Godrej's internal magazine Change publishes my article - "Are you ready for the information economy?". Read it here: http://issuu.com/godrej/docs/jan_2012/11

This semester my Interactive Media Workshop is working with the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events to develop interactive placemaking probes for the City's 2012 Cultural Plan initiative. Three student teams in the class were asked to design interactive interventions, which will allow the common citizen to express their point of view about culture and engage with other citizens, both synchronously in place and asynchronously. The teams have conducted research, conceived, prototyped, and implemented  three different interactive prototypes located in cultural hubs around selected neighborhoods - one at the Old Town School of Folk Music, another in Pilsen/National Museum of Mexican Art, and the third at Chicago's City Hall. Over the next two weeks, the teams will monitor interaction to capture user information at these hubs. 

If you are in Chicago, please visit these sites and see the high quality installations that ID students have completed for the city and add to the research by participating. Here are some photos of the projects being set up/launching.

Note: PUSH is a mobile installation that is moving around the city. There will be an exhibit/event at the National Museum of Mexican Art when the devices come back - more information about this will be posted soon.

---

The three teams are:

SkyWords (at the City Hall)
Lauren Braun, Kareem Hindi, Lee Lin, Jose Mello, Jaime Rivera

The City Listens (at the Old Town School of Folk Music)
Jorge Angarita, Paul Keck, Leticia Baiao, Jennifer Gzesh

Push (at Pilsen/National Museum of Mexican Art)
Janice Wong, Philipp Bohm, John Shin, Nathaniel Jiang

(download)

Click here to download:

id-student-installations-for-the-city-of-chicago-up-and-running-njEgBbrdeHvidFrrDHmi.zip (7.87 MB)

By now, you must have seen Google's Project Glass video showing the future of wearable AR technology. As expected the blogosphere is abuzz with excitement, scepticism, and mockery of the concept. Some are even calling Nokia one of the first in augmented reality glasses, take this Giz post for example - "I Liked The Google Glasses Video Better In 2009 When Nokia Made It". Wearable AR has been around for many many years. See this Atlantic article which talks about MIT Media Lab technology that is 13 years old showing wearables. In fact the cyborg Steve Mann [who I have seen in person in 2002] has been wearing AR glasses for years before Nokia or Google envisioned it. ID Professor Tom MacTavish remembers a time when he met Steve Mann at a conference - once he recognised who Tom was, he pulled out a log of the last time they had met, using that as a way to start the conversation. Tom felt unequipped to match this sort of augmentation of human memory!

What makes Project Glass [the right way to say it] compelling is that it uses mature voice recognition technology, real location based prompts, and contextual computing to describe its concept. This is no longer science fiction, nor does it reside purely in engineering labs' future vision videos. This is real technology that will be on the street soon. Google co-founder Sergey Brin was seen wearing one of these at a recent event. Sure Google may mess it up, maybe their actual product may not be that compelling. But by doing it first, Google paves the way for future designers and engineers to come up with technology that will work. Wearables is where AR will shine in the future, and Google is on the right path...

Yesterday, I was at the Pei Wei diner in Chicago. It was an interesting outing, mostly because I finally got to use Coke's new Freestyle vending machines. If you do not know what Coke's new Freestyle vending machines are, head over to Coke Freestyle to learn more. I, for one, was super excited!

While I was at my table (craftily chosen next to the vending machines), I did a little informal user observation study. Of course, people were amazed by the features of the new machine. Most people would spend a few minutes exploring their options. One couple talked about the options with each other before choosing their drink. But here is the kicker - not one person (in about 10-12 people who used it during my short observation period) explored mixing different drinks. The whole point of this new machine is that you can mix and mashup drinks. All the people I saw went through the choices and then picked one drink, and then walked away.

Granted this was not a rigorous study by any means, but it led to me asking why...by providing people with so many choices, I think Coke is confusing people more than helping them. So what do users do? They default to known preferences, something they are used to.

Here is a thought - what if Coke curated some drink choices? Maybe even get some of their brand ambassadors to endorse drink mashups. This way one option would be to choose your own mashup, another would be select something a celebrity has endorsed. Then have a story page connected to each mashup, so that people can brag about them:
"Oh what are you having?"
"I am having an Oprah Winfrey mix, the one she drank at the Oscars"

Better yet connect the Freestyle to social media, so that users can like or dislike mashups, tweet their drink mix, or bring up favourite mixes of their friends. Pepsi is trying to do this somewhat with their Social Vending Machines, but does not go all the way.

In a world of free information, curation and the ability to curate for others will be the key to long term engagement. The Coke Freestye is a great idea but it stops one step short.

Coke, are you listening?

In December 2011, nine students from the IIT Institute of Design traveled to India on a three week program organized by ID and Godrej&Boyce Ltd. During these three weeks, they worked on a strategic project with nine executives and the VP of Innovation from Godrej&Boyce. They were part of new pilot program at ID called the India Immersion Program. 

On Tuesday, March 20, 2012, join the presentation and discussion as Navroze Godrej, the students from the India Immersion Program, and I talked about our experiences during this program as well as the effect of this program on ID and future Immersion programs at ID.

What can the renovation of a defunct freight railway line do for placemaking? Well, in NY, the High Line creates a platform for placemaking!

See what the final phase of Diller Scofidio+Renfro's amazing High Line project looks like...

What will it take for us to create such amazing platforms for placemaking in Chicago?

This semester my workshop is working with the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) to help with the planning of the City's 2012 Cultural Plan. The 2012 Chicago Cultural Plan will provide insights on how to elevate the City as a global destination for creativity, innovation and excellence in the arts. The focus of the project will be to further build on Chicago’s vast cultural assets and vibrant community, established through the collaborative partnerships formed with the public and private sectors and civic community. Public engagement will play a key role in shaping Chicago’s cultural future.

Three student teams from the workshop will conduct user research, design, and deploy three placemaking prototypes in cultural hubs in selected neighborhoods, one at the Old Town School of Folk Music, another at the National Museum of Mexican Art/Pilsen neighbourhood, and the third at City Hall. The teams will deploy these prototypes in April-May, 2012 as well as monitor the prototypes to capture user information at these hubs. At the end of the project, these experiential located and portable prototypes will help DCASE augment traditional forms of research by listening to the voice of a larger diversity of Chicagoans as they move through their everyday lives.

Here are some pics from the mid term review of these prototypes. Keep in mind that these are still works in progress, and may or may not resemble the final installs.

In these pictures you can see Jewel Malone, the Deputy Commissioner of Cultural Affairs; Julie Burros the Director of Cultural Planning; Ann Hickey, Director of Program Development; and Juana Guzman, the Vice President of the National Museum of Mexican Art.

(download)

Click here to download:

prototyping-for-the-city-tkfDbatfCeGEsytysHyB.zip (7.7 MB)

Project 3 [part of a previous post]: 

Tweenbots is a project in NYC (out of the ITP program at NYU) that showed that a small innocuous robot can unite the city in a common mission. Check it out at http://www.tweenbots.com/

Check out also the MOMA Talk to Me exhibition page and WIRED magazine's piece on the project.

Project 2  [part of a previous post]:

Candy Chang is an amazing architect/artist/urban designer who does these beautiful urban placemaking projects using very low tech devices and techniques. Check out some of her really amazing projects on http://candychang.com/.

Here is a glimpse of what you will see:

(download)

Click here to download:

candy-chang-s-awe-inspiring-urban-placemaking-projects-qvlCmbIdophGqapJsCnz.zip (2.65 MB)

I am on the Chicago Loop Alliance committee for Placemaking. The committee brings together several interesting people in Chicago to discuss how the CLA can explore placemaking in its Special Service Area (the Loop district). As part of this committee I have been doing some research on placemaking projects. I am crossposting some of these projects that I found that interesting: 

Project 1:

WTTW's Geoffrey Baer, also a CAF docent created this wonderful app for WTTW. It shows some of the architectural important aspect of the Loop. Check out the application on http://interactive.wttw.com/loop/.