The Expression of Being And the New Age of Fusioned Reality
Volume 1
Anne Gorgy OCAD University Industrial Design Thesis Project 2016
“Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar.” “Traveler, there is no path, the path must be forged as you walk.” - Antonio Machado-
Author’s Notes It all started earlier in the summer with a self reflection; of who I have been and what I have become and accomplished so far. It was followed by a ceaseless state of wandering and wondering, during which I was always questioning people’s behaviours and why we do what we do. This involved observations of people in virtual and physical platforms and across countries when I travel, as well as self-experimentation sometimes. Therefore, my design philosophy has been to observe relationships and human experiences, translating them to an added value for a meaningful and enhanced way of living” This project has been a journey towards self discovery. The self here refer to both my thesis and I. With each day, my thesis topic has been evolving and revealing itself to me, while I could feel myself evolve and grow with it along the way too. I haven’t been trying to push this project in any specific direction, but rather I am driven by the information that arise, realizing patterns, and connecting the dots. The information I find most compelling and promising towards future value further lead the way to the next step. The layout and graphic design of this book play as a reflection of both the project and the phases it has been going through and my own experience with it. Like a journey, it takes the reader through my own journal, relevant quotes, and thesis progress. All the photos I have used in this book are double exposure photography, reflecting the state of personal duality and the multiple dimensions we have developed within ourselves, as well as the blended reality we live in between the virtual and the physical world featuring our behaviours and social interactions. As Alexander Manu, whom I consider my design mentor and life guru, puts it; “the project is you and you have the power and capability to design your life”. And this is how I have been treating the project. This process has been a process of self discovery of who I can be as a designer and what I am capable of, what the value of this project could be and what it can bring forth. Thus, this journey shall continue until it unleashes the true potential of the self.
Table Of Contents Research & Analysis
Personal Journal
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Thesis Diary
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Hyper-Sharing. 26 Hyper-Spaces. 34 Hyper-Spaces in the Realm of Humanity, the Brief. 35 Data Spaces and Unfolding Signals, teach back. 43 49 Research Phase. 140 The Emergence of the Know Lab.
The Know Lab.
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Introduction. Foresight Maps. Stakeholder’s Map & Experience Journey Map. Scenarios Behaviour Space. Value Proposition & Business Model Canvas. Brand Value Analytic & Business Model Archetype. The Nine Basic Human Needs
148 153 162 166 180 182 190 194
To Be Continued
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Bibliography
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Personal Diary A Pilgremage of The Self
July 12th, 2015 This is not the start of the semester yet. It is mid summer. A lot has happened in less than a year, but with one main highlight, I got the privilege to meet and be taught by Alexander Manu. When we are set to something that’s bigger than us, it challenges us, discretely compels us to grow with it, until we are both transformed and are ready to soar. That is Strategic Design to me, and I could already feel my life transformed. I have started writing my own life manifesto, have willfully and gladly accepted each fragment that has constituted my life so far. I have become conscious of a world that lies within each one of us and us encountering and stumbling upon that, waiting to be discovered in the vast lands of the earth. So, for transformations, taking chances, wandering around, those AHA moments, and the little things that leave us in awe… I’m all set to view and experience the world in new and different ways and get myself ready to start my own self-directed project in a couple of months. Here’s a glimpse of my manifesto that is always being re-written.
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July 16th, 2015 I have come across a book that I find really interesting and I was starting to wonder if my thesis topic should be about that. The book is Daring Greatly, by Bréne Brown. It talks about the power of vulnerability in our different life aspects. I could really relate to that and I feel emotionally attached to it. Since, I’m really interested in people’s behavior and the emotions that derives them to engage in various experience, I felt like vulnerability as a strong emotion that influence what we do and how we do it, and thus might be something that I could tackle in my thesis project. But as advised by Alex, it’s such a broad topic that intervenes with different fields and I will be lacking the credibility to tackle it, as well. It might also not turn into a design project, and I must realize the difference. Vulnerability, off the list you go.
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July 12th, 2015
August 13th, 2015 Going to Egypt, should be taking a break there. The goal is set to let my mind relax and wander on its own, may be observe a little bit, incubate and foster some ideas a long the way, that could be an inspiration for my thesis.
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September 8th, 2015 Toronto, here I am again… With no clue about what I’m doing for my thesis… amazing!
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September 10th, 2015 While I was still not sure of what I will be doing for thesis, I was thinking about what observation has been persistently showing up in front of me. Then it suddenly hit me how weird it is that people across the globe (Egyptian and international friends) were exhibiting a similar behaviour on social platforms. That is hypersharing of content. I have always wondered what benefit would i get out of this, but then i also thought of immortal theory and how we always want to leave a mark behind. So, I thought to myself I wanna explore this more. And so hypersharing became my thesis topic.
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September 14th, 2015 Initial feedback about my presentation was good. I have researched about the mediums people use for sharing as well as the products and services. Let’s see where that will go then.
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Sep 10th, 2015 I was doing themes for my topic now, and seems like nothing special. All I have wrote down seem to exist already. The project is already starting to lose its sparkle. I have also been experimenting with Snapchat, posting pictures and videos of the places I go to and the experiences I engage in. It has become a little bit addictive to post something more frequently. It’s like indirectly telling someone your updates, where you go and what you do through a snap that could be for 3 seconds, but no reply or feedback. A one way conversation. A monologue.
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October 1st, 2015 Matt Lincez came to class today and brought a long all these ideas and topics, in which some of them just sound crazy. His feedback for me was to look into what was shared in the past, historical contexts, what has changed, what enabled it, and where it is moving. He also told me to research the taxonomy of value of what is being exchanged, and elements that are automatically being shared. I should also look into manual vs. automated, human vs. machine, tangible value vs. abstract value, and then create a 2x2 matrix. I should also consider whether it a virtual or manual way, seamless or intuitive. He also mentioned lack of understanding of empathy in the world, and purpose statements, what to achieve to share experiences and emotions After that class I thought I should dig more and tap to areas I didn’t touch on and just go crazy. So, let’s see.
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October 5th, 2015 Yet another presentation. I have now a new name for my project. It’s not just about hyper-sharing, it’s about a whole space in which everything is connected and have conversations. So, it became hyper-sapces. I have tapped into areas that might not get me anywhere or can’t be a design project but merely a cool idea on paper. However, it’s pushing me to discover beyond the obvious aspects and trends, and see what’s it really about that makes us in a constant urge to share or connect, even when sometimes there is no reply or feedback on the other side.
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October 15th, 2015 Reading week almost coming to an end. I didn’t get much done. I have been watching movies. An interesting observation, the word knowledge keeps on showing on different occasions. When I was researching into the history of the Internet or sharing, it popped up. Now, the two movies that I watched are bringing it about as well. “Knowledge determines destiny” and what is behind the door that we’re afraid of and is the road to our enlightenment?
“Knowledge determines destiny”
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October 19th, 2015 Our brief presentation day. I made a presentation with a philosophical content about knowledge as means and an end to our sharing behaviour. I reached that conclusion by connecting the dots, reading about sharing and philosophy. However, my brief didn’t specify in clear words how could I achieve this moment of wonderment as an experience. Thus, left me with unclear answers to the question of what, why and how still, if any at all. I need and want to blow this topic up! Beyond what I could clearly see or state, but transform it into a valuable design project for people, instead of only philosophizing about concepts. To become a creative disruption.
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October 25th, 2015 Teach back. I chose a topic for my teachback that relates to my thesis that is data space and signal unfolding. This particular presentation opened my eyes to look beyond the current state of the technology of IoT and the shallow analysis of what it will bring forth, that is basically everything being connected. But what does that mean? What value would that bring to the human being and objects in space? And what does it mean or infer to be living in a state of data abundance? This lead me to think that it becomes compelling to provide a meaningful valuable experience that touches on our human desires and instincts. The presentation and my direction were summed up in the last question that I had and that is “what can I be in the eyes of the data space?�
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October 30th, 2015 Research, research, research. For the next couple of weeks I will be dedicating my time for doing research, analyzing, documenting and synthesizing it. I will be looking at trend and foresight reports to find an answer or direction to my question of what could be possible within my topic and where does its value lie in comparison to other innovations. I will be doing maps, definition analysis and most redundant words emerging from the research.
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November 2nd, 2015 We met again with Matt Lincez, I told him about my new direction and research towards data abundance and creating an experience in search for knowledge and he told me when a new technology (IoT) emerges, the smart way to do it would be to brand your concept within the realm of that new technology or behavior, and through that I would create my experience. This seemed like a really cool idea and smart way to go around it. But still, I can’t prove or make sense of why knowledge would be my thing, or why people are searching for it. Why would this provide a meaningful or a valuable experience? Am I limiting myself with my own perception and forcibly leading my project towards a certain direction based on some assumption that I have made up?
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November 5th, 2015 I have been looking into reports that discuss technology and the self. I started to find some trends that link to my initial observations and analyses. I have also found about Facebook Insights that link corporations and advertisers with consumer and market insights. They seem like they link somehow, but can’t figure out the drivers or the connections yet. I also talked to Alex about my findings so far. He gave me a really good advice that after every day I read something, I should link it back to my project, how does it relate or add to it, and what value can it bring forth, instead of just passively reading. Why do I feel like I’m still going into some sort of loop? Let’s see where will that go.
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End of Research Phase
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November 12th, 2015 This is it. This is how it feels like. That AHA moment, the click. I personally experienced this moment I have been talking about acquiring knowledge, that awe you find yourself in when you just know you have found it. For the past couple of weeks, I have been researching but it wasn’t falling in place yet. But it finally did, and all that information has eventually been transformed into knowledge. I can finally connect the dots and see the patterns. All the trends and topics I have been reading about have generated my concept that I have been looking for and will be working on for a while
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Thesis Diary Phase 1: Exploration Focus, Themes, Questions
Hyper-Sharing Culture and Brand-User Engagement This is how I decided to call it. After an observation of the amount of posts and time people spend sharing “content”, we have developed our own era of hyper-sharing. I see it as a hyper state since it has extended to multiple platforms, various content, and has taken over our lives as a lifestyle and a way of living and behaving. In both the physical and virtual world, over the different online platforms and applications, for our different life discourses, from services and products, to emotions, experiences, stories, and moments, we are in a constant state of self-driven sharing. Or rather… hyper-sharing. During this experience of sharing, we are always interacting with other individuals and “things”, whether consciously or unconsciously. Those interactions and the behaviours exhibited during them have both produced and been the production of the multi- dimensions of the self. That is the different features and identities we have come to take and develop as we interact. Each of these dimensions expects and is always looking to be satisfied and fulfilled as it participates in these experiences. In each of these interaction, users are engaging with brands that are either providers of services, products, or the platform of engagement itself. A user’s experience during those interactions shapes their brand relationship and how they perceive it, dictating future engagement and brand loyalty. Such brand engagement has been established on the basis of marketing, brand development and economic growth, customer satisfaction, mutual benefit, and recently joined by users becoming more involved in the story of the brand.
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A key insight from these experiences is that people are always looking for ways to make an impact. Not only do they wish to make an impact on people, things, and places that they encounter and engage with, but even on their favourite brands. As such, users desire and demand meaningful opportunities, to be part of the story, and to take part in writing it too.
Airbnb
Audi Unite application
Yerdle
Signals Nike’s personal customization service
Crowdtap
We Feel Fine website
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Being considerate of others
More economical
Feeling powerful
Utilizing resources
Criticism & cynicism
Make a statement
Being mindful
Advertising/marketing
Create a trend
Defy mortality
Reach out Popularity
Being influential
Self-Driven Modes Connection
Stir change
Contribute
Feel special Make an impact
Create awareness
Being heard
Involvement
Social image & style
Create value of sharing activity
Business purposes
Defy limits & create possibilities
Expanding the self
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Stats & Statuses
Events
Products
Reviews
Jobs
Belongings
Media
Transportation
Facilities
Art Stories
Ideas Spaces
Emotions
Hyper Sharing Deaths
News
Beliefs
Cultures
Politics
Places Experiences
Opinions
Thoughts
Moments
Dimensions of the self
“In your shoes” / “see the world through your eyes”
Services
Identities
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Various Apps
Blogs
Websites
Virtual Platforms
Soundcloud
Snapchat
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Facilities
Form of sharing
Spaces
Overall experience
Where you are
Physical Platforms
Surrounding atmosphere
Where you are going to be
Privately owned
Group owned
Corporate owned
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Security
Entrepreneurship
Politics
Psychology
Anthropology
Technology
Forms of individualism
Cultural Studies
Service Business
Real Estate
Different Discourses
Travelling
Fashion
Marketing
Social Life
Economy
Hotels & Accommodation Advertising
Retail Industry
Patents & Copy Rights
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Transportation forms
Sociology
Insurance
Resources & Expenses
Insights
Wider customer-base
Open Source
Growth
Transparency
R&D
Outreach scale
Unforgettable experience
Brand-User Engagement
Marketing
Feedback
Play a role in the story
Personalization
Satisfaction
Giving reviews
Loyalty
User testing
Impacting change
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Hyper-Spaces Expanding on my previous concept and realizing what becomes involved in each of the interactions and experiences, an idea of a space that entails all the activities and requirements of a culture of hyper-sharing was created. It is where everything takes place. With the Internet of Things being a step away, it will amplify our state of hyper-sharing both in scale and intensity. When objects and spaces are connected, they will become aware. Thus, augmenting and shaping our sharing behaviour. An idea of a hyper-space then examines the ways in which our hyper-sharing behaviour will fuse into the future of communication, societies, infrastructure, the economy, as well as our interacting bodies and body senses in space. This requires to further explore the content and contexts involved in our sharing behaviour and economy, and how the multi-dimensions of individuals, objects and spaces come to interact with one another. In this phase I try to push the boundaries of my own imagination of what could be possible. Even if it might include concepts or ideas that can not evolve into design projects or are mere fantasies, it acted as a self training to look for what is beyond the obvious. In that sense, I explore and imagine a state when enabled objects and spaces are aware and become part of the equation. Consequently, they extend to communicate and interact with bodies, senses, perceptions, and networks. In the process, they become influenced by and influence our sharing behaviour, impacting the experience and associated outcome.
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Hyper-Spaces in the Realm of Humanity “Human behaviour flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.� -Plato-
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My brief as a monologue, reaching out to Hyper-Spaces be eventually transformed into a dialogue Expanding on my previous concept and realizing what becomes Down history lane and since the dawn of humanity, maximising involved in each of the interactions and experiences, an idea of a access and minimising waste have been the driving forces for our space that entails all the activities and requirements of a culture of sharing behaviour. In which exchange depended on an agreement hyper-sharing was created. It is where everything takesinplace. of value and double coincidence of wants.Knowledge that exchange process became both the means and an end. With the Internet of Things being a step away, it will amplify our Similar nature, everything us exists in a constant state state ofto hyper-sharing both inaround scale and intensity. When objects of tension. an individual’s and aThus, community’s and spacesBetween are connected, they willuniqueness become aware. good. A dynamic self constitution andbehaviour. othernessAn creation augmenting and shaping our sharing idea ofofa relation and distance. A process of destruction to make way for generation. hyper-space then examines the ways in which our hyper-sharing behaviour will fuse into the future of communication, societies, Our innate desires to evolve accompanied with our survival ininfrastructure, the influenced economy, as well as our interacting bodies andthe stincts, have both and facilitated for humans to roam body senses space. This requires to further explore the content corners of theinEarth and further beyond, Despite all variables and and contexts involved On in our sharingtobehaviour andfind economy, resources in jeopardy, a journey explore and oneselfand in awe wonderment... Of of what was yet to be discovered. how and the multi-dimensions individuals, objects and spaces come to interact with one another. It’s that tension then, that leaves us in utter wonderment, When we find what we didn’t know we have been looking for, in the In this phase I try to push the boundaries of my own imagination of most unlikely places. what could be possible. Even if it might include concepts or ideas that canthat notexact evolve into design projectsisorfound are mere it During moment, Knowledge at itsfantasies, most vivid acted as a time self training to look for whatfully is beyond the obvious. state, that stops and we become aware that…We have been redefined. In that sense, I explore and imagine a state when enabled objects If knowledge is what the person you are within the world, and spaces are awarecreates and become part of the equation. In that sense… they extend to communicate and interact with Consequently, bodies, senses, perceptions, and networks. In the process, they Our quest for knowledge becomes our greatest goal in life, become influenced by and influence our sharing behaviour, With time as our greatest variable and most valuable asset, impacting experience and associated outcome. Resourcesthe as our tools, Hunger as our deriving energy, And wonderment as our most pleasurable experience. If knowledge is defined as understanding and being aware of something, and the essential form of a thing is inherent in each instance of it, when we encounter objects in our interaction with the surrounding world, those instances slowly build and refine our understanding, are we then eternally left with a different experience that influences and alters our subjective reality, in every encounter? 36
What then differentiates the various experiences of knowledge, knowledge by coincidence, knowledge that is yet to be explored, knowledge based on familiarity and understanding, and latent knowledge? How does it affect our imagination and sense of awe? If in a process of destruction and regeneration, or reaching a destination down a road filled with obstacles and ambiguity, factors of time and tension come into play, to constitute value and what makes such a process and a journey worthy, and thus, that moment of wonderment... Then, in times of big data, and a world clustered with information, to which every individual, object, and space have an uninterrupted access, how do we create a journey that captures both value and the experience towards our quest for knowledge in its most vivid state? What would then be the shape of a non-constructed journey? Its influence on the destination? In utilizing our knowledge, in that framework and understanding, as a means and an end, what would be the role of the more knowledgeable other? What would be its influence on the way we allocate resources? What would be its influence on institutions in society like education, healthcare, or corporations? How would that affect and shape our engagement and interactions? The role of this project becomes, to explore how knowledge in its most raw and vivid form can impact the way we engage and have access, and the process of allocating resources, While preserving what makes knowledge special, that is the journey, and experiencing those moments of awe and wonderment, In which, knowledge, gaining access, and allocating resources create a cycle where one impacts the other. To utilize, resolve, create, and add value.
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Hyper-Spaces in the Realm of Humanity Following a week of reading up on philosophy, the history of the World Wide Web, the history of sharing from the beginning of humanity, I decided to write my brief in an unconventional manner. As a monologue. The monologue represents my personal thought, insights, reflections, internal discussions, and questions that were going on my mind regarding each of the previously mentioned subjects and how they connect to my topic. On the history of our sharing behaviour, two crucial must be asked. Why did humans share? And what did they share? Since the early days of our species, humans became aware that only through collaborating and sharing their food, tools, and resources, they would be able to achieve their quest for survival. Consequently, such sharing behaviour resulted in two significant outcomes. Firstly, it created a virtuous link between oneself and one’s community, in which a community fulfilled an individual’s basic needs of food and safety, and the emotional needs of companionship and affection. Secondly, sharing allowed for minimize waste and maximize resources. However, high levels of knowledge, skills, and coordination became a must to obtain and acquire those resources consumed by humans. Apart from sharing food, resources, and tools, early humans were also sharing information. Beginning with cave paintings and followed by scriptures found on temple walls and various mediums used for writing, early humans were passing on information and stories about their lives, beliefs, and activities. Whether this documentation was intended for imprinting, surviving legacies, communication with other cultures or future generation, it was first and foremost designed to share content.
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While moving forward in history, mediums used for sharing content came to evolve. We find the emergence of the Marathon Man in ancient Greece to deliver and carry messages, followed by messenger pigeons in Ancient Rome and the Town Crier during the Middle Ages, who is an officer of the court who makes public announcements. With the technological advancements, Telegraph cables were devel oped, then radio broadcasting, after which were
the television, followed by personal computers, and eventually the World Wide Web. Evolving from the premise that there would be a single, global information space, the World Wide Web was conceived. It was based on the realization that there was a power that lied in arranging ideas in an unconstrained, web like way. Reflecting the distributed nature of people and computers that the system could link, in which each node could be connected to another, the name of the World Wide Web came into existence to represent this global hypertext in a simple way. This global network implied the possibility of feeling part of a wider group that is united by a shared activity. In addition to that, it had the potential to becoming a social innovation, developing new ways of creating communities. People separated by time and spaces could be connected through online communities that revolve around an object, a practice, or a software. As with bartering systems, which is also an old form of sharing, both new and old forms and modes of our sharing behaviour are established on an agreement of value and double coincidence of wants. Both factors then drive our motivation to participate in the sharing economy and engage with brands and users. During such an exchange of value and wants, we find knowledge playing the role of both the means and the end in itself. The humankind has been able to evolve and develop through utilizing their acquired knowledge, and has centered their evolution towards acquiring such knowledge. Drawing on philosophy, according to Socrates, rather than wealth or higher status, this gaining of knowledge is the ultimate goal of life. He elaborates that all knowledge is ultimately self knowledge, creating the person one is within the world. Plato believed that genuine knowledge can only be derived from studying ideas, which can only be achieved through reason instead of our deceptive senses that produce an experience of incomplete or imperfect shadow of reality. Aristotle argues that it is not through gaining insight into a thing’s universal and immutable nature when studying
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it that we come to know it, but rather it is through the nature and the means by which we come to know them. We also find that some philosophers like the rationalists believed in a priori or innate knowledge, while the empiricists claimed the knowledge is the result of experience. Looking closely into which factor plays a vital role in knowledge gaining across these multiple philosophies, time served as the answer. Along with resources, time has been the main constituent in gaining knowledge. Whether Knowledge is defined as the sum of what has been discovered, perceived or learned, or as the awareness, familiarity, or understanding gained through experience or learning, it is acquired over a certain time frame. Moreover, with time considered as our most valuable asset, the span involved in developing and acquiring knowledge, becomes of great influence on shaping the experience and how we come to perceive it. Based on my observation and personal experience, I believe that most fascinating moment during gaining knowledge, is this AHA moment, what we describe as the click. It is when we know in our guts that we have finally got it and connected the dots. And it is one of the most pleasurable experiences, when we are in utter awe and wonderment at our own discovery and what we have reached. Whether I might be philosophizing or hypothesizing, but that experience is the outcome I have been looking for for my own project. In times of Big Data and abundance in resources, where everything is accessible, I was in search of what could make this experience significant or memorable. It can be so far deduced that, it is when we personally become involved in the process, investing our time and resources, the experience becomes of great value to us. Therefore, drawing on resource allocation as a possible design concept for my project and what I have previously discussed, the outcome of my brief became how to create a valuable experience where acquiring knowledge is both a means and an end for gaining access and resource allocation. Resolving this equation became my goal and aim at the time. 40
u so
Tim e
Re rce
ings h T f et o n r e Int
Resource Allocation
Value
Wonderment
Hyper-S p a c es
Knowledge
s
Access
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User Experience
Access
Knowledge
Resource Allocation
Variables
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Value
Wonderment
Data Spaces and Unfolding Signals Moving further in the same direction, I decided to choose my teachback topic on the same subject as my thesis. I picked two chapters from Alexander Manu’s book “The Imagination Challenge” to closely study and examine. The two chapters are The Method in Action: Dataspace, and Unfolding Signal Maps. In Dataspace, the chapter revolves around the prospects when people, objects, and spaces become able to store and generate data with the proliferation of smart tags. The chapter tackles the mutual transformation that occurs as people and spaces come to interact together, and consequently leaving marks on one another. An enabled space is defined as one that is aware of themselves and their occupants, responding to the occupant’s individual and collective needs. Enabled objects are aware of their users’ needs, and must gather and make sense of information for a relevant reaction. An enabled person in turn is one who possesses a device enabling them to receive or transmit data to objects and spaces in proximity or outside through a carrier. When two enabled entities are in proximity, they create enabled data. This data is transformed into information when it is filtered through an individual’s personal criteria. Information combined with relevant data from other entities becomes knowledge. A response generated based on that knowledge becomes wisdom, leading to enabled data use. Enabled data use is defined as the collection and management of such transactions and their location for a user’s benefit. When the spaces and objects become data enabled, they will be able to derive meaning from people through contextualizing data with other relevant information. Meaning is assigned to data when the nature of the categories under which it is organized is developed. When meaning is enabled, it becomes benefit. 43
In a link space, the lines between the physical and virtual world can be blurred to allow information to follow between them. In such a space, every person, place, and object must become prepared and ready to learn; perceiving the capacity of each one of them to communicate knowledge when it is required to do so. The flow of people, devices, and places in an enabled landscape and their different combinations will create a myriad of unique opportunities. According to the notion that everyday interactions with places, objects, and other people have their own unique value and meaning to each individual, experiences within a dataspace would be based upon user-specific interpretations of the interactions. The ultimate benefit then lies in that the experience becomes more meaningful to each person. In addition to that, as with online communities over the internet that are connected through shared interests rather than physical proximity, in an enabled space links will not be through objects but instead via knowledge and function. If every object is then a link to knowledge, the present context of the object will influence and contribute to the nature of the knowledge available upon request. This would also entail that the pursuit of knowledge will not be confined to classrooms and that possession of valuable data could be transferred to others as a commodity for sale or exchange for whoever could use it. Furthermore, conveying thoughts, ideas, or forms of self expression will not be limited by the scale or location of it, nor by the proximity of the sender.
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The chapter featured few compelling questions that are of great importance to consider for my project. These questions are: • How is technology evolving people? How are people’s expectations evolving technology? • What do we have in common and are ready to share so we can best communicate to one another? • What in me is of interest to you? • How will timely exposure to knowledge generate changes in behavior?
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The other chapter, Unfolding Signal Maps, mentions that “being” refers to experience, and that human experience are indescribable in principle. This quality of being or becoming through experiences is primarily unique to humans. Our need to move forward, search for more ways to experience life, learn, and explore to have more worth, allow us to “become”. To “become” through leaving our marks behind and to have mattered for others. Elaborating on that, as human beings our purpose is to create something that verifies our presence on Earth. We are in a quest for meaning, one for worth as measured by others. We have an urge to create, and let others know that we have created. It has everything to do with being humans, and our need to be rather than to have. To be with others, and to make sure that they are aware of our existence. Our condition of being exists in plurality, and not being alone. This also involves sharing what and who we are. Reflecting on both those chapters. I generated my own set of questions. These questions are used as triggers to expand my understanding and push my imagination towards new aspects and factors. According to what I previously mentioned and if data is now the trigger in the knowledge economy, so what can we do with data? This is to examine and and explore what applications will leverage on these data, who will utilize it and how they will do so. What new forms of behaviour could these data sets create or what data transactions be like in an enabled space. Following that and on realizing the amplitude of data that we will have when space become enabled, then what becomes meaningful in data abundance? Drawing upon the idea that we value things more when they become in a state of scarcity, then in data abundance it becomes intriguing of what we will consider as meaningful. In addition to the, the process in which we come to assign meaning to enabled data for user benefit becomes of great significance and influence upon the outcome. 46
The next question that is “what is our quality of being in dataspace?”, taps upon our human experience and state of being and how it be affected in the context of dataspace. When there is an enabled data flow between multiple entities, the ability to further share, leave a mark, and be seen by other, maximizes. This in turn might lead to the amplification and intensification of the forms and mediums we use to express our state of being through. Consequently, this might create new modes of behaviour and innovations that leverages on such an opportunity. What will the more knowledgeable other be in a dataspace? This question examines the idea of the more knowledgeable other that is defined as one who has a better understanding or higher ability of the matter in question. Thus, in an enabled space that has an awareness and access of limitless data and has the ability to draw value and meaning from, it falls in question of how humans will maintain their state of being in control and power, and selfperception. Furthermore, in what ways we will leverage on such an opportunity for our own benefit and how it will shape our interactions and ways of engagement with linked objects and places. I also explore the ways we will share our creations and imprints in an enabled space by asking the question of “what if our imprints become peripatetic?”. If these space surpass factors of time and space, then in what ways it will affect what we create and how we create it. What opportunities are created if our imprints transcend over limits of time, space, scale, location and forms and mediums of sharing.
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And last but not least, what can I be through the eyes of dataspace? If in the past we have existed on the notion of “me through your eyes�, when enabled objects and places gain awareness, it will shape our ways of existence. Since we do every effort to make sure we are seen by others and they are aware of our existence, in a dataspace we will also then want to be seen and recognized by our enabled objects and places. This idea will affect our self perception and how we want to be seen in a dataspace, and how it will transform our behaviours. We will also start thinking about our worth and value as measured by the dataspace, which might bring about a new question that is, what is in me that becomes most valuable when shared with others or rather enabled spaces? In that sense, our ways of becoming will be transformed and influenced by our existence and engagement within a dataspace.
What can I be through the eyes of dataspace?
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Thesis Diary Phase 2: Investigation
The previous phase was concerned with generating focus, themes, and questions, and their refinements, followed by the brief. It has been a good opportunity to discover and explore the different aspects and possibilities within my topic. It was now time to closely examine each of the topics involved, analyze it, fully comprehend all links and connections between information, and eventually synthesize it. For my research, I mainly looked at trends, trend reports, and some books, and made sure to get a clear definition and understanding of the terms I was using or looking into. I also started with my very first topic that is hyper-sharing and the research guided itself from there.
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Trends Investigated The Internet of Sharing Things
Instant Skills
Fair Splitting
PostDemographic Consumerism
Sixth Sense
Newism
Trysummers
Plan B
Nowism
Foreverism
Instant Gratification
Status Stories
Status Skills
Masters of the Youniverse
InfoLust
Generation C
CustomerMade
Engagement Economy
Knowledge Ecologies
Lightweight Innovation
Engagement Economy
Blended Reality
Context Awareness
Experience Cramming 51
2015 Most Compelling Trends I first started with looking at Trendwatching’s 10 Trends for 2015. The report featured a number of trends that related to this hyper-sharing behaviour of people. The first trend is Instant Skills, that tackles prosumers who are status hungry, while caring less about what they have to buy or consume and rather more about what they can create. A prosumer is defined as a person who consumes and produces media at the same time. In 2015, they are expecting barriers to creating high-quality outputs to be eliminated. Instead, prosumers are looking for products and service that could provide them with instant skills. The second trend is Fair Splitting. It has to do with new forms of real-time tools and data being used to help customers easily split and share costs. That is not only confined to products, but it also expands to include services and experiences. The third trend is The Internet of Sharing Things, that is the result of the fusion between the Internet of Things and the Sharing Economy. Such a fusion will allow for novel ways to share assets in a fun, useful, profitable and spontaneous manner. This can be found in Audi Unite, which is an application that allows customers in Sweden in a private network of up to 5 people to share a car. The customers are provided with car availability, location, and a smart key fob. Breather facilitates for people to find unused urban spaces to rent. Via a NFC keyless entry system, users are given temporary access to unlock the property and use for as little as 30 minutes. The last trend is Post-Demographic Consumerism. It has become apparent that consumption patterns are no longer determined by the old traditional demographic segments such as gender, age, income, location, family status, and so on. People of all ages and various markets now have the freedom instead to construct their own identity. I decided to further explore this trend in its full trend briefing.
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Post-Demographic Consumerism A society that is too fluid, markets too efficient, ideas too available, and risks or costs to try new things too low, are all factors that gave rise to this trend and shift in demographic consumption. These factors are combining, feeding each other and manifesting into four compelling post-demographic dimensions. The first one is access to omnipresent global information and collective brand familiarity stimulating an ever increasing post-demographic universal experience. It is not only creating a shared consciousness, but also a new level of post-demographic shared consumer experiences. The second dimension is permission, that is with more and more freedom, a greater collapse of one “natural� convention after the other, from family structure to gender roles, is occurring. The result is formation of new post-demographic identities. The third dimension is users having the ability to identify and digitally experiment with a wider array of products and brands, leading to a maximization of post-demographic personalization. And lastly, the increasing erosion of the link between financial resources and social status, is giving rise to and creating a desire for a post-demographic status. Such status no longer revolves around material goods but rather it is about experience, connection, authenticity, health, and ethical and sustainable lifestyle. This shift is changing the balance of power between the different g enerations. These four of access, permission, ability, and desire, are accordingly creating four innovation opportunities. First, a new shift is occurring to embrace and celebrate a new normal across racial, sexual, cultural, and social norms. Secondly, Heritage Heresy will be the result of reimagining brand history and tradition to attract and accommodate tomorrow’s younger and wealthy, yet experienced and irreverent consumers. The third opportunity arises from shared tastes and aspirations that can create an opportunity to transfer innovations across demographics, and thus creating a crossdemographic fertilization. The fourth opportunity lies in catering and targeting smaller, more accurate interest based segments instead of the over general traditional demographics.
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Newism I decided then to look further into Newism, what it means, its drivers, and the consequences it is creating. Newism tackles the progression of the whole world from emerging to mature markets and the creation of new products, services, experiences on a daily or rather hourly basis, in almost every B2C industry. The new now offers more genuine, exciting propositions for consumers through brands and even individuals constantly releasing better, more convenient, and more surprising offerings that promise a new or improved experience. With the volume of innovation becoming faster than ever the creation is outweighing the destruction. The relentless acceleration and amplification of excitement, attention, and information in the online world is a crucial contributor to Newism, where everything is getting faster and FSTR. In addition to that, consumers’ never ending lust for novel experiences is further being stimulated and intensified by their persistent desire for telling status stories and a current world where so much of identities is expressed online. This is giving rise to a new trend concerned with experience cramming, in which experience is a status symbols and status hungry consumers are collecting, mixing and matching as many and varied new experiences as possible. Furthermore, in transient world with an endless global flooding of new products and services, the newer and richer source of social status has everything to do with showing one’s connectedness and being in the know. It is all about being the first to know, find, do, or own something.
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With Newism another trend emerges that is Trysummers. This innovation stimulated ecosystem is completely transparent allowing customers to review and rate everything instantly as soon as it is created. This implies that the risk for trying something is almost zero, thus enabling customers to experience the new at a low cost and with no commitment. The online world has also allowed for everything being renewed or refreshed, endlessly. Thus, generating a new trend of To Have is to (H)old, where no possessions need to get old. With customers renting or sharing everything, and have embraced ownerless solutions, new experiences and perpetual upgrades are only a booking a way. Customers can also upgrade to the new through “trade in trade up” offered by online platforms and mobile marketplaces. In that sense, Newism is rather a celebration of innovation and hyper competition, and not just eco-unfriendly, breathless, product-replacing madness. It is about capturing customer’s attention and finding opportunity in their ever getting shorter attention spans to achieve instant and massive rewards. With Newism, there is still value in heritage brands, compelling stories, eco-friendly, local, and tailored products and services. From there, I decided to look at Trendwatching’s two other briefings on Nowism and Foreverism.
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Counter-Trend There is still an avalanche of eco-friendly products & services, and value in welltold, compelling stories, in comfort, tradition, and local known for a trusted quality.
Status Stream
Creative Destruction
New products & services showing one’s connectedness & being in the know. To be the first in finding, knowing, doing, or owning.
Genuine, exciting propositions of better, more convenient, more surprising, of a novel or improved experience.
Trysummers Everything reviewed & rated instantly, with zero risk. To experience the new with no commitment & lower cost.
Newism
To Have is to (H)old
FSTR Relentless acceleration & amplification of information, excitement, attention
Experience Cramming
Renting & sharing everything. “Trading in to trade up” to the new.
The desire to tell interesting status stories, fuelling the lust for new experiences. Collecting, mixing & matching.
Implications A celebration of innovation, hyper competition, globalism. Brands capturing & holding consumer’s attention that is getting shorter & shorter.
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Nowism Nowism is about novel and significant offline and online real-time products, services, and experiences that are satisfying customer’s lust for instant gratification. This real-time content avalanche is also being created by consumers’ feverish contributions. Nowism is considered a mega trend that will continue to have an massive impact corporate cultures, product innovation, customer relationship, and tactical campaigns. There is a number of key drivers that are fueling this trend of Nowism. First of these is abundance, in which status derived from the non-stop securing of the basics or plentiful eco-unfriendly good is coming close to zero. While the consumption of experiences, the now, is still generating the thrill. Boredom, maintenance hassle, and eco-unfriendliness is now associated with fixed objects that requires large sum of one’s budget, which could be spent on multiple experiences instead. Living the now, creates this lust to collect as many experiences and stories as soon as possible. Like travel, it is about detachment, fractional or no ownership, escaping commitment and obligations, trying out new things, dropping formalities, and collecting endless new experiences. With digital becoming synonymous with instant, the rapidly growing online world is making instant gratification even easier to obtain. People have been given the ability to disengage online from something that is too cumbersome, too poorly written, or too slow, by finding a substitute that is only a search term or a click away. This in turn is shifting customers expectation for the real world too. Online Impulse is Nowism on Steroids, with netizens lusting over and contributing to consistently updated information on people, products, news, events, etc. They have become obsessed with real-time search, real-time publishing, real-time conversations and news, and real-time reviews. 61
Opportunities The virtue of waiting & future planning kills creativity, joy, daringness, & spontaneity. It offers transparency, communication, convenience.
Online
Abundance
Instant gratification easier to obtain in the online world. Digital = instant.
Status derived from experience consumption of the now. The thrill remains.
Nowism
Online Impulse Obsessed with real-time publishing, search, reviews, conversations & news.
Mobile InfoLust Lusting over knowing what everyone is doing, saying, thinking.
Numbers & Signs of the Time
Experiences
FSTR, Hyper-tasking, Snackonomy. Diminishing time frames, convenience as king. Prolong the now.
The lust to collect stories & experiences. Transient lifestyles.
Implications Becoming synonymous with short attention spans, shallowness, indifference to the past, instantly satisfying urges, debts.
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Everyone is now online anywhere and at anytime, this is creating a generation of consumers who are Infolust. These consumers are always lusting and hungry over knowing what family, friends, celebrities, colleagues, foes and so on are doing, saying, or even thinking right now. Therefore, trends like FSTR, Hypertasking, Snackonomy are only demonstrating how more activities are being crammed in ever-diminishing time frames. It is becoming about how convenience is king, products and services becoming more fragmented for the budget conscious and/or consumers short in time. Products are trying to prolong the now and to allow consumers to collect as many and different experiences as possible. For some, Nowism may be associated with short attention spans, shallowness, debts, instant satisfaction of urges, and unwillingness for a better sustainable world. However, for others it is a shift from heavy physical goods to now experiences instead, and a spread of crucial information. In that sense, Nowism offers convenience, joyful experiences, communication, and transparency.
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Foreverism Moving to Foreverism, which is fuelled by technologies that offer businesses and consumers with new methods to find, follow, interact, and collaborate forever with anyone and anything. It includes the various ways that customers and companies are adopting conversations, relationships, and products that are never done. Individuals all over the world are creating online profiles and relationships that are expectedly forever. The tremendous amounts of personal pages, status updates, feeds, profiles, blogs, tweets over Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many more are contributing to an eternally growing and updated encyclopedia of individuals. These profiles and digital crumbs over the cyberspace will live till forever, not because of the internet being a huge caching machine, but because young individuals are reluctant to dispose their groomed online presence. A consequence of Forever Presence, is that what is forever present, it is forever findable and trackable too. Forever Presence has allowed individuals to effortlessly get and stay in touch, and thus forever conversing. These conversation between family, friends, foes, strangers, as well as companies and brands and any other combination will continue till the end of times. Brands are finally opening up and engaging in conversation with customers that are filled with anger, complaints, and frustrations. When more balanced relationships and honest problem solving is achieved, this is expected to evolve over time to brands initiating conversations and a shift not only to cooperation but even co-creation.
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In a human-like Forever Beta, companies will be operating in an unpolished, humble, and transparent manner not just for one product but the entire organization. Related to mass conversations and how customers have opened up online, companies will be introducing and revealing themselves with all their flaws, and relying on crowd advice and feedback. Such conversations will be transformed into a continuous, looping dialogues instead of the past’s casual encounter. The new culture of online profiles, of following, of updating, of beta, and of turning the process into the product is leading to creative destruction in its purest form. With the story being online, it is constantly living and growing through people’s contributions by adding their knowledge, corrections, and perspectives. It is no longer a product, it is a process and it is alive. Another aspect of Foreverism is modularity. Not only does modularity solves problems of customers having to replace everything, when an improved version is released, it is even a more environmentally sustainable solution to beta production. Modularity also encompasses creating a hardware that could last forever, while having a software that is unceasingly getting updated and improved. It becomes of importance to find opportunities in figuring out which products, services, and processes are currently transient that customers would like them to have an aspect of foreverism in them instead, and vice versa.
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Modularity A hardware that lasts forever, with a software constantly improving & upgraded.
Forever Conversing
Forever Presence
Forever present, getting & staying in touch, facilitating conversations between people & individuals and brands.
What’s forever present, is forever findable & trackable. Forever following.
Foreverism
Forever Beta
The Process is the Product
Companies opening up, revealing themselves, flaws & all, relying on crowds for feedback & advice. The conversation will turn into a continuous dialogue. Operating in a humble, transparent, unpolished, human. Like forever beta.
The story is online, continuing to live & grow as people add their knowledge, perspectives, corrections. It’s a process, it’s alive.
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Masters of the Youniverse The new consumers of today’s mature markets, are creating their own comfort zones, playgrounds, and their own universe. They are better informed, empowered, and switched on. They have become Masters of the Youniverse. At the core of this trend is human needs for control and being in charge of their own life and destiny. This impression of being in control, along with this creativity-hugging, low cost online revolution, users are further motivated to weave limitless webs of connectivity and lust over instant knowledge gratification. Consumers can now exercise total control over creative collections, have various identities over cyberspace, indulge in DIY, customization, personalization, and co-creation. Thus, forcing brands whatever and whenever on their own terms. In that sense, companies will only have to adapt themselves to satisfy customers new desires and enhance their Master of the Youniverse status. Consumers increasing addiction for instant and online access is constantly fueling the Youniverse and have brought forth the trend Online Oxygen. Users detached from the online world experience feelings of loss and withdrawal, frustration, disconnectedness, and being left out. Taking away this Online Oxygen from users, implies simultaneously taking away their confidence, empowerment, social networks, and security, and an entire collapse of the Youniverse. For Masters of the Youniverse, it is all about freedom, independence, and mobility. As with gaming, the online world offers the individual to always feel as the star, drives persistence and optimism as every problem has a solution that just needs to be found somewhere, and assures that failure is just part of success and thus encourages risk taking. With Masters of the Youniverse claiming their rights to self-expression and creativity, brands could only respond with solutions that offer users to be unique, one of a kind and allows them to personalize and co-create goods, services, processes, and experiences with their brands. 69
InfoLust Due to a detailed and an insanely expansive web of information, customers are becoming increasingly addicted to having an instant access for relevant and useful information. Consumers want to be consistently knowledgeable about the newest of the new, the best of the best, the cheapest of the cheapest, first of the first, and healthiest of the healthiest. They have developed a lust for instant information gratification. The humans needs stimulating being Infolust, is our need for power and empowerment, or at least the illusion of it. Information is power, and so is knowledge, and being in the know. After consumers got a taste of the novel and transparent world of information, and being instantly satisfied, the expectations regarding information access have been raised. This has exposed what power centers are really about, that is an unequal distribution of information rather than genuine skills or possessions. As consequences of Infolust, there is growing t ransparency in the online world, search and answers have gone mobile, and real-world objects have joined the game. The Infolust has become obsessed with online features like price transparency, micropublishing and being up-to-date the moment something happens or a new product is released. The massive amounts of information have become something that delights them and that they crave, since it makes them smarter, offers them a more pleasant life, and is saving them money.
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Generation C Consumers everlasting creative urges along with content creating tools that are now cheaper and powerful than ever before, are all factors that are pushing consumers to unleash their creativity. Brands are no longer asking consumers to play, listen, watch, and passively consume, instead they are empowering them to create, produce, and participate. This has a novel generation that is referred to as Generation C. The C stands for content, and anyone with the slightest talent now gets to be part of this trend and contribute to a growing avalanche of consumer generated content that is being built on the web. Nowadays, people all over the world have the opportunity to purchase or download professional-grade, powerful software and hardware that easily gives them the capability to join the wave and become part of this mega trend. Generation C trend is also associated with four other Cs; creativity, casual collapse, control, and celebrity. We are all creatives and creativity generally leads to content. And with ongoing collapse of formal requirements, beliefs, and rituals, more people are realizing creative careers and creativity that is making its way to mainstream acceptance. When it comes to control, it is of great significance to feel in control and in charge of one’s own destiny. This linked with Generation C, results in a shift from consumption towards customization, and even co-production. And lastly, some people still desire those 15 minutes of fame and feeling like a celebrity. With Generation C, individuals can produce, display, and then distribute their creations and content to the masses. This has been possible through the courses and classes that are enhancing Gen C’s creative skills, and the persona showrooms that instantly displays their content to a global audience. Therefore, companies should provide and delight their customers with the needed tools, software, skills, and showroom to fully unleash their creative urges and passions. Generation C is expected to later evolve to become, as previously mentioned, co-creators. 72
Customer-Made It becomes of convenience after tackling both trends Infolust and Generation C, to tap into the next one, Customer-Made. Drawing on customers’ skills, collective experiences and ingenuity from all over the world is a complete turn from the old business model of producer versus consumers innovation and inward looking, towards leveraging the potentials of co-creating with customers. Customer-Made is then defined as the emerging phenomenon of brands in close cooperation with experienced and creative consumers creating goods, services, and experiences. Brands are tapping into their customers’ intellectual capital in exchange of their inputs to what gets designed, developed, manufactured, processed, and produced, as a reward. What has given rise to this trend is the novel, empowered, experienced, and opinionated Infolusty consumers, who belong to Generation C and have become accustomed to having it their way. Therefore, this trend is providing involved customers with status and being seen, a lifestyle tailored to their needs, profits for their contribution, employment, fun and involvement, and satisfaction. On the other hand, in the current transparent and review driven world, Customer-Made hold great benefit to brands, in which they no longer need to advertize their products when their consumers are also their participants, and furthermore they even act as brand ambassadors. Thus, it becomes a win-win situation with great offerings for both consumers and their brands.
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Miscellaneous Trends For the upcoming themes and trends, they have been gathered across multiple trend briefings by Trendwatching based on their relevance or information significance. From the briefing on Status Stories, it discusses how as brands increasingly going niche, and being compelled to tell stories not known to the public, and as experiences drive more status symbols, consumers will feel impelled to tell stories to one another to achieve a status dividend from their purchases. This will cause a shift from brands telling stories, to brands encouraging and stimulating customers to tell status yielding stories to others. Consumers living in the experience economy are provided with instant gratification through the uniqueness of experiences and their affordability. In the experience economy, status can only be acquired from being seen by others while experiencing the experience or by telling other about it afterwards. Thus, making status stories more prevailing and appealing. Status sources are no longer confined to the hazardous and tiring mass consumption, but it has expanded to become about participating, showing off skills, donating, giving or caring, eco-credentials, and the number of visitors to an online presence. The opportunity now lies within ways to provide the customers with the needed tools and ingredients to tell stories about it. Brands are further involving customers through local that is always authentic, eco-friendly, trusted, and of the best quality, eco-concerns, and participating and co-creation, which are all drivers of tons and tons of status stories.
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Status stories could be generated from Life Caching. Life Caching trend is about people collecting, storing, and displaying their entire lives for private, family, friends, or even the entire world’s use. The unwavering need behind this trend is collecting, in which humans love to collect and store experiences, possessions, and memories to create personal histories, reminders of their lives, or just to keep track for practical reasons. This is derived by human’s need for control, validation, self-worth, narcissism and vanity, and even immortality. Collecting, storing, displaying and sharing experiences becomes exciting as well as necessary in an economy based on the intangible. In an ever rising of economies appreciating and depending on creative thinking and acting, old status symbols connected to consumption and owning will find a fierce competition from status skills. Status skills are skills mastered by consumers to make the best and most of those same good and services, giving them status through being good at something and the storytelling that comes along with it. Companies have paved the way for customers to both master and acquire skills and show off what they have created or learned through various platforms.
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I would sum up what has been researched so far in that; the Internet has provided human with access to resources and the rest followed. From social, to technological and intellectual resources, it have greatly transformed people’s behaviour and maximized their bar of expectations and satisfaction. The hunger for information, knowledge, experiences, joy, empowerment, and connection has never been greater.
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The Quixote is an adventurer, similarly it has the ability to transform surroundings by telling their stories Part of a wider community
A social Innovation
A global forms of creativity Human side of technology
A new way of creating communities
The World Wide Web
Instant Gratification Blurring between contained bodies & physical world
The ability to create stories Links contextual data to human activities & needs
United by shared activities
Thinking functions in concert with networked technologies
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Blended Reality The report Blended Reality, by The Institute for The Future (IFTF), discusses the current mode of reality where the digital and physical environments have integrated and seamlessly become woven in our daily lives. The new technologies we have invented, in turn reinvented us and became the lens through which we view and interact with our surrounding world. This also emerges as a result of sensory transformation that inevitably cause social and cultural transformations, as it influences the nature of what we experience and how we perceive our surroundings. The technologies driving and causing this Blended Reality are leading to major shifts. This can be detected in how the highly personalized worlds we created are turning to be more appealing, more compelling, and more emotionally charged. Moreover, the individual is becoming more like a network; no longer considered as one but rather one of many and it is consequently changing the way we act and interact. Users have also created their own digital immortality, and their digital mirrors of their lives can be aggregated, mined, searched, and used as inputs for new simulations. Through the collection of such behavioural data, it gives rise to a new form of Taylorism, in which it can be used to optimise processes in areas like knowledge, education, learning, and many more. Lastly, new platforms for identity creation and experimentation are causing identities to become increasingly malleable and something to experiment and play with, which in turn is shaping our sense of self. In that sense, humans have blended themselves into one global body, one global brain, and one global intelligence. And since we can now communicate and interact in infinitely new intricate ways, we will be super-structing in the meantime. That is creating structures for ourselves, our society, and our economy that surpass the basic forms and processes that we have grown accustomed to.
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Today’s technologies have enabled users to become the stars of their own show, as well as their media channels. And unlike the journals and diaries that were kept privately, people’s digital diaries today are highly public. As a consequence, people are achieving an ambient intimacy that is fulfilled through getting a sense of pattern in other people’s lives via their constant updates. Therefore, we have come to perceive people as our audience and the stories of our identities become unfold in the process. In addition to that, such an identity as a conception of the self is created through various reference points, in which we have come to perceive ourselves in relation to others. We have become perpetually aware of people’s presence in our live, but we have also gained a sense of self that is extremely complex, playful and malleable. We have turned into a community of competing selves, in which the happiness of one is causing a misery for the other. As a consequence, such transformations are changing the ways we are perceiving and interacting with others, and our sense of personal responsibility and obligations. This sense of ambient companionship is giving users the ability to tap into people’s actions, thoughts, experiences, knowledge, interests, concerns, and affiliations. Thus, creating a me of many, peripheral awareness, and a collective ambient knowledge. Therefore, through casual connections, extensive information networks are being built, and people are getting access to ondemand knowledge not sourced from encyclopedias, but from other people and collective intelligence of communities. When people become engaged with these communities, they turn into information sources themselves, offering knowledge and expertise. This form of contribution and participation makes users feel active and useful, as well as raising their awareness of being part of a larger community. The ability to draw on the resources of a personalized community to obtain resources, information, or knowledge is more significant than personally knowing the answers to all questions. It is nurturing how users see and think of themselves as one of many. 83
When it comes to digital immortality, users are achieving it through preserving their life experiences in bits and bytes. Records of their personal lives and identities can be drawn from their comprehensive personal digital archives. Such digital imprints, are influencing the ways users perceive who they are and it is reshaping their present and their future. These documentations allows users to have their lives at their fingertips. However, such a desire to capture life experiences results in a conflict between living the experience as it happens and the need to document it. That is also due to users having to consider the right phrasing for their audiences, which in turn changes the relationship to the experience. In addition to that, documenting an experience can act as a filter to how the user actually experiences the moment being documented. However, for some people that act of recording have made such experiences more engaging and enjoyable, due to being hyperfocused on the experience to properly capture it for their audience. Such data that users are creating about our everyday lives and thinking patterns are causing changes that are manifesting in the ways they behave, interact, and their cognition. Trivial alterations in a virtual experience can affect how a user’s physical body, real-life behaviour, and their interaction with others. Thus, technology is revolutionizing our bodies and minds. In the online world, people are reinventing rules and institutions developed in the physical world. Due to the quality of the experience that they enable, digital worlds are becoming better than real ones. The novel digital capabilities comprise of new approaches to the nature of experiences. An experience have been usually recognized that something that happens once at a specific time and place. However, experiences are becoming an ongoing experiment instead. They are now more like tests, they are repeatable and reproducible.
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Humans have always been confronted with their limitation to gather information from places where they can’t go but other things can or due to these things not wanting them around. However, the prevalence of sensors, geo-locative technologies, and programming tools are paving the way for a sentient world, in which non-human things around us are given presence. Products and systems that allow users the opportunity to give object personalities are being built. These things are getting empowered so that they can tell us about the world from their own point of view, allowing us in turn to better understand the world. From these observations and analyses, a few forecasts about the future could be generated. First of all, with people becoming more aware of the presence an external audience in their lives with their associated feedback, human’s communications are transforming into public performances instead. Moreover, the continuous public digital streaming of users’ life; what they are doing, how they are feeling, who they are meeting, and what they are thinking, is allowing users to acquire a new type of knowledge about one another and is generating new expectation about their presence in each other’s lives. In the future, users will also be able to simulate not only group dynamic but also individual life scenarios, from the data available online that has been aggregated, searched, and measured. In addition to that, a new public sphere will emerge, that is connecting together the semi-literate with the hyper-literate and generating new channels for commerce, art, education, and politics. This will influence and reshape users’ identities, the way they interact, communicate knowledge, create authority, and experience the world. Furthermore, as individuals increasingly act upon the fact that they are one of many, new metrics will be developed that measures someone’s worth based on their “network intelligence”.
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In the previously mentioned sentient world that is emerging, objects will be bringing new awareness levels into users’ lives, will be producing their separate life streams, and will growingly demand new attention levels. Groups will be formed on behalf of sentient objects and they will be data empowered with documentations of the needs and wants of the things around us. In that sense, users will be able to seamlessly move between the various worlds they have created. Human’s senses will also become extended through sensemaking software that is gathering comprehensible and available information from widely dispersed sensor networks.
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Superstructing the economy, society, ourselves
Blurring boundaries between us & that
A platform for identity creation & experimentation
One global intelligence, body, brain
Personal Performance as communication Re-invents us, shapes the nature of experience & how we make sense of it
Blended Reality The individual as a network Ability to participate in each other’s life stream New “Taylorism” Power to create personalized & compelling worlds Digital Immortality
A mediated oral culture
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Humans and the Internet A report on humans and the Internet by The Institute for The Future (IFTF), touches on few important aspects that will define how we operate in the future. The report states that, as sensors and user-interface systems become embedded in individuals’ lives and personal belongings, user activities will be linked with contextual data. This extended form of today’s networks will proactively arrange environments to cater over users’ needs. Moreover, with advancements in technology, total life recording will become possible. These recordings will find their way to mainstream use through their usage for memory augmentation, personal record-keeping, insurance analytics, and wellness regimes. Similarly, usage of predictive algorithms will prevail in the future. These algorithms are software tools designed to make predictions about future events through data analysis. Predictive algorithms usage will range from predicting terrorist attacks and civil unrest to anticipating shoppers’ needs. Moreover, it will not only become restricted to massive amounts of data becoming harnessed by algorithms to produce meaningful patterns and forecasts of human and machine behaviour. Algorithms will be set against one another, and consequently changing their codes and rules of the game to enhance their task. This will result in prediction tangles, predicting predictions of predictors, that will give rise to evolutionary AI.
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“This will result in prediction tangles, predicting predictions of predictors, that will give rise to evolutionary AI.�
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Life caching & creating personal histories Customization & coproduction
Customers as curators
Instant access over ownership
Casual Collapse
InfoLust
Status Skills Masters of the Youniverse
Wired Users
New status
Story-telling
Live experiences (realness, surprise, excitement)
Participation Consumer generated content
Catalyzing change Digitally interconnected, digitally empowered
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Physically linked, virtually present
Sharing knowledge, Access to multiple expertise, being useful levels of relationships through participation & networks Ambient Information networks & Companionship on-demand knowledge Creating identities People as audience, through people through reference physical surroundings Hyper-literate points as costumes Multiple identities & sense of self
Becoming through the plurality of others A community of competing selves
New awareness of other’s presence in our life
I-Thou Highly complex, malleable, playful sense of self
Tapping into knowledge of larger community
Communicate knowledge, create authority, experience the world
Packaging personas
Amplifying & playing with our identity
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The Coming Age of Networked Matter Another report by The Institute for The Future (IFTF) addresses the coming age of networked matter. The report starts off by stating that individuals are often blind to systems and networks of system that reinforce our physicality. Not only do people miss the forest for the trees, but they also miss the soil, the roots, and other plants and animals. However, over the next decades, with advancements in science and technology, humans will be given the ability observe the fascinating interconnections within us and surrounding us. People will not only observe, but rather they will modify, create with purpose, improve their lives, restore the planet, and understand the universe. The age of abundant data, that we currently live in, is witnessing an avalanche of continuous data streams that are giving insight into many complex systems and interactions. From that we will slowly move into the age of the Internet of Things, where the cyberspace will cease to be confined to personal computers but will exist as an overlay on top of our established reality. This will be achieved through the multitude of objects that will be provided with unique identifiers along with computation and communication systems. Eventually, people shall reach the age of networked matter, in which the tools and techniques of systems thinking and design will be utilized to transform the way individuals think about themselves and their place in the world, as they gain an exceptional control over matter at all scale. As the connections between things become more evident, the difference between atoms and bits will become blurry.
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Quoting Aristotle on systems thinking, he stated that, “The totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts.� A system is defined as the result of interactions between a group of things, causing particular effects or behaviours that are different from that of each part. Therefore, within the structures of the system itself lies such behaviours. These systems can sometimes give rise to new coherent patterns and structures, evolving and even learning. The age of networked matter will expand and extend to the planetary scale, the city scale, the people scale, and the micro scale. As a result and as it has become evident throughout history, the tools we design, end up designing us instead. And as humans being part of a larger system, these changes will manifest across all scales.
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Knowledge Tools of the Future Throughout all research so far discussed, knowledge has been mentioned as a source of empowerment, a resource that people lust, or as a construct that collective communities revolve around, and participants tap into and share. Thus, it was apparent and compelling to look into reports tackling knowledge. The first of these is Knowledge Tools of the Future by The Institute for The Future (IFTF). The reports starts off by stating that today’s current global economies have increasingly become knowledge driven, and knowledge management is in turn becoming a critical challenge for organizations. In previous times, people feared the power of artificial intelligence and machines eventually taking over all human operations. However, this will not be the case. It has become apparent that the cutting edge of the knowledge economy is more reliant on knowledge creation, creativity, and innovation, and less dependant on knowledge management. In that sense, companies reliant on computers for efficiency, lowering costs, or as knowledge management tools, will not achieve much success. As creativity is generating the competitive advantage for leading-edge companies, it is becoming more powerful. Yet the human brain still remains one the most powerful tool for its capability to hold tacit knowledge, that is to synthesize information, visualize patterns, generate insights, and create something new. Moreover, people are discovering that the human brain works best in collaboration with other human brains, with millions of them or even more, in social networks enabled by the internet. Thus, knowledge, creativity, and innovation have a social aspect to them. As a consequence, novel knowledge tools are designed to leverage that social aspect. The new knowledge tools are an “intelligent web�, which is an array of devices, systems, methodologies, and services. They leverage on things like data mining, machine learning, microformats, semantic Web functions, and recommendation agents for a more productive and intuitive experience for the users.
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These tools are designed to enable humans to do what they do best, that is creativity and innovation, without the need to do the cumbersome information processing operations. These tools are sometimes referred to as “lightweight�, since they require little additional infrastructure, and no radical changes in how organizations work. Since valuable tacit knowledge is known to the individual, it can not be described, taught, or communicated to the wider organization. However, it shouldn’t be locked up in individual brains, but shared by groups and learnt. The challenge then remains in how to distill such knowledge and make it useful. The traditional knowledge chains comprised of discrete steps arranged in a clear progression. These steps are creation, publication, organization, filtering, and consumption. Each of these step is produced mostly by its own set of people, tools, and systems. On the contrary, knowledge ecologies features all of these steps happening at once, and with the help of emerging knowledge tools, any user may be the creator and consumer of knowledge at once, as well as the publisher and organizer. These knowledge ecologies are currently replacing the old model of knowledge chains. This is due the ability it gives to move from one tool to the other and weaving various parts of the old linear knowledge together in more interesting and new ways. These lightweight social knowledge tools are gaining their popularity and success for their simplicity making them easy to use and quick to evolve, sociability and being used by a wide range of communities and users, and finally their symbiotic relationships with their users.
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Across Demographic groups & scientific disciplines Evolution of co-cognition Technologies moving ideas between information, objects & back Consumption as feedback signals, giving access to other ares of knowledge ecology Sharing of information in light social manner Predictive knowledge systems Users interacting with companies The more it’s used, the more useful the recommendations
Human analysis as feedback into automated processes Online Interactions, shared, aggregated & processed Mastery of creative powers of & basic sciences of people, their societies & culture On integration, synthesis, design, creativity
Knowledge Economy
Users as creators, publishers, consumers of knowledge simultaneously
From knowledge chains to knowledge ecologies
Peer Production Social knowledge tools Gathering people with different skills Intimate knowledge of culture & consumer preferences Organizations tracking, filtering, ranking & organizing information on their own terms
From knowledge management to discovery
Accessible knowledge & creative tools
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Users and programmers are finding lightweight knowledge tool easier to use and work with than complex systems. Also, because of their simplicity, they create a flexibility of use for various contexts by varying groups of users and levels of technical know-how. These tools hand over processing and scale to be dealt with by computer, while letting humans manage ambiguity and context. In addition to that, knowledge systems of the future are expected to assist humans focus only on the right things instead of everything, in simple ways, to eventually share it with collaborators. As the user base gets larger, the amount of information arithmetically increases. Each of the users has access to the information in social network services, thus making a user’s informal network highly complex and more valuable. As networks expand, information become filtered and new things gets identified from novel sources. Since these knowledge bases have a diverse pool of users, they help people identify with others who share similar interests yet usefully different perspectives. The people these tools draw on are spread across the globe, across demographic groups, and scientific disciplines. For some occupations, it is important to bring people of similar interests together, as well as bringing others with various skills together. Knowledge tools are of extreme value to these groups since they allow sharing information in a technically light but socially rich manner. This helps in catalyzing connections to other people, along with new information, and generating new communities of practice. Lastly, lightweight knowledge tools and their users come to work and evolve together in symbiosis, thus training one another. The more these systems or tools are used, the more skillful they become at making recommendations. These systems become experts at predicting their users’ tastes with experience. Because of the symbiotic relationship between users and these tools, as users find novel and unanticipated ways to use technologies, they develop new capabilities and habits. Thus, changing the definitions of simplicity, sociability, and flexibility. 98
Since each of the elements in knowledge ecologies are interconnected, changes can be made by anyone at any time, with innumerable reiterations and interconnections. This can be examined in the trend “rise of the amateur” or “peer production”, in which content is submitted and edited outside traditional gatekeeping institutions, but by a community of users instead. It has become more easier and convenient for users through these tools to be creators, publishers, and consumers of knowledge all at the same time. As an example, an ecology of connected blogs that re-posts and whose content is connected, will offer a social filter for new information. Tracking and making sense of these streams of information throughout knowledge ecologies that are larger in scales, offers both a challenge and opportunity for competitive advantages for organizations. However, the lowered costs, available digital storage, and processing power will continue to fuel this trend. And as companies recognize the advantages of tracking, filtering, ranking, and organizing information on their own terms, all companies will start adopting these systems. Moreover, the massive databases that were created in the last decade, have been storing users’ interaction with information, aggregating it, to eventually be processed by algorithms. In today’s evolving knowledge economy, people can respond to and interact with information in real time. These consumptions acts have in turn become feedback signals that are used to determine further access to other areas of the knowledge economy. Such knowledge systems will become more predictive as they integrate real-time from larger audiences. This feature of predicting implies becoming better at anticipating the type of content their users are more interested in viewing and sharing. As knowledge tools and users evolve together, the contexts, the ways people will be using these tools, and their influence on one another must be considered. And in a society whose leading edge economy depends on creative work, social knowledge tools will be crucial for creating and sustaining economic value. 100
Such creative works demands attention towards social and cultural contexts, an ability to create unanticipated combinations, and focusing on meaning instead of means. That can be summed up in being a human activity. Knowledge deriving innovation is defined by constructing novel insights from disparate pieces of information. Therefore, creative knowledge is an activity, a verb more than a noun. It is not information, and it requires diverse groups of people to bring it about. A post-scientific society as termed by Christopher Hill, who is a George Mason University professor of public policy, is one whose success relies not upon specialization, but rather on integration; on synthesis, design, creativity, and imagination. Innovation in such a society will be dependant on mastery of creative powers and basic sciences of human beings, their societies, and their cultures. Therefore, consumer needs in a post-scientific society will be based on specialized products and services whose appeal to individual tastes and interesting design is far more significant than radical new technologies or lower costs. Businesses operating in that society will draw its success from integrating useful new technologies with intimate knowledge of consumer preferences and cultures. Thus, new tools in post-scientific societies must encourage and stimulate individual creativity, assist collaborations across various groups of people, and help groups generate shared new meanings and knowledge, in a more or less transparent manner. Access to the next generation of knowledge and creative tools will not be confined to desktops and workplaces, but it will be at hand similar to cell phone signals. These previously discussed trends will pave the way for developing technologies that are highly intimate and supportive of its users, a rise of a generation of digitally native workers, and the emergence of new technologies that facilitates the mobility of ideas between information and objects and back.
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The following generation of tools will always be at hand; allowing users to think with them and record ideas. Since they are also shareable, they will transform group processes. Moreover, the next generation of creatives will be sharing knowledge and experiences with virtual agents and other trusted humans. They will experience the Internet sometimes on the edge of their awareness or in the center of it, but as always and continuously present. People’s abilities to organize and act collectively will recede to the back of their consciousness after some time. As a consequence, collaborators and creative along with the tools that aid them will quietly become tools that extend the human abilities, modifying our thoughts, but seldomly thought about. The previously stated trends and forecasts implies that current companies must develop ways to interact with attitudes, ideas, and data aggregation from outside of their organization. Digital users already expect interacting with their brands through activities like mapping locations, creating their own stories, or examining supply chains by themselves instead. However, because of the unorganized nature of comments, companies will have to aggregate and analyse consumer responses. Furthermore, as consumers develop powerful social networks that scrutinize companies not opening up, organizations practicing transparency will develop competitive advantage by demonstrating they have nothing to hide.
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Knowledge systems of the future (the right things, in simple ways, shared with collaborators) Knowledge services (identifying Lightweight knowledge people with similar interests systems & humans but different perspectives) training one another Ways to distill knowledge Digital media to create & make it useful knowledge & execute tasks Creative Knowledge (social & cultural context)
Knowledge Chains (discrete steps, linear)
Knowledge
Knowledge as a social construct
Knowledge Tools (creativity & innovation)
How Tools & users change one another?
Knowledge chains vs. knowledge ecologies
Lightweight Knowledge Tools (context & ambiguity vs. processing & scale)
Social Knowledge Tools (simple, quick to use, evolving)
Symbiotic Relationships (finding unexpected new ways to use technology)
Tacit Knowledge (to synthesize, see patterns)
Knowledge Ecologies (Interconnections &re-iterations between stages & users)
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Future Knowledge Ecologies It then seemed compelling to read the trend report Future Knowledge Ecologies by The Institute for The Future (IFTF). The report essentially discusses self-contained research parks and incubators that have been leading technology based economic development, but through different scenarios and models. Throughout the report, the terms research parks, science parks, and technology parks have been used interchangeably, but they fundamentally refer to the same thing, that is contiguous specific development sites. These sites are designed to attract and develop technology-intensive economic activity. As developed in the literature by organizational studies, knowledge ecosystems describe the events, in which codified knowledge is transformed into tacit knowledge through experience and learning over time. This framework of regional knowledge ecosystem has multiple benefits. First of all, it shifts our attention from existing economic development institutions towards the dynamics of they interact instead. In these ecosystem traditional institutions such as universities, large companies, venture funds, research parks, etc. interact with new non-institutional elements like talent, virtual communities, and knowledge bodies. In addition to that, it proposes a holistic approach on how innovation is thought of in regions as a cohesive ecosystem, and not as an isolated activity happening within specific clusters or firms. The application of knowledge ecosystem framework to regions generate several insights. The first of them is that it is not about the services offered in research spaces but rather the real added value comes from actively managing activities and the creation of knowledge. Secondly, with the availability of scientific tools and knowledge anywhere and on demand, the focus on global domination of any specific industry will lose its effectiveness. However, for the meantime, these novel tools are required measure and map out the flow and networks of knowledge, money and ideas. 105
Of the trends shaping future technology based development is the group economy. Such trend tackles the emergence of new models for creating wealth at the intersection between grassroot movements and social networks. The new tools for cooperation will lower the costs of creating groups around any shared activity, interest, or identity. Through the adoption of these processes and tools, established organization will become less hierarchical, more collaborative, and more agile. Gatherings in these new forms of organizations will revolve around current events, interests, and ideas. The goal will become to locate these collaborative activities in spaces that can amplify group economies and offers opportunities for discovery. Evolving in parallel with these trends, a shift will occur as well in the methods, tools, subjects, and institutions of technological innovation and scientific research. These shift will include a growth in ubiquitous computing, which will create an immense amount of research data streaming, while offering new tools for scientific collaborations simultaneously. Social networks enabling people and computers to work together in data sense making, will cause a shift from artificial intelligence towards hybrid sensemaking. With ubiquitous computing technologies, massive quantities of information from everyday activities like shopping, communications, and travel will be generated. Organizations that will be able to manage and analyze these information, will leverage on a significant commercial value. Moreover, further and new research in social sciences, field sciences, and public health will be enabled, that will in turn contribute to more quantification of these fields. Ubiquitous computing is expected to breaking down distinctions that were once taken for granted in aspects including designing research spaces and scientific research projects. Gaps between the physical and virtual world, online and offline environments, and even the natural and the artificial will collapse.
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The potential created by ubicomp to blend digital resources with various environments and materials, could be leveraged by research parks to bring together scientists and engineers with architects, designers, sculptors and craftsmen from mature local industries. It will give rise to a need for configurable, hyper-wired, and digitally mapped spaces that can be used by new technologies as test beds. Creating hybrid structures that integrate limited forms of machine intelligence with social networks will enable collaboratively filtering and extracting meaning from data about ourselves and the environment. These systems will allow machines and humans to do what they are good at, while combining and mixing formal, tacit, and social knowledge. The spread of these systems arise from the recognition of intelligence as a social and contextual thing, not mere logistical statements or computer cycles. This hybrid intelligence relies on a mix of factors such as strong algorithms, vibrant human networks, and unique spaces. The real value of such system will be found at their ability to communicate tacit knowledge at a distance. In addition to the that, the new economic need for faster and cheaper innovation along with cutting edge research technologies in the hands of small firms, will lead to commercialization of knowledge by the new lightweight models. It has also become apparent that innovation has an aspect of geographical and social stickiness to it. That is because innovation utilizes and relies on technical skills and scientific and tacit knowledge that are place specific. This awareness is expected to shift economic development from copying the success of others, towards building sticky know how, which draws on local culture, industrial resources, and it is not mobile.
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Moreover, we will see the emergence of new spaces that encourages entrepreneurship and collaborative research instead of the traditional business incubators. These shall be neutral spaces that will be used by networks of customers, hackers, entrepreneurs, and investors to connect for collaborative knowledge creation and trust building, cementing the relationships that have been initially cultivated online. Within these spaces, overlaid grids of social software will improve serendipitous discovery and knit the spaces together in networks that are local, regional, and global. The magic of these space will lie in treating them as daily shows, which feature a steady flow of people and ideas, connecting, participation, and resulting in a coalition of interests. In a recent research on the dynamics of technology clusters highlighted two significant knowledge flow, with each having a different role. The first is “local buzz” that is defined as a dialogue of knowledge, information, and rumors within a geographic cluster. The second one is “global pipelines”, which are obtained by firms through distant business relationships with other firms and features flows of more codified kinds of knowledge. An opportunity lies here for regional knowledge ecosystems, which could become mechanisms improving on both functions. They could both accelerate the flow of knowledge in a regional structure, while facilitating for firms importing knowledge and amplifying the spillover benefits to other firms in the region. Therefore, it can be predicted that research spaces of the future will be places of open discourse for diverse people from business, startups, academia, craftsmen, policy people, user, amateurs, etc. With no absolute cost, groups among people will be constantly formed around emerging research fields, challenging problems and business models. Thus, engineering meaningful chance encounters.
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New lightweight models for commercializing knowledge Hybrid structures combining social networks & machines Hyper-wired spaces & test intelligence to filter & extract beds for new technologies meaning from data Co-operation around shared interests, identity, activity Interaction dynamics between economic development institutions & noninstitutional elements Ubicomp collapsing distinctions between on/offline environments, digital & physical, natural & artificial
Knowledge Ecosystems
Tools needed for measuring & mapping networks & flows of knowledge, money, ideas
From AI to hybrid sense making
Collaborative knowledge creation & serendipitous discovery
Practitioners interacting with knowledge bodies Ubicomp blending digital resources with surrounding materials & environments Social networks for data sense-making Communication of tacit knowledge at a distance Managing activities & knowledge creation Hybrid Intelligence Scientific knowledge & tools on demand Ubicomp generation large quantities of info Intersection of social webs & grassroot movement
Amplifying group economies for discovery Gatherings around interests, ideas & current events A holistic approach of innovation From knowledge management to discovery
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The Future of Lightweight Innovation The Institute for The Future (IFTF) had another trend report about a topic that has been mentioned throughout many other trend reports and has become of relevance, that report is the Future of Lightweight Innovation. In comparison to open innovation that only addresses expanding the sources of new ideas, lightweight innovation aims to speed up R&D, more systematically engage end-users, while continuously inventing and re-inventing new platforms. It is considered as a disruptive model for idea generation and execution, that is meant to fundamentally transform processes used by large organization for innovating and generating profits from innovation. Lightweight innovation models currently available on the Web will force large organizations over the next decade to transform open innovation models to become more user-driven, agile, and lean. Sourcing innovation outside organization walls will not be enough, instead ideas have to be developed in engagement with end-users, prototyping and lean-financing structures. As opposed to old models that aggressively protected IP, lightweight innovation finds value in unlocking it. It also shifts traditional top-down organizational models to bottom-up priorities. The potential in lightweight innovation can be found in 3 aspect. The first is rapid incubation, in which lightweight innovation processes launch new products and services early, shortening the design and incubation phase and thus rapidly proving concepts. Second aspect is deconstructing problem solving as it offers the benefit of distributing fragments of larger problems over an array of solvers. Lastly, the evolutionary scalable platforms created by lightweight innovation, which emerge from the need to coordinate distributed actions. Thus, creating scalable platforms that are open and reset the baseline capabilities and knowledge for everyone.
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Lightweight innovations will give rise to “inverted incubators” focused on mentoring and intellectual property and mission-critical infrastructure sharing, across an array of acquired, incubated and funded projects and companies. This will develop common platforms of intellectual property that constructs value on top of open data, knowledge commons, and various other resources, thus accelerating innovation. Therefore, as lightweight innovation draws on a diverse pool of people across various discourses, it leverages on existing knowledge and human capital. Moreover, it leverages on large scale commons of data, code, and knowledge. Thus, through engaging end-users with “makers”, it locates short-cuts for industries to recognize potential commons-based approaches to innovation. Lastly, through expanding participation and launching products and services early, companies gain insights on what works or not with conjunction to other products and services in the markets. The result is a journey that leads to unexpected markets and applications.
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Leveraging large scale commons of data, knowledge, codes (engaging users & makers) Open, shared workplace with diverse people, rapid sharing & creation of tacit knowledge
Can quickly prove concepts
Produces tremendous data on how end-users engage new products Leverages on knowledge & social capital
Built on top of open source knowledge commons
Lightweight Innovation
Inverted incubators (mentoring, sharing)
From top-down to bottom -up
Open-reference platforms
A disruptive way of thinking about idea generation & execution Distributing pieces of larger problems to an array of solvers
Crowdsourcing, using social idea & innovation management platforms To dis-aggregate & accelerate R&D (constantly engaging end users, inventing & re-inventing
Evolving open innovation models (more agile, lean, user-driven)
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Mind in a Designed World From the trend report Mind in a Designed World by The Institute for The Future (IFTF), it states that taking advantage of insights emerging at the intersection of human-computer interaction and behavioural and cognitive sciences will harness and direct human-thought outcomes with substantial power and precision. The constant eagerness of humans to merge with their tools and actively seek out ways to extend our minds, has long defined our human history. Human have evolved to coevolve with their technologies. We are ”natural born cyborgs”. The growing blending of our online and offline realities and the integration of our minds with machines is providing people with an everyday experience underlined with cognitive commingling with technologies. Our minds have become interwoven with the environments around us. By changing the environment, our brains change, and eventually changing our behaviour. As we take more responsibility in designing our technologies and everyday activities, our world will evolve into a series of extended and distributed cognitive systems. The cognitive ecology is a term defined as the system emerging from interactions of the brain, our human bodies, our technologies and devices, our cultures and life experiences, and the natural and built environments. Such new way of considering how we think, offers an unconventional definition for the brain. In that definition the human brain is thought of as an extremely plastic, profoundly embodied, materially engaged, and culturally situated bio-psychosocial artifact. The brain is “plastic” as it becomes shaped by new perceptions and inputs going into it. The brain is constantly making new neural connections and learning. It is “profoundly embodied” by its existence as both a living biological organ within a human body, and being intimately connected and influenced by hormonal, sensory, and metabolic processes. 114
The brain is “materially engaged” through its utilization of the resources around it to extend and augment itself. It is opportunistic, active, and uses what is at hand to alter the world around it and reinforce function intentionally. Lastly, it is considered a “culturally situated bio-psycho-social artifact”, as it must be seen as a collaborative creation of biology, psychology, experiences, culture and social context. It is constantly changing and evolving, according to context and circumstances. Research from disciplines across the brain sciences is offering a view of the mind as a phenomenon of how the brain is embodied, embedded, and extended. The brain is embodied in the biological flesh, embedded in natural and built environments, and extended through tools of communication and networked media. Technologies and spaces have been used throughout our entire lives to amplify and extend our mind reach and the power of our desires. Spaces have been always used as facilitators, and stimulating interaction. In addition to that, brains thought of as machines are no longer the case. Knowledge has been believed to work where creativity, synthesis, and improvisation are essential factors. It has been discovered that throwing into our highly-curated lives some surprise, helps trigger new thoughts and formation of new connections. Dissents and misinformation can actually enhance the creative capacity, in which encounters we didn’t anticipate stretch our imagination. Through our ubiquitous and ambient networked machines and as we are sharing our emotional and cognitive load with other people, these machines are learning about us too. As a consequence, inference engines, predictive coding, and other data mining technologies are showing a profound comprehension of how we think, what we are motivated by, and how we can be convinced to act.
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Communication tools and real-time design are also enabling people to think together with peers from all over the world. Knowledge work could be now perceived as a process of distributed cognition, in which problem pieces are solved in separate places and are synthesized above the capacities of one person. These are all manifestation of extending the mind, in which extended social cognition becomes a method for linking our mind with others, and using agents and other people to augment our capacities to understand. Drawing upon more research, our thinking process is one that combines the mind with everything else available around it, from language to people to advanced technologies. Our promiscuous mind wants thinking partners and inputs, as many of them as possible, to engage with others and to surround ourselves with communication and computational technology. This is not only due to our nature as social beings but also because thinking is in many ways shared, social, and systematic. We need our brains along with other people and things to think with. From this analysis, a number of implications could be examined. First of all, the knowledge economy that is currently well into maturity, will be followed by the creative economy. Moreover, the cognitive integration of our bodies with environments and technologies in an efficient and subtle way is of significance in order to design for ecological balance. Throughout this cognitive ecology, intelligence is seen as a result of the overall system and not just the individual brain. This transparent of emotional and cognitive information in real-time between users and other devices establish a unity of purpose defined as communion. Also, by exploiting available resources, we are maximizing a return on efforts.
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What we now have realized is that humans are great pattern seekers, but we have a fuzzy memory, distracting information could impact our decision, and we don’t always think rationally. However, Systems could be designed to allow each of the human mind and networks and machines to do what they do best. Thus we could utilize software applications to input a random feed so as to improve our non clichéd thinking, or amplify information source feed into our view in order for us to perceive new connections between items. In addition, humans now have the ability to further extend their minds through designing algorithms that are tracking our online digital trails, and in return makes suggestions or predictions about social network connections, work priorities, and purchases. Other machines are getting developed that have the capability to detect connections among multi-sensory inputs, synthesize intention and build internal vocabulary. These extensions will advance to fit and optimize themselves according to our pattern needs. It has become clear that our mind, brain, body and work in the everyday life have come to be tightly woven into one another. As we create a comprehensive cognitive design strategy, that is to design with an aim to support and improve the whole of the situated mind, we are envisioning a future that feature what Andy Clark once described as the “Infinite Cortex.” The infinite cortex is a learning system that enables the human mind to leverage on biological, technological, and architectural structure to further expand and enhance individual capacities. Such system integrates the components of a cognitive system seamlessly by coordinating human-to-human, human-to-machine, and machine-to-machine processes. Lastly, the Internet has enabled connection that are but a part of the larger cognitive puzzle, and it is now compelling to include our bodies, spaces, and places. The opportunity lies in a system that allow us to program our surroundings as assistants to thought, instead of being confined into the procrustean bed of the technologies we have created. 117
Change the environment, change the brain, change the behaviour. The world as a series of extended & distributed cognitive systems
Mind in a Designed World
Human history defined by our eagerness to merge with our tools & seeking ways to extend the mind
A system emerging from brain interactions, our biological bodies, culture, technologies & built environments
Cognitive Ecology
“Culturally situated” by constantly changing based on circumstances & context “Materially engaged” by using physical elements to reinforce & extend itself. It is opportunistic, active, changing the world to augment its function.
Human brain as plastic, profoundly embodied, materially engaged, culturally situated (bio-psycho-social artifact) “Plastic” always being shaped by perceptions & inputs. Always learning & making new neural connections.
“Profoundly embodies”, a living biological organ. Intimately connected with & influenced by metabolic, hormonal, sensory & other processes
Spaces & technologies used to extend & amplify the reach of our minds, the power of our desires
Knowledge work where improvisation, creativity, synthesis are key skills.
The Embedded Brain Folding surprise for sparking new thoughts & connections. Misinformation improves creativity. Our imagination is stretched by unexpected encounters
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Uses cognitive furniture (media & language) to help us think
Integration of our minds with machines, an experience of cognitive comingling with our technologies “Natural born cyborgs�, co-evolving with our technologies. Taking advantage of insights emerging at intersection of cognitive & behavioural science and human-computer interaction. To harness & direct human thought with precision & power. Design enabling a critical mode of thinking of how we order things in our lives & how we address problems.
Sharing our cognitive & emotional loads with others through ambient & ubiquitous networked machines
Extended social cognition to link our minds with others
The Extended Brain Real-time communication & design allowing us to think together. Knowledge working as a profoundly distributed cognition.
We need our brains to think, but we want other people & things to think with
Machine learning; predictive coding, inference engines, data mining technologies. To understand how we think & what motivates us to act.
The Promiscuous Mind
We want inputs & thinking partners. Lots of them.
To surround ourselves with computational & communications technologies & to engage with other people. Thinking is shared, social & systematic
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Software interjecting random inputs or information feed, for us to see new connections
Comprehensive Cognitive Design Humans & machines as nodes of plasticity, learning, picking up connections, synthesizing, building internal vocabulary; to create a seamless link To design for ecological balance, by cognitively integrating our bodies, technologies & environment as seamless & efficient
Exploiting available resources in environment to maximize return on effort. Intelligence as a product of an overall system Real-time sharing of emotional & cognitive between users & devices. A unity of purpose; communion
We are pattern seekers, but we don’t always think rationally & distracting information impact our decisions. To design systems letting humans & networks do what they do best
A learning system where individual minds leverage biological, technological & architectural scaffolding. To improve & expand individual capacities
Creating systems to program environments as assistants to thought
Infinite Cortex Seamlessly integrating components of a cognitive eco-system. (machine to machine, human-to-human, human-to-machine)
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Must include bodies, places & spaces
The Engagement Economy Moving on to another trend report by IFTF that is in many ways connected to what have been previously discussed, that is The Engagement economy. With the development of the Internet, crowdsourcing projects have become compelled to capture the active efforts and mental energy required to make individual contributions to a larger whole. In order for organizations to effectively harness the crowd’s wisdom and leverage on the participation of the many successfully, they will need to be effective players in the current economy of engagement. Mass collaboration is currently perceived as crucial for future business processes. Crowdsourcing communities are promising organizations to connect them with specialized networks of freelance experts and enthusiastic amateurs for business activities like marketing, product design, product research, and content development. The common operating model of these projects is that they aim to create large-scale communities that are robust and can collectively produce valuable data, ideas, or content. Thus, creating an outcome that can be shared, leveraged, applied, or monetized. However, this can be only achievable when these communities grow enough to produce new and different outputs. The requirements for most of these collaborative projects are measured in “thought hours” and “community scope”. The first refers to the required mental effort to create something of value, and the latter refers to the required diversity of community member needed for the project. These mass collabs have been on the rise as a result of a desire to join communities and take part in projects much larger than ourselves, which has found to be a natural human instinct.
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Of the most powerful currencies of the engagement economy is emotion. It is an economy of feelings, in which positive emotions of love, pride, feeling smart, and curiosity are the ultimate rewards for participation. To motivate users to participate, the emotional high associated with feeling capable, achieving something concrete, and feeling recognized for their success, must be induced. An Italian word that describes the thrill and cascade of pleasure that happens immediately in the moment of success, is fiero. And it is fiero that must be induced in participants. There are three basic emotional motivations that must be present in a system in order for people to participate. The first is the emotion of feeling smart, by an opportunity to exercise some unused mental capacities. The second is the pleasure derived from changing something in the world just to see our imprints on it, a shared human desire to leave a mark on the world, that is the pleasure of vanity, which at its core is feeling capable. The last emotional motivation is the most surprising yet the most obvious, that is the simple desire to do a good thing. In addition to that, a participatory system must have a promise, defined as the clear expression of the goal of “doing something good� and benefits of achieving it. For participants to love the project, they must be able to understand it. Nicole Lazzaro’s, founder of the research group XEODesign, emotional goals of players chart features the four most effective emotional incentives. These are curiosity, fiero, amuse, and relax. These describe our pleasure of snooping (to fulfill curiosity), the joy of the spectacle (fiero), the pleasure of doing something silly (to amuse), and the pleasure we find in rhythms, collection, and meditating (to relax).
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Referring to motivations of play in online games, there are three main motivations for participation. The first is achievement, found in the desire to master the game mechanics, progress in its hierarchy, and compete against other players. The second motivation is the social aspect lying in the longing to have positive interaction with others and working together towards a shared goal. Third and last motivation is immersion, to have the ability to exercise imagination, consume compelling content, and think about extraordinary things instead of everyday work. A pyramid of participation features at its top, but not exclusively, achievement oriented participants; socially-oriented participants making up the middle section; and the bottom made up of immersion participants. Participatory systems will be able to attract and sustain a more diverse community as they create activities revolving around these 3 categories. Establishing such a pyramid of participation will engage multiple types of participants who are required to accomplish the broad spectrum of passion, skills, talents, perspectives, and resources that is needed to achieve a project’s goal. Another important factor to participation is flow. It is described as the experience of a positive emotional state of happiness as we become fully engaged in something, drawing up on our resources, and receiving feedback that we are achieving progress towards a goal. To translate flow into design requirements, some critical elements must be present. These are immediate feedback, a clear sense of objectives and failure states, and a challenge state not too easy but not too hard either. Failing to provide the constituents of flow, will fail to achieve possible maximum engagement. Lastly, a participatory community must have the ability to empower itself through creating a workload that far exceeds what was initially established, with participants having the motivation to work harder, while still enjoying it. Thus, creating a community that grows to become self-sustaining. 125
Evolutionary purpose of positive emotions to encourage human cooperation Robust, large scale communities collectively producing valuable data, ideas & content
3 basic emotions of participatory systems (feeling smart, vanity, desire to do good
The promise of participation system (what will be achieved through participation Mass-collab as central to business practice Fiero, the most important emotion Must provide users with an emotional high (feeling capable, recognized)
Natural human instinct to join communities & projects much larger than us
Engagement Economy
A pyramid of participation (achievement, social experience, immersion) Effectively harnessing wisdoms of crowds Specialized network of enthusiasts, amateurs, freelance
Motivations for participation (achievement, immersion, What participants want & how social) much they are willing to contribute Requires mental effort “thought The output will be shared, hours” & diversity of community applied, leveraged or monetized members”community scope” Crowd-dependent projects capturing the mental energy & active efforts to make individual contributions to a larger whole
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The Many Faces of Context Awareness Having talked about the Internet, how it changed people’s behaviour, what it means to hold knowledge, to become knowledgeable and the future of it, and the engagement economy, it was compelling to read now The Many Faces of Context Awareness, a report by IFTF. To be context aware simply means to have information about an immediate situation. That includes the activities, the people, the roles, places, times, devices, and softwares which define the situation. However, context awareness is also concerned with meaning and meaning-making. It is about asking who, what, where, when, why, and sometimes how. With the technological advancements we are witnessing, the interaction between three main technologies will influence and evolve the future of context awareness. These technologies are wireless communications that are defined by their openness, sensors defined by their smartness, and semantic technologies that will be defined by their degree of formality. In the future, having information about context will be designed to be homogenous and predictable, while being collected from various sources. Context awareness will be expected to relieve burdens of daily life, while people will anticipate from technology to make life more convenient, secure, precise, and productive. These goals are expected to be achieved through predicting, alerting, delegating, instrumenting processes, securing spaces, and replacing human functions by software agents.
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To have information about immdediate situation (people, roles, activities, time, place, software) that define the situation
A tree of concepts related by broader, narrower branches (folksonomies & meaning structures)
Technology to make life more productive, precise, secure & convenient
People fins new uses, become more skilled, adapt themselves over long term (adaptive UI)
Context Awareness
A clash as open-source & peer production cannibalize existing networks
Extracting value from systems instead of items
To expand human awareness, extend human capacity, decorate the world & build group identity
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About meaning & meaning making
At the other end, as context awareness arises from the human social behaviour, that is often known for its unpredictability. The goals and solutions of context awareness become entirely human-centric, aesthetic, and emotional. The tools and the practice within this framework will work towards expanding human awareness, in which human awareness of our complex reality will grow as more and more information become connected to social interactions, objects, and places. The second goal will be to extend the human capacity; our cognitive and social capabilities will be extended through context-aware technologies. It will also improve our mental and memory functioning, as well as connect us to bigger networks of people. In addition to that, these tools will aim to decorate the world with forms of self-expression, declaring a shift from consumption to creation. The last goal revolves around creating context aware tools that support group discovery and production, group-defined contexts, and low-cost group coordination. The more people will use these systems over a long time, they will discover new uses. As they become skilled and more adaptive, our systems will need to catch up and improve themselves over time. Such a paradigm will allow fluent use to occur. With new awarenesses, social connections, and meaning, people will “surf� the physical world while exalting innovation and disruption as life virtues. In a data-enriched world, humans will be alive, immersed, and active through creating meaning. However, with the emergence of open-source models and peer production and becoming mainstream, existing networks will be cannibalized. This will lead to clashes occurring between top-down strategists and bottom-up hackers.
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Duality and The Internet of Things With the future of communication and engagement tackled in most of the reports, and the Internet of Things coming up, I had to read the chapter on Duality and The Internet of Things from Alexander Manu’s book Value Creation and the Internet of Things. Value now being measured with people at the core of it, only reflects the emerging reality of individuals who are both connected and existent in each other’s life by being physically linked and virtually present. Thus, existing through a proximity of intent and purpose. Such a reality could be explained through a state of duality of being, in which the physical presence and the virtual avatar on the various social media platforms merge to form a new reality of Duality being the whole. That is, becoming through the plurality of others. The condition of the human life of existing through a physical body but an intangible mind, with the challenge to meet body needs while satisfying the needs of the mind, is being captured in the dilemma of Duality. With the Internet of Things, this state of duality will seep to non-sentient physical entities as they become given a perpetual virtual presence. Enabled people, places, and objects in the Internet of Things will evolve from a state of physical presence to a state of having a communication presence; of informing through data transfer. Such a state of presence implies a dual social role. Each of the previously mentioned elements will be something, but they will mean something, through connecting to granually filtered knowledge about the context of objects that is tailored based on personal interests and needs, at the same time.
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A community of ecological parts, as a unit, determined & dependant upon its members Objects serving to augment the self. People actualized through objects & place
A connection to granually filtered personalized context knowledge
Physical world as arena for individual pursuit of discovery
Duality and The Internet of Things
The virtual lending itself to throught of exploration
Context is king in linkenabled ecologies
Behaviour platforms defined & refined by purpose & experiences their participants engage in
A continuum of becoming through the plurality of others
Integration of multiple places, integration multiple purposes & dimensions of person creating the experience
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A proximity of intent & purpose
It becomes compelling in this dual life of living in both worlds simultaneously to become a union rather than a fracture. In that sense, the physical world will manifest as an arena of an innate pursuit of discovery, while the virtual world will become dedicated to thought exploration. The virtual world here doesn’t refer to the world of digital, rather it describes the world of imagination, a world that is not present to the senses. Behaviour platform places like Google or Facebook, are not defined through being fixed in space, but they are defined and refined by the experiences and purpose their participants engage in. An integration of multiple places implies the integration of multiple purposes and the consequent integration of multiple dimensions of the individual creating the experience. The opportunity to tailor value experiences based on the preference of the individual becomes a possibility as we come to understand these dimensions and categorize them for each user. A mandatory step in the creation of value, is understanding the meaning, ontology, of a categorized action, taxonomy. This is a main and core capability that leads to the monetization of opportunities of any social network. In a link enabled ecology, the meaning of objects will shift with the user’s intentions and purpose, in which the value of objects will reside in who is using it and for what purpose. These objects are primarily us; as they function to enhance and propagate us, serving us in every way to augment the self. Thus, people become actualized through objects and places. Furthermore, in link-enabled ecologies, spaces transform into places as actors come to have a mutually beneficial relationship, reflected in information transformed in wealth, as a result of the place as context. In such sense, content will no longer be king, in link-enabled ecologies context becomes the king.
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Realizing the Connected World Reading further on The Internet of Things, I reviewed the report by Bosch on Realizing the Connected World - How to Choose the Right IoT Platform. The report mentions that simply connecting devices in the Internet of Things is not an end itself, rather it is meant to unlock new potentials through the connection and integration of devices. Initially, the priority is in having the parts that comprise the IoT business ecosystem, consisting of users, things, enterprise, and partner systems, integrated on one platform, instead of focusing on the number of devices or applications complexity. A system that serves as the foundation of an IoT application must have the capability to support the analysis of individual events along with the correlation between the various event types. In addition to that, a system must be able to organize users and rights based on customer-specific structures and changing situations. This is to allow supporting and scalable organizations. For an IoT platform to be viable over the longer term, it must be able to allow collaboration with other systems and platforms, achieved in a simple and flexible way. A component that becomes essential for ensuring flexibility and sustainability is, openness. Furthermore, using standards allows organizations to attain connectivity, scope, and an independence from hard- and software platforms. Moreover, to guarantee a platform’s horizontal reusability across domains, it becomes of importance to implement consistent and rigorous use of standards. These horizontal platforms have the ability to achieve the needs of different industries or the vertical integration of users, business developers, business partners, and system administrators.
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In addition to that, these platforms should function as links between the IoT business ecosystem of things, users, partners, and enterprise, and the applications. To support the development of these applications, tools and methods that can handle a wide range of data inputs must be provided. Such data must be stored, analyzed, and processed on one platform in order for it to become accessible to the several kinds of applications built on an IoT platform. Data in itself has no relevance, it only becomes significant when crucial findings can be produced by analyzing data. This analysis is achieved through correlating historical and current data, and detecting patterns. These tools must also manage a wide array of business operations and rules that run devices or leverage device data. Device data should be made accessible in order to manage device operations. A platform or an IoT application that is hosted by a central data center is centrally operated and maintained for the various customers in relation to their specific needs. There are several benefits accompanied with such an option. These benefits are efficient resource pooling, access by heterogeneous users and devices, multiple versions of a platform or service simultaneously being operated, and rapid and elastic service provision with the service being available at any time and in any quantity. Lastly, open interfaces and standards of IoT will enable collaboration with third party systems and platforms. Moreover, the increased utilization of resource, is expected to generate a greater resource efficiency and lower platform costs per solution.
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Thesis Diary Phase 3: Synthesis
Emergence of The Know Lab Going back to where I started with people’s sharing behaviour of experiences, products and services and comparing that to what I have found during the research, a few insights could be drawn and inferred. First of all, the sharing economy and behaviour express a human’s need for expression to be seen, felt, or heard by others, and to be artistic and to express oneself. In addition to that, people have an innate need to expand and evolve. They want to go where none has gone before and they want to build and add to their surrounding environment. Humans have also been utilizing the technologies they create to augment the self and expand it beyond its obvious capabilities, while transforming our behaviours in the process to co-evolve with our technologies. Furthermore, people have always been exchanging since the dawn of humanity, evident in their exchange of the flow of energy in all relationships, of information, and knowledge. That knowledge is found at the intersection of every interaction between humans, and between humans and their technologies. They desire it, crave it and lust for it; because knowledge is power and people want to be empowered and to feel in control.
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Thus, referring back to my research, and linking all its different subjects together, The World Wide Web gave rise to globalization, information technology, and computer networking and have provided individuals with instant gratification, access to all sorts of resources, and an abundance of data and information. On the economical end, the Knowledge Economy was generated followed by the Creative Economy, and later the Engagement Economy. On the users’ side, people became infolust and grew a compelling desire for consumer generated content. At the intersection of the economical end matched with people’s evolving demands and expectations, we identify a participatory system that has established lightweight innovation tools and techniques. This is expected to develop and bring about what was previously mentioned and termed as Knowledge Ecosystems and over longer terms, The Infinite Cortex. It can be inferred and deduced then that the future is evolving beyond the mere consumption of products and services, towards one that is concerned with people’s consumption of knowledge and ideas. Such a future lies within the realms of creativity, imagination, and innovation. Drawing on these inferences and the possibilities the Internet of Things shall create, I reached my concept and what I came to call, The Know Lab.
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The World Wide Web
Globalization + Information Tech + Computer Networking
Instant Gratification + Access + Abundance
Knowledge Economy
InfoLust
Creative Economy
Generation C
Engagement Economy
A participation System
Lightweight Innovation
Knowledge Ecosystem
Infinite Cortex 143
Link Enabled Space
Abundant Data
Engagement Economy
Human Needs Empowerment . Immersion . Connection . Imprinting
The Know Lab Participation . Collaboration . Exploration . Discovery
Human-to-Human
Human-to-Machine A Human’s and Machine’s Quest for Knowledge
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Machine-to-Machine
The Know Lab Generation
The Know Lab The know Lab arises from and revolves around the intersection between our human instincts, drivers of change, signals of the future, and nature of acquiring knowledge. It draws on human needs for connection, empowerment, evolving imprinting, and augmenting the self. And builds upon lightweight innovation tools, creative economy and engagement economy, and recent findings about the social aspects for acquiring knowledge. In addition to that, concepts such as knowledge eco-systems and the infinite cortex demonstrate a clear direction about where the future is headed. Therefore, The Know Lab intends to leverage on these elements and create a behaviour and an experience platform for human’s and machine’s quest for knowledge. The intended outcome of gaining insight, knowledge, or primarily that click or AHA moment should be derived from an engaging and immersive experience. Such an experience essentially emerges from the collaboration between humans and enabled objects or things. Moreover, The Know Lab is concerned with the condition when enabled objects, created as a reflection of ourselves, lust over knowledge, extending, and augmenting themselves. This intriguing condition requires us to look beyond the obvious possibilities the Internet of Things shall create, and instead explore the scope of opportunities that will be created by such a novel technology. The competitive advantage is then created by examining the field of opportunity and extending our imagination through the tools and techniques of strategic foresight. This section is thus concerned with the utilization of such tools to further develop and conceptualize The Know Lab and the opportunities it could create.
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Expansion Immersion Exchange
Imprinting
Human Needs
Power
Expression Connection
Adventure
Engagement Economy
Knowledge Economy
Drivers of Change
Lightweight Innovation
Internet of Things Creative Economy
Social Knowledge
Infinite Cortex
Cognitive Ecologies
Future Signals
Knowledge Eco-systems
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Who?
Individuals
Things
A P ro c
es
s
P
a
n
C o l l
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t io
ration o b
ic i p ati on t r a
Exp l o r a
How?
A Too l
What?
E xp eri e n n A
ce
Of Foresight Maps and Scenarios In the upcoming section, foresight maps will be utilized to further examine the main elements involved in The Know Lab and other factors that might become affected. All the maps created are impact intensification, that are meant for opportunity maximization. These maps are concerned with aspects like goals, signals, behaviours, trends, and possibilities. In some of them, I combine archetypal retrieval with the field of opportunity within the same map, as they come to influence one another. The data points generated through these maps are later used as inspirations or guides for the scenario writing, in which they influence the setting, the technologies, or just the story-line involved in the scenario.
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The Human Being
Global Village Singular Plurality Cultural Transcendence Compelexperience Semantrickle Wisdecisions
Sagacious Labyrinth Deconstructive Generation Know-Charge Knowledge Dynamics Feiroperience
Allegorial Feed
Simulcast Platforms
Ephemeral Travels
Explay Creative Blast Exptuition Empires Trysuming
Amiesphere
Creaconomy
Algoristigic Machines
Religion
En-Matrices Interdentify Introspectaware
Sensoriperience
Co-cognition
Coexperience Transfinity
Symbiosis
Omni-consciousness
Sensorimerge
Perspectigrate Will-to-power
Psychedelia
Cogitation
Enabled Wisdom
Revelearn
Lucidity
Evolving
Pleasure
Field of Opportunity
Know-muggles
Transglobe Wrap Luciporations Hyperspaces
Pain-free
Sharing Comfort Economy Delegation Smart State Objects Extension Universality Inventing High order Behaviour Economy Brand Immortality Engagement Engagement Exploration Economy Exposure Immersed Communication Robots Lives Imprinting Experience Economy Open Innovation Participation Virtual Reality Research Mind & Body Incubators Personalization Extension knowledge Sharing Economy Inverted Incubators Social Media Platforms Artificial Intelligence Open Source Globalization Social Knowledge Consumer-Content Co-production
Intra-Lives Signaturized Consurule Life Streaming E-nsight Consuexpert Data Adundance Auripresence The Promiscuous Mind Self-Expo Augmentitiy Super-Structuring
Interstate
Metamorphosis Impulsive Creativity
KnowLab
Resource Corporate Allocation Individuals Knowledge Hierarchilapse Co-creation Ecosystems
Mindfullness
Enlightenment Knowpower
Prompt Relevancy
Indivalidation
Context Awareness Enabled Individiuals Abstract Reality
Archetypal Retrieval
Skillplosion
Meaning Discovery Access Wisdom
Passivley active Identity Multiplicity Research Expedition Learning
Exocortices Intuitive matter Enabled Spaces Tools Systems Settlements Technology
Instant Resolve Humachine Infinite Cortex Standardization Knowledgeable Other IoT
Curiousity Communities Observation Virtual Knowledge Entrepreneurs Services Control Out Reach Superiority Infrastructure Blended Reality Empowerment Institutions Collaboration Hierarchies Meaningful Experiences Experimentation Value Creation Innovation InfoLust Inventions Machines Industrial Revolution Lightweight Innovation Consumerism Photography Online Communities Social Objects World Wide Web Social Innovation Multi-dimensional Self Instant Gratification Story-Telling
Aspirations & Motivations Behaviours Manifestations
Possibilities
Ambient Companionship
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Internet of Things
Mass Commercialized Data Life Streamlined Information Ecosystems Ubiquitious Computing Information Currencies Personal Assisting Robots Commonsense Computing Everything Youniverse Characterized Sympathetic Smart Strive Companions Spacextension Geolocation Tailored Intelligible Identities complementary RFID Spontaneous Resource Destructive Wireless Evolving Allocation Generation Networks Innate Beneficial Subtle Intelligence Blooming Meaningful Connections Lands of Wonderment Control Expeditious Discovery systems Entities Cubic
Interwars to Prevail
Malicious Disperse
Behaviour Economy Big Data
Mass Awareness
Intuitive Mothering
Real-time
Prescient Reality
Live Experiences
Simultaneous Data Flow
Benefits
Efficiency
Mutualism
Data Flow
Responsive Context Hyperspaces Awareness Enabled Data Online Transcendent Impulse Data Space Experiences Experience Economy
Seamless Computing
Data Fed
Whispering Labyrinth
Mobile Applications
Full Spectrum Experiences
Networked Matter Social Platforms
Ambient Companionship Informative Spaces
Data Abundance
Space Journals
Essenceation Augmented Environments
Immersive Media Multi-dimensional Self
Momentsciouness
InfoLust Enabled Ecologies Life Invasions Smart Systems Infogreed Unbounded Contextual Conversations Omnipresence Intertwined Security Obsessions Realities Infrastructure Plulogue spacesocialize Exploration Plural Becoming Siri Singularity Collective Cognition Plurality Dilated Transient Perceptions Cognition Lifestyles Collective Multiplicity Discovery Tracking Sapce Saturation Devices Wired Intent Actuality Blended Reality Purpose Insightful Aura of Familiarity Roaming Meaning NFC
Tailored Living
Access Wisdom
Resonant Existence
Experiences
Sensors
Co-existance Overlapping Lives Forever Echo Connected Phenomena Subtle Retrieval Communication Gibo Space Immersed Behaviour Legacies Hyper-Personalization
Augmented Reality Social Objects Wirless Networks Sociable Matter
Mind in Many Minds
Intervening objects
The Cloud
Value Dimensions
Complimentary Personal Assistants
Goals
Trends
Autonomous Services
Signals
Auto-broadcasting Stations
Possibilities 157
Knowledge
Knowledgenabling Knowledge mobility Hybrid Knowledge Knowledgemogenise Crowd Wisdom Hybrid Sense-making Innovation Economies Inclusive Knowledge Hybrid Intelligence Symbiotic Flat Organizations Relationships Enaction CommuCultures Globalization Spacexplore Feedback Mind in Many Minds MicroKnowing Without Mass Media Processors Knowing Personal Truth Imagination Computers Production Powers Artificial Neural Identification Networks Entransparency Connection archiescriture Control Validation Systems Knowledge Skills Knowledge Workers Expert Networks systems Innovation Brain Modules Info Flow Status Engagement Neural Economy Artificial Darwinism Discovery Intelligence archiCreation escriture Computing Brand-User Engagement
Dualism
Sensibility Horizon Explorative Solution Fusion Discoveries Knowledge Possibility Bases Knowledgeable Doubtful Users Interpretation Becoming Certainities Narrative Science Software
General Consumerism Solver
Communication
Understanding Organization Algorithms Time-Binders Empowerment Solutions of Machine Learning Symbols Infoexcess Turing-Machine TechnoIdentity Disruptive Personal Meanings Cognitivists knowledge Electricity Sciences Knowledge Sharing Intellect & Intuition Age of Communication Conation KnowPrevail Commercial Knowledge Knowledisgestion Knowstatus
Ambient Intelligence Discovery Tools Knowledge Intermediaries KnowRun Knowledge Correlation Open-Reference Knowledge Chains Knowledge Ecologies
Wisdom Attainment Mass-Scale Experimentation Tacit Knowledge Innovaluation Cognitive Fluidity Open Source Full Stream MEMES Creativity Creative Stories of I Knowledge The Internet Human Unlearning Knowledge InfoLust Economy Wisdom Creative Knowledge Knowledge Economy Ecosystems Awareness Services Cognitive Efficiency Ecology Open EmoSocial Means Embeded Innovation Intelligence Brain Global Control Extended Intelligence Brain Infinite Cortex Promiscuous Efficiency Social Mind Knowledge Lightweight Access Knowledge- Smart Innovation able Other Objects Interaction Tools of Religion Becoming IoT Empires Of The Self Absolutes Knowledge Knowledge Disciplines Ecosystems Life Sensory Knowledge Logic Society Enabled Data Use A Quest Universe Observation for Answers Collective Knowledge Idea or Mind Curiousity Rule Empiricism Meaning Agriculture Knowcurrencies Revolution Questioning Technological World Structure Knowpower Revolution Esseknowledge Trade Dialectical Knowledge Philosophes Knowjourneys Pragmatism Inventions Psyche Knowledge Industrial OmniKnowledge Phenomenal Essence Revolution Machines Transportation Knowledge Platforms Apriori Knowledge Will’s Urge for Knowledge Knowledge-Mentors Cognition Possibility of Becoming Knowheritance Insightfullness Knowmade Knowdependace Tailored Enlightenment
Goals
Trends Signals
Possibilities 159
Things
Life Reminiscents Watchfriends Intent-connect
Motivating Empowering Absorbing Enticing Eternanny Effective Assertive Steps Actions Companion Efforts Suggesnion Understanding Style Enlightening Environment Wearables Progressive Sensory Trackers Tools/belongings Records Reliable Portamento Vitals Personal Revealing Monitoring Devices Gestures Expressive Cell Phones Autocast Mastery Attentive
Devices
Responsive
Interests
Gadgets
Godevice
Alerting
Conditions
Portable
Deconstracto-genero
Facilitator
Software
Fixed
Protective Coinstuction
Infoweave
Networks Locations
Effective
Statistics
Productive
Information
Heavy Duty
Resource Allocators Geostream
Workstation
Databases
Efficiency
Machines
Operators
Operations
Allocator Operaflow
Private
Functions
Robots Function Specific Place bound
Incidents Phenomenon Profitable Conduct Algorithms Preventive Instructive Informative
Newspread
Predictive Statoshield Exo-incidence
Tailored Guides Instructive Matter Relieving
Non-sentient Managing Directors Helpful
Enhancer
Impartial Raconteurs
Assistive Adaptive
Activities Data
Mothering Objects Entertaining Ambience Relationships Responsive Skills Comforting Media Curators Personalities Social Robots Place bound Lifestyle Intuitive Electronics Smart systems Sensory Generative Creators Relaxing Instruments Emotions Supportive Belongings Time Hoaxers Playful Lighting Databases Personal Monitoring or multiple Stories users Reserve Beneficial Activity maestros Furniture
Objects
Systems Diverse People Open/ enclosed Spaces
Places
Objects
Movement Acts Sensory Cultures
Reactive
Orchestrated Spaces
Engaging Welcoming
Performaplace
Informative
Bound-Detectives Public/Private Stimulating Flow Surroundings Transient Intriguing Events Surfaces Sensoresponse Devices Atmosphere Encouraging Associations Trends Sensational Illuminating Structures Transactions Exuberant Moments Lively Labyrinthian Expanses Enabling Immersive Flexible Transformative
Interactions
Revealing Matter Space Coach
Transitory Illuminatis
Features
Resources
Goals Possibilities 161
Economy Organizations
Customers Entrepreneurs
Corporations
Innovators
Education Security
Mentors
Institutions
Brands
Individuals
Users
I
Data Ideas
Resources
Artifacts
Objects
Things
Devices
Technology Communication
Machines Time Space
Places
Stakeholder’s Map For the stakeholder’s map, I look into who or what might be interested or affected by The Know Lab in terms of individuals, things, resources, and institutions. However, as the project evolves, this map might slightly or completely change, as some stakeholders become added or subtracted.
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Creatives
Experience Journey Map
Literacy Creativity
Human
Unfulfilled
Cravings
Idle
Useless Things
Limited
Knowledge
Generate
Collaborate
Create
Post
Triggers
Participate
Discussions
Pains
Questions
Brainstorming
Connect Immerse Activity Journey Clues Distress Question
Synthesize
Gain Insights
Resolve
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Scenario 1: The Knowledge Challenge As he was working on his table top screen for the new project, a voice from the screen asked him, “why are you using this method?” He confidently answered with his reasons. So the voice asked again but why, may be there are other ways . As he kept on arguing, explaining, he could see clearly by then a new pattern of information that could enhance the project in a more efficient way. That night, as he went to bed, he realized that in that earlier process, both him and his screen companion were learning as they both challenged one another’s knowledge.
Disclosures • • • •
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Screen companion. Knowledge challenging. Information patterns. Questioning routines.
Scenario 2: Personalized Mazed Andy has been suffering from a mind block lately. So frustrated, he logged onto his laptop and signed in his account on knowledge maze. He imported his data and keywords, and the website started generating several versions of mazes using Andy’s inputs. Taking several routes and intentionally misguided by the computer, he was getting more and more frustrated. He stood up, roamed around, and as he was facing the screen, he started visualizing the right route that connects all his data together. It all makes sense now. He now knew what each route can lead to and its limitations, and which would be the most convenient to take. He shared his results with other participants, then viewed their insights and discoveries. In a 30 minute session, Andy has re-energized and resolved his mind block.
Disclosures • Knowledge maze. • Computer-generated personalized mazes. • Intentional misguidance.
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Scenario 3: KnowJourneys As Natasha was roaming in her house, she grabbed her Knowsurf device and found her new upcoming scheduled knowjourney starting in a while. She got dressed up, put her boots on, grabbed her knowsurf and left her place. The device tracking her steps and geo-location, it started generating routes for Natasha to take and the stops she has to pass by along her journey. All the routes were unusual ones that Natasha never took before but she has to follow the map to further proceed in her journey. The stops varied from deserted old places, street art installations, public spaces, parks to wilderness. Each of these stops are either illuminating structures or revealing matter that disclose an idea, a piece of information, or a story. They are all connected by a shared theme. At the end of each journey Natasha has to figure out this theme by connecting all the dots and clues that she has encountered. After she figures it out, she inputs into her device, and gets a score based on the ones she got right or missed. These scores are then posted in comparison with her fellow know-muggles. These know-muggles are both people and enabled things that go on knowjourneys and compete with one another. They could also plan knowjourneys together, share insights, or suggestions. Their knowsurf later aggregates and sorts out all this data and uses it for new route generations or system development. Most of these knowjourneys are designed to be unsettling for the muggles as they move from one stop to the other and still can’t figure out the theme. However, each stop is immersive, insightful, engaging, and wondrous. This mix of emotions drive the muggles to figure that riddle out for that exuberant journey and find the theme. Once they figure it out, they experience the most pleasurable feeling; that is fiero. 168
Disclosures • • • • • • •
Knowsurf. Knowjourney. Illuminating structures. Revealing matter. Know-muggles. Route generators. Fiero.
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Scenario 4: Meli, The Godevice Amelia is now 20 years old. She just celebrated her birthday last week. But gone are the days now when you used to celebrate only your birthday. People now celebrate their birthdays and their godevices’. It is born one the same day you were born, and you grow on together on your life journey, taking care of one another. Meli, Amelia’s godevice has watched her blossom over the years. They have shared moments, experiences, emotions, ideas, and questions. She has listened to Amelia’s stories and told hers. They have come to know one another by heart. But Meli, is also connected to other godevices out there. As Amelia goes to sleep, Meli takes part in plulogues.. These plulogues are very important; as they allow them to be peripatetic by giving them access to other godevices dispersed around the world, in which they exchange updates, experiences, concerns, knowledge, and concepts. It keeps them connected, knowledgeable and updated of recent news or advancements, make them grow, and remain objective. For Amelia, Meli has always been her play partner, life guru, educational mentor, escort, and above all her own personalized companion that understands her better than anyone else and knows what’s best for her.
Disclosures • Godevices. • Plulogues. • Peripatetic devices.
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Scenario 5: Performaplaces Winter is here, and so is its gloomy weather. I leave my place so sleepy, depressed, and just wanting to go back to bed. I need back the sunshine, the warmth, and those vibrant colours. As I go out of the subway, and step towards the almost black and white surroundings, looking and feeling down. I see a raindrop stroke the ground, and the next thing I know is that I feel overwhelmed with joy and surprise. The ground transformed into vast art displays, each pedestrian tap on the floor is a melodic tune, and space was filled with floral fragrances, cinnamon and coffee aromas. A busy weekday morning has turned into a massive street performance, with each element present has a role in the act. You are both the audience and the performer. Was it me that triggered it or that raindrop as it caressed the ground? Or was it the space that perfectly orchestrated the whole act and put it in place? I later figured out it was the space all along, when someone at work was talking about these performaplaces. They are known for choosing the perfect moment to take everyone by surprise and brighten their morning. Why so? Because they are performaplaces and they just know.
Disclosures • • • • • •
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Performaplaces. Sensory responses. Street performances. Ground art. Melodic surfaces. Orchestrated activites
Scenario 6: Of The Wonders of Hoaxers You never know when, where or how it will happen, but that’s the fun of it all. I saw that line at the end of an ad for a new application that you could get on any personal device. I was intrigued and captivated by that line. I was so curious to know what is it all about. The app was called The Hoax. I can’t wait to purchase it and download it now. I tap onto my iLocket, pay with my finger print, and wait for it to download. As soon as it is downloaded, it asks to access my location, contacts, messages, activities, tracking records, everything. I’m becoming a little concerned now. I press proceed as I am overtaken by curiosity more than my security uncertainties. The application opens up into its home screen and it is just a white a background. No text or images. Nothing. What kind of application is that! I keep on looking for icons or different menus, anything that would unlock or change that stupid white display. But it all ended with frustration. All I could think of and the line that kept ringing in my head is that ”I guess The Hoax is just an actual hoax”. As the line persisted, I heard a chuckling voice resonating. It was coming from my iLocket. As I looked at the white background again, it said “you’re right! Welcome to The Hoax”. But that was it.
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The days passed, I got busy, and forgot about the stupid app that I wasted my money on. After almost a week, I was working on a project when the same chuckling sound told me to check up recent news posted on the app. It was some irrelevant non-sense piece of information. A while later, it nudged me again to check some more feed. There was text, images, and sounds. I had no clue why it suddenly started working or what triggered it. But it was silly. As I returned back to the project I was working on, something was different. Colours seemed different, and the map I was just working on seemed to lack many components now. It didn’t make sense and I was just in an utter state of confusion. After a moment, I was staring at the project and I could see there is now a smart way I could add new inputs into the old map. As I was adding the final touch, that same voice boastingly said, “And this is how we Hoax.”
Disclosures • • • •
Hoaxers. iLocket. Fingerprint payment. Security uncertainties.
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Scenario 7: Miseries of an Invaded Life It is now 2030, and the world has now changed a lot from when I was born 40 years ago. Every element of the environment has become seamlessly integrated and connected with one another. All matter has now got instant data access and retrieval about other matter in space. It is aggregated, sorted and organized to quickly understand the nature, intent, and the plan of action of the elements found in space. Networked matter are suggestive, advisory, and generative of best choices and practical course of action to take based on the situation. But you don’t understand how painful this is. Everything has always become so curated and orchestrated in the most mundane ways. Networked matter expects you to act accordingly, as it knows better and it has become the more knowledgeable other in every situation or encounter. If you disobey, they ask repetitively ask questions. That is not bother you, this is their way of learning, enhancing themselves, and knowing better. They question everything and gain insights through that. But I hate it. I miss good old days when life was so spontaneous, full of surprises, failures, faults, and uninterrupted by curious matter. It now feels like old known as non-sentient world is now all managing directors who are handing you tasks and jobs to do. They are activity maestros conducting and managing every action happening. As a little kid, I remember people being scared of alien invasions. But believe me when I tell you this is worse.
Disclosures • • • • • 176
Seamless environments. Instant data access and retrieval. Networked matter. Non-sentient managing directors. Activity maestros.
Scenario 8: Transitory Illuminatis William has just arrived to London from his vacation in New York. He has never imagined an easier, smoother, or a more enjoyable trip. From the moment he arrived in New York, he found a brochure at the airport desk that only stated to look for the transitory illuminatis scattered all over the city. It said they will provide you with the best vacation experience and they will be easy to spot. As he was strolling on his first day, he came across a park that was near to his hotel. He found a screen that said “Tap Me”, and so he did. It congratulated it him on finding the illuminati and through a quick scan, it had access to all his interests, hobbies, and tastes. Upon such data, it started generating routes for place to go to, restaurants to try out, activities to participate in, and even possible companions and fellow travelers he might be interested to spend time with. The session ended by saving all his data and checking in at the next transitory illuminati, he finds. Enjoying this personalized tour guide service, he checked in at every transitory illuminati he found. Some of them were found in random places, others were in touristic sites. However, these didn’t only function as tour guides but also as story tellers, in which he could access photos other tourists or individuals shared and saved, interesting stories, and unique moments and events. It felt as if he was experiencing these place through the presence of others, a form of singular plurality, in which his perception and experience was influenced by the presence of others who were once in the same place. They transformed these places by their presence and future visitors. And so did William.
Disclosures • • • •
Transitory illuminatis. Suggestive street standalones. Personalized street tour guides & story tellers. Singular plurality.
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Behaviour Space Attraction
Entry
Engagement
Desires • • • •
Connection. Immortality. Control. Evolution.
Goals • • • • • • • • •
Participation Imprinting. Empowered. Knowledge. Exploration. Discovery. Cognition. Collaboration. Enlightenment.
Cognition
Motivation • • • • • •
Belonging. Vanity. Access. Fiero. Access. Social currency.
Immersive Accessible Interactive Shareable
Behaviour
Media • • • • • • • •
Data. Perception. Knowledge. Memory. Experience. Sensory. Motor Skills. Information.
Action • • • • • •
Challenging. Engaging. Questioning. Rewarding. Enabling. Non-frustrating.
Transformation
Free Adaptive Context Aware Real-Time Communication Collaboration
Self People Things Machines Objects Spaces Time Information Ideas Data
Knowledgeable Transformative Informative Explorative Innovative
Relationship
Value (Value Space)
Satisfaction Emotional State
• • • •
Fiero Happiness AHA! Wonderment
• • • •
Creativity Innovation Knowledge Intelligence
Intellectual State
• •
Experimental Value
Functional Value • • • • • • •
Experience Cognition Resource Allocation Knowledge Relation Flow Innovation
• • • •
Recognition Discovery Exploration Synthesis
Physical State Active Exploratory
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Real-Time Communication
Immersive Imaginative
Sociable
Qualitative
Engaging Empowering
Unique Compelling
Accessibility
Value Proposition
Resource Allocation Immersive Platform Knowledgeable Other (Status) Benefit Enabling
Quantitative Availability Free Subscription
Co-creation
Value Creation
Novel Invention Tacit Knowledge Compelling Experience
Diverse Community
Deconstructing the Value Proposition In these maps, I explore the quantitative and qualitative elements, along with the components that create value. These elements come to form my value propostion
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Experience Physical Product
What?
Service
- Empowering With Knowledge. - Commercializing AHA Moments. People Things Places Objects Brands Organizations
Value Proposition - Subscriptions & concept adoption. -Novel innovation with a promising outcome. - The bigger the community, the more value it holds and generates.
Who?
Revenue Model
Value Chain Installation
Participation Product Sale Why? Service Offering Novel Innovation Accessible
Toy/Game How? Designed Journey
Book Online Platform Collaborating Experience Things + People Knowledge Enlightenment Empowerment Compelling
Deconstructing the Value Proposition Another diagram that maps out the conistituents of the what, who, why, and how of my project. That is analyzed in comparison with what the value proposition, revenue model, and value chain are.
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Value Proposition Canvas • • • • • • • •
• • •
Open Source. Lightweight Innovation tools. Resource allocation. Unexpected feed input. Exploration & experimentation. Context aware & adaptive. Immersive platform. User’s feed & shared media.
Online Experience. Installation/Exhibition. Tangible product: game/book.
• • • •
Mapped out journey. Crowdsourcing. Diverse pool of people. Real-time communication.
• • • • • • • • •
Empowerment. Connecting & collaborating. Efficiency. Experience awe & wonderment. AHA moment Knowledge. Discovery Fiero Participating & innovating
•
• • • •
• • • • •
Subscribe or register. Engage with others (humans & machines). Follow clues or paths. Gather information. Draw conclusions and innovate. Broadcast & share resources.
Confusion. Feeling lost. Peer pressure. Fear of judgement. Disconnection.
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Business Model Canvas
Problem • • • • • •
Data abundance. “Things” want to be beneficial. Assigning value to the intangible cloud. Need for empowerment through knowledge. Desire to become knowledgeable other. Lust over experience of awe and wonderment.
Solution • • • • • • •
Key Metrics • •
• • •
Offer an immersive & enlightening experience. Platform participation and collaborating with other people and objects. Data input & synthesis. Must be available, accessible & in real-time. To be the knowledgeable other.
Branding Knowledge. Enlightening how to see & synthesize patterns Resource allocation. Journey, an experience of awe and AHA. Enabling benefit. Collaboration. Transferring Tacit Knowledge
Cost Structure • • • • • • • • •
Domain Space Rent Outsourcing Technology System Building Manufacturing Machines and Algorithms R&D Production & Distribution
Value Proposition • •
Empowering With Knowledge. Commercializing AHA Moments.
Unfair Advantage •
• • •
A unique and specific matrix to develop tacit knowledge and Aha moment. A mapped journey or experience. Novel Innovation. No competitors.
Channels Own vs. Partner
• • •
Website (O) Organizations (P) Space Owner (P)
Direct Vs. Indirect
• • •
Mobile App (D) Retailers (I) Online Purchasing (D)
Customer Segments People
• • • • •
Individuals. Corporates. Creatives. Innovators. Institutions
Things • • • •
Objects. Devices. Machines. Places.
Revenue Streams • • • • • • •
Service fees. Usage fees. Subscription. Product Sale. Matrix or Concept Adoption. Advertisements. Registration Fees.
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Extrovert
Thinking
I
Feeling
Introvert Brand Value Analytics As of now, The Know Lab moves in a process that starts with thinking and transforms into feeling. First adopters are believed to be introverts, even though as extroverts realize the value brought forth through such an experience, as well as the society moving towards status derived from knowledge and creativity, they are expected to join.
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Creator
Broker
I
Distributor
Landlord Business Model Archetype The Know Lab as an initial generative of the experience idea, process, and techniques, it becomes positioned on the scale as the creator. However, as other organization and institutions become interested in the experience, The Know Lab might become a distributor of the rights to use the techniques and the process that make up the experience
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Expansion Power Exchange Expression Community Adventure Acceptance Security Freedom
The Nine Basic Human Needs Based on the 9 basic human needs by Barbara Taylor, this diagram maps out which of these needs does The Know Lab involve and tackle through its experience and in what degree.
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To Be Continued...
This book has no conclusion or a summary yet, as in this phase it is always being rewritten. However, these previous phases intended to early tap into and explore how compelling the idea is and the value it could create from the design and business perspective. For the next steps, some more readings in special subjects might be required, as well as further utilization of foresight tools and techniques and scenarios to explore the prospects of each of the opportunities tackled as well as their value and what benefits they enable and bring forth. As the project develops and evolves, a form will manifest itself and how it could be commercialized and delivered for value maximization. That shall be followed by design implementation and project branding. In the meantime, traveller... wander some more, get lost, and unbecome. So that you would find yourself in the most unlikely places and where you were meant to be in the first place.
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Bibliography • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
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• http://www.iftf.org/our-work/people-technology/technology-horizons/knowledge-tools-of-the-future/ • http://www.iftf.org/our-work/people-technology/technology-horizons/engagement-economy/ • http://www.iftf.org/our-work/people-technology/technology-horizons/the-many-faces-of-context-awareness/ • http://www.iftf.org/our-work/people-technology/technology-horizons/future-knowledge-ecosystems/ • Value Creation and the Internet of Things, Alexander Manu. • The Imagination Challenge, Alexander Manu. • The Philosophy Book, Big Ideas Simply Explained. • Realizing the Connected World, How to Choose the Right IoT Platform, Bosch.
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