from none
]]>
McDonalds has updated several of their UK locations with a surprisingly fresh, modern look. London based design firm SHH is responsible for the new interiors, which have banished the traditional plastic furniture in favor of a look that is straight out of a design-porn magazine.
As we’ve reported before, McDonalds locations around the world are definitly making progess on their look and recycling, but the question everyone keeps asking is: “what about the food”?
[via Contemporist]
© Dan Gould for PSFK, 2008. | Permalink | Comments | Add to del.icio.us
Not Your Everyday Fast Food Joint from www.psfk.com/2008/09/not-your-everyday-fast-food-joint.html ]]>
We saw this in the French coastal town of Collioure today. They are recycling ’shoots’ that collect your bottles and cans. We’re not too sure how the underground collection gets recovered but they sure look better than a rusty wheelie bin left in the wrong place. Again.
© Piers Fawkes for PSFK, 2008. | Permalink | Comments | Add to del.icio.us
Pic: Aesthetically Conscious Recycling Bins from www.psfk.com/2008/09/pic-aesthetically-conscious-recycling-bins.html ]]>
Spin Magazine founder Bob Guccione Jr. has some insightful predictions on the future of print and media in general. He’s optimistic that print will not die, not go away completely, but instead transform itself into new forms. Imagination and radical new practices (like giving away major newspapers) is key, Guccione believes, and resting on the time-tested methods of the past will only ensure stagnation.
His thoughts on the Internet’s effect on print:
The Internet hit traditional publishing like the asteroid that struck the earth and killed the dinosaurs. But in the wake of that cataclysmic shock, we forget that the Internet is not a thoughtful entity. It’s a fertile ecosystem spawning a dazzling array of exotic flora, with the potential to improve mankind exponentially. It’s an infinite network of railway tracks, along which travel an unfathomable number of rail cars loaded with thoughts and information, some of the cargo precious, some worthless. But the Internet didn’t create any of it. It only delivers it.
© Dan Gould for PSFK, 2008. | Permalink | Comments | Add to del.icio.us
The Internet Will Not Consume Print from www.psfk.com/2008/09/the-internet-will-not-consume-print.html ]]>
The Encoder Ring by Jonathan Ben-Tovim, lets you keep a specially coded message on a piece of jewelery. Only you, a computer, or maybe the IT guy will know what’s hidden on your finger. It can contain up to 64 characters of binary code. 8 Little bumps or indentations represent the 1’s and 0’s that make up each individual letter. Ben-Tovim hopes this concept design could be made on demand - people would pick their message, and the rings would be fabricated using 3D printing.
[via Technabob]
© Dan Gould for PSFK, 2008. | Permalink | Comments | Add to del.icio.us
Encoder Ring, Binary Code Jewelery from www.psfk.com/2008/09/encoder-ring-binary-code-jewelery.html ]]>
David Art Wales shared his insights on the power of secrets and clandestine societies at Interesting NYC - a topic he’s become quite an expert in since spearheading the Prudent Boozer movement and exploring the uber-hush hush world of the Freemasons. We asked David if he could share a little bit more about his thoughts on what makes secrecy so sublime, and he was kind enough to divulge. A little.
At Interesting NY, you spoke about “Secret Societies and the Twilight of Hidden Knowledge.” What’s so special about secrecy?
We all love secrets. They’re so precious and fragile, and they can’t be un-revealed once the cat is out of the bag. We use secrets all the time without even realizing – to bring others closer or keep them at bay, to help us create trust and intimacy. Every romantic relationship begins with a gradual unfolding of secrets. It’s ritualistic. That secrets are everywhere in popular culture shows how tantalizing they are: secret agents, weapons, identities, recipes, the seven secrets of success… the list goes on.
How do we keep and create secrets in this “twilight of hidden knowledge”?
The internet’s created two industries, one madly uncovering secrets and another frantically creating new ones. Look at the glut of secret bars and speakeasies in New York, and the corresponding army of websites like UrbanDaddy competing to reveal them. A good secret’s usually born out of a sincere attempt to make something others will want to protect and cherish. It becomes a conspiracy of inductees.
Add the word “secret” to anything and suddenly it’s sexier, assuming it’s true. It’s the greatest value-add there is. But secrecy’s about restraint, which is antithetical to conventional marketing. Creating and selling a secret requires counterintuitive thinking and being willing to take a risk. And it can backfire: We’re working pro-bono to revive Prudent Boozers, a moderate drinking movement that became a secret society during Prohibition and consequently bit the dust. Some companies do understand the value of hidden knowledge, though. Apple uses secrecy around their R&D the way KFC and Coke always did with their secret recipes. It’s a time-worn ploy but we eat it up. By the way, Victoria’s Secret is that there is none.
A good secret is always just out of reach.
You mentioned that you’re joining one of the most well-known secret societies in the world, The Masons. What can modern organizations/businesses learn from legendary secret societies like The Masons?
A lot, I would think. The Masons is less a secret society than a “society with secrets” – unlike Skull & Bones, for example – so it’s not unlike companies that ask employees to sign NDAs. But most companies don’t get the importance of ritual and a sense of belonging. They enforce secrecy only to protect themselves, rather than to create a hidden world and make their employees feel like members. If a corporation understood this, I guarantee you’d see a spike in company morale.
The Prime Minister of Ministry of Culture will be telling some more secrets at Click Conference on October 1st. Remember to sit up front though - he’ll probably be whispering…
Thanks, David!
© Christine Huang for PSFK, 2008. | Permalink | Comments | Add to del.icio.us
PSFK Interview: David Art Wales on Secret Societies from www.psfk.com/2008/09/psfk-interview-david-art-wales-on-secret-societies.html ]]>You have my permission to slap the next futurist (foresight thinker, scenario strategist, or trend-spotter) who uses the expression "this changes everything" seriously. Slap them hard. Maybe a shin-kick, too, if you're into it.
The notion that some new development -- usually a technology, but not always -- "changes everything" manages to combine the most uselessly banal and the most pointlessly wrong observations in the field.
At the top end, it's part of what I'm starting to call the "cinematic bias" in futurism: the need to describe future developments in ways that startle, titillate, and would probably look pretty cool on-screen. Quite often, the items that fall into this category are simply impossible, or so implausible as to make me struggle to avoid lashing out with Dean Venture's infamous "I dare you to make less sense!" I'm not shocked when people from client companies offer up suggestions like these -- cinematic science fiction is the common language of futurism right now -- but I'm boggled when I see people who get paid to do this for a living coming up with misfires like "teleportation eases traffic problems!" or "population pressure solved by Moon colonies!"
Sometimes, it's not just implausibility, it's an unwillingness to deviate from The One True Future. Logic is irrelevant, except for the narrow conjectural pathway that leads the futurist from Point A to Point Stupid. Complexity goes right out the window, as do any notions of co-evolution, competing drivers, mistakes, or push-back. This is the kind of thinking that tells us that we don't need to worry about global warming/hunger/poverty/ocean acidification/resource depletion because NewTechnology will fix all of our problems, for ever and ever amen.
I'm not saying this out of pessimism, or even realism. It's I'm-not-trapped-with-my-head-up-my-posterier-ism.
At the opposite end of the "this changes everything" spectrum are those people who use this cognitive abortion of a phrase to describe something that might merit a page 14 mention in Widget Fancy. No, a new form of text messaging does not change everything. A new teen language trend does not change everything. And the latest update to an MP3 player most decidedly does not change everything.
You might think that the people offering up such exaggerated praise for minor developments are novice marketeers, trying on their big hyperbole pants for the first time. You'd be wrong. More often, such an utterance comes from someone who should be paying attention to such things discovering a new toy or trend that half the people sitting around the table already knew about (most likely the underpaid under-30 interns & employees). Simply put, saying that a new widget will "change everything" is just one step more articulate than holding up a napkin drawing and saying "ZOOM! WHOOSH! PEW PEW!"
What frustrates me most about the ascendence of the "this changes everything" meme is that its implicit opposite is "this changes nothing." Left out are the changes that really matter: the widgets and methods and practices and ideas that change the little parts of our lives, the everyday decisions, offering us new perspectives on old problems -- not solving them with a wave of the hand, but letting us see new ways to grapple with old dilemmas. This doesn't change everything -- in the real world, like it or not, we change everything. The longer we wait for magical technology or new MP3 players to do it for us, the sorrier we'll be.
This Changes Everything from www.openthefuture.com/2008/09/this_changes_everything.html ]]>Although it relies far too much on cliched stock footage, the latest video from Arup that suggests how embedded netowrks of tags and sensors will allow cities to monitor themselves and improve efficiencies - particularly in the reduction of their environmental footprints. They say that urban design and communication technology can help us achieve gains and that tracking our energy consumption cities can inform and inspire consumer behavior. The film also looks at other issues including energy security, transportation, urban sprawl, consumption and waste.
© Piers Fawkes for PSFK, 2008. | Permalink | Comments | Add to del.icio.us
The Future Of Connected & Sustainable Cities from www.psfk.com/2008/09/the-future-of-connected-sustainable-cities.html ]]>