MAJA

World of Warcraft - The New Finnish Sauna

2006-02-10T11:12:00.000+01:00

Joi Ito just wrote today that World of Warcraft is "The New Golf". Well that is a very interesting point. From a Swedish perspective World of Warcraft is not just "The New Golf", we would call it the "New Finnish Sauna". For those of you unfamiliar with the Sauna traditions, it means getting naked into a very hot room, stay there as long as possible before rushing out and throw yourself into a lake of ice and snow. And then get back in there with a clear mind ready for some new heat. The saying in Sweden is that all important decisions are made in the sauna.

For obvious reasons mixed saunas aren't that popular amongst women. And for some reason gaming isn't either. But to avoid another saunaclub, I guess one has to get inspired by the best playing female golfer in the world, Annika Sörenstam - and begin learn to play The World of Warcraft.

Will "Fon" change the universe?

2005-11-10T21:24:00.000+01:00

Martin Varsavsky, launched FON today at the conference Sime in Sweden. Fon is a network of wireless hotspots that is accessible for free. Pretty cool thing. But will it change the universe? It certainly complements the Skype agenda, more on this tomorrow...

The fast food chain launched - Gooh!

2005-09-30T15:30:00.000+02:00

At Norrlandsgatan in Stockholm a new fastfood chain has launched called Gooh! Wilhelmsson architects with Fredric Benesch as the manager of the project has done a nice job. The best part is the food though. The chef from Operakällaren, one of the most prestigious kitchens in Stockholm has designed the menue and it is tasty and fairly cheap. But the customer experience is somehow lacking what most stores lack these days - an experience that match the service. A store that is easy to navigate. And the service is carried out by staff who gives the place the right attitude.

This is something most people in fashion knows - and really nice restaurants. But fast food chains and mobile operators are still on the same patch. After visiting threee of Stockholms leading mobile service stores I still didn't manage to figure out 1. which phone to get 2. what it was going to cost. Amazing isn't it? At Gooh I at least managed to get my pasta - but was too confused to remember to get a fruit and something to drink.

The business of being out of touch

2005-06-21T21:53:00.000+02:00

The past two weeks were spent relaxing in our summerhouse on Öland and taking yoga classes at the yoga festival near by. It was a necessary break turning off all frequencies and get rid of a four weeks horrible cold.

And just as I had sort of mastered the technique of turning off the brain in yoga class, I realized that by learning that specific method I found myself in a new business community where there is a number of entrepreneurs propagating all kinds of "turning off brain services". They meet at festivals and at the billboard they make advertisements for the next camp such as yoga and kayaking, healing, massages, drum dance.....the list is endless and so is the business opportunities.

The business of being able to turn off all frequencies is growing as we on the other end is developing more high tech-services to stay in touch. Being able to turn off the sound on my mobile is mere a basic function. The challenge is to be able to turn off my mind from rapid creative thinking. And learning that method is a service I am prepared to invest quite a bit more in than I did when I paid my latest phone bill.

Will Skype will become the p2p mobile enabler?

2005-05-24T20:46:00.000+02:00

Niklas Zennström, founder of Skype, received the title most powerful IT person, in Sweden, at an event held by the magazine Ny Teknik in Kista Science Tower this afternoon. Well, he has deserved it and if there was a similar world title he should be the next on the list.

Bill Gates is pouring billions of his private fortune into medical research and the distribution of vaccinations and medicine to the poor. Niklas Zennström has enabled a service most of us have been used to pay enormous amounts of money for, and that at least half of the world would never afford using at all. So Skype is a good company, from the very start.

Then Zennström's definition of good company is a company that is honest. He says an honest company is treating the user of the service with respect, which manifests itself through free service, no banners, no advertising and simple pricing.

He mentions Google and Ebay as companies he sees the family Skype belongs to, which have been successful. No company today can afford to spend marketing money promoting a product that doesn't deliver on promise; one unhappy customers/blogger and the word will spread. p2p in effect. He gets it all.

Skype's business model is basically, give away the service for free, spend no marketing money and rely on the 5% who will pay for additional services. The exponential growth of the company, 150 000 new users each day, generated by word of mouth, p2p, from existing users will secure profitability - one day.

Where is Skype heading? Skype is heading for the mobile space. And this is where Skype will really rock the boat with the operators who have tried for years to enable p2p distribution of content - and nothing has really happened since sms, even if most of us have been quite excited by video the past year.

The design director at Nokia told me a month ago that his misjudgment of MMS was basically that people don't want to send images to strangers. Well this cannot be true, as Lunarstorm finds that what it's users do all the time is communicating by exposing photos of everything. And marketing director, David Erixon, of Vodafone Sweden agrees, it is to difficult to send MMS, the UI of the mobile phone is flaw.

By moving Skype to wifi phones p2p content will fly. The challenge for Skype will be to stay true to it's vision of being an honest company, avoid turning into a Telco and be wise enough to quickly develop a brilliant design strategy which will set the specifications for how Skype branded phones should look, feel and work.

Barosso wants a European competitor to MIT

2005-05-16T13:06:00.000+02:00

Mr Barosso, The European Commission President wants to create a European competitor to MIT. This is not the first time in history and John Thackera's blog has a fun take on this subject!

Ytterborn's Design Agency folded

2005-05-16T10:15:00.000+02:00

Some news reaches one rather late, but it was a surprise to hear that Ytterborn & Fuentes, a design strategy agency has closed down here in Sweden. Stefan Ytterborn, known for taking Ittala and Hackman's assortment to the design community by introducing a number of glasses and cups and frying pans.

I paid a brief visit to the company a few years back and was a bit confused of how it was managed. But also made a realisation that it is very difficult for a business culture based on design of objects to shift their minds to the design of services, in particular if one hasn't lived at least part-time with a digital mindset the past years. However this might just be another sign of that the industrial design space is becoming very crowded and there is a reason why there are so few businesses established in service design - yet.

The pope and the generation of 1968 - with the head in the sand

2005-05-10T14:16:00.000+02:00

The Da Vinci Code was a good read last summer and was surprised it was still on the bestsellerlist in a bookstore recently together with Dan Brown's other 3 books, rather standard criminal novel read. The past 2 days I have stayed in bed and completed 2 books of Dan Brown - much to the complain of my family.

As I am not a catholic and unfamiliar with the proceedures in the Vatican, Dan Brown seemed to have made some concepts familiar such as "conclave" which was a great help when I ended up reading about the Pope, Benedict XVI, and his election process in TIME magazine. Not only did it give a picture of how the Joseph Ratzinger became elected by the conclave and managed to outmanuver the liberals, but also how the late Pope John Paul II seemed to have prepared the path.

As it turns out Razinger was teaching in Tübingen, when the West German verison of the 1968 student protest broke out. He was known for advocating a greater openess and a loosening of authority. Where teachers used to be "almost godlike" the overturning of authority was "brutal" and Ratzinger felt somewhat responsible for the protest. The article argues that it was at this point Ratzinger the reformer decided that necessary condition for reform did not exist - and became a conservative.

It is fascinating to watch how many of those part of the 1968 student protest have become conservatives today, Ratzinger is just another tick on the list. It seems like the fact that it was a studentrevolution has legitimized people to retort to conservatism by arguing the foolness of youth. So in many ways they have helped to cement conservatism in a way probably unthinkable in 1968.

The consequence is quite staggering, as we find ourselves in a society which is more conform and conservative about values, expression, success and education than 37 years ago. Global warming regulations have midly improved since the 70:ies, something you would assume would have been solved a decade ago. And even we have all kinds of opportunities today, which can make one dizzy just to think of, change is happening very slowly.

The generation of 68, who are in power today, including the Pope, they can really make changes on regulatory, economic, social - basis. Unfortunatley the majority seem to have forgot that their job is less about planning the last grip on powerplay to secure a successful, comfortable retirement, but making sure they are leaving a sustainable planet behind for future generations to come.

Design your way out of anexiety

2005-04-28T22:03:00.000+02:00

For the past 3 days I have been following an article in SVD 'Idagsidan' about young people born in the 80:ies, described as a generation which is very self-centered and obsessed about being successful and beautiful. And when it is hard to live up to the dream they become depressed.

We have heard this before. And I meet it every day in conversations in particular with young professional women. When high performing women hit the workplace, they tend to develop a fair portion of insecurity and loose confidence in themselves. They have all been through the politically correct brainwash the school puts us up to for at least 13 years. To be successful in that system you deliver what is expected - and get your credits.

The business culture has very little in common with the educational system. And one of the things necessary to survive in that culture is to become a risk-taker. To go beyond the boundaries of what is expected. And the only way to get beyond the boundaries (if you are not comfortable with it) is to develop a deeper understanding about you so you can manage yourself in any cultural environment, or at least manage your way out of there.

Managing oneself is one of the most difficult things one can embark on, trust me, - and the most rewarding (besides having children). I believe this is less about generation/gender issues and more about of how to take oneself outside the conformity of a culture and create a space for oneself.

Finally: A wall-to-wall carpet to die for

2005-04-17T10:46:00.000+02:00

Ever since I was an exchange student in Scotland I have had a great problem with wall-to-wall carpets. It is mainly the pattern. But also the way it fucntions as a spunge to anything that moves, and as consequence usually quite dirty. I understand that the horrible patterns is a way to hide spots. But still.

Even on Heathrow they have it. By the passport control. Just imagine how many people walk on it every day arriving from all destinations in the universe. What kind of bugs would you find if you put a microscope into that carpet? I don't want to know.

That is why it was such a relief going to London this time and staying at the Zetter Hotel, on Clarkenwell road. A really well designed hotel experience and rooms one wants to stay in - forever. What stands above all designfeatures is the wall-to-wall carpet in plain grey terry. Imagine terry on your feet when get out of a bath or wake up in the morning. It is finally, a wall-to-wall carpet to die for.

8 km to Norway

2005-04-14T10:11:00.000+02:00

The fire is sparkling and we are 8 km from the Norwegian border, in Fjällnäs Sweden. We are staying in one of Sweden's most famous winter holiday homes, design by Carl Nyrén 1975. The house was designed as a protoype for Domänverket, but was never serialized. Today it is used only by the employees of Nyréns Architecture office, and that is where my friend Ulrika works.

It is an amazing place, not just the fact that it is situated between birches just above the lake with a magnificent view of the mountains around. It really is a spectacular experience staying in, the windows high up giving it a lot of light and the main window just by the dining table, is rather small, compared to most other solutions today, though it is plenty with view. The sauna, the waffles and the smoked reindeer heart just made it a terrific experience!

In between - Taj Mahal and Moscow Airport

2005-03-27T16:48:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we were in Agra and visited Taj Mahal. I don?t think I have ever seen a building that was so breathtaking. That architecture can be powerful I knew, but this is quite something. Taj Mahal was built by Emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his second wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died in childbirth. It was completed in the 1653, rather late, spending an enormous fortune on marble and the integration of gem stones. However, the gem of the day seemed to be Max who made people grab the cameras to document.

Being back in Moscow feels unbelievable civilized after spending 8 days in India. Even if Moscow is a closer plane ride from Stockholm than London it has been on a different planet. We were here for a weekend 2002. Now it feels almost like home. With a latte and a computer I have some space for myself, there is even a Taj mahal restaurant around the corner. In Russia change is also on the doorstep and the plane to Stockholm is brand new. Since last week they have updated the music in our little cafe bar from Russian male singer covers on Britney Spears to some contemporary ambient sound. For good or bad it is different.

Social Innovation - in Delhi, India

2005-03-22T10:47:00.000+01:00

By moving Doors to India , John Thackera has confirmed (again) where the battle of the future is to begin. Nokia, HP, Intel were some of the sponsors/speakers are there.

The topic of the conference, ?Social innovation?, was drifting back and forth during the days. The theme of discussion was basically that all social innovation happens in a social context, and the question is how you can design that context.

Common ground for all solutions is that they occurs in the space in between public organizations and corporations, looking to find new solutions for infrastructure. In the west because our social welfare systems are breaking apart and our inability to manage cost and an aging population and in the developing world because of growing populations and lack of infrastructure

Grassroots social innovation can develop two main ways:

Either the innovation starts locally in a grass root traditional way, in a local community where people come together to solve a problem. Or grass root globally in a digital open source manner where Wikipedia is the leading example.

Source

2005-03-11T15:42:00.000+01:00

Finally I got my blog started! My number one source of inspiration is Joi Ito, Tokyo, who were visiting us here last summer. Joi was helping out Nokia in Finland with their future strategy and decided to jump a plane and visit us in the archipelago and "blogified" me totally. When we took the boat from Vaxholm into town to the No picnic annual summerparty, he showed med how you can send data from a new Nokia Phone straight into your blog. You update the blog with text and photos. Sometimes just photos.

Something that was really cool was when Joi met up with his bloggers at Kulturhuset in Stockholm. He had posted (on his blog) that he would be there around noon and suddenly 10 people showed up in the roofgarden, mostly computer nerds, who had never met before but who reads Joi's blog regularly. It was a lot of geektalk, so after a while Max and I faded out of the conversation, into the Yoko Ono 'Remember love' exhibition on the same floor and felt we were back in the sixties, when people made stamps with love messages. Art - but lukewarm. The blog is now.