A Growing Self Awareness of Technology Overload

A Word Cloud  Explaining How I feel

     This holiday season I am really overloaded by technology, so much so it's making my head hurt and I feel both annoyed, confused and conflicted by the media messaging coming at me from all directions.  I see and feel all the beautiful images and implied lifestyle of ultmate media experience.  I see families sitting in contemporary styled living rooms watching large flatscreens, heads bent down looking at tablets, laptops.  All together they appear it seems, but in actuality so far apart from one another.  I don't buy what I'm seeing in the advertising because I'm living in a media overload nightmare.  I think it's a tip of a proverbial socio-cultural iceberg. 
     I'm surrounded by screens of various sizes and shapes.  I'm uncomfortable seeing so many friends and family uncontrollably it seems bent over tablets, itouches, laptops vaguely interacting with one another, not making clear eye, mumbling answers to questions down to the screen but not across the room to the person asking the question.  If this is togetherness and family time why does my skin crawl ever so little sometimes when I look across to see a loved one head down on a screen, body in place, mind and focus elsewhere.
     I can't be the only one feeling a little weird about this can I?  I know all of this great cool tech at least in the commercials, web and multi-media advertising has us all living in a super happy fantasy world of better lives etc.  But is it really making us better people?  Do we know how to do things like basic communication, like....talking to one another?  I know that after a long day working on my architectural work surrounded by screens at my desk, where I frequently post strategic updates to my LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, flitting around doing work related research I feel a bit scattered. 
     In the last year or so, have you tried reading a newspaper article or picked up a magazine and tried reading an indepth piece, quickly realizing you can't because you're still scanning the pages like they were on a screen and you can't settle down to actually read like you used to.  I have.  Often.  I feel all of this tech and my unwitting behavior with it has led me to a self-created attention deficit disorder.   
     Backing up a little, let's set some context. In our home bookshelves we have an old children's book from the 1950's or so espousing the glamourous miracles of the technology then called television.  Looking at its simple colored illustrations showing how the technology worked, explaining the complex and mysterious ideas of programs of various kinds being beamed over airwaves into people's living rooms seems quaint today.  Often books like this or Norman Rockwell paintings depict entire family's sitting around a living room, a barber shop, restuarant or bar looking at a single TV or listening to a radio.  
  

Workplace, Innovation and Technology; A Trio of New York Times Articles

Two different friends (Thanks Dave and Chris!) involved in creating and cultivating work communities and workplaces here in VT mentioned I would enjoy reading some articles from last Sunday's New York Times. 

Sunday's Business section had a big spread on workplace, innovation and grappling with a technology overloaded world.  I suggest you find 20 mins of quality away time to peruse them. It'll be well worth your while. You'll learn how Google, DreamWorks and General Electric innovate with their workplaces.  

Whether you're considering renovating, adding or building out your workplace, unifying your brand messaging while building a stronger work community or all three and more, this is a must read moment! 

Creating choices of workspace and amplifying engagement was a key takeaway for me among many. It'a about providing your work community a wide range of choices of work spaces, moving beyond the 8x8 cube into a range of formal meeting rooms of various sizes, smaller 1-3 person away spaces such as phone booths or just in time rooms, then on to more informal "backyard" areas with a collection of easy chairs or sofas, mobile white boards and places to put coffee cups and snacks the fuel seeding innovation and collaboration. 

As these articles so eloquently share and our experiences working with clients show, plan on a lot more informal meeting area, collaboration spaces, away spaces while allocating less square footage for dedicated or non dedicated workstations. Perhaps 50/50 or 60/40 ratios accordingly. 15 years ago it was more like 20/80 or 30/70, but not any more. The new normal is to provide more choices in the workspace, there by cultivating innovation, collaboration and creativity. 

Today's tactical everyday business needs shift with evolution of mobile technology, collaborative surfaces, tele-phresence and cloud computing. Adaptive, flexible workspace along with quiet high focus large and small spaces are essential to building effective high performing, engaged work communities. The NBBJ designed Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Campus in Seattle directly related to the specifics of the business needs of their team and supporting getting the work done as effectively as possible while also supporting vastly different work style and collaboration needs.

Design for flexibility and plan for change from the get go. It means considering using movable architectural wall products which like workstation furniture can adapt to fast changing business and organizational needs where sizes, numbers and types of spaces may rapidly shift over the course of 3-5 years. Investing in metal stud, drywall and glass side lites may be more affordable at move-in but severely diminishes future flexibility for rapid adaption to organizational change.

And that workstation may not need to be as big as it used to be. With digital technologies and paperless transactions more normal than ever workstation storage demands are much less than five or ten years ago. And the sizes of stations are shrinking to fit the reduced paper needs while providing desk space for 1 to 2 additional monitors to facilitate paperless work. 

Anyway, I digress away from the big picture the New York Times presents in their suite of Sunday Business articles. Focus on providing choice and flexibility to enhance work community engagement coupled with three dimensional branding which resonates with core company mission, values and messaging.

Some Visual Thoughts about Steve Jobs, the Biography by Walter Isaacson

Concerned about social media and technology? Maybe a good idea.

What often is missing in diving into social media activities is 'actually thinking' about what we're doing and reflecting on what our values are and why we're using these services/ tools etc.  

How is doing what we do in this space helping out at home, at work and within our community, in the grandstands watching your kids play sports?  Are you better for it? Are you sure?  Really! Just because you can use it doesn't mean you should!  That's a great phrase to take to heart especially if you haven't actually thought about why you're using these tools.

William Buist at the Societal Web posted about this issue and raised some very interesting points. As he says social media  gives us new and heretofore unforseen ways to communicate with each other, and its problematic.  Just because we can "update our status" while at a meeting, or "text friends or have long drawn out phone calls" while at our sons and daughters ball games is this multi-tasking positive behavior? The technology allows us to do this but should we do this?  

I know this dates me, but my dad and mom (pre cell phone days) actually watched me and participated in my games, or helped out coaching.  Now I do the same and watch all kinds of parents, older sisters and brothers and younger work their "smart" devices at the game. Their bodies stand facing the play but they're  far away, disconnected from the visceral present.  If this is the "positive example" my generation of parents  is truly capable of I'm thinking this isn't so good.  

Recently I plucked one such parent off of his phone he'd been wearing by the side of his face for the past five games and asked him to be a third base coach for a few innings while I umped.  The guy was super animated and really involved with his kid for the first time I remember all season.  I learned this guy has so much too offer the kids, the team and our community.  But he sits back and uses his "smart phone".  I know its tranquilizing, almost narcotic in its influence.  I want an Ipad too!  But I'm going to wait until I get my head around this issue more clearly.

And now that we're so deep into this how do sensibly tame this addictive behavior?  Or does it (meaning social media) control us, especially if we don't take the time now and again to think about it critically?  Often, we're missing the fact we can have a face to face conversation, or a phone call rather than Tweeting about something to someone or Facebooking it.  Or doing another LinkedIn update.

Why not go to someone's house and have dinner and connect..?  Or taking a walk with someone and talking.  You can't easily do a Goto meeting session or AppleFace Time while walking can you?  It's hard to do two things at once?  But yet we try...it's exhausting to multi-task.

Part of this is temptation of the new and the cool.  It's the joyful exuberance of using our new tools, the smartphones, tablets du Jour, the apps and buying into the "lifestyle" choices being shown us in the advertising we see where ever the media source.  However, there's relatively few voices stating "let's think about this" and examine what we're doing collectively etc. leading to setting up a goals and values discussion and learning how to recognize what's missing in these new interactions.

What kinds communities are we really building, families, teams etc. when social media seems to an important aspect holding everything together?  Caring about this is important to our communal well-being.  What do you think?  How is social media impacting your life?  Think back five or ten years ago, how much time were you spending talking face to face to people versus today?  What would happen if your smart phone disappeared for two weeks? Or your iPAD?  Would it change your life for the better? Or the worse?

Remember, just because you can use the latest and greatest tech gadgets and software services doesn't mean you should.  Take a moment to think about it every once in a while.  Talk it over with  your family, your coworkers etc.  You'll find there will be lots to discuss.

Workspring and the benefits of Third Places

Last summer while attending NEOCON 2010 in Chicago I visited Workspring just a few blocks away from the Merchandise Mart.  Prior to visiting I had been talking on and off with Mark Greiner Workspring's General Manager and the Chief Experience Officer (CXO),Steelcase Inc. and a Senior VP. 

 Entry looking into reception area 

He told me how the business developed out of an idea he and a group of  others at Steelcase's Workplace Futures consulting group had, how they found support within Steelcase and Venture Capital funding to build a functioning prototype of research work to test ideas on the value of collaborative work experiences in and  off-site from traditional workplaces.  As Mark and others I've met at Workplace Futures have said, this projects comes out the Steelcase business ethos of Understand, Observe, Synthesize, Realize, Prototype and Measure.   The purpose of the space, equipment and people providing services there are to assist businesses in having memorable and valuable collaboration experiences bettering their organization.  The space has been online for over two years now and the positive reviews are coming in as seen from customer testimonials on the website.

I'd missed seeing it the year before and wanted very much to see Workspring, "a high-performance for fee work experience".  Or saying it another way, a "Third place" to hold collaborative off-site meetings whether for an intimate group of 2 or 3, a large geographically dispersed project team working on rolling out a new product or service, or renting the whole space for a large multi-faceted multi-day work experiences. 

Net Zero Low-Income Modular Homes in Colorado

I wanted to spread word of a model net-zero affordable housing project located in Lafayette, Colorado, a city located in Boulder Country about 40 miles from Denver and 10 miles from Boulder.

(image courtesy of BCHA)

The Paradigm Pilot Project, a single family home and a duplex showcase a mix of super-insulated building envelopes, smart site orientation and use renewable energy sources, combined with passive solar design strategies. The building design use a fairly straightforward modernistic vocabulary of 13 rectilinear boxes easy to manufacture in a factory setting. What's hopeful is this is an experiment of sorts to be studied and leveraged into a much larger 153 Unit housing project in the planning stages in Lafayette. It uses geothermal

The project was designed by HB&A Architects,and built by All-American Homes for the Boulder County Housing Authority. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory / Department of Energy were also partners on the project.

You can find out more about the project on the Green Building Advisor and later covered at Jetson Green. You can see helpful information about it at the Housing Authority's Website.

Here's a link to a powerpoint about the project from the BCHA site. The site also shows the construction process with highlights being the installation of the modular factory built units and solar system installation. One interesting note is the project used both evacuated tube type solar hot water and solar electric panels as part of the system. The jury's out here on the efficacy the evacuated tubes but it's interesting this technology was used on the project.

All in all, this project is an inspiration to those of us in cold-climate regions and of use to others close to home here in Vermont. Perhaps some of the lessons learned from this project can be used here on our affordable housing projects. I know Efficiency Vermont is doing it's best to partner with other non-profit and for profit developers and housing authority's to continually upgrade our housing stock, whether new construction or renovation. It's Multi-family Housing Design Checklist is a very thourogh guide helping with efficiency measures and low-energy usage. They also provide financial incentives and technical assistance to clients and project teams to extend the value of the check-list.

Perhaps with the far-away inspiration of the Colorado example and the close to home specifics of the Efficiency Vermont's checklist this will help move us forward!

DOE Solar Decathalon Winners_Let the Sun Shine on Innovation

When I was in graduate school in the the early 1990's sustainable design was just getting off of the ground in the way we know it now. (I know it's been around since Mesa Verde, but the current generation of thinking)

I wish programs such as the Solar Decathalon held each year in the fall in Washington D.C. were around then. It is sponsored by the US Dept of Energy and teams from universities and colleges from all across the world compete in it. It provides an oppourtunity for pursuing design innovation and experiential learning on a small solar home scale. What a fantastic all around oppourtunity!

The program has six-goals worth noting. The basic premise is to invigorate interest, research and developing marketable technologies able to be brought to the market-place. Another one is to help develop zero energy homes which is something many of us want to know more about.

The winners this year, especially the top three, offer a wide ranging view of how to solve the design challenge. Check out the winners! I wonder if teams from Norwich University or Yestermorrow Design Build School have ever entered? It seems like this program would be right up their respective areas of focus. I'll have to check with friends who teach there.

See photostreams of the homes on Flickr and Hi-res Gallery of Homes on the DOE site.

Enjoy seeing what the next generation of design leaders are up to!

Toward Collaborative Interactive Meeting Spaces: Surface & Media:scape

Last night I visited Business Interiors in Williston, VT, a local systems furniture / space solutions company affiliated with Steelcase among other manufacturers. They hosted area Architects and Designers in a mixer celebrating surviving the tumultuous last year and introducing Mediascape and the Combi Chair. Jim Baker, BI President, shared some encouraging words and that he was feeling more optimistic about the economy and business activity.

Later while sitting around the Mediascapes interactive table and screen environment, talk turned immediately to collaboration and how it offered an effective resource to enhance group effectiveness and dynamics. Dave McGill, a visiting regional Steelcase Market rep from the Boston area shared how he seems to use it more and more when he visits showrooms and client in meetings. For him, it really jump starts information sharing and cross-collaboration between others at the table. Meeting participants plug in their laptops, adaptive mobile devices into the table to be able to share interactively on the common heads up screen whatever relevant info they need. Whether powerpoint slides, websites, spreadsheets, pictures or videos any content is fair game. Up to 4 screens can be seen at once. It can be web camera enabled to allow for video conferencing so different locations can see each other.

A sales team could come together and present mini-reports about their sales work with each other. Because of how visual it is, info can be rapidly shared and given the multiple screen capability, cross-connections between information, click-throughs to interesting websites etc. Sometimes the best conversations are a little less linear and more dynamic. Or a design team could have a shared 3d model saved on a common site and interactively manipulate it individually around the table. Reflecting on the experience, one downside I saw or limitation was how much wires were strewn around the table and how everyone were tied to separate laptop devices or screens while sharing one large common one. The table wouldn't really work for those of us who like to work with the table, lay drawings down and draw and interact that way. Like for instance, sketching or editing design ideas together, marking up documents collaboratively etc.

At the Media Scape table last night, I shared how last year I watched a briefing scene from the Quantum of Solace James Bond film and saw a highly interactive computer table used at the cinematic version of M1-6, the British equivalent of the CIA. (I may have reported on this in an earlier post) Owen Milne, Business Interiors Marketing and Environmental Resource shared he'd seen a something like that called Microsoft Surface. Ironically, he typed it up and it came up on the media scape screen where we looked together in excitement.

Surface provides a flat table interface where like Media Scape people can gather around the table top. I want Steelcase to design and produce a 2.0 version of Media Scape using this technology so we can do away with our individual laptops and roll up our sleeves around the collaborative table together.

Here's how Microsoft Surface really stands out (4 Key points from the website)

• Direct interaction. Users can grab digital information with their hands and interact with content on-screen by touch and gesture – without using a mouse or keyboard.
• Multi-user experience. The large, horizontal, 30 inch display makes it easy for several people to gather and interact together with Microsoft Surface - providing a collaborative, face-to-face computing experience.
• Multi-touch. Microsoft Surface responds to many points of contact simultaneously - not just from one finger, as with a typical touch screen, but from dozens of contact points at once.
• Object recognition. Users can place physical objects on the screen to trigger different types of digital responses – providing for a multitude of applications and the transfer of digital content to mobile devices.

You can set down your I-phone or other enabled smart device and its screen becomes an icon on the surface! I can envision a time in the near future where these kinds of interactive tables become common place in conference rooms or specialized media oriented meeting spaces. I looked at the site, right now it's glass table top which sits on a very large grey box which contains the souped up computer enabling the interactive magic above to happen.

Another regional Steelcase rep (Anita?) said her biggest challenge is getting potential customers excited about Mediascape and its merits and integrating it into their work styles. For so many, 30 to 50 somethings we're used to meeting around tables with laptops or other devices open some of the time but we're mostly still face to face. Based on past life-experience technology will only get more effective with time. The screens will continue to get larger, the supporting computing more powerful and smaller. This is the kind of collaboration environment, my children who are 9 and 10, will be using in their College libraries, cafe's, student activity centers. Eventually, it will become common place in their workplace's meeting and collaboration spaces.

For now, can the R&D people of Steelcase and Microsoft get together and start working towards developing better, easier and more affordable to use products? It would make a world of difference!

Meanwhile, it's going to be a while until I visit my son's at college so please keep the innovation going...

Microgrid Houses, energy independance and giving back to the grid

In this summer's July / August issue of Fast Company Anya Kamenetz wrote an article an Why the Microgrid Could Be the Answer to Our Energy Crisis .

It identifies how the microgrid which is small scale consumer, commercial developer and municipality driven is at odds with the large scale smart grid, renewable energy industrialization efforts of large regional or national energy players. What's fascinating and powerful is how both together large and small can help provide needed renewable energy sources to all scales of users. And, the economic oppourtunity for redefining our troubled economy through the conversion to greener energy sources can only or the other but both together which is powerful. It's not Smart Grid vs. Microgrid but both, 1 + 1 = 5 etc. With multiple ways to deliver renewable energy in a more complex interdependant system we are all better off.

As she says "The microgrid is all about consumer control -- aligning monetary incentives, with the help of information technology, to make renewables and efficiency pay off for the average homeowner, commercial developer, or even a town. The name of the game is to scale up renewables big enough, fast enough, to bring the cost down to parity with conventional resources. "

Here in Vermont, one of our local energy companies, Green Mountain Power they have a 10,000 panels in 1,000 days program in their Choose to go solar campaign. They are committed to transforming the energy landscape in Vermont business, homeowners and municipalities and exemplify microgrid efforts on a more local scale. I believe we're in the midst of a viral consumer driven renewable energy revolution. Smart companies which realize this are stepping in like Green Mountain Power to help make it easy for consumers to green up their energy usage and create more energy independance on a local scale. It's the Wiki distributed and nimble consumer driven approach to change rather than old style large scale 1,000 acre wind or solar farm.

One thing however, the Microgrid house from the article which I include here falls short as an example but is worth including to get the conversation going. I agree the house can be a small power plant generating electricity but what's missing in the example are additional flyouts identifying smart choices for low use water fixtures, recycled materials in construction and finishes. Having a garage in the front helps make the case for the electric plug-in visually but speaks to broken conventional development patterns and attitudes. This is an incomplete picture at best.

Anyway, that's all with this post. I think I'd better offer some ideas about the ideal microgrid house in future posts. But please read the linked articles and information. And, any feedback or comments are welcome.