Blog posts tagged as 'work'

Webb’s on holiday after delivering his keynote at Web Directions South. He’ll post the slides/notes when he returns from his spirit journey but in the mean-time here’s the bibliography.

Tom is still doing his data-botany for Ashdown, running around in servers with his butterfly net made of finest regexp to see what he can find, and making beautiful magnified watercolour illustrations for the info-bestiary.

The edges are starting show in this particular patch-ecology, as are the gaps – not only in terms of what’s not there, but also the space-between where we could add data-on-data and make interesting new things to show people. Again this is an approach that worked really well while we were developing Shownar, and it’s bearing fruit already for Ashdown.

I’m still working on some initial Ashdown brief writing and project planning (which is coming on leaps-and-bounds thanks to Tom’s investigations), a bit of new business development and going to the inaugural Icon Minds event tomorrow to see Bruce Sterling talk “Design Fiction” with Dunne + Raby.

Schulze started the week with a splash, launching the Immaterials film, as part of our collaboration with Timo, Einar and the Touch project It’s since been io9‘d, Ellis‘d and Slashdotted and we’re really pleased with how both the tech and design communities are engaging with it.

He’s also working with our modelmakers on new, improved Ojito prototypes and looking at manufacturing options and sorting out the final stages of our negotiations for a new studio.

Both Jack and myself are off at the end of the week to Sweden to run a really exciting new media design project workshop for one of our favourite clients which will be intense.

Finally – as Autumn has finally arrived and we found ourselves shivering in the studio, we’ve invested in some state-of-the-art thermoregulation apparatus, that we’ve codenamed “Ojiter”.

(O-heater… Geddit?).

Dont worry.

Normal pun-free programming resumes next week when Webb returns…

Matt Webb’s down-under preparing for his talk at Web Directions South, prior to him going on holiday for a bit, so I’m writing the weekly update! I’m drunk with the power!

So – in summary: Schulze is spending the week in zero-g combat training, Tom is playing with an orangutan genome that he got from some guy in Zurich and I’m building a laser-harp.

Not really.

Jack’s working on Ojito some more this week, and with me on new business development. He’s also working on some animations with Timo for the Touch project.

Tom is still engrossed in material exploration of the data sets for Ashdown as Webb described so nicely in Week 225.

He’s wrangling it now to the point of finding the interesting edges and qualities to output that into graphical, understandable diagnostic artefacts that will help us when the design begins in earnest. I find this really useful in particular, as more of visual thinker – helps me get my head round the territory far faster. Boundary objects.

He’s also doing a little bit of sound design on the side for our casual game proto that we’re delivering at the end of the week. Busy boy!

I’m still working with Paul Pod on that sprint. It’s been a really short intense project but I’m super-pleased with how it’s going and from what we can tell so is the client – hopefully it will lead to something bigger…

My creative direction for it so far has been “Y’know… Peggle meets that Röyksopp video!”

Luckily, having worked with Paul before he’s able to understand garbling like that from me, and go far beyond what I imagine.

I’m also preparing the project plan and internal briefing documents for Ashdown. Writing a brief for a project that you’re going to design might seem a little odd, but of course it’s still valuable in order to really set some goals and scope going in.

What else? Well, I’ve already mentioned the new business development meetings with Jack, and I’m writing a final proposal for a mobile storytelling tool we hope to prototype.

Ok – with that, it’s back to the laser-harp.

Material exploration is the process of getting your hands dirty in order to realise inherent possibilities. Forms for consumer electronics and big, interconnected data are both clays to learn and sculpt. Ashdown is a data heavy project, and Tom is beginning the material exploration now, building systems to ingest data for manipulation and folding, so that – in the design process – we can ask the data what it wants to be, and have that dialogue that happens between material and designer during thinking through making.

That’s Tom’s focus. Matt is focused on a casual game prototype in a two week sprint on another big data project. You have to want to keep clicking, and that’s such an experiential requirement: everything else can be mocked, but this part needs to be designed. Paul Pod is in the studio to work together with Matt on this, and he’s great to have around. (Paul also worked with us on The Incidental.) Matt is our golden boy this week: his recent future cities column at io9 provoked a stellar review from Bruce Sterling. “BERG has become a new Archigram”?? Bruce, that’s terrifically flattering hyperbole, thank you! Now we really have something to live up to.

Jack is prepping the launch materials for the next film to be released (post Nearness). That’s for Tuesday next. He’s working with a mechanical engineer on one project, and will have what we hope is the production-ready Ojito back from the model maker tomorrow. There are a few more costs to figure out before we can make a go/no go. Last week’s workshop we had together with Brian Boyer of Sitra went well, and I’m pleased to see Brian beginning weekly updates for the Helsinki Design Lab.

Me, I’m writing a talk, clarifying points for the accountants, and filling in forms this week, together with the usual progressing of business development. (The pipeline is looking healthy at all stages this week, with all hands taking the lead on a variety of projects.) I’ll be sitting on a panel at the Wired Intelligence Briefing on Thursday, and on Saturday flying to Australia to open Web Directions South and to have a holiday.

A holiday? I’m serious, a holiday.

The exciting news this week is that terms were agreed on Ashdown. This is a project on the scale of Shownar so will keep us occupied in various ways for at least the next six months. It’s a shame Matt Jones is on holiday this week, as he’s leading it — we’ll have to celebrate once he’s back.

Tom’s broken ground on Ashdown already: the first stage is material exploration, and so there’s data to be ingested and explored by designers.

I had hoped we could coincide Ashdown with another project using similar resources, and take advantage of being able to bring in long-term contractors, but we’re facing the traditional problem: closing deals always takes longer than I think. That’s getting some more of my attention now… how can risk be minimised and the process eased to move toward contract, when there’s investment that needs to be made simultaneously on both sides? I need to learn more about closing, especially in this industry, so any book recommendations or pointers are much appreciated.

That aside, I’m getting pretty confident in the process behind bringing in and balancing client services. Next up is to get as confident about new product development. We’re pretty good at the design process itself – developing briefs and finding the inventive steps – but across many products, there are questions: how much to invest in feasibility; how much should be known at the point of go/no go; how to continue to commercialise ideas. We have limited attention and investable cash, and physical things cost more – in cash terms – than websites, so it can’t be a matter of working late to try out ideas. Schulze made some good suggestions yesterday.

In terms of work: Matt, as I said, is on holiday. Tom has been writing and coding for data exploration on Ashdown. Schulze is split between business development meetings in media design/consultancy (his particular speciality), managing contractors on one product concept, and working on feasibility for two more. He’s in a client workshop with me today. I’ve been chasing invoices and fielding emails this week, and arranging a workshop for next Monday to kick off a two week sprint on a kind of playable demo. There were two talks for me – UX Week last Friday in San Francisco, and a panel at Digital Architecture London on Monday – and that always eats more time than I expect.

As Ashdown gets plugged into regular work, my attention is moving to the next big project to activate, one we call Weminuche.

I’m sitting in the lobby of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. In an hour or so I’m keynoting the final day of UX Week. I have a bit of a thing for cheap, black American filter coffee. It has a bitterness and twang and directness that cuts right to the heart of what coffee is about. My paper cup is running low so I’ll keep this quick.

We in the main split the work of the company in half. Matt Jones looks after client services, and Schulze looks after new product development. It’s not clear cut, of course, because we’re small and so much is shared. But I think that general wellbeing, agency, the development of unconscious expertise, and structure without management are rooted in areas of responsibility that belong to individuals, are clearly demarcated and known by the group. It took me a while to come to this – Schulze noticed it first – but I’m a believer in roles now.

Having said there’s often cross-over, there was hardly any this week. Matt was at early and late stage business development presentations and meetings. He’s writing too. Schulze was working on feasibility pricing for two products, one of which at least I’d like to have on the market for Christmas, and moving another product forward. A couple weeks ago, I began tracking the movement towards revenue of both client services and NPD side by side, on a pipeline diagram stuck to the wall behind my desk. When the pipeline is showing progress at all stages, on both sides, it makes me happy, like a plumber who isn’t needed today.

Otherwise… Tom has been on holiday, and I’ve finally jumped through the last logistical hoops for Ashdown. We’ll sign the contract for that on Monday.

I’ve left the big news till last. Schulze has been working with Timo Arnall of Touch/AHO, and this week they released Nearness, a chain reaction film short using RFID, touching without touching.

The reaction has been tremendous. Timo brought together some responses yesterday. The video is already at 67,000 views. I’m proud we’ve been part of some beautiful and, yes, popular work. Congratulations Schulze and Timo!

Let’s keep it short and sweet. Schulze is working on video all week with Timo for the RFID design research and communication project. Tom is breaking ground on our new fulfilment system, named Springdale, which will be used in consumer sales in the future. He’s also writing, and in this morning’s crit showed a component of last week’s toy experimentation he built. It manipulates video and looks like it has lots of other uses. Neat.

Matt J is doing design work on Ojito and research on upcoming projects. Ashdown is close to kicking off and he’s leading that — the subsidiary holding company is formed and there are just a few more logistical hoops to jump through.

My priorities this week are coding for the racing car, and admin: anything in the pipeline needs to be progressed, and there is a list of tasks for the year end accounts which really must be done this week. (The pipeline is the list of projects pre-contract, everything from prospect through proposal to purchase order. It’s healthy to keep the pipeline full at every stage, and everything moving.)

Schulze has just walked in the door with Timo, so I’m off to lunch with them now. Enjoy your week!

Matt Jones and I have been in San Francisco this week, for meetings and a conference (an event called Foo Camp). We’ve been demoing Ojito, a cheap 3D device for the iPhone we’ve developed. Although it wasn’t the purpose of the trip, we’ve pitched it maybe two dozen times, sometimes in less than a minute in a corridor, and it’s fascinating how that process helps distill a product concept and clarify its route to market.

I met one guy and he was like, “oh, great name, how did you come up with it,” so I told the story: we give all our projects codenames after places on the Colorado Plateau. We need essentially meaningless names for the dark projects, and it’s one of my favourite regions in the world. Ojito is a place there. And he replied, “no, no, you don’t understand. I speak Portuguese. Ojito, it means LITTLE EYE.” Auspicious.

My plan for the remainder of this week is to write Ojito up as a plan and cost it, and catch up on the admin that’s difficult to do away — invoicing, payroll and so on: there’s an approved suppliers list the company needs to get on otherwise we’ll lose our chance at a project, and the other big task is setting up a subsidiary company to run Ashdown so that project can start. The wheels are in motion but I need to speak with the bank.

Jack and Tom are in London, working together on a toy I’m really looking forward to seeing. It needs a codename. I understand there are stickers involved. That’ll continue next week.

Tom has been spit-and-polishing the website. Jack has been finishing the stationery templates for invoices and so on. Next week he’s doing some video work with Timo on our RFID research project.

Energy is important to new product development, and to creating new work, as is perspective. It’s easy to get mired in even the most exhilarating work and lose sight of what’s important in a product, and work is always better – and easier – when it’s approached with bright eyes and an open, confident nature. For projects that last longer out of the public eye, you need willpower too.

Conversations and conferences help (Matt J and Tom are both at dconstruct this Friday). What erodes these feelings is a lack of stability. In that spirit, the big news this week is mundane: we’ve been waiting for invoices to two clients to be paid… and in the last couple days, the money landed in the bank. Frankly it’s a relief. Large company bureaucracy can make the payment process time-consuming to navigate, and now especially – what with expanding and investing in new product ideas – Berg’s two major resource constraints are attention and cash flow. Having these invoices paid makes me realise quite how tense I’ve been about the latter for the last month (I don’t mind saying that most of my waking cycles go to thinking about the company), and it’ll be good to return to the normal situation of just having too many exciting projects to work on. That’s life in the Escalante.

Our first week being BERG, and everything is sweet. Welcome to the new website! I should ask Matt J and Tom to say a few words here about the design ideas behind it, how it was put together, and where it’ll go next.

Tom is migrating the last parts of the old website now, and he and Jack are working together on an internal interaction design project for the rest of the week. That sounds fancy: it’s a toy and it’s funny and clever. I look forward to seeing it.

Matt J and I are both in California for conferences and meetings later this week and most of next. Jack has been making demos for Ojito with Campbell (the 3D designer who worked on the Manhattan maps), so we’ll show that around while we’re out there. It’s a simple toy and tool, and our best guess is that – as a standalone thing – it’s legally unprotectable. That means we need to be able to move fast, fit with other people’s products and context, innovate with the service design, and be flexible with route to market. It might still end up as an experiment but that’s fine. We’ll show it more publicly once it’s gone through another round of refinements.

Matt is also wrapping up final deliverables for the two design strategy projects. At that point both become a kind of gentle chase through the accounts payable sides of the relevant companies, which is simply a part of doing business with organisations of a certain size.

This is a quick note because I’m travelling a day early, today, for client workshops in New York (part of one of the two design strategy projects). On the plane I’m hoping to prep for that, and also collate our comments on the Ashdown contract — our solicitor had some interesting points I need check into.

Disappointingly I’m not going to get to work more on the racing car, which needs about another day’s work. Andy and I spent last Friday on it, and lost a good half an hour chasing it round the studio kitchen and having it respond to different instructions. It’s fun to play with in ways I hadn’t expected: interactively and together. More laughter than I’d thought. A good toy.

Some history

Jack Schulze and I dispute where we met, but I know when we first worked together. In 2005 he offered to have his students design icons for some experimental social software I was making. He showed me the options, and the best one had gone against specific requirements in my brief. I picked it anyway. It wasn’t from any of his students it turned out. He’d done the work himself and put it under my nose secretly.

Schulze & Webb Ltd isn’t the original name of the company. Schulze and I renamed an off-the-shelf company we bought in summer 2005 — that’s often the easiest way to start up in the UK. So for a while the company was called Z.V.B. Ltd. “What does that stand for, Zero Version Behaviour?” said Schulze’s dad. And that particular company was formed 1 June 2005. I like that it pre-dates us, if only by a few weeks.

In the summer of 2008 we began the Dayuejin. It’s important to name the eras of a company. It gives a sense of purpose, and of history. The Dayuejin is also known as the Great Leap Forward. To make the products we wanted, we needed more money petrol, which needed bigger projects, which needed more people and a bigger studio, which needed more money, which needed our own projects to build confidence. Everything had to move forward at once. It took a year, more or less, to find the right way to do it and lock it in.

The current era started last week. It’s the Escalante, the Grand Staircase. We’re in the third stage of the business plan I wrote in 2006. Tom Armitage started with us as lead developer and writer at the beginning of 2009. Matt Jones joined mid this year.

Today

This is an invention, strategy and new product development design company. Schulze looks after NPD. Matt Jones looks after design and client services. I help keep the wheels turning. In addition to Tom, there is a network of expert practitioners in electronic and mechanical engineering, industrial design, print, 3D, animation, videography, visualisation, data-mining, coding and technical development. We have growing experience in more and more of fulfilment and the supply chain, with patents in progress, and some neat products either out of the door or in development.

I look at the ideas, people, projects, ways of working, products in development, our friends and culture, and I have to say it: I’m proud. S&W laid the right foundation, and it’s bittersweet to say goodbye to this part of our lives.

We need a name for the next four years. I’ll ask Schulze to say more about the brand in the coming days. For the moment, from all of us, welcome.

A new name

This is BERG.

It’s the last week of Schulze & Webb because we’re renaming the company on Thursday. S&W no longer says what we are: four permanents and a network of expert practitioners, working in design strategy, invention and new product development for ourselves and others. The new name is good for the next four years… and more on that in a day or two.

Tom’s working on the website. It’s super clean, and the launch scope is good and tight. It’s all built in WordPress so we can add to it continuously — a big problem with the current one is how hard it is to update, given how busy we get. Matt Jones is on that too. He’s designed it as a hypertext, all cross-linked so browsing is a flow of reading. He’s also writing, sketching and designing as the deliverables are created for the two design strategy projects. And he’ll be on business development towards the end of the week.

Jack is working on negotiations for the new studio, developing our new branding, and today is with our model maker on various projects… one is Ojito, prototypes of which Matt J and I are hoping to take to California when we visit next week.

I’m writing, one design strategy doc and a little copy for the website. And I’m still on business. The Ashdown contract needs to be run past our solicitor, which is new for us but it’s more complex than ones we’ve signed before. And I have my fingers crossed that we’ll be able to move the iPhone app job forward towards kick-off later this week too.

See you on the other side of the re-brand!