The Prepared Mind Discussion about designing human interaction.

This past September, when my wife was in Germany visiting her family, we really used videoconferencing for the first time in any real fashion. She and I had both just recently upgraded to a Macbook and Macbook pro, respectively, and both our laptops now have built-in iSight.

Since she was taking her laptop to Germany with her, we figured, why spend all that money on long distance calls when we could now see each other while chatting? WE LOVED IT!!!!

I could show her our doggies over the web cam. My in-laws could come into the room and say “hi” (or in their case, “hallo”). And the mundane daily telephone call was livened up by being able to see your loved one face to face. It really did make it feel like we weren’t so far away from each other, even though we were 4,000 miles apart.

So of course I started asking, why don’t we do this more with our clients? Some of our clients are very much into the whole video conferencing thing. In the past, I was loathe to appear on screen having not shaved or while still wearing my sweats. But those are really silly reasons, as it doesn’t take much time to put on different shirt. And who cares if I shaved that morning or not?

I love the idea of being able to “be there” even when I can’t necessarily. We have made a concentrated effort to give more “face time” to our clients this year but with today’s technology, just because I can’t make it into the office doesn’t mean I can’t “see” a client.

This, of course, got me thinking about the possibilities of remote collaboration. Like many of you, there are vendors and clients I deal with exclusively over the web. Many I have never seen and would not know if they bumped into me on the street. While so far these relationships have worked out well, I can’t say it wouldn’t make me feel a bit better sometimes to be able to see the face of someone I’m dealing with.

.chris{}

We tend to see Asia as a source for high tech electronic products at affordable prices, low cost manufacturing of clothes and shoes and, of course, curios and exotic handicrafts. And if it impinges the design industry, as the news media claims, it’s only the areas of product design and design engineering. As Chris mentions in his previous post,

Graphic designers have typically not been the type to embrace the future or deal with future problems before they confront us. Graphic designers have always preferred to burry our collective heads in the sand and ignore change until it smacks us in the behind with a 2 X 4.

That, I believe, was written in response to an article of mine that he claimed to find “scary”. Chris, I’ve just had a few conversations here in Singapore that have made me sit up and think about the graphic design industry, branding and identity design, publishing and new media, interaction design and animation - in short, visual communication and content creation. (more…)

I just read an excellent, and perhaps scary, article written by our own Niti Bhan and published on the BusinessWeek.com Innovation Blog.

Her article, A Competitive Nation, by Design, notes that the United States, long a leader in innovation and design, runs the risk of falling behind in this category as nations like India and China — today regarded as low cost manufacturing centers — are pouring far greater resources and placing far greater emphasis into design than the United States:

Niti observes that policy-makers and professionals in the U.S. have acknowledged the threat on the part of China and India — not to mention Korea and Japan — to the U.S.’s dominance in technology and innovation and have taken steps to both grow domestic and attract foreign scientific and technological talent. However she also notes that there is no corresponding effort to grow and attract future design leaders.

However, one must raise the concern: What about design? Is any of the increased funding to the National Science Foundation and other basic research focused on design methodology and tools, the building blocks of innovation? We’ve all heard the success stories in which design-led innovation has directly increased existing market share, grown new markets, added value to the bottom line, and raised the visibility of brands.

(more…)

The first two pages of my Flickrblog are photographs from an upscale shopping area in posh South Delhi where I spent the last week visiting friends and family. The first thing that caught my eye on this trip to India after a gap of three years was the proliferation of luxury brands available in the Indian market. In addition, there are even more cases of global brands localizing in ways that we never imagined to suit the Indian customer and wallet. I’m working on detailed reports on the market, the economy and of course, the design industry and innovation in India but thought to share this with you first.

Thank you for inviting me to join The Prepared Mind, Chris, terribly sorry it took me a week to post on the blog after your warm welcome.

Change is always tough and the Graphic Design Industry has a tougher time dealing with change than perhaps most professions.

Our industry’s history of slow reaction to change
The desktop publishing revolution was particularly painful for our industry. We failed to see the writing on the wall, reacted to late, and many design professionals found themselves unemployable because they lacked even the most basic computer skills. Typesetters, comp artists, production people and a whole host of other professionals related to the industry went completely the way of the Dodo bird over night. (more…)

This is a topic that was touched on in the Certification thread and it also popped up on some other forums. I thought I’d toss it out there formally.

I just started reading Thomas L. Friedman’s “The World is Flat” — which is excellent so far, BTW — and it raises a lot of interesting issues, to say the least.

The technology field, particularly the software industry, has seen — up close and personal — the effects of globalization as tens of thousands of software jobs have been moved to cheaper labor markets like India over the last 10 years. Few objected during the 90’s, when it appeared that there was something for everyone in the land o’ good ‘n plenty but since the bubble burst, many have noted that the off-shoring of jobs previously held here has sped up. (more…)