The Simulation weblog posts an entry alerting me/us to a nice Gamasutra article, “Postcard From SGS 2005: Inside The Institute for Creative Technologies“. The article includes discussion about ITC‘s ongoing work toward creating increasingly mind-blowing visuals (among other things, graphics guru Paul Debevec is an employee of ITC, so you know this is serious), and also budgets a hefty portion of wordcount to their efforts on developing adaptive artificial intelligence. Definitely worth the read.

Well this is truly the first time I’ve heard a top-level executive seriously say something like this:

I’m going to run an innovation group, and I’m going to hire highly creative people, design backgrounds, people who have proven their ability to think outside the box. And then I’m actually going to create some sort of career path within innovation.

That’s Mary Jo Cook, the new business vice-president for Clorox’s laundry home-care division in an interview over on BusinessWeek.

Years ago, as I was planning my move into ID, I went looking for some information on career paths. I was lucky enough to come across a business article in the San Diego Union-Tribune that included quotes from Nissan Design International’s VP of Design, Gerald Hirshberg. Not knowing who he was or the status he had within the design community, I sent him a couple of letters with some questions. Fortunately he was kind enough to respond. One of those questions was: “What’s the career path for an industrial designer?”. That apparently confused him as he basically wrote back: There is no path. You either make it or you don’t. Brutal. And in truth, that’s still largely how the field works. The designer’s career path – if you’re lucky enough to even get onto it – usually dead-ends with “Design Manager”, a position normally equivalent to Project Manager on a development team. It’s a low ceiling. And it’s still rare to hear of designers as senior executives at large corporations. Perhaps influential types like Ms. Cook can help to remove that barrier.

I do try to post pics on a regular basis because… well… everyone gets tired of words (I think). So I grabbed the above from Core77’s gallery showcasing Dutch Design Week 2005 (thanks to dezain for reminding me).

The above is a piece by Wendy Boudewijns. I’m not entirely sure I understand what she’s doing or why, but I like the forms. You can read about this piece and surf some more photos on the Core77 gallery.

{Image Copyright © 2005 Core77}

Speaking of the “Hot land values” trend, virtual property sales have themselves taken off. I don’t pretend to understand the extreme to which this is currently being taken, but when money’s no object I guess it’s… not an issue. And the big story over the past week has been the astronomically high price that a virtual space station fetched at auction: a cool US$100,000. Let’s say that again so no one thinks it’s a typo: a cool US$100,000.

There were some rumors that this was all a publicity stunt (which is why I didn’t bother mentioning it), but now the BBC News is carrying an online article that suggests it’s not the developer playing games. Here’s a few excerpts from the beeb news story:

The gamer who bought a virtual space station for $100,000 (£56,200) says he wants to turn it into a nightclub to change the face of entertainment.
…
“I’m already in talks with some of the worlds biggest DJs about spinning live sets inside the nightclub,” he told the BBC News website.

“Gamers want to be entertained while they play, hunt, socialise and craft, and because of the real cash economy aspects of Project Entropia, they can afford to pay for their entertainment.”
…
“I truly think that this will be the decade that gaming and virtual reality changes the face of popular culture,” said Neverdie.
…
“Club Neverdie will enable the entertainment industry to reach inside virtual reality and target the gamer while he’s in his element, while also harnessing the economic power of the gamers to raise the quality level of the content on offer.”

Maybe this will motivate me or someone else to contact some indy filmmakers and set up a virtual movie theater (something I’d considered when Second Life added support for Quicktime). If virtual world residents will pay real money to watch pirated, first-run movies streaming into Second Life, I bet they’d pay to watch legitimate indie films and interact with the filmmakers as well.

via Blue’s News

Just read a three-page article over on the LATimes site called “Fads are so yesterday“. As an Industrial Designer, when I see these kinds of articles I figure they need to be read (kind of like how as a kid I learned how to sit still when the dentist gave me the “numb shot”). To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what to make of this one though. The piece makes this big distinction about how Trends are more important then Fads. Okay. I get the point. But is seeing the writing on the wall really that difficult? And isn’t identifying some Trends really just a kind of Fad sometimes? I mean, check out the end of the article where, among the “Macro Trends” (what the heck is a “macro trend”?), they include the following:

• “Conscious living” — increased social activism, community service, spiritual awakening, eco style, the organic boom.

• “Hot land values” — real estate craze, Middle America, Christian-themed entertainment, redneck humor.

• “Hip parenting” — stylish, Gen-X-driven baby brands, blogs and mags, kid-friendly rock shows, members-only clubs.

• “Curation nation” — mass customization craze, e.g., podcasting, TiVo, custom Nikes, Internet-driven interests, niches.

Let’s look at this brilliantly insightful list for a moment. The first, “Conscious living”, isn’t a trend afaic. It’s a natural evolution of a society in which basic needs and many – or even most – “wants” are met. Ever wonder why so many of the great thinkers in human history were well-to-do? It’s because they weren’t busy out hunting their meals! Things would be really different today if Newton had been picking apples as a laborer instead of lounging around the orchards getting beaned as an aristocrat. Y’know, one could almost attribute this so-called trend to Wal*Mart, where the latest buzz is on the sub-$400 laptops they’re rumored to be selling this coming holiday season. Heck, we might even see the eventual emergence of the “Wal*Mart School of Philosophy” – a surge in Western philosophical writings written on those cheap laptops and uploaded via free wireless connections. Now there’s a thought: a built-in branded cultural movement coming out of the Haight-Ashbury district!

The second on the list, “Hot land values”, is supposed to be a trend? Huh? Cripe. That’s nothing. Just watch people swarm overseas for beachfront property when the big terrorism scare finally subsides and Americans decide the relatively low prices are worth the risk of living in a foreign land (something many Europeans are already hip to). The tsunami that hit Thailand was one big real estate ad, afaic. Sad but true.

“Hip parenting”? What the hell is that? The realization that once again – after all the “Guide To…” and “How To…” parenting books the Boomers scooped off the shelves to figure out how to raise their kids (because they’ll be damned if they listen to their “Leave it to Beaver” parents) – parenting needs another new approach? How many more of these stupid parenting trends will children have to suffer? Enough already.

And finally my favorite: “Curation nation”. If any of these big Trend Ideas is a Fad, this one is it. Check almost any trendy magazine or website and you’ll see a proclamation about how customization is the new wave of the future. I’d agree. But where the hell were the experts when magazines like Metropolis carried articles on this trend years ago? Where were they when rapid-prototyping machines started making their way into corporate R&D departments years ago signaling this potential development? Damn. I should have sold my “Design Trends” presentation back in 2000 (which contained this and other trends) for a cool $20,000 a pop when I had the chance. I’ve missed the Trend Fad, I guess. Bummer.

via O’Reilly Radar