12.22.11 | Transblog
Bio-Solution
In the story of God creation, God created Adam and Eve, with soil and a piece of bone from Adam; humans as creation of God, which live for 8-9 decades, self-regenerate, self-recover and degradable (except the bones) into soil, which has been a good example of an ecological and sustainable cycle of human body.
12.21.11 | Transblog
On Framing and frameworks
We’ve been discussing a lot lately about how to properly frame a project to make it succeed. Designing for social change is a challenge even when properly framed, and well scaled. Our proposal for the world bank had many constrains and that is exactly why I chose it as an example, the usage of this proposal as a case study can help me clarify my own opinion on complex frameworks and proper framing.
On the last few weeks one thing that became clear to me is that Framing and designing a framework are two different things, which took me a while to understand and trace the boundaries between them. Framework as I understand, is the skeleton, or the master plan, we draw to map the question and choose our path through a solution, while framing is establishing the premises that will lead us through this path.
I chose the World Bank project to discuss those ideas since this particular proposal can be defined as a transdiciplinar design project as well as a design project for social change, it deals with polemical questions as how to define poverty, how to intervene in the reality of millions of farmers, that usually don’t have access to the basic needs and credit. Therefore I will first discuss the framework as we proposed, and secondly I will establish how did we frame the project inside the framework we chose. This analyzes will make it clear why did we made those choices, and will trace the path to the future of the work.
The framework we proposed was related to communication, we designed it as a skeleton for any transdiciplinary design proposal, and I believe we can expand it to other studies along our careers. The complete framework had nine items that once well-defined can make the project agile and clear. The nine items that defined communication are: Support, incentives, data management, transparency, timeline, communication language, rules, tools and responsibility.
I will just make an exercise to exemplify how can we use each of the aspects to establish the communication strategy. As support I understand all partnerships that must be developed to the success of the project.
To be able to understand partnerships, I believe I can reference the project I was analyzing for Clive’s class “Bristol legible city”, where designers established partnerships to implement and maintain the signage system. Those partners were carefully chosen and received incentives to participate, collaborate and relate to the project.
Defining the partners and creating incentives is a fundamental tool to the sustainability of the project, defining incentives can lead to the success or failure of a professional communication structure.
In addition to that, the communication structure build among collaborators and partners also plays an important role on this proposal, when roles are clear, and there is enough transparency among the team, a project of such complexity is easier to manage.
Another tool that we proposed was the website for data management and collection, if the data is badly organized and managed it can lead to a total failure of the project’s structure. As we still don’t have the specific case study it is hard to access what is the data needed and who must have access to this data.
I could define item by item, but the truth is we do not have enough information to precisely define that framework, and we will just have this information when the world bank defines the first country that they will be working with.
Although there is not enough information, I believe this framework can guide us to feel in the gaps, and to propose design products well targeted and effective to the success of micro insurance in the market.
It seems that micro insurance is already a common language while talking about transferring risk, the question here is to whom should we transfer the risk to, here is where framing enters the scene. If we frame it as a social product, it doesn’t seem appropriate to transfer risk to farmers, on the other, if we frame it as a financial product, the choice of transferring risk to the population may be the solution to reduce governments burden.
12.21.11 | Transblog
success/failure or every front has a back or to act or not to act or the problem with a can of worms.
In chapter one of Tim Brown’s book Change By Design he says “Fail early to succeed sooner”. There are quite a few similar sentiments out there that encourage the idea that to succeed one must fail. The dichotomy of success/failure is like any other opposite; we can’t know one, or at least appreciate it, without the other. What I’m questioning is whose criteria for success and failure are we adhering to?
12.21.11 | Transblog
Why diversity is good… (or Aww, what have we done?!)
A recent issue of The New York Times Magazine (issued November 27, 2011) had an extensive article on the development of the modern bulldog. The outcomes of selective breeding (or the design) of this breed forced me to wonder how human values impact the health of other creatures. The article, titled, “The short, brutish life of the bulldog is putting the future of the breed at risk” does an excellent job of presenting both sides of the argument around the designed genetic selection of the bulldog. For me however it was clear that one side is arguing from a more developed vantage point.
12.21.11 | Transblog
Nature as Capital
“After two centuries of rises in labour productivity, the liquidation of natural resources at their extraction cost rather than their replacement value, and the exploitation of living systems as if they were free, infinite, and in perpetual renewal, it is people who have become an abundant resource, while nature is becoming disturbingly scarce.” – Natural Capitalism
“Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution” is a cooperative effort of Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins to outline the principles of natural capitalism, an ethos by which the resources of the natural world would be as highly valued as financial resources have been in human history.
Communication Towers
Cooperation and collaboration has been a major force behind the advancement of man. From hunter-gatherer relationships to the division of labor, these splits have become ever more idiosyncratic. Just as the physical tools created or discovered by those early hunter-gatherers, these relationships have also become increasingly productive.
12.19.11 | Transblog
“Menstruation – Takashi’s Take”
Takashi is a young transvestite boy. He isn’t satisfied with just dressing up as a girl. He wants to discover womanhood and experience the daily phenomenon of menstrual cycle and so he builds himself a ‘menstruation simulation machine’. Takashi transforms himself into a beautiful young girl and then straps on the machine. He heads out for a night into town with his girl pal, strutting around a shopping mall while occasionally doubling over in pain. After a bit of fun, poor Takashi is overcome by cramps and retreats to a restroom. The song in the background states “it hurts…Well; it’s going to hurt even more “while Takashi, although consumed by pain, finally experiences womanhood for the very first time.
12.18.11 | Ideas
A TransDesign Holiday Recipe
“Man at the crossroads looking with uncertainty but with hope and high vision to the choosing of a course leading to a new and better vision.”
-The theme for a mural commissioned by the MOMA to Diego Riviera
12.18.11 | Ideas, Opportunities
A Mad Tea (D) Party
“Have you any idea why a raven is like a writing desk?”
I bet you don’t. The Mad Hatter poses this illustrious riddle in the chapter ‘A Mad Tea Party’ in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The riddle is not meant to have an answer at all: As delightful as it is confusing, it is merely one of the book’s many mysteries that bewilder Alice, and through her, the reader as well.
Every single one of my fellow students would agree that the TransD process is a lot like being Alice stumbling through Wonderland. Right can be wrong, wrong might be right and every question raises further questions rather than answers. To understand and master this process, we have to start with finding out how deep the rabbit hole really is. So let’s dive in.
12.18.11 | Ideas
Diversity: A quick recipe for a nightmare?
What is Transdicsiplinary Design? This is a good question, with a long answer, which I’m not going through it now. But I can give you an idea; As described in the web page of the program, we TDs, as we call Transdesciplinary Design, are here to
