On February 19th, students from the Otis College of Art and Design visited our Los Angeles studio. The students are part of a multi-disciplinary class called “Design for Social Impact.” In the class, the students work with local non-profits to focus their designs on specific and relevant needs.

With this in mind, we tailored our presentations to give the students a feel for Continuum’s social innovation process. The morning started out with a tour of the space and its project-specific installations, led by the studio principal Alex Hennen. Then, design strategist Brian Wen led a presentation and discussion on design strategy and ethnography in emerging markets.

Below are some impressions from the students:

“I began to realize all the types of people, methods, and practices that go into social design. It is a complex system.”
Alexandra Cantle

“[I got] a chance to see more ways that design can create social impact. It also was good to see the importance of video interviews and what they can reveal.”
Stephanie Treinen

 ”Being in product design, I’ve come to the realization (or more left the state of denial) that you really need to get out there and talk to people when doing research. Not just sit and google things on a computer.”
Ryan Robinson

“[I got] a better understanding of the effectiveness of systems thinking, the process involved, and the importance of beginning with people’s values, and how to work with and understand people in a ethnographic design context.”
Julian Rood

On March 3^rd, Continuum and CCA hosted a panel discussion on the future of consumerism. The event drew an impressive crowd and great connections were made. 

Our LA team hooked up a dual quad-core CPU Mac tower to enable Professor Tim Kasser to present and participate remotely. Supported by a great deal of analytical data supported by psychologists, Professor Kasser predicted a future focused less on extrinsic values (materialism) and more on intrinsic values (spiritualism). This is important, he explained, because when people focus on extrinsic values, their level of happiness and gratification goes down, and vice versa. To further explain the difference, he compared people who focus on the material against those who focus on the spiritual the day before and after Christmas. 

Nathan Shedroff presented a thought-provoking piece around meaning and how to find it. He said that traditionally, when people say “Less is More,” it generally makes people nervous, as they believe things are being taken away from them. He proposed re-phrasing it as “getting more for less.” With a strong focus on meaning, he also spoke about how any two people can have their own definition of values such as freedom and security, but the expression of those values can be very different. One example of this is that while NRA folks believe possessing firearms is an expression of security, others may think the exact opposite. 

Sean Brennan’s presentation looked at a shift occurring in Gen Y; the first generation that will not be as economically successful as its predecessors. Since they can’t afford more, their aspirations and spending behaviors will be different (and incomparable to previous generations). He looked at how this generation is using the internet as a way to rapidly prototype new identities, form relationships, and use their creativity and experiences as currency (Flickr travel photos, twitter updates). They spend their money on tools and services that allow them to do these things. Sean also echoed Professor Kasser’s points by sharing some of the thinking that’s happening in Continuum’s NEXT community, particularly around how sharing plays an important role for members of this new generation and how technology and services allow this generation to be green and thrifty by default. 

The crowd was very engaged in the panel discussion and raised some very good questions. Since half of the audience was design professionals, the conversation focused around what the implications would be for the future of design. The event lasted well into the evening hours, and everyone walked away with new insights in the future of consumerism.

Does design have a role to play in the face of disaster? That’s the conversation the Cooper-Hewitt sparked through a panel they hosted the other week which I was invited to join. The conversation was moderated by Chris Hacker, CDO of J&J, and included panelists who have been on the frontlines of relief for some of the world’s most horrific disasters, Jean-Cedric Meeus, Emergency Coordinator of UNICEF Supply Division, Gerald Martone, Humanitarian Affairs Director for the International Rescue Committee, and Pierre Fouche, a Haitian earthquake engineer.

The conversation focused primarily on the disaster in Haiti. Frontline reports from Jean and Gerald underscored the extraordinary challenges the humanitarian community faces in delivering aid to a country hobbled by a threadbare infrastructure (including a lack of basic governance) and debilitating poverty. Taking a step back, we looked at a country that has been the recipient of over $4 billion in aid over the past 20 years. Pre-earthquake, there were over 10,000 private aid organizations working in Haiti, providing basic services in every arena of life. Depending on which source you choose to believe, the estimated cost of recovery hovers in the range of $7.2 to $13 billion. The main focus now is pure “rescue:” How to deliver and distribute it. This is the horse before the cart of reconstruction.

And it all reminded me of something I heard the founder of a social enterprise working in Haiti say, post-disaster: “Rescue is important, but doesn’t lead to anything more than rescue.” That’s not to say immediate relief isn’t a must have—but what’s the role design can play in the long-term recovery (and we’re talking decades) facing the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere? That’s the big question to ask—and some of what we touched on during the panel conversation.

You can view the video of the conversation here.

Last week, Continuum was asked to lead a Design Thinking workshop with over 60 Harvard University students. Professor of Sociology, David Ager, brought us in to share the basics of design thinking with his Social Entrepreneurship students to help them approach their endeavors in a new way.

The students filed in, having been told by Professor Ager that the night’s session would be different. They settled in among a sea of Post-Its and Sharpies—the building blocks of great ideation.

The facilitators for the evening, Anna Muoio and Jon Campbell, kicked off the evening with a simple task—write down the steps that one would go through to pick up a rental car at the airport.  Bulleted lists were scrawled on paper at tables across the room.

 

The students, like most of our workshop attendees, were confident that they covered everything. Over the next few hours of the workshop, the students would come to view the same experience with very different eyes, and would realize that, in fact, there is much more to see.

After hearing about the basics of Design Thinking and Service Design—methodologies, principles, tools and ways of working effectively—the students learned how to use them. Encouraged by their facilitators and supporting cast from Continuum, including strategists, designers and engineers, the students explored the gamut of the rental car experience.

Armed with Post-Its, Sharpies and nimble minds, students used a tool called ‘Journey Mapping’ to examine the total experience and understand each step from the consumer’s point of view, along with accompanying needs, anxieties and emotional connections. This exercise enabled the students to view the entire picture of how the experience flows and the holistic implications of potential changes and improvements.

Students were then charged with defining the ideal rental car experience, and, in the spirit of using new tools along the way, teams were challenged to convey an individual brand attribute through the experience. One team, charged with creating the experience with the brand attribute “edgy,” decided that ideally the rental car experience should be like a fashion show. They designed individual touchpoints along the journey that would help to create an “edgy” rental care experience.

The workshop was lively, and the students were both engaged and interested. After the workshop, one student said he is always asked to learn linearly.  This workshop, however, took the “Atlas globe” off of his back and allowed him to think more freely. The students departed the workshop in love with their favorite new office supply and excited to apply what they had just learned to their work.

It is impossible to keep up with every aspect of car culture. You have to pick your areas of focus; choose the events to follow that interest you most. For me, there are two fascinating occurrences happening simultaneously, but in diametrically opposite directions. One is the birth of an American brand: USF1. The second is the impending death of an iconic automobile brand: Saab.

Let’s take the bad news first. Something happened in 1990 when GM acquired 50% of Saab, and something REALLY happened in 2000 when they bought the other 50%. Some will say that GM sucked the lifeblood out of the brand by trading on decades of consumer loyalty bred from uniquely Saab innovations, like an ignition key on the floor, instead of developing innovations on their own. Saab did, in fact, keep pace and even developed some promising models under the aegis of GM, but moved from the endearing quirkiness of rational Swedish engineering to the more economical rationale of cross-model parts compatibility and shared-source manufacturing.

The problem with GM Saab started in 1993, or rather the 1994 model year when things got ugly. Saabs were, up to this point, an acquired taste aesthetically, but were never confused with any other car on the road. The profile was distinctly “Saab”. 900 fans were let down by the 1994 version, and the brand never really recovered as the car changed over the course of a decade to resemble many cars, all seemingly merging towards the center of the herd where it’s safe. GM took a brand that offered a spectrum of ingenuity and innovation and boiled it down to model lines based on other cars that GM had on hand, and therefore their surplus of cheap parts. Most 900, 9-3 and 9-5 models to follow were based on lesser platforms (Opel’s Vectra, for example) and utilized parts common to the GM family tree. In effect, GM diluted the Saab heritage by marrying cousin to cousin and made it impossible to build upon all that strong Swedish DNA.

Now GM has Saab up on the auction block. A few contenders have raised their bidding paddles, including fellow Swedes Koenigsegg and more recently the Dutch fabricator Spyker, both manufacturers of exotic and ridiculously expensive supercars. For unknown reasons, these negotiations seem to end consistently without a deal and a handshake. At this point, it looks as if Saab will either be retired altogether or bought by an obscure emerging market manufacturer and cannibalized of all of its assets. Glimmers of hope reside only in the silver lining behind cloud number 3: Subaru. If there is any sense in this world, Subaru will buy Saab.

With a few exceptions, GM Saab continued to offer basically the same car for 15 years. In 2005, this was taken to the opposite extreme when GM, in its brief but most inspired moment, created the Saab 92-X by badge engineering a Subaru Impreza WRX (also partially owned by GM at the time) with Saab styling, comfort and handling. This car still ranks near the top of my candidate list as a replacement for my 1990 Saab 900T that I sold 3 years ago. I haven’t had a car since, but that’s another story. The 92-X represented a brief moment of hope for me that great things could come out of the unholy union of an elegant Swede descended from jets and a nimble Japanese rally car pumped full of horsepower. *sigh*

Speaking of horsepower, how about some good news? It’s January. Among gear heads, this is a quiet time of year, with the only outlet being Top Gear episodes on BBC America. If you’re really Jonesing, you crawl over to internet videos of obscure automotive competitions like Race of Champions in China or Ice Rally in Finland. Not this year. So far, 2010 is WAY different. Not only will we get the Winter Olympics and World Cup Soccer, this year will mark the first year in my lifetime that the US will field a Formula 1 team. In a sort of perfect storm scenario, team USF1 has managed to time their launch to take advantage of three unique circumstances: open grid spots; investor faith in emerging teams; and a surplus of talent and technology.

Formula 1 teams are monstrous efforts that draw heavily on a multitude of resources, not the least of which is financial. When you figure that, in the past, heavily-funded team like Honda, Toyota, Minardi, BMW and Jaguar invested millions of dollars season after season only to finish consistently in the lower half against equally-funded teams like Ferrari, Mercedes McLaren & Red Bull, it becomes a difficult sell to convince outside investors to invest in a fledgling team. All five of those teams decided the back half of the grid was not worth the cost and will not be on the grid this year.

Last year, a rookie team, Brawn GP, did not exist (in theory) 30 days before the start of the first race, however, they took top honors in both of the categories for which Formula 1 teams compete: The Constructor’s Championship and the Driver’s Championship. This opened the door for any new team to solicit funding during a time (2009) when funding was extremely hard to come by without forming a partnership with a major auto manufacturer, which is the prevalent route among F1 contenders. Richard Branson came on last year as Brawn GP’s only sponsor. This year, Sir Richard felt confident enough to simply field his own team.

Navigating the political structure of the sport is like trying to explain tax law to a third grader. The governing body of F1, Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) is the official legislative body and creates the rules that govern teams, cars, drivers, testing, management, budgets, etc. During the summer of 2009, they tried, as they often do, to regulate the sport to reflect major overtures in public sentiment and to safeguard the sport. In years past, these regulation changes focused on increasing the sustainability of the sport and controlling the excessive spending on technology and testing. The sport has no lack of detractors that bemoan it as a hideously obscene display of inefficiency, excess and indulgence. Short-lived solutions like “No tire changes during a race” last for about a season until the winds of public opinion change, and then they go away.

This year, under the dark cloud of the global recession, the FIA attempted to place a regulatory cap on team budgets in order to level the playing field between mega-manufacturer-sponsored teams like Mercedes and those that are funded privately like Force India. In the end, the teams argued the point into submission, but not before taking a very careful look at their own operations and how they could slim and trim down to a sleek $35 or $40 million operating budget. With that came realizations that there was indeed fat to be trimmed and so the trimming began, leaving a lot of uniquely-skilled individuals looking for work. Couple that with the withdrawal of 3 or 4 teams (depending on how you count) and the soup lines start to stretch around the block. The same can be said for the racing world in general, stretching through the other open wheel classes, NASCAR, LeMans, etc. This affected not only teams, but also nearly every aspect of the complex network of suppliers, fabricators, manufacturers, and testing facilities. Suddenly bargain deals were everywhere, and USF1 is not the only team taking advantage of this. The grid this year will also see new teams Lotus, Virgin, Campos and Sauber (minus BMW support).

USF1 announced themselves officially as a team in March 2009, although the organization started 6 or 7 years ago. Since March, they have been a SkunkWorks-type operation, with precious few information leaks, most of which centered around tertiary-level organization (they have yet to announce who will be driving their cars). This is an odd way to begin a relationship with a future, and currently non-existent US fan base. But looking closely at the team structure reveals some promise in the names that show up on the non-technical side. USF1 managed to strike a partnership deal with Chad Hurley (YouTube) that may affect the way we watch F1….sure why not? Hurley knows how to handle popular, mainstream media. Other rumored sponsors include Rich Silverstein of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, so USF1 should have some flashy marketing and catch phrases like “Got Speed?”. Others rumored to be part of the mix are Bay Area-based IDEO (unconfirmed..but I’m crushed anyway) and Octagon Worldwide in Charlotte, NC. Within that mix is some incredible potential for the USF1 brand to be engineered from scratch into an American legacy.

So my days over the next three months will be spent watching the rapid emergence of USF1 and monitoring its growth. USF1 is uniquely positioned to offer US race fans a home team on the world stage of auto racing. Skeptics will immediately draw parallels from this lofty endeavor to the uphill battle that US Soccer has had over the last two decades since Americans just don’t gravitate towards sports that we do not absolutely dominate. We could care less about rugby or cricket, we give marginal deference to hockey and soccer, and you can just forget about cars that turn right while racing. Conversely, we’re addicted to YouTube and Twitter since they bring us to an intimately close vantage point. Maybe the dream team that USF1 has assembled can pull it off. I’ll be watching.

As the prolific pedagogue and founder of The Riverside School in Ahmedabad, India, Kiran Sethi has infused the city’s youth culture with spirit and empowerment. Launching aProCh (A Protagonist in Every Child) early last year, Kiran has set after making Ahmedabad a child-friendly city. “They (children) understand intuitively that the real curriculum is not what’s taught in schools, but what’s written on the face of the land.” At the heart of the organization’s ideology is the fulfillment of the child’s need need for joy, safety, play, and the opportunity to explore the wider world. Bridging the gap between children’s teachers, parents, and their larger community creates the foundation of The Riverside School, and poises children to effect needed change.

Kiran’s latest thinking on how to enact change is The Design for Giving Contest. Through this, an entire emerging generation is called to action. She’s continued to drive home the point “Do not let the teachers drive the project; let them just guide it.”

With over 1300 entries pouring in from children full of earnest thinking and concern the teams from Continuum, IDEO, and the Institute of Design at Stanford were sure to be overwhelmed. As any contest of this size our team was rigorously making sure every entry had fulfilled each category with a level of clarity and conviction. Though, we also admitted how each entry would be its own mystery whose impacts we couldn’t possibly fully grasp: the elderly they visited, the thirsty villagers they spoke with, or the water sanitation issues they researched. Qualifying the entries would be soft, but also hard and fast. Sixth senses were hard to trust on this one.

I will not forget one particular entry. As we were going through many dozens of entries we began to learn their rhythm, their formats, language and tactics. Shivesh Pandey’s entry was different. This 11 year-old dove into a problem we hadn’t seen in other entries. He started to envision a technology device for his local train station. He explained that his motivation was several deaths from people trying to cross the train tracks as unannounced trains wizzed through the terminal. Following his explanation he submitted his genius: a fully equipped, stacked device outlining each feature – in crayon and colored pencil. Without a flinch, he had the answer. He was simply calling for its production and installation.

Though the entry by standard was not as robust, it showed a kid ready to make it happen. This was his idea addressing a problem in his world – straight from the gut. I presume that no teacher held his hand while working through his sketch. I appreciated Shivesh’s entry not because it was a great design, or necessarily even the right solution – but his potential to realize and act on the problem. He thought to outline the opportunity it seemed nobody saw. After all, that attitude struck me as core to the contest. If we can be a part of activating this generation’s custom of giving and support their design thinking, that is a powerful thing.

We’ll look forward to staying involved in Kiran’s work as it surely evolves. Kiran recently shook things up at TEDIndia and her contagious thinking. It seems the contest already has a life of its own – in the best way.

826 Boston is the seventh center to be modeled after 826 Valencia, the acclaimed youth writing program co-founded by writer Dave Eggers. Continuum paired up with the local writing and tutoring center to create a new brand identity, communication strategy, and print collateral.

The collateral, playing off 826 Boston’s whimsical Greater Boston Bigfoot Institute storefront, includes witty copy, colorful graphics and hand-drawn illustrations.

The new identity will launch Monday, October 5th at and advanced screening party of Where the Wild Things Are, hosted by 826 Boston and the movie’s screenwriter Dave Eggers.

For those of you who were never a Boy Scout, the Pinewood Derby is a competition in which contestants build a small wooden car to race on a 40 foot track against other cars of the same approximate size and weight. The goal is to work within the parameters of the rules to build the fastest car.

Several years ago, the IDSA (Industrial Designers Society of America) decided to sponsor a derby car race for designers at their annual IDSA National Conference in Pasadena. The response was overwhelming as designers and engineers entered dozens of impressive cars that would lie, cheat and creatively steal their way to the finish line.

Since that first race in 2004, the competition has raged on, with designers from all over the country fielding extraordinary cars. For this years IBM Unlimited Derby held at the IDSA conference in Miami, Continuum approached their participation in the race in a new way. Rather than trying to create the fastest car, the team decided to create the most memorable car. To accomplish this, we started by brainstorming themes that would be relevant to what’s going on in the world.

The planet is currently going through a financial crisis that hasn’t been experienced in eighty years. We’re all being forced to pinch pennies and find creative ways to save money. At the same time, worldwide concern is high around health threats like the swine flu. Continuum took these themes and turned them into a statement of hope, a piggy bank car called Swine Flew.

Throughout the four-day conference, the attendees were encouraged to add their spare change to the piggy bank. This served two purposes. First, each coin made the car slightly heavier, and consequently, faster. Second, Continuum offered to multiply every contribution by 10 and donate the final amount to design education.

The Swine Flew pit crew members, Jung Tak, Damien Vizcarra, and Kevin Young (many thanks to the non-traveling crew of Jake Childs, Rich Ciccarelli and Bruce MacRae) have returned from the IDSA National Conference and are proud to bring home the award for Fastest Car in the Gravity Weight Class as well as the award for Most Fun.

We’re also proud to say that the generous contributions of the IDSA audience helped Swine Flew raise a total of $1,274.40 for design education.

final blog in a series of 5

There is still quite a bit of detective work to be done. A cursory look at our graphs shows we are using on average 40kWatts (the equivalent of 400, 100 Watt, light bulbs) during nights/weekends and about 120kWatts peak during normal business hours.

From the below graph we can see that during business hours something is causing large spikes. Since this only happens during typical work hours we could probably attribute this behavior to the power hungry tools in our awesome Models Shop, or maybe the elevator. The spikes are probably due to the inductive load introduced when a motor such as a saw or compressor is turned on.

The chart below is a display of power use over a ten day period. You can see the reduced power consumption over the weekends and holidays. I would gather that since there is a small amount of power consumption on Monday May 25th (Memorial Day) some Continuumites are workaholics!

What’s Next

Possible improvements
Migrate data server applications to a proper web server
Add multi client capabilities so we can host data from other users.
Tie in real time power cost metrics
Carbon footprint tie in
Tie in weather parameters such as outside temperature and humidity.

Contribute
If you find this design intriguing and would like to contribute in some way, or if you have any questions feel free to email me at mcosta@dcontinuum.com

With the recent banning of Speedo’s LZR sharkskin-inspired speedsuits and the exposure of possible steroid use by Boston Red Sox baseball player David Ortiz, it raises an exciting question: What role does design play in the evolution of sport?

Michael Phelps’ eight Olympic gold medals is a record that may never be broken, all set while wearing Speedo’s suit. The suit is modeled after the drag-resistant texture of sharkskin and compresses the swimmer’s body in key areas. Though Olympic records are falling, most world-class swimmers have access to the suits — is this an unfair advantage or an enhanced design?

Andy Roddick hits tennis balls fast. 153 MPH fast. Speeds like these were unheard of in the days of Rod Laver and wooden tennis racquets. Nowadays it is commonplace for men and women on the professional tour to be serving well above 100 MPH. Now that graphite, titanium and ceramic composites are routinely used for weight reduction and enhanced rigidity, even beginners have the opportunity to use something much improved over the tennis racquets of yore. But are the racquets improved or is the game just different?

400-yard drives on the golf course? Not before monster-sized titanium club heads.
Track spikes that are lighter than a slice of 7-grain bread? Not just for Olympians anymore.

Why should full-body swimsuits be any different?

Can a shoe be too light? Can a ski have too much spring?

Should altering an athlete’s equipment be any different than altering an athlete’s body? What is “ethical” body-altering? How about Red Bull energy drink? Can an athlete with a super-reconstructed knee jump higher or cut quicker than one without? How “able” should an athlete be? How soon will it be before athletes intentionally integrate prostheses or have healthy joints and limbs replaced with titanium ones before the original is worn out?

What is “performance enhancing design”? Few groups are asking and acting upon such questions — certainly there are lots of terrific opportunities to evolve sport and enable our bodies to push the limits of sport, but within what ethical boundaries? And how can (or should) design enhance such experiences?