Yellow Arrow Rules

You are walking, say, in drizzly Boston or bustling New York or uptight Zurick, and there, amongst the graffiti and indie band flyers, is a bright yellow arrow sticker. It has a declarative word in faux-scrawl-font: "COUNTS."



At the stalk of this arrow is a cryptic number: "wdam3"



You clutch at the mobile phone velcroed to hip, shoulder or bag to send a text message via thumb and truncated keypad to the YellowArrow hotline (1.646.270.5537), inquiring: "What counts?"



The SMS message begins with a "?" followed by the arrow's unique code, so goes SMS "?wdam3".



The point of the YellowArrow will be sent immediately to your phone. In this case: "The US trade deficit is up 19% from last year, with a $50 billion monthly deficit. This 1918 port storehouse is now home to the Boston Design Center. ~ posted by newurban"



At www.yellowarrow.org, the project, launched in Septemebr 2004, seems to be spreading as hoped, continent to continent:

Since the full launch last month, the interest in the YellowArrow project has been phenomenal! From Uruguay to Australia, from Israel to Latvia, and from nearly every Western European country, people have been requesting arrows and asking to become involved. Arrows have reached almost every state in the US, and pictures and maps have shown up in the web gallery from big cities-- NYC, Philly, Chicago, San Francisco, ATL, Boston, and LA-- and smaller towns like Chapel Hill, NC, Boulder, CO, Coalmont, TN, and Bald Mountain, CA.



The YellowArrow is on it's way to becoming an open global symbol and is growing a crazy and remarkable community--not just on the web, but authentically connected to places and with messages left to be discovered in the real world. We wish we could show you the list of people that have contacted us, just to give you an idea of the broad spectrum of brilliant people interested, all of whom seem to have their own cool projects going on--architects, musicians, school teachers, graffiti artists, dot com-ers, designers, retired media execs, and hardcore bikers. This project is in good hands.

I learned of this wondeful experiment from Christopher Allen, Director of Creative Development at The Ride New York.

Biomimetrics Mania

Steve Austin. A man barely alive. We can rebuild him. The world's first bionic man. And in 1977, he cost four-times the price tag of today's Bradley fighting vehicle. But, what if the roles were reversed? What if, instead of using mechanical parts to rebuild a man, we used biological intelligence to enable machines and materials to rebuild themselves? Or, more intriguing, enable them to learn how to survive in their changing environment.



A recent Wired magazine post, Ideas Stolen from Nature, addresses such innovations in the realm of biomemtrics (aka biomimicry).



Whether we're looking at the oft-sited example of Swiss engineer George de Mestral invention of Velcro by way of picking burrs of his dog, or the 2005 World Expo's exploration of Nature's Wisdom, the scientific trend of comparing nature to mechanics is being rapidly reversed. We now think of the mechanical in terms of the biological.





Our ability to think and design "biomemetrically" is driven by several factors:

the yearly geometric increase in processing power described by Moore's Law,

the rapid expansion of netcentric theories and operational practices,

our new found nanotechnologies allowing assembly of parts on the molecular, and in some cases, the atomic level.

What this means, according to a group funded by the Austrailian Resource Council, is that the creation of distributed sensor networks would use intelligent biomemetric structures, based on nanotechnology. These structures, based on the biology of sea shells, for example, would...

"in ideal circumstances, integrate all of these characteristics to design and assemble itself at a nano-scale level. Self assembling nano-layers of molecules are an example such technology. A structure might use this ability to compensate for deformations due to external pressures by rebuilding certain areas to maintain overall structural integrity."

This means that such sensors or machines could be strewn across remote areas with extreme conditions (sub-zero tempatures, raging wildfires, etc.) and survive over time by healing their own wounds.



Of course, a new scientific field doesn't reach a state of legitimacy until it has its own center named for it.



The Centre for Biomemtrics in England is dedicated to the theory and application of biomimetrics to social and industrial challenges.



Another application of the field involvesBiomemtrics Pharmaceuticals. Beyond genetic engineering and patient-specific drugs, self-healing may be the secret to immortality. Biomemtrics and Tissue Engineering takes lessons from lizards and starfish who can regenerate a lost appendages and tries to embed this intelligence in our own bodies.



This may soon mean a totally radical rethinking of the field of medicine and��thank God��the field of dentistry.



Biomemtric pharmaceutical applications project not only rebuilding the body through Bone Morphogenetic Proteins (BMPs), but promise Biomimetic Root Canals and Artificial Salivary Glands.



As a man whose grandfather has already suffered through two total knee replacements, I hope to avoid the bone saw and instead enjoy biomemtric Cartilage and Joint regeneration. Of course, a vast amount of this ability depends upon our access to and use of The Ultimate Stem Cell.

More

Photo by Asa Mathat



Janine Benyus is a life sciences writer and author of six books, including her latest -- Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. In Biomimicry, she names an emerging science that seeks sustainable solutions by mimicking nature's designs and processes (e.g., solar cells that mimic leaves, agriculture that looks like a prairie, business that runs like a redwood forest).



The Official Biomimicry Site www.biomimicry.orghas a thorough description of the field in an interview with Janine Benyus.



Benefits of biomemetrics described by SensorNetworks.com:

Efficient resource utilization through the observation the ability of biological systems to produce superior materials and systems.

Miniaturization of materials and systems in order to unveil a host of new applications previously limited by the availability of adequately sized equivalents.

Integration of multiple technologies to operate in a cohesive and optimal manner.

Smart structures with the ability to autonomously adapt to environmental conditions and display learning capabilities.

"Smart by Nature"

an essay from: Lightness; the inevitable renaissance of minimum energy structures. A Beukers & E v Hinte

The concept of Smart or Intelligent materials (and systems and structures) has been around for a number of years. A "smart" material (or system or structure - the one word takes all) interacts with its environment, responding to changes in various ways. A simple example is photochromic glass, darkening on exposure to light. In order to be responsive to its environment a material must have structure (for example, the molecular mechanism underlying photochromic glass) and in most instances is a system since it needs a receptor or range of receptors, a central processor which can differentiate between the inputs and integrate them into a single output, and an effector.

From Worldchanging.org

Karolides is working on a prototype of a Biomimicry Database, funded by John Abele's Argosy Foundation. She envisions it ultimately as a "growing, open source, peer reviewed" resource that would link biomimicry concepts to known problems in architecture and building design, along with ready information on who in the public or private sectors is already working on a product or application. It would be a clearinghouse for new scientific discoveries, available for multiple industries to use, promoting more biomimetic successes by making research easily available across disciplines.

Infographic Greatness

Remember getting the new National Geographic and the thrill you got in pulling out the huge, color foldout map? That is the feel I get from looking at the six maps dealing with an array of major current world issues, from the serious to the seriously frivolous: international smoking trends, the weapons trade, transportation, water wars, and the hegemony of corporate coffee and the big American burger. See maps.



They were developed for the International Networks Archive by Jonathan Harris of Number 27.



They also have a link to the fantastically useful Threat-o-meter.



Thanks to Worldchanging.org for the link.



Also, check out the reflective mirror of our media: 10 x 10. How it works:

Every hour, 10x10 scans the RSS feeds of several leading international news sources, and performs an elaborate process of weighted linguistic analysis on the text contained in their top news stories. After this process, conclusions are automatically drawn about the hour's most important words. The top 100 words are chosen, along with 100 corresponding images, culled from the source news stories. At the end of each day, month, and year, 10x10 looks back through its archives to conclude the top 100 words for the given time period. In this way, a constantly evolving record of our world is formed, based on prominent world events, without any human input.

It even caught the attention of Fast Company.

The Client Gods Must Be Crazy

For all of you who deal with clients or contractors, here is a brief synopsis of a conversation an art director friend of mine had with a typical client of his.

CLIENT: Can I get three completely different things to be exactly the same size?

ART DIRECTOR:No.

CLT: Can I get three completely different things to be the same width and the same height?

ART: No.

CLT: Can I get three completely different things to be the same height and the same width?

ART: No.

CLT: Okay then, can I get the final measurements of a logo before it is created?

ART: No.

CLT: Can you create a rough logo and give me the dimensions of the final logo?

ART: No.

CLT: Okay then, can we go ahead and get that by tomorrow?

ART: No.

CLT: Okay then, I'll expect to see all of that by tomorrow then.

ART: No. We said Monday.

CLT: Alright, tomorrow it is. Thanks for your hard work.

So, why is it so hard to communicate across the contractual divide?



One thing that we tend to forget is that design (illustration, architecture, information, strategy, etc.) is really about telling stories.



Unfortunately, as designers and business people, we need to be virtual polyglots. We need to speak the language of philosophy, psychology, finance, culture, strategy, logistics, tactics and to-do lists. This requires looking at the problem (or annoying request) from various vantage points.



Realistically, most of us get stuck in our own language. And thus, we take the stance that the other party is a complete and utter moron. This is why most new account managers talk to designers like an American tourist talk to a street vendor in a foreign land: slowly, loudly and with an air of condescension and restrained frustration.



Hey! But, designers handle things no better! When they hear the click-clack of a pair of zip-up-the-back supple calfskin stiletto-heeled, Stuart Weitzman ankle booties coming down the hall. They tend to wince, brace themselves, and hiss to there nearest comrade in a conspiratorial tone, "Look out. Here it comes."



The designer's body language speaks of intolerable pain, as if the squealing metal-on-metal sound of a freight train were playing directly from their iPod, which it may, especially if they are fond of the Scandinavian death metal genre of music.



The account manager, already inoculated against such not-so-subtle biofeedback, prosecutes their campaign using the well-known psy-ops technique of State Departments the world over: vocal volume and sunny optimism.



"Hey gang! How's it going?! Listen, I was wondering, would it be too much to ask if [fill in impossibly annoying request here]? Whelp. I know you're very busy, but see what you can do!"



Terry Marks describes this need to understand our roles as storytellers in an article at www.howdesign.com titled Design As Storytelling.



Marks sums up the strategy as:

Know where you're going.

Every element needs to be clear.

Use color to give meaning, not to be pleasing.

Distill.

Contrast.

Scott Benish discusses The International Herald Tribune Web Site by emphasizing that all of us��crusty editors, funky designers, pragmatic accountants, beleaguered HR types��are all ultimately shooting for the same thing: making it work.

"From the start, we think about how end-users are going to interact with a piece and construct projects for them. It�s a given in every project. But the part that is truly exciting is the design: graphic design, motion design, audio design. Creating a beautiful and awe-inspiring experience is what really keeps us going."

If you are interested in turning theory to practice, AIGA and Harvard Business School are offering a workshop in Business Perspectives for Design Leaders July 24-29, 2005 in bookish yet beautiful, Cambridge, Mass.

Polish Partisan Perspective

As the world tries to figure out this land of ours, and as the dollar falls in the shadow of our multi-variant deficits, I had a brief video conference with a fellow designer in Poland.





His studio is in a small apple orchid behind his house. A streambed sits 10 feet from his door and idyllic fields stretch for miles in a scene from a Bruegel painting.



It took his family a decade of waiting lists and bribes to get a phone. But today, we can have video conferences via DSL wireless broadband. He saw my daughter for the first time and waved at her.



I asked him the Polish reaction to the election. He said he expected it. He said Americans are no different from most people; they are afraid of change and when people are afraid they will always go with the leader they know, the one who seems strong.



This is the perspective from a land that lies between Germany and Russia. This country was split like a wishbone in 1939 by Hitler on one side and Stalin on the other. This European country didn't exist on the map of Europe from 1773 until Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points were imposed after World War I. (The best first-hand account of this WW II partition is Nobel Prize winning poet Czeslaw Milosz and his memoir The Captive Mind).



My friend's grandfather, a pharmacist in the village of Sulkowice, was taken by the Nazis after the invasion, and shot for being, well, a pharmacist.



Poles, who live a nation criss-crossed with memorials to massacres, mass graves and concentration camps, probably have more in common with Iraqis than the average American. Two shared traits: Poles and Iraqis inhabit flat plains between vast empires, and they remember every invading army that crossed their borders. Those memories fuel each nation's reputation for resistance.



It must be the ultimate irony that Polish soldiers are now part of the Coalition of the Willing occupying someone else's country.

Mind-Bending Mappage

The most bizarre and intriguing aspect of election night was the collective instinct of the networks to drive with a foot on the the brake and the other on the gas. All the while winking whenever news came through that a decisive count was in from any state.



"Of course, we'll call it for Kerry or the President once all the provisional ballots are counted."



The panoply of data-driven maps were a lesson in color-coded torture. The example that resonates the most is a map of the voting technology used per district.



Besides the terrifyingly inaccurate voting systems in play (SAT-flashback optical scan, Homer Simpson write-in ballots, chad-addled punch cards), the actual color-coding system of the map itself (canary yellow, pale yellow, tan, cyan, chartruse) must have been the reject system from early 2002 Terror Alert System design days. Edward Tufte must be rolling in agony in his Eames chair.



Go to www.verifiedvoting.org to see the voting technology used in your district or in others. And push for reform!!



To balance this, NPR had a fantastic interactive map I watched all night as real-time data interfaced with the javascript rollover popup stats from the states. See NPR election map



For a fly-over view of Texas districts, check out this Quicktime movie.



Check out this beautifully gradiated version of our country by Robert J. Vanderbei departs from the bi-polar Blue vs. Red mindset to a more realistic depiction of the sliding scale in hues of purple.

See map.



Listen to an interview from Public Radio's Studio 360 [ www.studio360.org ], in which Kurt Andersen and graphic designer Paula Scher of the international design firm Pentagram, who designed Jon Stewart's best-seller America The Book, explore the grey areas, or at least the purple areas.



Scher notes the transition in ownership of the color red from the 1950's (Red = Commie) to the 1980's (Red = Respectible):

Well, I think the states have truly been branded. They've been branded by color. And I think it happened accidentally, but I actually trace it back to the 80s, when Nancy Reagan always wore red. And it was actually called "Reagan red." And I think that it was a perfect symbol for Ronald Reagan's sort of Republicanism, because, you know, it sort of affected power, being militaristic, and was something probably the Republican party could hang its hat behind.

See text version of full interview with Paula Scher.

Whodunnit Pundit

As has become customary in this political season, the fake news pundits have assessed the situation far more effectively than the blue background, hi-tech talking heads of network news. (Although I was impressed by Tim Russert's use of a digital tablet and stylus to tally electoral votes!)



The Onion, of course, exhibits more editorial prowess in this article on a fictitous group of international voting observers, than the entire Wall Street Journal did on the electoral process.

"Despite the specter of corruption in 2000, and even though the procedural problems which surfaced during the previous election were never remedied, the American people chose to put their faith in the system once again this year," said Joseph Mtume, a Kenyan diplomat who traveled to Ohio to view America's democratic proceedings. "You can't help but feel touched by the determination of these citizens who put their doubts aside to collectively participate in the democratic process. All this in a nation divided by war, where dissent is widespread and the rift between citizens has rarely been higher. It was truly stirring."

Compare this [once agian fictitous] account with an account of the intimidation and suspicion directed at a real group of visiting international observers described in the article by Thomas Crampton of the International Herald Tribune titled Global Monitors Find Faults.



Ethan Zuckerman records African reactions to this election and the processes behind it.

Voting Antiquity & Partisan Posters

Astoundingexperience, this voting thing.



I don't know if I was more affected by the antiquity of the machinery or of the ladies in charge of the polling place.



One election official was actually on an oxygen tank. When asked how she was doing this fine Election Day, the Majority Official complained of hip pain, a cold and blurred vision. I believed her! When I presented her with a letter from the County Election Board verifying my right to vote, she temporarily lost it in the shuffle of papers on the cluttered foldout table.



To her tired eyes, she pulled up a direct mail postcard advertising the merits of Verizon DSL service, and inquired: "Now, is this yours?"



I was flummoxed by the voting machines with their long rows of switches, hospital gown curtains and sceptic florescent light. Fortunately, there was a robust cast iron display, circa 1962, illustrating the proper voting method.

After the polling places closed, I snuck down to the corner of Federal and North Ave. and plucked some stellar polital ephemera off the abandoned buildings adjacent to the notorious Garden Theater (advertised on the marquee as "All-Day Continuous XXX Adult Videos").



The posters I rescued were produced by The Partisan Project, and are beautifully simple cyan and dusty rose prints, in the best tradition of Cuban, Polish and 60's posters.

We, Who Used to Rock, Salute You

You know you have crossed an invisible border in your life, when the decade in which you had the most fun suddenly becomes an entire genre of music. For me, seeing that "the Best of the 90's" is now a 24/7 feed on XM Radio along with the Trucker Station makes my joints ache (Vioxx where have you gone?!).



Ten years ago this year, I was living in Krakow, Poland having a grand time doing all the unhealthy things we grow nostalgic for as time goes by and arteries harden��smoking, drinking, moping, looking for love.



Somehow, with appallingly low language skills in Polish, I stumbled into a job as a DJ on RMF-FM, broadcasting live from Kopiec Kosciuszko (translated as "Kosciuszko's Mound").

Pop!BlogEight

When one looked out at the hundreds of designers, technogeeks and super-scientists gathered at this year's mind-blowing Pop!Tech event, the faces of bloggers were lit like phospherescent specters.



One of the uberbloggers present was David Weinberger, aka Joho the Blog.



Weinberger's documentation of the presentations were a great balance between straight-up word-for-word court room reporting to salient and pithy commentary.



In his blog, he used a brilliant term to describe my drawings from PopTech: "infotoons".

A quick Google search for the term, leads to the Agricultural Research Council. Their site displays one of the most inspiring (and quirky) set of information graphics geared at teaching subsitance farmers in emerging markets how to run a farm, including my personal favorite:"Why Keep Goats?"

Among the 30 speakers at Pop!Tech, several addressed massive global problems with concrete data and trends:

...Barnett on shifting geopolitics

...Chamie on UN's view of shifting demographics,

...Longman on declining birth rates,

...Alley on climate change; and Fagan on human migration.



Others presented concrete examples of socio-techno pioneers dealing with the problems head-on:

...Bornstein on social enterprise,

...Steffan on worldchangers,

...Hawley on telling Bhutan's (big) story.

...Zuckerman on geeks in Africa.



Other Big Themes:

• Human Nature



• The Global Creative



• Big Weather



• The New Naturalism



• Connected Politics



• Emerging Worldviews



• Happiness



• New Explorers



• Less-is-More-is-Less



• New Solutions



• Renaissance Prospects