INTERACTION DESIGN

This week will be about wrapping up teachings in aspects of interaction design: what are the key elements, what are the germ cell components from which this activity, this profession, this discipline involves, what can NOT be taken away in case we are talking about Interaction Design? Two conference papers about interaction design of feedback on electricity consumption to private households written together with Anne Marie Kanstrup are due: one for the EEDAL 2009 in Berlin 'Energy efficiency in domestic appliances and lightening' conference http://www.eedal.eu/ , and one for the JAOCC conference in Aalborg 'Joint action for climate change http://www.jaocc.net/ - both are about outcomes of the FEEDACK project http://feedback.noe.dk/ user driven innovation research. Also this research is about interaction design, and brings a lot to bear on key interaction design questions.

INNOVATION LITERACY

This week's primary task is to explain to a number of different audiences the added value of teaching innovation - this is an old hobby horse of mine - that for democracy in innovation to be real, it has to be taught in primary school - and on Thursday schoolchildren will actually visit Alsion to hear - among other things - why I became a researcher of innovation. We can all improve the technology we surround us with - humans have done that always, sometimes to the benefit of the few, sometimes to the benefit of the many - in all cases imperfection is the home of invention, and innovation is the destination. It all begins with being able to tell the difference between perfect and imperfect, between good and bad, between right and wrong - that is innovation literacy, and there is no conclusion, just a constant negotiation of criteria, conditions and conceptualizations - that is the democratic part, not the technology per se.

HORIZONS ...

In the 'Horizon Report 2009' http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2009/chapters/trends/ we can read that because companies like Apple has opened for third party development to their mobile technology 'educational content grow at a fantastic pace' and further that 'Collective intelligence may give rise to multiple answers, all equally correct, to problems. The notions of collective intelligence and mass amateurization are redefining scholarship as we grapple with issues of top-down control and grassroots scholarship. Today’s learners want to be active participants in the learning process – not mere listeners; they have a need to control their environments, and they are used to easy access to the staggering amount of content and knowledge available at their fingertips'

In chapter 7 of 'Angles fear' Gregory Bateson claims that rule-following in acts of knowing mainly serves the purpose of protect the fragile boundaries and make people able to tell the difference - between the sacred and the profane, the aethetic and the coveted, the intentional and the unconscious, and between thinking and feeling. These boundaries, the tacit rules, are continually under pressure, Bateson claims, and gives examples of what he sees as violatio.

To me, claiming that finding content on a webpage by a mobile device and discussing it with friends in a coffeeshop should give rise to 'collective intelligence' is a violation of the notion of knowledge. I want, once again, to return the wisdom of the Little Prins in Saint Exupery's novel: 'It is the time you waste on your rose that makes it so precious'. There is no way a round it: the high road to knowledge is hard work: blood, sweat and tears - it is experience that counts: always mobile, seldom intelligent, travelling from the collective realm to the personal ditto, and then back for verification.

Paul Ricoeuer said it so clearly in 'Time and Narrative': SPACE OF EXPERIENCE, HORIZON OF EXPECTATION or think of the WABI SABI aesthetics - thanks Jo, for the link http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00j8bkc

CATCHING UP

This week - easter week - will be about catching up: with family, friends, work, sport, and culture, so is my plan, which is actually not a plan. Today commenting on thesis-work has priority together with a visit in the Berlin TV tower. The rest must follow as sun shines and trees come out.