Daily updates on what I’m reading. Links with my notes. I also just tweet links and things that interest me @dina
POV – caste politics of a different kind? Lahore Bombings & the Future of Pakistan – CLIP: "And the provincial government has consistently failed to provide security for likely targets, starting with Ahmedi mosques and Sufi shrines. The political calculation is simple: the PML-N's view appears to be that ………." "Perhaps there is a tipping point. Violent attacks in Peshawar is one thing. Attacks on Punjabi teachers in Balochistan, well, you know what the tribes are like and besides, India is behind it all. (There may, in fact, be Indian involvement in support for Baloch separatist groups, but that's another story.) Terrorism against Ahmedis? One of my students here in Lahore — during a meeting of a class on Democratic Theory, no less — explained that while the attacks were deplorable "as a good Muslim I would never say hello to an Ahmedi or respond if he said a'salaam." But attacks in the heart of Lahore on an ancient Sufi shrine that is both a tourist attraction and one of the identifying monuments of the city?"
Daily updates on what I’m reading. Links with my notes. I also just tweet links and things that interest me @dina
The jugaad myth (via @manipande – on why ‘jugaad’ is not necessarily innovation)) – CLIP: "Earthen pots and other types of jugaad may make good documentary film subjects, but we should remember that these are typically low productivity solutions with a below-par user experience. They should not be romanticised. India cannot become a world-beating economic force by under-investing in fundamental scientific research and celebrating the stop-gap survival mechanisms as path-breaking innovation. …. The state should commit itself to turning India into a magnet for top scientific talent from around the world, increasing investment in fundamental science and engineering and creating infrastructure ……. When such an environment is created, storytellers will find inspiration from life to imagine and create more on the lines of the recent Hollywood blockbuster series on high-technology superhero Iron Man, showcasing cutting-edge technology that can inspire real innovators."
IDEO Method Cards is a collection of 51 cards representing diverse ways that design teams can understand the people they are designing for. They are used to make a number of different methods accessible to all members of a design team, to explain how and when the methods are best used, and to demonstrate how they have been applied to real design projects.
IDEO’s human factors specialists conceived the deck as a design research tool for its staff and clients, to be used by researchers, designers, and engineers to evaluate and select the empathic research methods that best inform specific design initiatives. The tool can be used in various ways—sorted, browsed, searched, spread out, pinned up—as both information and inspiration to human-centered design teams and individuals at various stages to support planning and execution of design programs.
Inspired by playing cards, the cards are classified as four suits—Ask, Watch, Learn, Try—that define the types of activities involved in using each method”
Daily updates on what I’m reading. Links with my notes. I also just tweet links and things that interest me @dina
Shedding light on the invisible workforce – livemint.com | Indian women contribute more than the official 23% in GDP – CLIP: Women officially contribute 23% of India’s gross domestic product. But their actual contribution is much larger, and goes unnoticed, says the ILO study authored by G. Raveendran, former additional director general of Central Statistical Organisation and consultant to the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector. Traditional occupations such as sewing, embroidering and even grinding and de-husking of rice—defined as economic activities by the United Nations System of National Accounts—do not figure in official records, it adds. The work of nearly 85 million women is not counted, and the incorrect data hobbles policy decisions, says Raveendran.
Ethnography in Industry: Objectives? | UX Magazine – CLIP: “Ethnography adapted for industry. In today’s hard-nosed and often economically trying times, ethnography can be seen as a tactical weapon enabling companies to gather new insights and thus gain advantage over their competition.Traditional ethnographic studies were conducted at a relatively leisurely pace ……….. Out of the academic Garden of Eden, modern ethnographers have been driven to move and produce compelling results faster, while operating within a number of budgetary constraints and oft-conflicting business demands. Ethnographers’ data collection and analysis methods have therefore been condensed, recombined, adapted—both systematically and as-needed—to meet these business demands.”
Daily updates on what I’m reading. Links with my notes. I also just tweet links and things that interest me @dina
What a great sensory anchor or imprint for a brand! The Scent of Memory: Design, Experience & Perfume | via @futurescape – CLIP: “Scent design. Scent is place and memory—it is experience recalled. Every scent, in the microscopic particulate nature of its diffusion, is distinctive, unforgettable to those who are mindful, informing a significant part of our experience. The memory is a story, and to designers, the idea of linking story and experience through formed visualization—from container to packaged expression, from word to identity, from photography to patterning—reaches deep into the darker, psychic place of scent embedded in our recollections forever. Sensing, scent and sentience—all come from the same Latin root: sentire, to feel. As designers, that’s where we live: generating the (e)motion of feeling in the signals of message, form, place and storied visuals.”
Internet Hindus and Madrasa Muslims – @amitvarma explores group polarization [via @prempanicker] – CLIPS: “Here’s how Sunstein summarised the results in his book: “In almost every group, members ended up holding more extreme positions after they spoke with one another. [...] Aside from increasing extremism, the experiment had an independent effect: it made both liberal and conservative groups significantly more homogeneous — and thus squelched diversity. [...] Moreover, the rift between liberals and conservatives widened as a result of discussing. This phenomenon is called Group Polarization. Sunstein defines it thus: “When like-minded people deliberate, they typically end up adopting a more extreme position in line with their pre-deliberation inclinations.This explains why the internet is such a polarised space. And he ends with humour – “Also, I would request anyone who wishes to coin more such terms to at least alliterate. Blogging Buddhists and Joomla Jains sound far more musical than Internet Hindus, if a little more niche. No?”
Colour me purple! Colour & Gender – results of a survey [via @hiteshmehta] – This is funny!!! CLIP: “I decided to calculate the ‘most masculine’ and ‘most feminine’ colors. I was looking for the color names most disproportionately popular among each group; that is, the names that the most women came up with compared to the fewest men (or vice versa). Here are the color names most disproportionately popular among women: Dusty Teal, Blush Pink, Dusty Lavender, Butter Yellow, Dusky Rose, Okay, pretty flowery, certainly. Kind of an incense-bomb-set-off-in-a-Bed-Bath-&-Beyond vibe. Well, let’s take a look at the other list. Here are the color names most disproportionately popular among men: Penis Gay, WTF, Dunno, Baige ! … that’s not my typo in #5—the only actual color in the list really is a misspelling of “beige”. And keep in mind, this is based on the number of unique people who answered the color, not the number of times they typed it. This isn’t just the effect of a couple spammers. In fact, this is after the spamfilter. I weep for my gender”
What Are You Going to Do When the Internet’s Gone? asks @davepollard – CLIPS: “What are you going to do when the Internet’s gone? That is the question that no one dares ask. I’m not talking about Net Neutrality and the takeover of the web by corporate interests. I’m talking about its simple disappearance, as infrastructure that’s simply unaffordable and unsustainable in a world of economic, energy and ecological collapse, stops working and falls apart.” …. “How well will you be prepared to adapt to the end of the Internet? Are you dependent on it, now, for critical information you need, for connection with those you love and those you seek to love, to work with, to partner with, and for what brings you joy or blessed escape? The biggest uses of the Internet today are music, porn, health information, games, and amateur photo/video sharing. To the extent you use the Internet for any of these things, do you have a way of doing them, with no or low technology, when the Internet’s gone?”
“Our strategy has relied upon being part of a larger mission, providing meaningful and valuable content, curating information and content for the community, using a legal framework that allows for a participatory culture and lastly, in time, providing a space for the community to assist in the mission by creating content themselves. The last part, a community publishing platform, is something we are working on with the Connexions Project and a brief video about it is here. It’s still a journey we are on and we’ve had many success till date - Skype reading sessions across countries, helping us get books to children across the country, audio books created for the blind, iPad apps being made of our content and so much more. Here’s some details about some of social tactics:
Skype reading sessions: This project started after a few tweets were exchanged between a librarian from Central Manor, Pennsylvania. We started off by people from our organization having Skype reading sessions with a few children and then moved onto having sessions with entire classes. On 20th March, 2009, we managed to hold a Skype storytelling session between kids from Akshara Foundation’s community library and a class from Central Manor.The purpose is to go beyond being just a publisher. Through these activities we are encouraging reading, learning and connecting children from different communities and backgrounds. Channels used: Twitter, Skype, Blog
Inviting people to remix/repurpose our content: As a publisher, we have a lot of content available which we want people to access as easily as possible. In our attempt to do so, we have managed to license some of our books under Creative Commons licenses. Now, if we can’t publish a book in Assamese, but a teacher in Assam wants to do so, she doesn’t have to worry about copyright infringement. We have also put up some of the illustrations of our books so that people can remix or repurpose them. Channels used : Scribd, Blog, Flickr
Facilitators/connecting organisations and people: @Anorakmagazine found us on Twitter and asked if they could send us some back issues of their magazines to share with kids in India. Once the books arrived, they were sent to the community libraries run by Akshara Foundation. We also helped coordinate a drawing project that Anorak Magazine wanted to involve the children with. Now, some of the kids have their work published in an international children’s magazine.Channels used: Twitter
Audio books for the National Association of Blind : This project started off because of another blog post (on the Helen Keller Talking Library project) that got automatically updated to our Twitter account. @owos then messaged us to tell us about a similar intiative Radio Mirchi had started. Then another tweep (@barkhad) told us that she had registered with Radio Mirchi but they didn’t get back to her. So, we got in touch with Radio Mirchi to talk about a blog post and while we were talking, she asked if we would be interested in having our books recorded by Radio Mirchi for the National Association of the Blind. We also requested if @barkhad could record one of our books and they agreed. So, our Twitter friend went offline and recorded a book in their Delhi studio! Channels used: Blog, Twitter
Passing it on – the book edition: We read about about a bunch of kids in Kolkata who went around with a van full of books to reach kids who didn’t have access to books and even went on to teach the kids how to read. After reading about this initiative, one of our trustees volunteered to sponsor some Bengali books if we could find these kids. We mailed the news bureau which published the article, but were unable to get a response. So, we decided to see if the Twitter community could help us. Within half an hour of sending out a tweet, we had a volunteer who said he would get us the information and by the next day we had an address and contact number. Within a few days, Bengali books were sent by us to these kids.From this story, we decided to start an initiative which would allow our online community to participate…to help these kids as well as other kids. Channels used: Twitter, Blog, Facebook
What we’ve found is that honestly, transparency and accountability are the three most important elements of any social media strategy. A longer case study that we had written up is available on the IndiaSocial site.
CLIPs: “Nokia is still a market leader in the lower end handsets. But there too companies like Micromax are coming in aggressively with high end features at very competitive rates.” It’s time for Nokia to go back into the laboratory and come up with something that make you want to chuck what you have and buy a new one. Imagine a stunningly good-looking girl with an IQ of 180 – but in the form of a phone.”
“… Just a few crazy ideas. I am sure there are designers and engineers out there can come up with much better. Because product lifecycles are getting shorter and shorter. If you’re not dreaming ‘what next’, ‘what more’, your brand is one step closer to the grave. Nokia still enjoys tremendous goodwill, and marketshare. But it needs some stardust to sprinkle on consumers. To work its magic spell, to mesmerise us into saying “lena to Nokia hi hai, question is ‘which model’!”
This is a post that’s long overdue, since the time the film was released! I was spurred to write it this morning, as I’m quite excited to be on a panel discussion at the screening of Tactical Tech’s film called 10 Tactics – Turning Information into Action.
The screening is at the Conference Room of National College, Bandra today and is being hosted by Point of View. I’m often asked what Info-Activism is, and this film is a must-see for all those who are curious about, interested in and work in the area. I’m also often asked whether I’m a rights activist or a digital activist – and I say no, I’m an ethnographer and researcher who is sometimes an accidental information activist. I’d also broaden the scope of the relevance of these 10 Tactics to those who are working in the social media area, and to those in the corporate world, who’s focus of work is in developing products, services and strategies in a world where customers, users, consumers are already exchanging information, having conversations, and learning often much faster than organizations are. Or simply, it’s for those who care and already use these tools – how can you get more involved in making a difference?
10 tactics provides original and artful ways for rights advocates to capture attention and communicate a cause. It includes a 50-minute film documenting inspiring info-activism stories from around the world and a set of cards; with tools tips and advice, for you to work through as you plan your own info-activism
The film features 35 info-activism stories told from the point of view of advocates in 24 different countries including Lebanon, India, Tunisia, Egypt, Kenya, Indonesia, South Africa and the UK.
The film is shared at the website as 10 Tactics, along with Tactics cards that cover a case study, a video story, suggestions and tips, and a featured tool. The 10 Tactics are:
(I’m featured in Tactic 8 – Use Collective Intelligence – here’s the gist of what I said – “We have communities that we have developed over time in several spaces on the web – on blogs, Facebook, Twitter. What these tools allow you to do is network with all of your online communities, to operate as hubs of connected people. So when something happens and you need to respond, it’s about the spontaneous mobilisation of a community that already exists online, through the multiple nodes and hubs that you have created as you leave your footprints on the web.”
If you’re interested in this area, make sure you view the whole film, all 10 tactics! And there are screenings all over the world, so do go for them, and participate in the discussions.
Daily updates on what I’m reading. Links with my notes. I also just tweet links and things that interest me @dina
The Economist on innovation models – jugaad, shanzai – in emerging markets – From Jugaad in India to Shanzai in China. CLIPS: "A second area where the Chinese excel is in “bandit” or “guerrilla” innovation, known as shanzhai. The original bandits lived in isolated villages and carried out raids on upright citizens. Today’s bandits live at the margins of official society but are much in evidence: in Shanghai’s People’s Square you will be offered a cheap watch or phone at every step."
I was asked this question at the Anthrodesign group, in the context of a conversation around getting into the swing of a project and developing some working momentum . I shared there, how I often find myself turning to my blog and twitter communities for helping me with my thinking on qualitative and ethnographic research projects. I was then asked these questions: Could you elaborate a bit more on how you tap into your twitter community? with the limited character set, do you drive them to answer in more detail on your blog? How effective have you found twitter in generating meaningful conversations and resources?
Sharing my response here with a few modifications – there are many many ways I use Twitter, apart from keeping in touch with people, the world, and sharing warm fuzzy feelings or rants. I’ll try and describe some of these:
If I’m looking for advice (from a community I trust) on say which phone to buy next, or where to find macbook chargers, or how to solve a particular problem I find I can really rely on my twitter community. During the Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks Twitter was what kept many of us feeling ’safe’ (in the way of experiencing it together) and connected to the outside world, as we were stuck in our homes. We also used it to try and reach out to people who were affected – eg. sourced and published lists of victims from hospitals (and directed people to those lists via links on twitter). I’ve often also used Twitter to help mobilize action around immediate causes like someone needing blood of a certain group in a specific hospital. But these are all very specific short term needs being addressed by quick responses.
I often use Twitter (and my blog – they’re linked BTW) to have meaningful conversations, tease out some areas, ask for help on resources, opinions, suss out experts, or participants for studies. Obviously, with no mention of the actual client or specific subject of research. A recent example – a client is looking to understand Durability as a driver for purchase in her category, and I broadened the issue and asked a question on Twitter - the thought to actually blog this series started off with this tweet – and responses to it - looking for evidence that ‘durability’ as a brand proposition isn’t a big purchase driver for youth today. egs, links anecdotes welcome!”. Sometimes its linked back to my blog, or to something someone else has published and I’m always amazed at both thedepth and width in the sharing of perspectives that it evokes.
And I use it increasingly to share links around what I’m reading or find interesting. The way I do it, is bookmark the link on Delicious and I’ve automated it to show both at my blog, and on Twitter. Often, these are starting points for meaningful conversations among several tweeters who share similar interests. And as importantly, if not more, I get to see all their marvelous links too!
Or to live-tweet an event I’m at, as I did with TEDIndia last year and then just aggregated my tweets at my blog, and TedXMumbai more recently. The interesting thing about such tweets is you actually have people responding back in real-time, you feel your community is ‘present’ too, and often their questions and comments are shared back at the conferences. These could be conferences around my areas of work too.
To amplify interesting thoughts, ideas, requirements, needs of others I follow on twitter thru RTs.
Every post I make on my blog, every bookmark I link to at Delicious – is tweeted. As a result, it helps me broadcast my thoughts, and encourages people to come in and add to the conversation. It really doesn’t bother me where they do this – as today it’s possible to weave much of this into a lifestream of sorts. (I know this might be annoying to those who follow my blog, my twitter profile, and facebook as there can be much repetition – I need to find a way to sort this one out!)
So to answer the question more directly … I find I’m using Twitter increasingly both as a quick-byte sort of space – in and out, and as a gateway or pipe through which information and conversations flow!
Would love to hear your views – How do you use twitter or your blog in generating meaningful conversations and resources around what you do?
Daily updates on what I’m reading. Links with my notes. I also just tweet links and things that interest me @dina on Twitter.
The Triumph of the Ordinary Cellphone – NYTimes.com | by @anandwrites [via @sunil_abraham] – Reality check – or different cultures of innovation?? CLIP: “Forgotten in the American tumult is a global flowering of innovation on the simple cellphone. From Brazil to India to South Korea and even Afghanistan, people are seeking work via text message; borrowing and lending money and receiving salaries on cellphones; employing their phones variously as flashlights, televisions and radios. And many do all this for peanuts. In India, Reliance Communications sells handsets for less than $25, with 1-cent-a-minute phone calls across India and 1-cent text messages and no monthly charge — while earning fat profits. Compare that with iPad buyers in the United States, who pay $499 for the basic version, who might also have a $1,000-plus computer and a $100-plus smartphone, and who could pay $100 or more each month to connect these many devices to the ether. Not for the first time, the United States and much of the world are moving in different ways. …. “
Mobile Web Traffic from India is just next to US [Admob Report] via @gagupta – CLIPS: “Even though Internet penetration in India is nothing much to talk about, mobile web has taken off and as per latest report by Admob, web traffic from mobile phones has touched the 1.2 Billion mark in March 2010 – propelling India to the second highest traffic worldwide.” and
In total, there were 828, 558, 969 requests from India in the month of Feb, 2010 (up by 5.9% since last month)
iPhone contribution has gone up to 5%.
As far as device manufacturers are concerned, its a Nokia world.
Nokia phones constitute 59% of Mobile web, followed by Sony (10%), Samsung (9%), Apple (1%) and other phones (21%)
In terms of Operating Systems, Symbian phone contributes 91% of the mobile web, followed by iPhone OS (5%) and Windows mobile and other OSes.
Top smartphones include N70, N83, N73, 6300 and N72 [Download the Admob report].”
Books Travellers Read in Mumbai Locals | great observations from @indiafiles [via @supriyan] - Super series of posts from his ongoing attempt to note the books fellow travellers read in Mumbai local trains on their way to work and back. It covers his observations of people’s faces, their interest, method of reading in really crowded trains, and both posts are replete with photographic observations. Including people who hide their books inside open newspapers. Ethnography in motion
Fantastic post from Manu Prasad that broadens the discussion on Durability and takes it forward in new directions.
Brand equity is something that falls naturally into the scope of this discussion. But what i was more interested in its impact on the content that brands create, including their communication. Look at say, print ads, whose physical [...]
Abundance - i’d certainly add that as a key principle . I’ve been spending time at Slideshare checking out presentations on principles, processes, personas, ideation, creativity, scenarios and story in Design Thinking for new product development (NPD as researchers often call it, and covers the areas of User Experience, User Design, ). By no [...]
My new Yoga teacher speaks no English. He’s young, and comes from a small town in the North. He’s moved to Mumbai to make a living. And still, he communicates via SMS so well, and has evolved his own form of English. I asked him how come he doesn’t text in Hindi, he says its [...]
Daily updates on what I’m reading. Links with my notes. I also just tweet links and things that interest me @dina
Skype and iPhone 4.0 – Telecoms and Social Networks | @stuarthenshall – CLIP "Unfortunately this means… VoIP on the iPhone is really just a dumb pipe. What’s important is the CallerID. Rich CallerID’s will get [...]
"Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It's the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all. How do we define this lively darting about with words, of hitting them back and forth, this sort of brief smile of ideas which should be conversation?"
Guy de Maupassant
Super series of posts from his ongoing attempt to note the books fellow travellers read in Mumbai local trains on their way to work and back. It covers his observations of people’s faces, their interest, method of reading in really crowded trains, and both posts are replete with photographic observations. Including people who hide their books inside open newspapers. Ethnography in motion 
