Rob Curedale wrote:
> The area of collaboration is one that interests me. Many people are
> suggesting that we will be moving from from designers doing it
> themselves to designers participating in open networks to co-create.
I feel that's right on the money. The exciting thing for me is all the
possible models which might emerge and the hope (given the appalling
results of our banking monoculture) that they will all flourish.
My colleague Paul Atkinson is developing a Future Manufacturing research
group based on his recent work on how designers and software engineers
can create systems for consumers to generate their own unique products
eg http://www.automake.co.uk/about/index.html
Some of the ideas are about selecting from a progression of semi-random
mutations but others are about consumers manipulating the product within
a constraints model which is a very advanced version of Von Hippel's
"Toolkits for User Innovation". This thinking is partly informed by his
other research interest as a historian where he has studied the
Do-It-Yourself movement which includes a great variety of creative
practices as well as the more obvious home improvement stuff.
We also have a visiting researcher here from Istanbul Technical
University, Cigdem Kaya, who is investigating how designers can "incite"
change in the lives and work of makers. She started out working with
small traditional workshop manufacturers and household craft workers in
Turkey but has also found a lot of resonance with post-industrial
craftspeople in Britain, people who are seeking work or satisfaction
from learning and using traditional craft skills. In both cases there is
a general level of routine or "me too" practice which can be seen in
most of the work done by such people, but what interests Cigdem is the
effect of introducing somebody with a strong creative ethos and skill to
their environment. She has evidence that the intervention of a designer
can leave a lasting change in thinking and practice, long after the
designer has disappeared. I've seen this in my own professional work
with industrial craftsmen in the specialist vehicle-building industry.
Her work and Paul Atkinson's asks a pointed question, "Who is the designer?"
And since you mention reward systems, my belief is that we should not
even think about that. The world of open sharing seems to create its own
unpredictable models for success, for instance how many economists would
predict that you could publish a magazine and ask people to pay after
they had read it? I subscribe to the wonderful online journal "City
Cycling" and I regularly click on the "donate" button to give them UK2
because of the great content such as Sam Fleming's recent article on the
moral and psychological climate in which cyclists and motorists
encounter each other. http://www.citycycling.co.uk/issue45/issue45page5.html
To bring the question home, why do we all give our time and knowledge
free to this forum, instead of keeping it for our employer's exclusive use?
Thanks Rob
Chris
...............................................................o^o
Professor Chris Rust FDRS
Head of Art and Design Research Centre (nearly finished that)
Head of Art and Design (real soon now)
Sheffield Hallam University, S1 2NU, UK
+44 114 225 6772
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www.chrisrust.net
Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the
future of the human race. - H. G. Wells
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