Dear all,

As I currently reside and work in Kyoto (western Japan) I receive all sorts of info,

particularly through Twitter.

You must have read or heard about Twitter as a great means of

communication to know what people need, where they are, how we can help in Japan at the moment.
Indeed it gives me the true insights of people in Sendai, as well as those who are trying to come up with
mass-collaboration projects to support people in northern Japan.

A day before yesterday, there was a controversy over a tweet by a design researcher
asking for financial support as she made a website to explain
she was now in northern Japan
she developed a network of people in the disaster stricken areas in the different manner
she found some "unofficial" evacuation centers, almost ignored by the officials
she spoke to those who were in need and found out what they truly wanted
she found a route to reach those centers
she wanted volunteers to support people

One thing Japan learnt after the earthquake in Kobe, 1995 was that volunteers could be useless

without preparing appropriate operational systems, just as blood donation.
Therefore at present people are waiting for the right time to join the recovery projects.
Yet her argument was that the immediate volunteer workforce was necessary, as the damage was sustained

in the remote areas, currently ignored by government officials.

She later used Ustream to deliver the true status of people in the evacuation center.

But she did not explain where those evacuation centers are on the web site.
But she did not share info on what route she took to reach people.

She has not explained anything fully, yet she wants people to believe in what she sees is true and asks for donation.

Obviously anyone can imagine and understand how busy she is.
Anyone can imagine that she wanted to help people.

However as a design ethnographer she lacked convincing sources.
As a result people did not believe in what she asked for.

She immediately realized that people on Twitter was complaining about the
way she wrote about what she found, and commented that she would
add some more convincing info later while her attitude remained more or less the same.


Perhaps she had to open source the findings in the appropriate manner.

Perhaps she did not have to ask for the financial support.


In the state of emergency ethnographic knowledge without sound supporting materials
may not seem convincing? What could be the right deliverables?
How does "live-rapid ethnography" (delivered through twitter and Ustream) be convincing?
This is also a quite rare situation for design....

As I also work as a design researcher at times, I am concerned with the lack of efforts
in designing findings: design researchers' skills of designing findings are poor in general.
Photos, films, diagrams, interviews and analyzed outcomes are often discouraging designers
to be inspired or people to believe, quite simply because of bad design.
Perhaps I am pointing out the reverse of Norman's recent writings "Why design education must change",
why design researcher should know and practice design.

I am still confused, frustrated and worried about what and how this design researcher has told about her findings.
In the meantime I am working with Architecture for Humanity to develop a housing project...

Yours,

Daijiro

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水野 大二郎
Daijiro Mizuno PhD (Royal College of Art)

www.daijirom.com

Lecturer, Kyoto Univeristy of Art and Design
Director, Ultra Factory Critical Design Lab
Committee Member, Designeast
Member, FabLab Japan

Supporting Architecture for Humanity
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