Information and Service Design Lecture Series

In a rapidly-changing, uncertain environment, the ability to think constructively about various future possibilities is more important than ever. Foresight Specialists, Scenario Planners, Trend Spotters and good old Futurists provide a specialized service that few businesses, non-profits, and governments have organically — and fewer still recognize that they need. I'll talk about why today's futurism has more to do with imagining the possible than thinking the unthinkable, why futurist ethics matters more than futurist economics, and whether futurism might just be the best job out there for the easily-distracted generalist.

This talk explore co-designing innovations with everyday people, i.e. non-designers. He will present an example case study that was conducted with a bank's phone service in order to develop knowledge management practices and tools. In the case study a combination contextual study and video scenario workshops were utilised together with a co-design approach with the bank's phone service workers. The project created new visions into ways to develop knowledge management in the bank. The talk will also examine experiences from essentially similar projects where new product and service innovations have been explored with non-designers.

The term Web 2.0 is justly derided for its imprecision. In this talk Dave Marvit of Fujitsu labs will present a different perspective on the continuum from simple data collections to knowledge systems. With many examples he will try to elucidate the underlying principles that will help us create more useful and much smarter Web services.

Abstract 3D data, maps, and software will change the way we compute and interact with spatial services. Moving beyond simple texture mapped terrain and boxes, new 3D mapping frameworks are rapidly evolving into platforms for real world virtual world media, interaction, commerce, and science. In this talk I'll review work of various groups who are building different components of a 3D Geoweb. I will first describe how their 3D data and software will work as a platform for a 3D real world virtual world, and then, what kinds of new applications and user experiences might be developed on these platforms, and then finish with a brief discussion of prospects and mechanisms for data interoperabity allowing users to create, discover, use, and exchange 3D data across platforms.

Already in the mid-1970’s the combination of finger and talk enabled Unix users to find out who's online and to chat with them. Thanks to wireless networks and various sensors available in present-day mobile platforms, a broad range of possibilities has emerged to mediate discussion and support it by automatically constructed real-time indicators of conversants' undertakings, whereabouts, and intentions. These indicators are called awareness cues. In this talk, I present findings from several studies of systems that leverage these capabilities: ContextContacts: Mobile awareness cues integrated into a phonebook; Jaiku: A microblogging service utilizing mobile awareness cues; CoMedia: A mobile group media system with awareness cues. I discuss principles of designing awareness cues for mobile awareness systems, and show benefits from having them.