design mind On Air | Podcast | design mind

Occupy Your (Open Source) Education

Kristina Loring — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:51:57 -0600

Student loan debt, a burden for the majority of young Americans who pursued higher education, was brought to the forefront when it became a tangible demand of the Occupy Wall Street Movement this fall. And it’s not wonder students are furious: According to the Wall Street Journal, in June 2010, total student-loan debt exceeded total credit-card debt for the first time, so it is no wonder the movement urged students to refuse to pay their loans.

So what can students do who are looking for a meaningful and engaging education, without forking over all that cash? Luckily, thanks to open source innovations and alternative learning platforms on the Internet, people are beginning to find new means to get their information, connect with experts and mentors to support their career path, and learn valuable skills, all while avoiding the expensive route of higher education. No longer are universities and colleges the gatekeepers of knowledge, but how does one go about parsing through all these new digital resources and personalizing them?

Fast Company writer and author of DIY U, Anya Kamentz, is an expert in the growing open source technology movement and it’s influence on the shifting paradigm of education in the U.S. In 2011, the Gates Foundation turned to Anya to write a free ebook follow up to DIY U. The Edupunks’ Guide, is a guidebook for independent learners that shares new methods of content delivery, new platforms and new forms of accreditation that harness technology for an alternative type of curriculum.

Today, Anya will launch her other ebook, Learning, Freedom, and the Web, in collaboration with the Mozilla Foundation. I sat down to chat about how infonauts or aspiring students can play in the open world, the truth behind “digital distraction,” and the role of creative professionals in reinventing the crumbling American education system.

Techno-Optimism, Singularity & Jason Silva

Kristina Loring — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:39:54 -0500

Have you ever sat down with someone and had a total technophile geek out? You know, the kind of conversation where you go from talking about social media to the science of cyborg worm holes? Well, if you are looking for that kind of future-thinking mind meld, you should chat with Jason Silva.

He was the founding producer and host of Al Gore's award-winning cable network, Current TV where he was a VJ for citizen journalist short term documentaries. After Current, Silva's humanist obsession with technology led him to make the short documentary film, The Immortalists, where he interviews some of the most prolific scientists and philosophers in the age of the Internet, including the author Ray Kurzweil, on the social implications of technologies impact on biology.

I chatted with Silva in a crowded Manhattan cafe to discuss the Singularity's influence on art, culture, and design, leading up this his talk at the 2011 Singularity Summit on October 15th. (According to Kurzweil, the Singularity is "the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence.") We kicked off our conversation talking about Silva's boundless techno-optimism and how we can construct our own realties.

Music courtesy of YACHT via the freemusicarchive.org
Image courtesy of the Imaginary Foundation

TransmediActivism with Henry Jenkins

Kristina Loring — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 13:48:22 -0600

For the “audience formerly known as the audience,” narratives aren’t over when the storyteller finishes. Consumers are no longer passive but active participants; they contribute to the story development across all media platforms, whether it be film, video games, books or products. This is transmedia.

Transmedia is a term popularized by Henry Jenkins, Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. Transmedia is at work all around you, whether you know the definition of it or not: in a marketing campaign like the Old Spice Twitter and YouTube coup or in education and activism. With all the talk of digital distraction and Millenials allegedly engaging in superficial "slacktivism," I dug up this interview from the archives so that Mr. Jenkins can drop some knowledge on how young people might be the best generation equipped for processing information and acting on it.

I sat down with the author of Convergence Culture to get his take on how to rally and educate the citizens of the digital world.

Special thanks to Molly Adams for her production assistance on this episode!

The Next Generation of Microfinance

Chris Sallquist — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 17:33:36 -0500

In the U.S. and other Western countries, access to higher education can easily be taken for granted when there are financial resources like grants or student loans to lessen the immediate burden of paying for college.

However, in most countries college loans don’t exist, creating an insurmountable barrier for students to continue their education and ultimately achieve their career goals. No matter how smart, passionate, and motivated you may be, if you don’t have the money, then college is not an option for you.

But visionary Kushal Chakrabarti is providing a solution. design mind ON AIR’s Chris Sallquist spoke with Kushal, the founder and CEO of Vittana, a person-to-person micro-lending Web site that makes it possible for students, wanting to go to college in developing countries, to get loans. With Vittana, a global community of lenders is rallying to help students to get higher education for the first time and relieve students from the worry of paying for college so they can focus on their passions. frog worked with Vittana to redesign and re-architect their website, making it easier to navigate by significantly improving the lending ecosystem, including the process of finding students, the actual loan transaction, and participating in the Vittana community.

Kushal talks with us about how Vittana has proven itself, the tricky negotiation to “do good” while financially sustaining an organization, and the impact that Vittana will have in the future. Kushal will be giving the keynote speech at this year’s SOCAP conference alongside Matt Flannery of Kiva. This particular presentation should be really fascinating because Kiva, a well-known pioneer of online micro-lending, just announced that they are expanding their process to allow their site’s lenders to fund loans to help students in developing countries, kicking off with students in Paraguay, Bolivia, and Lebanon. There has been a lot of discussion about what Kiva’s new venture will mean for start-ups like Vittana and I look forward to lively debate and insight into how their different models and the degree at which the two platforms are established factor into their ability to experiment, expand, and push the message of micro-lending for education forward.

The Betterness Movement Begins

Kristina Loring — Mon, 10 May 2010 18:42:48 -0500

If the past year has proved anything about business, it’s that traditional corporations focused solely on profit and isolated invention will fail. It’s time a social movement for change focused its efforts on business by demanding that they look beyond products and services by adding value to the communities that need it most. A new generation of entrepreneurs is stepping in to demand that businesses use the most innovative and creative solutions to make a meaningful impact for social change.

In this episode of design mind ON AIR we talk with Umair Haque, Director of the Havas Media Lab, founder of Bubblegeneration, and a writer for the Harvard Business Review, about how a new generation of social entrepreneurs is changing traditional institutions from the inside. Umair highlights the organizations that are providing ground breaking business models in order to create true social currency.

Special thanks to Molly Adams for her production assistance on this episode and Bilal Bashir and Divine Styler for providing the music.

Design Zen

Chris Sallquist — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 21:24:13 -0500

Author David Sherwin travels to a Buddhist monastery in Japan to understand the work of a designer and where ideas come from. Listen to his adventure in this latest version of our design mind On Air podcast hosted by Chris Sallquist.

Got X Problems?

Chris Sallquist — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:07:55 -0600

With so many companies focusing more intensely than ever on innovation, why are so few seeing results?

In this episode of design mind On Air, Creative Director Adam Richardson gets to the bottom of this dilemma sharing insights from his new book Innovation X. Richardson argues that companies’ efforts to innovate are being thwarted by “X-Problems,” a new class of 21st century challenges that defy conventional planning. But Richardson has hope. If used in the right way, these problems can present massive innovation opportunities.

Grounded in insights about how customers, competitors, and technologies change quickly and often, Richardson provides clarity about the emerging challenges that business leaders face. Combining his experience in the trenches at frog design and insightful analysis of companies like Zipcar, Zappos and Hewlette-Packard, Richardson illustrates the framework companies can use to successfully thrive in today’s disruptive environment.

The Business and Innovation Trist

Chris Sallquist — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:22:50 -0600

Image from swissmiss via ffffound.com

Business and innovation are in a symbiotic relationship. Innovative products and systems can be revolutionary but if they don’t take hold in the marketplace they will likely fail. So, how do innovators stay creative while also playing the role of business partner to reassure clients that innovative ideas won’t trump the bottom line?

Yobie Benjamin is an entrepreneur, investor, and activist with expertise in innovation, technology, and new business models. As someone who straddles the line between the tech and business worlds, Benjamin has a unique perspective on what makes a good user experience and what sells. Beyond beautiful aesthetics and experimentation, Benjamin stresses that the most important thing is for the product to achieve is business purpose: if it doesn’t appeal to buyers, retailers will pull it off the shelf.

In this episode of design mind on Air, Benjamin shares his insights while also describing what he looks for when he looks at companies for potential investments. He also shares his thoughts on the future of mobile, the changing population of those who have Internet access, and his own personal goal to participate and contribute to efforts and companies that have profound environmental and social impacts.

About Yobie Benjamin

Yobie Benjamin is an experienced senior executive with expertise in innovation, technology and new business models. His last startup was a progressive ecommerce company called GoodStorm.com which was acquired by a Kleiner Perkins-funded Zazzle.com. Before becoming an entrepreneurial founder and CEO, Yobie was a management consultant and focused on technology, innovation, risk and information technology. His consulting career started as Chief Knowledge Officer at Cambridge Technology Partners. Benjamin moved on to become a Partner at Ernst and Young where he held three roles - Chief of Strategy, Distinguished Fellow, CTO - Security and Technology Services. After E&Y, he joined Computer Sciences Corporation as Partner and Managing Director of the Business and Technology Risk Management group. He began his career in technology as an engineer at Lotus Development Corporation.

Other highlights: writer, social activist, innovator in the consumer products space, software architect and engineer, and perpetual geek. Interests include: all things technology and music related, and good food.

The New Ecology of Things

Chris Sallquist — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:52:32 -0600

(Illustration by Charley Harper)

Design thinking is a term — almost a mantra — that has resurfaced a lot lately. It has been especially poignant during this time of financial hardship, during which a number of traditional or conventional processes have been debunked and are being rethought altogether (let’s use it in a sentence: "Mr. Brown thinks that the publishing world could benefit from design thinking.") But others believe that design thinking has no basis unless it recognizes that the process is rooted in design-doing.

Philip van Allen is an interactive designer and technologist, who is a professor in the Graduate Media Design Program at Art Center College of Design, and the director of the New Ecology of Things Lab. His goal is to bring the idea of innovation back to something tangible.

Van Allen suggests that innovation not only means meeting customer needs by cultivating ideas, but he translates the activity of innovating to actually inventing things and new medias. Van Allen also stresses that holding an actual tangible object inspires and enables designers to “re-think the whole communication process.”

In fact, van Allen points out that we can all be producers (definitely in the case of Web 2.0 and moving beyond the one dimentional consumer identity) who can actually customize our own physical objects and spaces of cultural relevance.

The Art of the Unfriend

Chris Sallquist — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:51:54 -0600

Poking. Friending. De-friending. Messaging. Posting. Tagging. Liking. Ignoring.

frog Senior Interaction Designer Kevin Hutchinson confesses that our social power is evolving due to our presence on online social networks because we are able to find, reach, and communicate with people at a greater speed. But with this new amplified social connectivity comes a new set of expectations for increased engagement. Social networking etiquette is still evolving and it can be difficult to decipher what is appropriate in this hyper-social online space.

Hutchinson believes that, we as social creatures, should take some cues from other forms of communication. You wouldn’t text, call, or knock on someone’s door several times a day to tell them how much you enjoyed what they were reading, doing, or saying, so why comment or “like”, everything they post on their Facebook wall. Right? How does one create social boundaries on their networks and how do we not take it so, er, personally when someone does not befriend us?

Photo illustration by Magnus Muhr