I believe that one of the most significant developments in systems thinking is the recognition that human beings can never see or experience a system, yet we know that our lives are so strongly influenced by systems and environments of our own making and by those that nature provides … We can never see or [...]

Sottsass – Rams
Ettore Sottsass (operational method, reflexive principle): Italian designer who was part of the Memphis Design Movement in the early 80’s. All about the perspective of the designer and people in their circumstances. In this view, products won’t sell w/o an emotional component. He was concerned with tribalism and factions in an audience.
Dieter Rams [...]

“Emotion is the state or capability of having a feeling aroused to the point of awareness.” ~D. Buchanan
Much of design today is about the rational and logical aspect of the artificial world – not so much discussion on the emotional aspect (more blogging on this topic to come).
I’ve noticed a lot of concept maps start [...]

There are many different ways to consider the difference between environment and surrounding. Dick emphasizing this in his lectures, especially when discussing the third mode of design (person-environment).
He tells a story of when he was young. How he had this telescope and would look at the stars at night. He was fascinated by the constellations. [...]

I have been having sporadic email conversations with Elliott lately and we’ve been talking about some interesting things. Particularly, he has some interesting things to say about thought and action. This topic has been of interest to me and I have blogged about it before under a different title of Theory & Practice.
Elliott writes,
… I [...]

Read in the Washington Post today how Iron Man (opens in theaters tonight) is accompanied by an infrastructure of products. Jen Chaney of the Washington Post writes,
Seriously, forget those stimulus checks: Through the power of subliminal suggestion, “Iron Man” could very well fire up the economy again, forcing consumers to buy cars and computers they [...]

Learnings from Interpretive Management: What General Managers Can Learn From Design by Richard K. Lester, Michael J. Piore, and Kamal M. Male, from Harvard Business Review, March-April 1998:
TWO APPROACHES TO MANAGEMENT

Analytical

managing design
engineering challenge: a problem that must be solved
goal is to arrive at a fixed and final shape
like an engineer
customer [...]

I’ve been reading a bit more Antonio Gramsci (Marxist Theorist) and John Dewey’s Art as Experience. Although the two have two very different notions of reality, they seem to have the same macro-problem.
PROBLEM: Separation of Thought and Action.
FOR GRAMSCI:
Thought is the theory of contradictions in a society and action is the people’s actual consciousness. Because [...]

Please forgive the title of this entry. I want to express my thoughts about completely different matters.
First, I want to talk about Philadelphia. I was there yesterday for an interview and forgot what it was like. I was there for about 5 years of my life going to school. It’s a great city.
I had heard [...]

I took a break two days ago from my work to watch one of the DVD’s in the house. The cover wasn’t interesting but it was the only DVD I had not seen in our collection. I guess the wife or one of my sisters bought it a while back as one of those buy-4-for-$20 [...]