Brett Macfarlane

Laptops & Looms II

 

Nothing new comes purely from old things. Nothing old has no part in new things.

 

Or something like that may have been an unintended theme of a few days spent in the Arkwright Mill in the Peak District.  Laptops and Looms is a place that people who care about new things without blutly dismissing old things can openly care about the what comes next and why. 

 

 

Beyond the buzz words, assertions and obvious, how are good people in our time making good things with meaning to real people? That, in the attic of the mill at the epicentre of the industrial revolution is where a bunch of interesting and interested folks gathered for three days to discus the now only possible now (but often not yet here...)

 

That was Laptops & Looms 2. 

 

I missed the first one being in the middle of the Channel moving from Paris to London, but this one wasn't to be missed. 

 

As in all thing contemporary, non-hierarchical and grownup it was self oragnising.  Not anti-anyone, pro-anything or un-something, just good people who give a damn and make an effort. Also a bit self conscious for having last time they met birthing and popularising the internet of things and "the new aesthetic" a launching a number of companies from Artefact Cards to an ethical mobile phone manufacturer.  The bar is much lower this time. 

 

 

 

40 of us shared three days together, did some talks and activities and mostly just talked. That was the point. 

 

In the next triennial we will know the outcome (if any) but these are the things that stuck with me, for now:

 

Nomenclature  - You have to learn enough of other industries to know what to ask or look for

 

Lateralism - One new skill can change what is possible 

 

Myths - The California Ideology is showing cracks - what is the new Euro myth

 

Scale - Should we and must we expect physical industries to be web scalable

 

Memories - New filters emerging beyond our current obsession with "now"' to mark and recall moments in time

 

Ignorance - Despite "data" obsession huge frontiers of science remain unanswered - ie how we smell - making data about human behaviour mostly flawed

 

Quality - As demonstrated with manufacturing in China, proximity is necessary for the 100's of decisions behind quality control if quality matters to you

 

Stay-sourcing - The number of companies who now have a defensible market position and quality product from not outsourcing grows by the day - from axes to fine china - as the majority of their industry who did outsource commoditises

 

Taxonomy - Time to rename, relabel and reorganize terminology around innovation - rather than disrupt or startup say what you mean - the idea (rather than intention) or the firm/company

 

Identity - Isn't it better to be a business than a startup

 

Startup - Not a tech company, rather be a company that uses tech to solve problems

 

Service - What is a service? - A service is something to help someone do something

 

Customer - If you make a service calling a user a customer attracts "customer experience" frivolities like "surprise & delight" which people see through and are rarely surprised or delighted by

 

Developers - dancing between a bit if stability and a bit of startup

 

Change - An observation on the pace of change in trams (from the visit to the Crich Tram Village - yes a village dedicated to trams) by the primary source of movement, four different modes and massive infrastructure changes in one lifetime:

 

1870 - horse

1880 - steam

1890 - early electric

1900/1910 - electric

1920 - early motor carriage (Glasgow)

 

Till next time Loominati.  Hope to see you all soon and give the Durr chaps a boost upon launch. 

 

 

Double Space

The more time I spend around designers the more I'm self conscious of a reprehensible crime against kerning I persistent commit.

I grew up in a school with computers and typewriters. I first typed on a typewriter but 99.997% (approximately) of my lifetime writing has been on a computer.

The problem, I still double space after every period. Software is design to only need the one bash of a spacebar and adjusts space appropriately to give that extra breath between the end of a sentence and start of a new one. Yet I double space. Compulsively. Continuously. To the great annoyance of every designer I know, and write to.

Confusingly. That's how I end a period in my iPhone. Double space.

I'm tempted to retrain myself on my laptop computer, but maybe, I'll just wait for mobile user experience designers to conquer their archaic desktop brethren to save me from the typographical tyrants.

The Laws of Sculptors

1. Always be smartly dressed, well groomed relaxed friendly and in complete control.

2. Make the world believe in you and to pay heavily for this privilege.

3. Never worry assess discuss or criticise but remain quiet respectful and calm.

4. The Lord chisels still,so don't leave your bench for long.

As stencilled on a White Cube wall by Gilbert & George. 3 / 08 / 14

Dreaming and Doing

Without really realizing it we just marked three years in London. An occasion born from my original placement in Paris. 

 

 

This year has been one of those years to take stock of what the past years have brought us and all the many many things learned along the way that we never would have known if still in comfortable Vancouver. 

 

The hard thing about all the lessons learned through doing hard things is the challenge to relate them to friends and colleagues after the initial curiosity quickly fades.  Truth is how can you translate, without extreme boredom, such personal and individual experiences. 

 

My fear is that all the little things from everyday will some day start to feel ordinary.

 

My hope is that having joined one of the planet's most exciting emerging creative dynamos full of Dreamers and Doers that life will be anything but ordinary. 

 

So maybe it is time to re-grasp for myself the classical spirit of blogging. The unpolished and often unformed points. The observations, noticing and random of life. Maybe the mundane, maybe insane, maybe neither. 

 

I am going to dissolve the artificial wall between work and non work life. There will be some work things, some food things, events and activities, some boring stuff about natural wine, probably things related to my book Everyday Paris and undoubtedly travel bits. Whatever seems worth noticing for myself. Maybe, just maybe, you'll find it interesting.

 

It won't be over polished or conceptualised.  It won't be overly self aware, it might come accross as pompous at times, trite at others.  Not by design but that's how it may seem, to you.  The stretch is the point.

 

Right, so let's see how this goes.