I was happy to get to take part in the Stanford d.school’s first hackathon this weekend, and not just because of the high energy of the 150 designers, developers, and other creators who participated. Their ideas are great. And that’s no easy feat when the challenge brief calls for creating large-scale ways to bring design thinking to the world. Take a peak at the Lean Design Experience, d.radio and other well-considered solutions that were created in 48 fast hours.
…is no small hosting effort, but leave it to the good folks at social accelerator COMMON to make it fun to find innovative solutions to global problems. After a stop in NYC the large-scale pitch party for entrepreneurs will head to Cape Town to work with Design Indaba and renowned designer judges in awarding $25K+ (200K Rand) to people creating positive social change in Africa. I’m eagerly awaiting the applicant videos and, even more, seeing the local ideas in action.
Bay Area-ites have the chance tonight to engage in a fun project to protect international development, the Cycle for Security Cross-Country Bike Tour. Laguitas will be providing free brews at Rally Pad starting at 6:30 as friend Janessa Goldbeck (@jgoldbeck, formerly with the Genocide Intervention Network) prepares to take off on a 4,200 mile cross-country bike trip. It’s not just for the exercise but to talk with Americans about the importance of foreign aid programs that provide millions of people around the world with nutrition, education, and health care.
Given that funding for these programs is in jeopardy in Congress, the effort is important for raising awareness about how vital they are to saving lives abroad and keeping Americans safe. Go learn about it.
This morning I saw a little boy, maybe three years old, walk into a coffee shop door (which would have been me on any other day). It wasn’t because he’s just getting his balance; he had a smartphone in hand and eyes on screen, making him a sort of miniature version of the distracted adults around. It has me thinking about how we design for awareness and more multimedia decision-making.
This year our d.school Design Garage team “The Presence Project” will be focusing on this issue exactly, and I couldn’t be more excited about the work. If you’re also interested in mindfulness and multitasking, the New York Times and Slate have run thoughtful pieces this week and there’s lots of dialogue at #calmingtech.
I’ve been listening to 99% Invisible while traveling, and the design series’ fresh take on everything from elevator audio to the group Anonymous is well worth sharing. Created by East Bay producer Roman Mars (whose talents I know from Chicago Public Radio), the episodes are brief–and great–enough to listen to twice.
“The human-human interface” program is so informative it may work its way into the Designing Calming Technologies course at Stanford this spring. I’m excited to hear your thoughts and think you’ll find that this “tiny radio show” is anything but.
After spending the week with family and friends in and around Miami, I was ecstatic to see “Here Comes the Neighborhood,” a not-so-new but utterly amazing project out of the Wynwood neighborhood. Graffiti writers and artists have worked in the troubled area to create commissions–however temporary–in a place where the general urban undesirability had been much longer-lasting. A contributor to an OpenIDEO challenge about revitalizing cities shared the “docuseries” that has resulted from the project, and I highly recommend it as a great use of an hour during these holidays.
“When City of Joy officially opened Friday, hundreds of women, most of them rape victims, thumped on drums and sang at the top of their lungs…Some even danced with the shovels and cement-encrusted trowels that they used to build the City of Joy. It was an upbeat moment in a country that has had few.” - Jeffrey Gettleman in The New York Times in February
V-Day, the international non-profit that works to end violence against women and girls, released its annual interactive program update today, and the news is nothing if not inspiring. Between projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, and work with community activists ranging from teen girls to adult men, you can’t leave the experience and not feel activated about the contributions (and your own).
My beau and I saw FELA! at The Curran this week in its first week since being transplanted from Broadway and found ourselves largely agreeing on The New Yorker’s positive–but tempered–review from the original show. Our thoughts on the plusses: the costuming and dance scenes are perfection and the audience interaction (including derriere-shaking instructions) is a blast. The not-so-good: the show drags yet it omits key parts of the Nigerian musician/politician’s personal story, including the controversy over his death from AIDS-related infection. Shortcomings aside, the show still had us listening to “Zombie” for days.
It’s ironic to consider inefficiency in healthcare at UCSF, but less so when the focus is how data-tracking might improve our experiences–and wellbeing–as people and patients. Today GigaOm’s Roadmap conference featured analyst Jody Ranck describing the need for more connectedness in the sector. The web-based “socialization of disease” (that is, the idea that lots of people want to share their experiences and literal pain points) isn’t the only evidence I need to agree.
And it’s encouraging to see SF-based companies that are running with this concept. At Rock Health’s demo day this afternoon, incubator company Genomera described the large-scale transition from “n=they” (when people waited for others to be studied for treatment) to “n=we” and “n=me” (when there’s a bias towards participation to improve outcomes). It’s being realized with platforms like SuperBetter from Social Chocolate and Eatery from Massive Health, both of which I’ve just starting trying. What other related services have you excited? Looking forward to hearing.
It’s taken 24 hours to write about Eve Ensler’s speech at Grace Cathedral since it happened (bad blogger!), mostly because it’s taken as long to process the playwright’s words of wisdom. I could try to quote the V-Day founder and activist’s words from the night (among my favorites: “I’m only as good as the community I work with” and “the only salvation is kindness”) but would rather reflect on the fact that it happened at all. It’s surprising not just because the event was hosted at a Christian church or because Ensler’s life was nearly claimed by uterine cancer, but because more than 1,000 women and men were ready to really hear her message about personal accountability. A core theme–we’re obsessed with who we are, well the why and what we do is much more essential–has resonated with me all day. And made me wonder what we will do with it.
(Dancing as part of the One Billion Rising project to end violence against women and girls and participating in the play Emotional Creature when it opens at Berkeley Rep are two good places to start. And, until then?)
