Design and the Elastic Mind

Photovoltaic cells grown like ivy, electricity cultivated from your corpse, computer-aided oragami, a pheronome dating agency apparatus,... these are some of the beautiful and bizarre designer objects on display at MOMA.

In the words of the senior curator, Paola Antonelli: "Designers they know that their role is to enable revolution. They are constructive by definition."

clipped from www.coolhunting.com To document MoMA's wonderful, monumental exhibit spanning design, science and technology, "Design and the Elastic Mind," we enlisted the help of the show's esteemed curator, Paola Antonelli. Paola speaks in detail about several of the exhibits, including "The Afterlife," a system for turning corpses into batteries, robots that act as personal climatizers and DNA origami. She also weighs in on her curatorial approach, addressing the role of the designer, her mission to shift public perception of design and how design revolutionizes our lives. As always, but especially in this case, we hope CH inspires you to experience this show firsthand. It's up through May 2008, see details below. If you absolutely can't make it in person, the website, designed by the renowned Yugo Nakamura, is full of information organized into an extremely pleasing UI and the book (available online from the MoMA store) is a must-have resource for designers, educators and the curious.

Quieting the Demons and Giving Art a Voice

Two new books highlight the writing of authors with mental illness.

clipped from www.nytimes.com In Madness: A Bipolar Life, Marya Hornbacher brings to the discussion more than the usual pairing of disturbed brain and talented mind. Her talent has created a third self, an appealing, rueful narrator (read excerpt) who can look back on three decades of manic-depressive illness, much of it untreated, and spin a story that is almost impossible to put down. In the same way that the psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison experienced, recorded and then analyzed her own case in the 1995 classic “An Unquiet Mind,” Ms. Hornbacher provides the perfect trifecta of perspectives. More reflections on the same subject can be found in Poets on Prozac: Mental Illness, Treatment, and the Creative Process. This collection of essays solicited from published poets with psychiatric illness. Most of the 16 contributors are decades older than Ms. Hornbacher, but while they may lack her vivid prose style, they do supply a long-term perspective on the terrain. With problems ranging from mild unmedicated depression to schizophrenia treated with an unorthodox megavitamin technique, these writers also focus on trapping the words — and all agree that the sick brain often spells catastrophe for the creative mind. While mental illness may form a part of the creative cycle, if untreated its own cycles invariably take over. “Depression steals the voice,” writes Liza Porter. “Silence breeds depression. Depression breeds silence.”

Once Again, Moustache Madness sweeps Germany

What makes this video from Reuters even more unnerving is the absolute stoic seriousness of the participants in this contest.

(I also enjoy the information graphic consulted by the judges. Sort of like a menu of mustaches!)

clipped from www.reuters.com German beard and moustache championship draws more than 100 men from various countries to compete for most extravagant look. Organized by the Eastern Bavarian Beard and Moustache Club, the event drew competitors from many countries including Britain, Germany and Switzerland.

From Idea Sandbox: The Prioritizer

Prioritizer is the way to prioritize three or more items! Get yourself in order. If you like Prioritizer, you may also enjoy using Big Dig problem solving tool, also from Idea Sandbox.

I have wasted so many man hours (or monkeyman hours!) researching GTD and Zen Habits and Flylady techniques. In the end. All I need to know is what to do next, based on what is most important.

The pulsing brain behind Idea Sandbox, Paul Williams, has provided another simple on-line tool that helps get me set to tackle my to-do list... in order of priority!

(Believe me, that is a huge change!)

The Point: Web 2.0 tool for creating your own change

The Point brings together problems, people, and the pressure of collective action. The site allows users to create campaigns and encourage other people to join anonymously.

Using the principles of Gladwell's Tipping Point, once the number of members reaches a certain critical mass (10, 50, 2000) and action is triggered: a sale, a press release, a protest.

Campaigns are tools for people to organize a group action that occurs only when enough people join to make participation worthwhile. Campaigns can be used for any situation where people want safety in numbers, from planning a party to boycotting a corporation to saving chickens.

Check out the simple, clever animations used to demonstrate the types of people, the problems they want to tackle, and the resulting campaigns--that can use The Point to catalyze change.

clipped from www.thepoint.com

Make Something Happen.

The Point is a platform for group action, helping you make things happen that you couldn't accomplish alone.

View an Animated Introduction. See some different ways you can use The Point:

• The Frustrated Consumer
• The Unappreciated Employee
• The Loving Parent
• The Concerned Citizen
• The Smart Shopper

Example Campaign: Scrabulous Don't Go!

Hasbro, Inc. must continue to allow us to play Scrabulous for free or else we will stop buying Hasbro products if 500,000 people join Learn more.

Pain as an Art Form

The tortured artist is as predictable a stereotype as the jolly fat man. All art is a form of communication, and most works substitute one sense (sight, sound, taste) for another.

The Pain Exhibit covers just about the entire landscape of life and, consequently, of pain: fear, love, torture, loss of faith, acceptance, hope and transformation.

Some of the images from the exhibit depict the physical side of pain; others convey the emotional challenges of chronic pain.

clipped from well.blogs.nytimes.com Selections from the Pain Exhibit. To see a slide show, click here. Pain doesn’t show up on a body scan and can’t be measured in a test. As a result, many chronic pain sufferers turn to art, opting to paint, draw or sculpt images in an effort to depict their pain. One of the most famous pain artists is Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, whose work, now on exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is imbued with the lifelong suffering she experienced after being impaled during a trolley accident as a teenager. Her injuries left her spine and pelvis shattered, resulting in multiple operations and miscarriages, and she often depicted her suffering on canvas in stark, disturbing and even bloody images. The Broken Column, by Frida Kahlo (Banco de México Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museums Trust) “People don’t believe what they can’t see,'’ Mr. Collen said. “But they see a piece of art an individual created about their pain and everything changes.'’

Your Boss Is a Monkey

"Managing up" using the tricks of exotic-animal training
By: Dan Heath and Chip Heath

This Fast Company article was inspired by a woman who studied animal trainers who could teach whales not to spit, dolphins to jump through hoops, and monkeys to ride skateboards. She asked herself: "What if I used those techniques on my husband?!"

The Heath brothers, authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die apply this approach to another irritable mammal: your boss.

Their suggestion: "Maybe you should start treating him or her like an exotic animal."

clipped from www.fastcompany.com Exotic-animal trainers need a great poker face. Let's say you're a trainer, and one day, a beluga whale spits a mouthful of cold water at you. Your first instinct will be to shriek or jump or curse, but any reaction will probably reinforce the spitting. If you react, that whale will own you, and you'll be a Spit Bull's-eye for the rest of your life. Instead, you must ignore it and appear unfazed, expressionless -- a training technique called "least-reinforcing scenario," or LRS. Animal trainers have a saying: It's never the animal's fault. That means you can't blame an animal for something the trainer has failed to do. Similarly, you can't fault your boss's bad behavior when you've failed to use some of the primary principles of training. Rule one, as we've seen with the yeller, is to ignore bad behavior. If you've ever grudgingly tossed your dog a french fry after 15 minutes of begging, you've taught the dog a lesson -- persistence pays. So what are you inadvertently teaching your boss?

Fiefdoms & Freakonomics

IMAGE SOURCE: Lopburi province, Thailand: The Monkey Buffet, TIME.com

Hosted by Carlos Gasca Yanez on the Social Edge, this on-line discussion addresses what is the oldest, most intractable problem facing any group of people trying to do anything: fragmentation and individual control of territory.

You see it in religion, politics, families, companies, offices, on the university campus, on teams. Shakespeare's whole career was based on describing the betrayal and dysfunctional loyalties of nations and kin.

From an excerpt of The Fiefdom Syndrome: The Turf Battles That Undermine Careers and Companies - And How to Overcome Them by Robert J. Herboldat:

The problem begins when individuals, groups, or divisions--out of fear--seek to make themselves vital to their organizations and unconsciously or sometimes deliberately try to protect their turf or reshape their environment to gain as much control as possible over what goes on.

It is a natural human tendency, probably dating back to the origin of our species. But if this human tendency isn't managed properly, the damage caused by these "fiefdoms" can begin to undermine an organization. Left untouched, fiefdoms can toll the death knell of what should have been a strong and vital organization...

In in European medieval times, under the system of feudalism, a fiefdom often consisted of inheritable lands or revenue-producing property granted by a liege lord, in return for a form of allegiance. However anything of value could be held in fief, such as an office, a right of exploitation (e.g., hunting, fishing) or any other type of revenue, rather than the land it comes from. source: Wikipedia

The SocialEdge conversation gets at the importance of understanding--and working with--the realities of fiefdoms and social change, particularly in overcoming this destructive behavior for social good.

clipped from www.socialedge.org Over the past twenty years, I have made an effort to learn how communities go about solving their problems and creating solutions. During that time I have volunteered for or was an employee in five community wide plans and two community coalitions. Perhaps the biggest obstacles to their success were fiefdoms. In this context fiefdoms may be of affinity (beliefs & values) or consist of social networks. Or they may be economic. Social entrepreneurs must learn to identify fiefdoms and how to work with them, as this can be critical to their success. In his book The Fiefdom Syndrome (The Turf Battles That Undermine Careers and Companies - And How to Overcome Them), Robert J. Herbold, former Microsoft Chief of Operations, describes how self-interest undermines careers and companies. He identifies the types of fiefdoms as: Individual Peer or network Corporate divisions Top-tier Group fiefdom and the protected fiefdom.

Better Mental Health, Down on the Farm

Since moving to a little farmhouse in middle Tennessee, my mental health has improved tremendously. I find it difficult to feel anxious or depressed when outside or working with animals (be they bovine, equine or human!).

clipped from well.blogs.nytimes.com Caring for farm animals appears to offer a therapeutic benefit for people with mental illness, according to new research. Earlier studies with cats and dogs have shown that animal-human interaction can decrease stress and improve self-confidence and social competence. But less is known about whether working with other types of animals offers any benefits to those struggling with anxiety or other psychiatric disorders. Even so, the use of farms to promote mental health is increasing in Europe and the United States, as various treatment programs offer so-called “green” care, which includes time in community gardens and on farms as a form of therapy. To determine whether time working with farm animals makes a meaningful difference in mental health, Norwegian researchers studied how life on the farm might affect patients with problems like anxiety, depression, schizophrenia and personality disorders. Reporting in the journal Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health, they recruited 90 patients, including 59 women and 31 men, with psychiatric ailments. The vast majority were being treated with antidepressants, antipsychotic drugs, mood stabilizers and other medications.

Food for Oil

IMAGE: Veolia water explains the challenges of biofuel production and water resources.

Consultants like to tell their audience, "In Chinese, the character for crisis is the same as opportunity."

In the English dictionary, however, crisis is defined as "a point in a story or drama when a conflict reaches its highest tension and must be resolved."

While the Developed World frets over the current multi-nodal RealEstateSubPrimeFinancialMarketTradeDeficit crisis--which continues to suck the value out of most of America's larger financial assets--the rest of the developing world is again struggling to afford the basics, namely, food.

In this case, the Cyrilla [oil supply] and Charybdis [demand for crops] have the same source: the global race for energy.

Time's recent article, titled The Clean Energy Scam, desn't throw a monkey wrench into the machine behind biofuels as much as it points a finger at the rising world food costs and slash-n-burn behavior it has inspired in the Amazon.

A rebuttal from 25x25, a non-profit supported financially by the Energy Future Coalition, laments, "Unfortunately, the story's message of concern is undermined by misinformation about biofuels and an over-simplified analysis of complex systems."

The main law of complex systems remains: Small changes can have large, unpredictable effects.

clipped from www.reuters.com Food riots which have struck several impoverished countries could spread with shortages and high prices set to continue for some time, the head of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said. A combination of high oil and fuel prices, rising demand for food in a wealthier Asia, the use of farmland and crops for biofuels, bad weather and speculation on futures markets have pushed up food prices, prompting violent protests in a handful of poor states. Jacques Diouf, director general of the Rome-based FAO, said on Wednesday during a trip to India that there was a growing risk of social instability in countries where families spent more than half their income on food. "This is due to higher demand from countries like India, China, where GDP grows at 8-10 percent and the increase in income is going to food," Diouf said after meeting India's farm minister, Sharad Pawar.