fractal: fear and complexity in new ideas Juan Carlos Noguera 1
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This project is an exercise at personal understanding of things and processes that are difficult to grasp. What makes an idea new? and how can I as a designer and maker judge my own work and identity? Creation is often seen as a fortuitous event, a juxtaposition of elements coming together at a certain point in time and space. But I have for the longest time, felt that our personal distancing from this process, has not come from a lack of understanding or capability to understand, but from fear of failure. We as a society, place individuals that achieve true success in novel creation on a pedestal, one of chance and vague causality. And as we study history, the perceived scale of those who truly succeeded against a backdrop of the general population is just mesmerizing. What we have failed to understand, measure or utilize, is how many ideas, projects and products have achieved near success or failure (failure, in my opinion, can happen even within the threshold of success, and could be accrued to even the most minute of environmental factors). I aim to create an environment and tool set for thinkers and designers, that allows us to perceive in space in time, where our ideas and concepts reside, given historical data and our general understanding of success. This will be achieved through a highly abstract and intuitive process of self-evaluation. I will study my own work in a highly time-sensitive project and attempt to produce information that allows me to diagnose where I stood at the moment of undertaking the project. Through my own success or failure, I will be able to provide validation for my ideas and theories with full honesty and disclosure.
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Project description
About
fractal: fear and complexity in new ideas A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Industrial Design in the Department of Industrial Design of the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island. By Juan Carlos Noguera Cardoza - 2015
Approved by Master’s Examination Committee:
Andrew Law, Head of Graduate Industrial Design
Matthew Juan Fowles, External Advisor, Software Engineer at Google, Inc.
Daniel Oliver, External Advisor, Co-founder at Voxel8, Inc.
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This document is meant to be read by those who create and push ideas. Entrepreneurs, designers and makers of all kinds. They all have one thing in common: There comes a time in the creative process where an idea ’s validity, readiness or its place in time & space is questioned. And although every idea lives in its own environment and is subject to its own set of rules and constraints, it could be argued that a programmable tool to create an abstract, functional view of the desired field is a valuable asset.
Readers & Audience
I picture innovators like Paul Polak (IDE) and Amy smith (MIT D-Lab) to gain value from reading this document as such a concept is part of their discourse in creating realistic, valuable products as opposed to only financially successful ones.
Currently, the project is in its initial research phase and is still looking to hone in on its voice and vision in such a large field as entrepreneurship and foresight.
State of the Project
I am very clear in what motivates me to seek solutions to these very complex problems, as evidenced by the first part of this document. It is a very intense, almost guttural need to find a better way to streamline my own decision process. And it stems from a life-long interest in how things came to be. However, I am still learning about historical elements that are pertinent to my research, and I am yet to concisely provide examples or a working framework on how these could be interpreted or connected to each other.
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Table of contents
Part 1 - Innovation and disruption
Origins Where I come from and how my interests became aligned with creating and dissecting objects and systems.
A spark of curiosity How the developing world’s limitations proved to be a playful arena of creation and entrepreneurism
Parallels in appropriate technologies My first exposure at creating projects at ventures that seemed to mostly remain in the drawing board despite their potential.
Connecting the dots My theory in the creation and development of ideas, and how we sometimes lack the capacity to understand them.
Part 2 - Diving in
Fractal complexity How the ever-increasing complexity of ongoing projects truncates their success or even existence.
3D Printing as a disruptive technology A textbook definition disruptive technology at a turning point in history that defines its future.
Voxel8 3D Printer A product that promises to be the turning point in 3D Printing’s proposition as a game changer in manufacture.
Fears and insecurity Blindingly jumping into a time-critical design project and a description of my experience and short-term results.
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Abstraction and prioritization in metrics
Part 3 - Analyzing information
An analysis of what qualitative and quantitative factors are key in determining the viability of a new personal project/venture.
Rapid opportunity analysis Presenting a simple graphical model in the analysis of targeted situations at different turning points.
Examples in history Simple graphical expressions of both “successful” and “unsuccessful” undergoing (and what those things meant to their creators at the time).
Experience design
Part 4 - Design execution
Defining a tangible representation of the tool
Analyzing the Voxel8 printer Tracing back to the initial undergoing of the project, I analyze from personal experience where I stood.
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Origins My name is Juan Carlos Noguera. I was born in Guatemala City during the last half of the 1980s, the first child of a small household in the American-built projects of Zone 6. It was a curiously designed outfit, as throughout the neighborhood, all the houses were physically the same. However, to add in a little variety, they were all built into lots with varying sizes and configurations, and they were not accessible by streets, but by small pedestrian alleyways that sinuously weaved through the houses. As I grew, I saw things change in my environment. The low-rise chain-link fences that through the 1950s had overseen so many friendly (and not-so-friendly) encounters and conversations, disappeared in favor of tall brick walls, Barbed wire and even electrified razor wire. Guatemala seemed quite distant from the western world back in the 1950s. Brief glimpses of Hollywood seen in the Sunday cinema, trickle-down fashion and two-year old radio hits were the only connection to this distant, "Ideal" culture. The country had not yet shed its "banana republic" status and it imported few things. What I saw happen through this relationship of the idealized western culture and the lack of proper resources, was truly amazing. I saw construction workers, who now built houses out of brick and reinforced steel (as opposed to the adobe and tile roofs of the past) work with trowels, spatulas and sieves made from rough cuts of wood, nails and mesh. Clothing shops and seamstresses crafted the latest fashion, sold to everyone, from hobbyist catalogs and magazines intended for the American housewife. Whenever I see pictures of my parents back then, they were always sharply dressed.
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A spark of curiosity Transfer of new technologies, ideas and fashion to developing countries, had always seemed to me a secondary step, one that occurred only when large markets like the United States had thoroughly accepted the new idea, brought it to market and saturated the market with it. It seemed then, a natural step to take this idea and try to make it "international". The concept of going international is one that I find rather humorous now that I have had a glimpse of living in the United States. The world resides within the United States, and in itself seems to constitute this conceptual bubble that designers seem hard pressed to escape. Designers, for the longest time created objects and systems apparently thinking exclusively of the needs of a large western market. And it was not something dumb. This area represented where the purchasing power resided (at least seemingly) and therefore it was a logical choice. The result of this Industry standard has been a constant flow of ideas that only function in this environment. I find it extremely interesting, then, to see how these products fair in a country like Guatemala. Being geographically so close to the US, The standard of life is just worlds apart. So is the environment, culture, weather and language. US products though, are easily found in stores. Small details let you know that things are not the same. People are often found using small adaptors that neutralize every single grounded prong on electrical connections, as physical grounding is never wired into buildings. Outdoor garden products that are weatherproof are usually in need of additional weatherproofing (e.g., paint) to withstand the torrential rains of summer and intense sunlight.
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And through time, these modifications and adaptations have become so normal, that in today's more globalized market, the public doesn't even demand changes and adaptations in the product. Its specification is part of the status quo. This narrative was interesting to me to a point where I became interested in innovation as a tool for progress. I saw that even with (and sometimes because of) stringent limitations and a lack of resources, ideas could be novel, appropriate and reproducible.
On or around 2009, I was first exposed of the notion that even in hostile, problematic and complex scenarios like those found in the developing world, there was massive need for products and services that catered to the needs of those neglected by mainstream industry and "traditional" entrepreneurism. An increasingly populated field, "Social Entrepreneurship" has gained traction under the war call of designing for the other 90%. This powerful statement not only implies that the sheer number of people being underserved by industry is valuable, but it implies that the purchasing power of the majority of population might actually play a large role in establishing channels, techniques and systems that make vital goods available to people at large.
Parallels in appropriate technologies
In 2010, I attended the International Development Design Summit (IDDS), organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Colorado State University (CSU). The focus of this summit/conference was to create networks and provide initial training for those interested in participating in social entrepreneurship, either being from a product design, business or community building role.
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Great minds came together and created novel ideas for products and services that filled basic needs around the world, like water sanitation in Bangladesh and India, as well as Briquette-based cooking fuel for Deforested areas in Haiti. I personally gained an interest in creating wheelchairs and mobility aids specifically designed for the rough conditions of rural Guatemala (and countries like it). Most importantly, I left this month-long summit with a clear thought in my head: These ideas were wonderful, but there was no mechanism in place and no clear method to bring these products and services to market, without massive amounts of unsustainable capital and foreign aid investment. The few projects that gained traction had slow growth and difficulty staying afloat. Only a small percentage of the total were massively successful and became self-sustained after a short period of time. We could think of this time as a parallel with pre-1980's Silicon Valley, and we may imagine that the explosion that occurred then could happen now in this new field.
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Connecting the dots
There is a generalized notion within the realm of technology (and others), that every once in a while, big waves are made. The status quo seems to be interrupted (As if we were referring to the space time continuum itself) by ideas so revolutionary or different, that it challenges notions that we came to view as laws. Whole new games are created, that while seemingly different and new, are sometimes more connected to the present and to the ever-changing needs of humanity. They just make sense, and that is exciting. They fulfill our needs and aspirations in ways that seemed impossible just days before. And that just seems so futuristic. The future becomes now, and we realize how big of a leap humanity has made. But is it really a leap? Or did at that moment in history, we realize the existence of something that could be years or decades in the making? Something that the now globalized media didn’t think was interesting enough to show the world? True futuristic thoughts can only be born in the realm of impossibility, and exist in the mind of forward thinkers. We view them as passionate and driven individuals with a relentless dream and pursue of success, but this is not always true. With the increased existence of improved roadways and access to petrol in the late 19th century, many entrepreneurs decided to build motorized vehicles across the world, patents being awarded left and right. They consistently built upon the work of others, selfishly trying to gain a competitive edge. It was a true race (and at that, a true exercise in irony). Only a few ideas survived and through persistence (sometimes the persistence of others) made it to the “light of day”, the public’s eye. Before we can bestow the adjective “popular” onto an idea, it is often qualified as crazy or out of touch. It could also be said it has potential, but we do not truly believe in the realization of this potential until others do so.
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Breakthrough
As a general rule, an idea needs to nest within a carefully crafted environment to flourish. However, it is a possibility that it enters our collective psyche elsewhere in time. More often, it enters our life after critical success factors have aligned and it has all it needs to grow. It is only then that an idea is picked up by the media, early adopters, and gains traction (and whatever that might mean to that specific idea), scale and notoriety. As a concrete example, we can cite a “well known” example. The Automobile. Very few people realize that there was a span of decades between when the first fully functional automobiles where invented (Karl Benz, 1886) and Henry Ford’s massively successful Model T. Even fewer realize that Ford had failed at starting a successful car company twice before scaling up. His investors pulled out, Twice.
German engine designer and car engineer, generally regarded as the inventor of the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine
Karl Benz (1886)
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Some attribute his later success to fame gained through automobile racing, being the first person to reach 60 miles per hour “A mile per minute”, and early adopters wanting to be linked to this fame. It could also be argued, however, that environmental factors such as the population shift into cities, road improvement, immigration and accessibility to petrol came into alignment perfectly for Ford.
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The modern assembly line and its basic concept is credited to Olds, who used it to build the first mass-produced automobile, the Oldsmobile Curved Dash, beginning in 1901
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Henry Ford (1912) There are, however, a few ideas that find themselves in the spotlight way before things have aligned this way for them. It is easy to blame the media for “hyping� something up and making it big before it has momentum to make an actual impact. I believe this is strongly case with some modern, emerging technologies such as 3D printing.
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Fractal complexity “A fractal is a natural phenomenon or a mathematical set that exhibits a repeating pattern that displays at every scale. If the replication is exactly the same at every scale, it is called a self-similar pattern.” Fractality is a mathematical concept whose roots trace back to the 17th century, and is based around the idea of self-similarity. Concretely, it is a pattern that repeats itself at any size or scale. As we zoom into this pattern, we can find the same detail, proportions and form repeated over and over. At a first glance, this complex form seems finite and manageable, and thanks to the limitations of modern visualization (computer screens, printing) we are not forced to visualize its fundamental depth. It is my belief that any undertaking, however simple or complicated it may seem, poses a problem in complexity. Upon entering a seemingly simple problem, the creator begins to realize the numerous levels at which it is actually complex. Let’s cite for example, Thomas Thwaite’s amazing Toaster Project. He attempts to create a simple electrical device from scratch, by avoiding the entire construct of industrial manufacture. He mines the ore to create the metals that will become electrical conductors , and attempts to manufacture his own plastic. By reading his work, one quickly realizes the monstrous complexity behind the creation of an object that is a modern staple of mundanity. And although this industrial construct is available for use if let’s say, a manufacturer wanted to just create a new model of toaster, one can see how giving life to a new idea can quickly become a seemingly impossible undertaking, producing fear, hesitation, and ultimately leading it to a screeching halt.
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3D Printing as a disruptive technology
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The voxel8 printer
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