Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The latest issue of the Swedish magazine Camino there is a guide indicating how eco-friendly the Swedish music festivals are. In the UK, things have been taken to a much higher level. As part of their Glastonbury Festival sponsoring, Orange has designed a new concept tent creating a truly mobile home for the wireless generation. Well, they had some help from the product development company Kaleidoscope.

The tent is made of photovoltaic fabric acting as a solar panel transforming the rays to energy. This is used for the central wireless control hub displaying energy generated and consumed as well as providing a wireless internet signal. If you are cold, the energy can be used to heat the floor. If you want your tent to be warm when you come back, just set the temperature level and the sensors will do the rest. Another feature is the “glo-cation” technology that helps you find your tent in the dark. Just send an SMS and your tent will provide a welcoming glow.

At the Frisksport Riksläger in Sätila last week, I was in charge of the mobile phone charging station/information booth. Although not as cool as the The Orange Chill ‘n’ Charge tent at the Glastonbury Festival, it was still fascinating to see the large number of people paying 1€ to charge their phone. Not to mention the number of gadgets left behind after the camp closed. Outdoor life is no longer what it used to be.

I introduced my latest favourite thing at the camp: The Sun Jar. It looks like a traditional Mason Jar with a glass lid and a rubber ring, but it contains low energy LED lamps, a rechargeable battery and solar cells. During the day you put it in the sun. Since the jar is water proof you don’t need to worry about letting it being outside all day. During night it will provide the most wonderful warm glow.

Apparently you can also get it in blue and pink. Perhaps something for Orange to consider, since it might be a bit difficult to find your tent if the concept turns into a really popular product. If they for some reason insist on keeping the orange colour, a pulsating light can be an alternative. Just like you can compose your phone signal, you may perhaps in the future be able to create your tent ditto and maybe the Morse code gets a revival.

Of course I know that this kind of stuff is not really eco-friendly at all. Despite the solar panel, this is just another piece of nice-to-have technology. Applying a life cycle assessment would probably reveal several drawbacks with my new favourite toy: the materials used, the transport, the production methods and so on. However, in comparison to tea lights the Sun Jar is safer to use in tents!

Wandering Tale

My friend Charlotta, she did it. She went from talking about it to actually do it. She belongs to the same informal group of former colleagues as I do and we have long talked about combining our professional life with some kind of charity. We talked, but she took action!

Last weekend Sjöklint Agenturer and A Gallery invited to vernissage and premier of TOMS Shoes. The founder of TOM Shoes, Blake Mycoskie was there together with a really exciting mix of artists such as Patrik Andiné, Peter Apelgren, Gorm Boberg, Jan Jörnmark, och Viktoria Hallenius.

The idea behind TOMS Shoes is really simple. You buy one pair of shoes and another pair is shipped to a child in need. The shoes are incredible comfortable and very stylish, and you can even personalize them in interesting ways (read about the arduous task Blake’s Mom is accomplishing right now to help her son, it’s quite funny).

Everybody who buys the shoes also spread the word by telling the story behind the company. This way the viral marketing does its trick and the values are displayed in a narrative format. Great! More than 140 000 pairs of shoes have been given to children in Argentina, South Africa and Ethiopia. Even greater!

However, I’m not really surprised. Sjöklint Agenturer was very quick at using Facebook for communicating with us customers, which of course they have continued with their new shop Sally Jones (I wonder if the name of the shop was inspired by Jakob Wegelius book with the title Sally Jones?

Sjöklint Agenturer is represented in the Nordic countries. So is the research project CSR-Driven Innovation. The project aims at supporting the business potential among Nordic small and medium-sized enterprises by combining the fields of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), design, innovation and growth. They should really look into this case!

If you are looking for more art, take a peek at The Saatchi Galley!

Weather Fair

I have come down with the flue. No, not the swine flue, just the ordinary one. One benefit of being ill is that you watch TV programmes in the middle of the day, picking up gems normally lost in everyday doings. Like this splendid documentary on Ian Fairweather I just watched.

Apparently Fairweather led a very special life. Born in 1891 in Scotland and died on Bribie Island outside Brisbane in 1974. He served in both world wars and were twice kept prisoner of war for a long time. He travelled extensively in Europe and Asia, studying both Japanese and Chinese.

No wonder he developed a layered approach, combining several experiences and memories into one painting. Like the Monestary, described in this way by the National Gallery of Australia:

“On the one hand, Monastery may be considered a recollection of an experience many years before when the artist stayed briefly at a monastery near Beijing. He described it to his early biographer Nourma Abbott-Smith as a place of spirituality. He recalled that the snow outside covered the monastery while the inside was illuminated by hundreds of candlewicks floating in golden bowls, casting flickering shadows and softening the carved aspect of the statues. In a broader sense, as Murray Bail noted in his later book on the artist, Monastery also represents all monasteries, all contemplative silences and so summarises this serious artist’s obsessions.”

I think we need more people like Fairweather, who can assimilate various cultures and create something new, who are curious and passionate, and who can capture both the specific and the general.

We could use a bit of more fair weather also. In Sweden, SMHI a government agency under the Ministry of the Environment provides weather forecasts. In addition to general forecasts and weather warnings, it also provides industry-specific services, simulations and analyses, statistics, climate studies and contracted research.

Recently they launched a service providing property managers with forecasts making it possible to adjust the temperature and thereby lowering the energy cost. It will be interesting to see what kinds of products and business models SMHI and other government agencies can provide to support sustainable development.

This reminds me of informative arts experiments of letting interactive art show complex real-time data. Maybe SMHI could be inspired by Fairweather’s work and provide a weather art service?

Long-Tail Muesli

Since 1964 Saltå Kvarn, a anthroposophy-owned mill in Sweden have grinded all kinds of grain. Recently they started a new kind of web-shop. At www.minmusli.nu you can buy your custom-made ecological muesli. First you choose a base by selecting from spelt, barley, quinoa or seeds. Then you add some extra oat, rye, raisins, raspberries, mango, goji berries, hazel nuts etcetera. You can even add chocolate and gummi bears! And then you just write your address and your personalised muesli will arrive at your doorstep. The price depends on the mix.

What better example of the long tail concept!?! Apparently the web designers also used the Internet to listen to customer comments on the usability, given this long blog conversation.

Not living in Sweden? Well have a peek at MyMuesli if you live in the UK, Germany or Austria and are looking for some ecological cereals.

Instruction on Demand

Have you ever tried to put together a greenhouse? Within a greenhouse? Now, I don’t mean those small ones in plastic but a big one in aluminium. Didn’t think so. But I have! Tried, that is.

My parents bought a greenhouse construction from Skånska Byggvaror. It’s a beautiful and ingenious little house in aluminium and it will provide much joy in the future, I’m sure. However, the manual must have been put together by a sadist. Or at least an engineer without any knowledge of usability testing. If only someone had taken the time to test the instructions by letting ordinary people put together all the millions of mostly unmarked pieces with the minute tools. I was sad to see that nothing much had happen since 1996 when I published my PhD thesis, including a study on user manuals.

My Mother had another angle. She suggested, a true entrepreneur, that we should advertise on the Internet now that we knew how to put together this specific model, recognising the market for greenhouse construction support. I suddenly had an epiphany and saw a range of IT-based instructional services on the same theme. Taka a photo of the section you are having trouble with, call us and we send you a short instructional video to help you. If you need personal support, make a video call and show us what is puzzling you and we will talk you through it.

You could also access our self-support site where proud greenhouse owners have made their own videos showing how they put together their houses. We could use tools like Bambuser or Mogulus to create mobile TV-channels with edutainment where we let celebrities compete on how to go from opening of the boxes to putting the last glass into its frame using as little time as possible, a bit similar to Gordon Ramsey’s cook along live show. More tricky situations will be introduced after a couple of seasons (like building a greenhouse within a greenhouse) and unlikely teams in order to create more drama. I’m sure it will result in quite a large number of hours to watch with funny (and dangerous) situations, including arguments bordering on domestic violence (no, we did not get that far, only to some verbal abuse).

This kind of service is a kind of antithesis of making the construction parts intelligent, telling you how to put them together, something researchers have been into for some years creating proactive furniture through augmented reality.

The lyrics of the Goo Goo Dolls song “Iris” includes the line “When everything’s made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am”. Maybe it should be changed into to “When everything’s made to give rise to additional and expensive services, we just want to know who you are”. This reminds me that I should finish my blog post on e-identity I have been working on for some time.

Scope of Control

On Sundays I attend an aerobics class at my local Friskis&Svettis, an excellent non-for-profit health club. It’s a dance class where we move to a very varied string of tunes: hip-hop, tango, Eurovision Song Contest melodies, house, Robbie Williams, Michael Jackson, Sonja Aldén, Bollywood songs, Latin American rhythms, Swedish pop...

I’m as agile as a safe, as we say in Sweden, but I like it a lot. And I’m not alone in this, which means there is a whole room full of rather stiffly moving people with happy grins on their faces trying to move gracefully to the music. Partly because of our non-agile condition and partly because of our instructors’ choreography this looks rather comical and the children looking at us often have a huge laugh.

Surely neither the composer nor the artist had this application in mind for their music. They might even become upset could they see us. But how much influence can you have on your work once it is released to the public?

Samuel Beckett gave very precise instructions on how his play “Waiting for Godot” should be played. He even took legal action against a group of women for playing the characters, since Beckett was very strict on that only men should be in the play.

I saw the play a month ago, at the premier at Göteborg Stadsteater. My uncle Henric is the director so of course I’m a bit biased when I say I thought it was really great. However, not only the audience thought so too but also a string of critics from newspaper such as Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter, and also the national radio Sveriges Radio. The local newspaper Göteborgs-Posten was a little cooler in the response, claiming a lack of reference to modern day society. I find that a bit strange since I think the play is very much about general aspects of what it is like to be a human being in terms of our need for relations and recognition, but also since Beckett does not leave much room for such references.

Another key message is that in the unknown there is hope. Thank you Henric for making me see that!

Economical Drama

While waiting in the harbour for the speedboat to Koh Kood, an economical drama developed before our eyes. A silent war took place between the young Nestlé ice cream salesman and his more senior opponent from Unilever. In contrast to the conflict in Thailand between the yellow and the red, this was a battle between the blue and the red.

In spite of a bad cold, the blue were getting more of the market, maybe because he was under a tree in the shadow. The red was positioned closer to the café where a lot of the potential customers were hovering, waiting for the boat to arrive. However, his bright red motorbike was in the merciless sun. Since I like to encourage competition, I bought a Magnum from the red when he showed signs of giving up. He let me have the ice cream, and then moved across the road into the shadow. The blue then gave me the evil eye and immediately moved into the vacant space. A nice kind of illustration of first-mover advantage versus the benefits of being the fast second.

In these times of economical crisis, we need to learn more quickly and also come up with more novel ideas. According to researcher Barbara Fredrickson, discrete positive emotions broaden the scopes of attention and cognition and lead to a widened array of thoughts and action impulses in the mind. So how about designing positive learning environments? In folk high schools pedagogical drama is often successfully used and it is even possible to study the topic at Malmö University. Another creative combination of art and science is the concept of dialogue seminars, applied in many contexts including the Swedish National Defence College.

But my favorite educational concept is that of simulations. My friend Kristofer Erlandsson has developed several simulations for example one where you practice innovation system development and another where you get a better understanding of the works of the EU. Right now he is running several workshops in Europe called Road Map simulation, helping companies to develop business strategies.

Wouldn´t it be nice if we could develop a new art/science called Economical Drama? There we could act out wicked problems related to financial and climate challenges, based on scientific knowledge. A group of decision-makers could be assigned different roles in order to learn to understand other perspectives. Let the capitalist play the role of the WWF president, let the industrialist become the new Fair Trade Executive, let the scientist try on the Current TV journalist’s shoes, and make WTO and World Bank executives do a swap.

Another application would be to simulate a funding committee in an incubator with a mission of sustainable funding. It could be inspired by UNEP’s Financial Initiative (thank you Milton Lore for this gem) or the Swedfund’s good results.

I’m going to the National Business Incubation Association conference in Kansas City in a few weeks. Maybe I should launch the idea then and there…