed that the ideas of variation and selection were being applied, but it didn’t work. In fact, what wasn’t working was the brief. In addition, their design team had no REAL variation.

Engineering vs Design

The examples were trivial changes to a pre-establish idea of what the end would be. This is very much like engineering, but nothing like design process. In engineering you begin with the end. You have a clear idea of what works, the only problem is how to get there. You want to turn water into hydrogen great, just figure out the stuff inside the box. In design, this thinking is turned on its head. You begin to look broader rather than deeper. Of course there is a deeper phase, but that is reserved for the time when you have the right design in mind. So true variation spans ideas you could never fathom from the beginning of the project. It is meaning and insight which drives true variation, and it is with this tone of righteousness and hubris that I bring you the new google favicons…

A redesign

This opportunity was too good to pass up. We wanted to explore different ways a search could be represented. The constraints: a 16×16 canvas.

• Montage - Show all the favicons, get greasemonkey and install our script
  
• Cash - A visualization based on the cost of your search terms in adwords
  
• Count - Showing the results in the context of the search. ten results out of thousands
  
• History - Google tracks my history, here I can see my past months, represented by a colour
  
• Location - Pin point yourself, a different colour for each continent
  
• Modified - Show which pages have last been modified, newer isn’t always better
  
• Trends - Show a time series pulled from google trends
  

A bit further

This exercise would not be complete of course without some broader thinking. So when we sought to redesign the favicon we thought we might as well redesign the search. Each google search is essentially a number of properties. These properties, whether they are descriptions, titles, urls, dates, or images, are all driven by the search criteria. In our new search, each facet defined by a user is reflected in the results. Likewise, each result acts as a tool to refine the search results. Key behind this idea is that a search is not an answer, it is a conversation. How to speed up that conversation to arrive at an insight or permanent destination was the challenge.

Technical bottleneck

Unfortunately google’s api did not allow us access to the advanced search data, so we switched to Yahoo. Yahoo’s api allowed us access to terms and through some pipes hackery categories, but alas, not enough. To our disappointment, at the time of this writing, there is no search api which reflects each of its search criteria in the results and vise-versa. This will have to remain a proof of concept until google or yahoo get’s there act together and truly allows people to advance advanced search. One place to look for interesting searches is viewzi. It definitely has the approach of niches rather than one size fits all. But the 3d search is pretty interesting. Also in the realm of search augmentation is piclens. We use this program constantly at the studio, both for its utility, and pure futuristic mega-neato 3dness qualities. Finally to bring it all to a close, our new search might be a throw back to the command line,

Here’s our prototype, its jQuery + Blueprint + Yahoo Pipes, use it if you need it!

There’s a well established argument for humans as a chaotic force on earth, changing and destroying as we go along. Conversely, there is a growing movement towards finding balance. Change and sustainability are literally at opposite ends of the spectrum, so how do they relate?

There’s three simple input output beneficiary cycles happening here.

Ecology thrives on sustainability, and sustains humans.
Technology thrives on change, and also sustains humans.
Humans create change and require Sustainability.

This is certainly an over-simplification, but never-mind that! We’re talking big picture here. In the diagram, you should be seeing something happening, and some potential cycles at work here. The one most recently discovered is that ecology, while sustaining us, could us teach us. Science peers into the natural environment and finds wondrous systems and biological solutions at work to solve the various problems of staying alive while maintaining balance. That knowledge can be used in guiding the next changes we make, which advance technology that will co-sustain us in the future. The field of Biomimetics have been working hard on finding the tricks for survival from ecology and add them to the tricks for survival in our technology.

So what is this? It’s what humans do. As creators of our environment, we’re learning how to create environments that work within the context of the larger environment already in place. To build systems and networks and objects and ideas that connect to all points on this simple diagram. That we’re using the tools of science, design, and sociology to make sure that all the things we need stay connected, and the cycles stay complete.

The Take-Away:

Don’t: Just look to technology to save ecology, and don’t look to ecology to create technology.
Do: Look to ecology that can create technology that can save ecology that can create technology that can save ecology that can…

Yestereve we journeyed over to OCAD for what may have been a disappointment. Fortunately, possibility was on our side, and we were presented with a life altering talk, delivered with humility and candour.

The talk was Out of Poverty: When Traditional Approaches Fail. It was at OCAD, hosted by the Art & Design Society of OCAD, and the Book sold out.

Dr. Paul Polak, founder of International Development Enterprises, a global non-profit organization that has helped 17 million people in developing countries escape poverty. His new book, Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail, exposes the flaws in Western efforts to alleviate poverty and offers effective alternatives. Dr. Polak’s talk will preview the highly anticipated Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum touring exhibition, Design for the Other 90%.

The Talk

Beginning with questions from the audience, was a sign that this was no ordinary design talk. His mantra of go, ask, learn, found its way into his very attitude. Starting from what we wanted to know more about, he was able to keep the audience involved.

Another great moment was when one gentleman asked something to the effect of:

How does what your doing address the existing structure of the global currency trade, and the conditions which have indebted these countries to international corporate interests such as the world bank? How does this solve the larger crises of external interests flooding local economies with cheap goods, and forcing governments to invest in opening borders only to be crushed by western business interests?

First response:

Would you like to take a breathe?

Second response:

I don’t know.

Third response:

Those larger issues are not things I can handle. I’m not sure how to solve those problems. I know how to do what I am doing, and that’s my starting point. Do you know what to do about those larger questions? Do you have an answer?

Gentleman:

Ummm, no.

This is really great. This honesty and openness is the attitude we should all adopt. Larger problems such as the macro-economic situation of the global lending organizations is not a problem which will be solved by one person, or even one method. Global problems have many heads, and to be tackled we must put our own many heads together. We must use the tools we know to empower those who are not yet able to focus on global problems. Once we get them out of a hand-to-mouth existence then we will have millions more heads on this problem. Likely, these global problems will become less significant as the affected ones become more free, and by that nature more responsible.

It reminds me of a quote that Alan seems to love, from a movie I’ve never seen and probably never will:

You think you can drive a car, and change the world? It doesn’t work like that.
–Dad

Maybe not, but its the only thing I know how to do, and I gotta do something.
–Speedracer

The Lessons

From process, to application, to result, Dr. Polak covered the different areas of focus and what it really takes to make design work. Though his learning has come from the world of less, his lessons address all the principles of design at its best. Small is beautiful, and cheap is beautiful, but most of all, and when you cover those two, useful is beautiful.

Take a tip from the Doctor, here’s your new prescribed process:

Go (to the place of concern) > Talk (to the people of concern) > Learn (from these people)

If you really think about it, this process brings us to one place where Designers seldom work; in context. The revolutionary methods of design for the other 90% is contextual and measurable.

Another pointer was to start testing immediately. If you have an idea, give it to 25 people, get them to use it. They will tell you what’s wrong with it. They know how to make it better. You just have to make the first one, and work with the people to better it.

Metrics are another key to the success of IDE and surely will be fundamental to his new project D-rev. Here’s something to sink your teeth into, a measure of success:

A measurable Impact should affect 1 million people, in the next 3 years, have a 1 year return on investment

It would seem beyond the explicit process of go, talk, learn, there is also an implicit process. This one picks up on our previous moving, talking, learning, and works with it to further the design:

Get in Context > Make (Something for people to use) > Measure (How well it worked)

The further we stand from our context, the less accurate our vision will be. The less we attempt to make things work, the lower our chances are for success. The fewer things we measure, the less of an idea we will have of what happened when all is said and done.

Last night, between computering and a meeting, we had the opportunity to see Mr. Gladwell and Mr. Kingwell duke it out in a battle of whose horse is bigger. A friend with the same name was kind enough to give us tickets. A brief synopsis:

A thought-provoking discussion with Malcolm Gladwell and Mark Kingwell – two of the world’s most popular thinkers, theorists, authors and speakers. The evening will encourage thought and dialogue about social change.

Most notable parts of the discussion included Gladwell’s point that we shouldn’t forget about the motive of self-interest when working for socially good causes, and Kingwell’s counterpoint that we shouldn’t forget the motive of greater-interest when designing our overlying economic structure.

A couple general themes ran throughout the discussion and made for an interesting – though convoluted at times – exchange. Certainly it was a conversation between a journalist and a philosopher. Malcolm used many case studies/stories, stringing a narrative through information. Mark used only one example, biblical no less, which he dissected at length. Leaving off on a high note he spoke to the human condition and the need for greater love and awareness of each other. This divide followed throughout the discussion, so these themes are dualistic due to the context of each speaker’s background.

Between action and awareness

Gladwell, Kingwell and Avril Benoît (the moderator) agreed early on in the discussion, that what was needed for social change is action, and that awareness plays a smaller role. The line between awareness and action is where things breakdown. Gladwell argued that there are many cases where awareness is not necessary at all.

1. Massive awareness campaigns failed miserably in getting children to put on their Seat belts. Their use became more ubiquitous once the government asked parents to buckle up their children. The activity of parents buckling up their own kids turned those back seat passengers into back seat advocates, of the seat belt wearing kind. In this case, awareness was superfluous and action propelled change.

2. Chemical companies adopted environmentally sound practices because it saved them money. There has been a massive public awareness campaign for the environment since the 60s (see Silent Spring by Rachel Carson). Many credit the change of chemical companies compliance with the conservation mandate with this awareness, the idea of doing good to mother earth. In fact, what those companies realized, is that those environmental policies were making their business more efficient, and in effect making more money. We all feel bad about our position in the world as wasters and destroyers. Yet the best solutions we have are buying a Prius and sorting our waste.

3. Awareness in the context of gay marriage is actually not helpful. When we ask people to accept the concept of marriage, we do not ask them to be aware of it, we ask them to just forget about it. This is a private decision, and it is not something you should care about. Yet another argument against the notion of awareness is as an agent of change.

Kingwell argued that in order to truly change for the better, we must have a gauge on which to judge our progress. Proposed was the idea of change which comforts the tormented and torments the comfortable. A big disagreement came up when Gladwell said that gay marriage is an issue we shouldn’t care deeply about. Kingwell retorted, the underlying principle we need in order to allow gay marriage is to see gay people as human, or equal. Gladwell said that already happened. Kingwell said Gladwell needs to get out of New York. And the banter continued.

It’s worth speaking about the difference between these separate concepts of awareness. Gladwell sees awareness as having knowledge of an issue, the details of the matter. Kingwell sees awareness as a greater human understanding, an enlightened general interest. Gladwell speaks about actions which make us crave awareness. Kingwell speaks of awareness which makes us crave action, or compassion.

Small tests, big changes

Gladwell spoke a bit about the idea, as mentioned in the chemical company example, of trying small things and getting the fact straight. This is a very seductive approach. It is the idea of sketching from the design world, and the idea of rapid iteration from an engineering stand point. In his final remarks, Gladwell suggested the change of tomorrow will come from entrepreneurs who know the situation better than he. The people working on small projects with great potential for change. His question, what if the environmental movement, instead of raising great awareness about destructive chemical companies, put their energy into researching efficient methods for chemical production. Would we have come to the solution sooner? How does this affect our approach now in relation to world changing?

Patterns for change

Within the conversation were two very different scales. Once of the specific, and one of the general. Spaces between those themes were seldom crossed. Gladwell maintained his grip on reality and case studies. Kingwell maintain his focus on humanity, love, compassion, and empathy. Gladwell said protests don’t work anymore. They are not necessary for change in our society. Kingwell said this is not true of the majority of countries, pseudo-democracies, in the world. Protests would be exactly what they need.

One very important insight Gladwell gave was the idea of different solutions for different problems. These differences could be in scale (from lawn upkeep, to inner contemplation). They could be in terms of context (Canada to Tibet). They could be in terms of urgency (Do we have time to test things in little iterations?). Whatever the differences, we recognize they exist. We also recognize that there are certain benchmarks or patterns which can be applied to further that cause. Protests, letter-writing, boycotting, letter to the editor, blogging, graffiti, postering, guerrilla action, terrorism, meetups, terrorism meetups, barcamp, party, photos, talking to people about it, t-shirts, new routines, theatre, music, forums, debates, websites, disruptive products, technologies in general. These are only a few of the many patterns which can be applied in appropriate situations.

It has been a bit of a problem defining what we do here, and not for lack of answers. It seems each time someone pops the question “So what do you do?” the response begs only more questions.

Partly this is due to our insistence on remaining generalists and exploring new avenues of intervention. Partly this is due to the prevalent industry mindset of looking at people’s expertise rather than their inclinations.

I have spoken with engineers, industrial designers, literary critics, teachers, lawyers, writers, and photographers. Despite the differing professions there seems to be a similar divide within these industries. That divide is one of integrated thinking versus intense specialization. Graphic Designers come in many shapes and colours, but certainly there are those who wish to see the biggest picture possible, and those who lean more deeply to the smallest point kernable.

This divide between experts and generalists has me scratching my head, wondering which one I am, and to what extent. If there is anything I have learned, it is that nothing is black or white.

With that said, objectives must be. To move in a direction is to see clear opportunity. So which way am I moving. The answer is clear; toward integrated generalized thinking.

Speaking with an industrial designer, has opened up some possibilities. She told me about the Finnish approach which is a bit different. They have a term called world design.

A solution from an industrial design might be an AIDs truck which educates by moving around, a solution from a graphic designer might be a billboard campaign which educates on a mass media scale.

I can appreciate the diplomacy in seeing each type of execution as a good one, but we must account for appropriateness. In most cases mass media is not the solution, but rather an accompaniment to a better idea, a new way of interacting. This is not to say that graphic designers cannot inform that better way. It is to say that in order to find appropriate solutions we must look outside of the tools we are experts in, and understand the landscape of possibilities.

This idea of design as inventory of possibility is much more attractive than designer as skilled artist. It sees the designers role as a visionary who works with many parties to execute an idea which spans many disciplines; the world of work so to speak. Further more, the world in world designer can be expanded from the idea of the world as earth, to the worlds separate and overlapping.

The world of taxis in Toronto is very different from the world of textile designers. Different but integrated. To see these worlds, allow them to facilitate each other, appreciate the difference, and make new ones when appropriate, is the role of the world designer. To design for the world we share, to appreciate the worlds we do not, and to envision new possible worlds we might face in the future.

In the present we use nouns to describe things, sort things, and understand things. The future is verbs, and I’ll tell you why.

We live categories. You are a designer, I am a TTC driver. We speak of each other as categories. You are my co-worker, you are my boss, you are my client. Most of all, we think in categories. An orange is a fruit, which comes from a plant, which is a living organism, which has cells in it, which are alive, which needs the sun, which is a planet, which is an object, in a solar system, which is in a galaxy, which is in a universe.

Our technology also requires the same type of hierarchy to work. Screws and hammers, wallets and cards, chairs and tables, shelves and dresser, clips and paper, lamps and light shades, hard-drives and monitors. A place for everything, and everything in its place. All is well in the land of categories until reality kicks in. We realize that the lines between are not so clean. Chairs become tables, shelves become dressers, and even sometimes, clips become wallets.

The real problem with categories arises out of change and realignment. Especially when this change contradicts an existing system or belief. Our current operating systems resemble these rigid structures. Within these structures, use is constantly readjusting hierarchy. The best of systems accommodate blurry lines and fuzzy borders to the point of their own destruction. The worst of systems constrict description, relations, and manipulation. In place they offer a single hierarchical method of understanding. This single method, at which I take aim, is the file and folder.

The way we do things now

Certainly one of the worst metaphors for computing, it is amazing that this office inspired paradigm has survived for so long. Not only has the file invaded our psyche to the point of acceptance, it has managed to bury itself so deep in our brain that we are now in fast pursuit of 3D files, able to be piles, thrown, and crumpled, all on our 3D manifestation of a messy desk.

I think bump top is great. Its what we always wanted but never knew was bad. The first time I saw this demo I was blown away. Imagine, a desktop where interaction with objects on the screen were guided by the laws of physics. After a while, months, I realized that this was completely the wrong direction. What we need is not more files, or more realistic files. What we need is a new paradigm. One which is not based on things inside of things(read taxonomy), or even things which remind people of words (read folksonomy). No, what we need is a new way of thinking and working, one which is based on our actions, which adjusts to our habits, which maintains multiple hierarchies in the form of distributed sets.

A simple look-up on the dashboard reveals: Taxonomy, origin early 19th century, coined in French, from Greek taxis ‘arrangement’ + -nomina ‘distribution.’ Library science has been working on this one for a while, I’m not even going to try to challenge the value of such a system. It’s great, but not what we need right now.

Another popular concept is one of folksonomy. Folk has a German origin and means “people in general”. From this came folksonomy which is the idea of a group created understanding. By many people using words to describe things, we get a flat picture of interrelated information. This has been great for my bookmarks, but it doesn’t scale. I want all of my stuff in one place, and with simply words, it breaks down.

A new term

Enter actsonomy. What if the systems around us adjusted to our actions. They would maintain many perspectives on what different information is, and how it relates to each other. Take for example the finder in mac os. It has a column view. You can move horizontally through folders for a while, but inevitably hit a wall: a file. In the recent version, leopard, this file is made available through a nice preview. If it’s an image you can see a little image and some dimensions. If its a PDF you can see one page at a time by clicking on a couple arrows. If its a text file you can see really tiny text which gives you an idea of the contents.

The problem is I don’t want a preview, I want a view! Don’t tease me, Give me the whole thing. Why can’t I expand a PDF in the Finder and see the pages? Why can’t I expand a web-link and see the links and images within it? Why can’t I expand a book and see the chapters? Why can’t I expand a zip file and see the contents? An event calendar and see the dates? A CSS file and see the selectors? An application and see the recently opened items? An FTP program and see the bookmarked servers?

Deeper down the rabbit hole

We begin to see that hierarchy disintegrates into recursive cycles.

Inside a personal profile is a link, to another site, which links to a blog, which links to a listing, which links to an event, which links to a list of speakers, which links to personal sites, which links back to the original profile.

Inside a PDF is a page, which cites a book, which contains a chapter, which cites another book, which was written by an author, with a blog, which links to a news article, which is written by a newspaper, which gave you the original PDF.

Inside a CSS file, is an author attribution, which links to a blog, which links to a google code project, which links to the original CSS file you downloaded.

Even up is a cycle.

Your photo is in a folder, which is in another folder, which is on your desktop, which is in your home directory, which is in users, which is on your hard-drive.

One might think it ends there, but no.

Your hard-drive is made by a company, it was also purchased on a certain date, as well it is owned by you, and further more is made of certain parts which connect to other parts. It very well might be shared on a network.

Files are certainly dead, actsonomy is the new direction. How will we find things in the future? My bet is on verbs.

Recently, we threw a party trying to ask the question: “What if work was a party?” Could a bunch of people who are united for a short time produce something more than empty beer bottles? There were some pretty amazing insights, so here’s a look at the rules we set up and some of the observations and principles we can see in the results.

Our Approach:
Create zones for people to work on different parts of a process.
Give them methodologies to get them going.
Reward them for work with our own currency, which buys booze and money.

Get Buy in:
So first thing you do when you come in is sign a big giant contract with everybody else’s name on it, committing yourself to working for the evening under a set of friendly rules. This is important because it helps people understand it’s serious, and that other people are committed as well.

Now, as trainee, you see a map of how this work actually takes place, and a simple 3 step guide to their new “job”, as well as a “company org chart” showing all pieces and parts for details.

Establish Leadership & Contact point for help

Since nobody reads, we made sure that we had a hilarious “Office Manager” to greet you and show you around the different zones, and get you started with a few “The Movement” for a drink.

Incentive’s

Most important to keep everything moving forward, is the fake currency system. People do work and report to the Office Manager, get paid, and get a drink. You gotta keep working to keep drinking, so the cycle is complete. The “Office Cantine” hands the money back over to the Office Manager, and he pays more “employees” as they continue to drink and work!

So what is the actual work? We started the party by prompting a few problems that needed to be solved: Local produce being too expensive and our of reach, Political apathy & confusion, and too many messages bombarding us.

Give clear Actionable Tasks within a Context

We broke down the problem solving process into 5 parts. Research, Analysis, Synthesis, Explaining, and Spreading. Each part of the process was given a zone, or as we call it, a Department somewhere around the party for people to work on that part of the process. The zones are of course clearly labeled, and have their own instructions.

Then we broke down each step into a set of possible actions and put them on game-cards. (The game card set will become available in a future post.) People would pick up a card, do what it says, put their work back on the filing table, and it would be ready to be pushed to the next phase of the process.

Have fun Workin!

Ok, so about 100 people showed up and actually got to work. Can you believe it? Here’s some of them working when there was enough space to take pictures.

So what did we learn, & what can You use?

People will do what everyone else is doing if it looks fun. Here’s a few things that were critical to the success of the party as we could tell.

1. The office manager driving people to the work, and being very deadpan hilarious about the whole thing.
2. A small critical mass of people starting the work, so that as others arrive, the right course of action is clear. People seem to have no problem trying something new if it looks like other people are having a good time with it.
3. Incentives, its the beer and constant peer affirmation through joking about the money, joking about the drinks, and so on, that were able to drive some serious thinking and conversation.
4. Lots of easy starting points, that were challenging and open to interpretation, that have a high focus on individual opinion and values.
5. Good people.

Dont do…

Coffee break. We decided everybody needed a break a few hours in, and never got the momentum back. You can’t stop people from fraternizing once they start doing it on a mass scale, so be prepared to have your event slip from work mode to party mode at some point and just celebrate it rather than fight it.

Thanks to Eleni Alpous for photo-documenting the early parts of the evening, and check out her flickr for more shots. Open up the Google Doc if you’re interested in seeing some of the ideas and solutions in text-only format, of which our lovely intern Lauren painstakingly transcribed for us.

Good luck holding your own work party or collective action event, and just send an email over to us if you need any help or would like more details from ours.

Next time somebody asks you how much you make, what will you answer? Will you ask them to clarify what they mean?”How much what?”

Change? Apthy? Money? Mediocrity? Data? Privilege? Waste? Entertainment? Meaning? Power? Function? Understanding? Happiness? Passion? Trouble? Insight? Emotion? Commentary? Music? Art?

Funny how we assume that money is the thing we “make” so often that’s all anyone would want to know or ask about, or that that is the most interesting part of someone’s life. It’s a construct many of us seem to follow and a question often asked, which means there is a habits of thinking that are hard to break out of. To help out, download the sketch as a desktop background and keep it for a few days, see if it helps.