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Check our notes on the last Design by Fire conference that took place on October 14.

The closing talk of Kevin Slavin was one of the most clear in that sense probably. I saw his talk earlier this year at Momo in Amsterdam, where his plea against AR was even more subtle and direct at the same time because of the presence of the people of Layar, one of the subjects of his talk. He pinpoints that we don’t need a augmented reality to live a better life, even worse; it makes our life poorer. As the example of heads-up display in cars illustrates; the tool is for a jetstream pilot the complete reality because of the lack of notion of the outer context, in a car it is the other way around; focusing on the augmented knowledge in the head-up display limit your view on the world.

The vision of Slavin is great and very true. The question though is interesting how it works the other way around; can we enrich our established digital lives by connecting reality? That is something most of the other talks where about in direct of more distinct way. In several talks reality is connected to the aspect of time. In the sense that we want to connect memories to things, a theme that was very present also at FutureEverything earlier this year. If we can add memories in the context of a service or product, this product will be more real.

Frank Chimero was talking on these memories; the web has a past now. We need an architecture of arrangement to create value. Take a step back to find the value. Start is the difference between digital and analog. Where the digital world is invisible, not visible; and the digital world we forget, not remember as the analog things. And where we find stuff in the analog world while we search in the digital context. In this comparison you find this hunger for realness by pointing out what we miss. With three rules for design decisions for revisiting. How we sort. thinking of LATCH (location, alphabet, time, category and hierarchy), and 2nd: how we move throught time; think of the postponed experiences Instapaper offer us. And third: what media is supported. Culmination. Biblion of New York.

Matthew Sheret used another angle. Our digital self translated to a pocket scale. A pocket scale that is bigger on the inside. He was talking also on the object that carry memories. We are not creating mass personalisation but real personalisation transforming our data trails with different meaning. The difference between the ‘old products’ containing lots of visible stories, like a set of keys. Compared to an Oyster card that hides it past in the data.
We need intimate, meaningful objects that humanise networks make time travel a bit more fun. His self-made remote control beam made his points very tangible. Hacking as way to personalize things.

Those memories are the way to connect the realtity to the digital products, and that is the important thing as it seems this day. Don Norman started the morning by calling for a focus on designing for memories in stead of experiences. Designing with time as material and with good and bad experiences to create memorable stories, turns out to be present in a lot of talks.

The quest for this reality check in our digital life was challenged the most by Kars Alfrink. In his highly engaged talk he tried to find explanations for the riots in England of last times. He compared the alienation between the classes, and the conscious avoiding of interactions in these neighbourhoods where rioters were let alone with other inhabitants. Like in the brilliant novel of The City & The City and showed in practice with the example of schizophrenic town of Baarle. You can say that our moving into a digital life accelerates those gap with reality, and is especially the provider of a system for avoiding each other. He argues to use gaming to reconnect, like the game of Nomic where defining the rules of the game is part of the game. This talk turned out the ultimate urge for getting the reality back into our digital life’s and create a new elan in self governing.

Without any doubt I think this focus on reality connected to our digital life will be a big theme the coming times. Conceptual by creating new contexts of time and memories, and literally by using the possibilities of the Internet of Things to enhance our digital services with tangible qualities. It will be interesting next year to have also designers of psychical products share their existing knowledge and build some new bridges.

1.
Social is becoming a natural part of all services and products that are designed now and in the coming future. In that sense I agree on the views of Roger McNamee. The talk is highly quoted as “social is over”, but that is not the right sentiment. Social is not over, social is not a separate entity anymore, it has become part of everything. That is exactly what we see in the business context happening; social as mean to get in touch with your clients and build on trust and activation is now becoming running business.

2.
We mature in our use of online relations. We see that people, youngsters up front, are becoming professional in the dividing our sharing habits to different levels of online relations. We understand that not everyone is attached the same and it to trust. The rise of private networks is a clear sign, as is the use of private functions in existing networks like groups of closed accounts in Twitter.

3.
The way we communicate is also going to a new phase. We are more selective in sending out and receiving anonymous messages, and we have built a layered messaging habit with private chats in realtime, private messaging to people in our own network and publishing opinions to shape our personal brand.

These three elements are happening for some time now. The existing social platforms (Twitter and Facebook as most important ones) are continuous trying to redesign and introducing new functions to address this developments. And you see that Google+ is using its advantage to start from scratch building up this new social layer and revamping the existing services.

In that, Google could really leverage from the existing fundaments. The hardest part will be to keep focus on the essence of these elements in rolling out the new Google of the second decade, always the hardest part to migrate from existing products.
But the other platforms have even a harder job there of course. Facebook will try to catch up with an enhanced friend listing system. Twitter will bring more coherence in the lists and private accounts.

The coming year, or maybe better; half a year, the different platforms will stand next to each other and creating somewhat sharper profiles. Facebook will be (stay) the private friends network for the masses to share thoughts with friends and find nice stuff for your day to day life. The messaging center will be better organized and extended, maybe even with a simple calendar for instance, to fit all the needs for your private communications.
Twitter will remain and become even more the platform for the latest news, realtime sharing of events with impact, from incidents to big live events in real or on TV for instance. It will be more and more the platform for ad hoc and topic related communications and losing the day to day hangout function.
Google+ will become the serious and professional thoughts-sharing platform. What Twitter was the first years. But also integrating services like Quora. If you are looking for information and advice on stuff Google+ will be your source. It will take that role from Twitter, and it will also take a part of the hangout function dividing it with Facebook.

In the meanwhile the battlefield of the platforms is going on, on the deeper level. Who will be building the best functioning social layer. Facebook have an advantage with the Like and Connect system, but Google has its search-profiles and can grow easily in a social backbone too. If Twitter can team up with Apple it will be a serious competitor in that field too.

When the platforms are closing by creating their dominant profile platforms the challenge (still) will be for businesses to get in touch with the customers. Be part of the conversation is essential for a modern organization, and they have to be present on different platforms. The way the platforms will service that need in respect of the user, will define the shape of the social layer in the coming years.

Privacy was mentioned by 63% of respondents as a concern, securing more mentions than all other issue (security, the impact on society and systems compatibility) combined. Our sample was skewed towards people familiar with the Internet of Things, but the message is clear: privacy is going to be a big issue.

In the article the question is asked how the developments of the Internet of Things with connected machines tracking data will influence individual privacy. Rob van Kranenburg of Council Internet of Things Europe shares some good points on the way privacy will be the USP for the new services we are creating.

Daily activities will be broken down into functions and privacy levels attached to those. “Privacy becomes privacies. The real issue is solidarity within the smart systems. If there is no agreed level of providing real-time feedback on your actions or the actions of your ‘things’ that is inclusive and democratic then privacy will become a good like any other, and you will be paying for it (if you can afford it, that is).”

We see the first battles happening in the context of different social media platforms, where the new Google+ wants to be different by giving people control of their own data. Ed Dumbill of O’Reilly Strata made some good points on this.
The concept that we are moving into a context of different levels of privacy that we can manage by ourselves, would be a good way to deal with the privacy concerns. For designers the privacy is an important new design material, as I was quoted in the article.

We believe that future services will use a lot of the data that becomes available from the Internet of Things to create ‘impulse shaped services’. The experiences will be modelled to our own profile as default. The concerns of privacy will be a challenge for these new services, especially when all our in real life action will become part of the profile. The perception of privacy is changing to a valuation on transparency and control.

The question of Big Brother is watching us in our new connected life is certainly very relevant, and will be more relevant with the expected acceleration of connected products and services. The management of our privacy can evolve to a whole new industry, as Jim describes in the article.

It is likely that trusted third parties will emerge to help manage some of this complexity, operating in a similar manner to today’s anti-virus software: users will be able to select from friendly options, such as “high privacy”, or “medium privacy” and go on to customise individual settings as appropriate. It is also likely that some form of security certification will emerge, so that individuals can be certain that their personal information is being stored securely, and handled in accordance with their wishes (as defined in detail by a trusted third party).

You can read the complete article online and find out more on the way we will have to deal with the ‘full’ transparency concept.

The concept of This happened is to share the process of a project, not the end result is key, “to have ideas is easier than to realize them” as the organization put it. I visited all episodes and in the report on the tenth edition I tried to digest some broader theme. Design as curator of an explorative and collaborative context. Something we could also found in this edition.

I did a short report on my personal blog on the four talks. I repeat this here.

First of was Roy Gilsing, the designer and iniator of Grabbit. A handgrip for the iPad. It do free your movements with your tablet, as Ianus shared from his own practice. 

Roy did share his journey from first intention to create something by himself free from the demands of a client, to the choices in concepts from pallet style to the current baseball handshoe one. A genuine product designer story.
 
An interesting part was the experience with Kickstarter. That did not really work out for Grabbit. A charming product alone is not enough, you need to do real promotion. 
He also learned the hard practice of an Apple accessory maker. You need to be in sync with the lifecycle of the Apple product to maximize the benefits, as a new version makes the accessory out-of-date. In that sense the hardware business is a lot different from the software.

Second presenter was Elger Blitz of Carve, a design studio specialized in designing playgrounds. He showed a project he designed in The Hague Escamp especially for disabled children. We learned that the disabled are not only the physicially ones, in a way we are all disabled; nobody has the same capacities. 
Nice insight was that you make the best products in this area if you master the regulation game. He knows the rules inside out and can use that in the design. As example he designed the wall as climbing wall so that the path on top could keep an open fence.  
Above all, the approach of Elger showed a great case in designing for open-ended play as we know it from Kars.

After the break Mattijs Kneppers presented the tooling of Eboman he made. He used his iPad with a Grabbit and performed a presentation style that fits the work of Eboman, scratching pictures and sounds, floating over the canvas. 
It was fun to see how the spaghetti in Maximum software could create the product. The presentation took us really into the world of Eboman. 

The controls of the mixers differ from the device you use. The suit Eboman uses on stage has not the same freedom as the software version. A prepared set of samples is needed. Advantage is that it makes it possible to involve amateur in the mixing process. The suit limited the number of choices which makes it more usable.

A theme that was clearly visible in the last talk, done by Adam Fletcher of The Hipstery. Out of a personal frustation on the unlimited number of choices we have he models a service around buying carefully handpicked t-shirts. In an entertaining talk, he showed us the way the service works. He mingled some visions on option overload and decission making: less choice delivers better decissions.
 
In the discussion afterwards some interesting thoughts were discussed. What you buy is not the handpicked t-shirt but the experience. The return sendings are extremely low because it is in the end not important which shirt you receive as long as the experience of ordering is fulfilling. A combination of entertainment in the process and the freedom from chosing stress.

There is however also a kind of contradiction as Elger Blitz showed us. With our regulations for children we create an overprotective world and a next  generation that is totally unprepared for life. The same goes for the augmented present knowledge we have, providing us from running into the right amount of friction to learn. Delegating your choice to a service like The Hipstery is in essence the same.

The concept of open-ended play is in that sense not the same as being free to do what you want. That makes it also a real design challenge, how to create enough friction to be able to master your freedom. Something we can discover in all talks.

This way of looking to the services is certainly an inspiration for our own work, how different it may seem sometime. As colleague Bram put it: we create more and more open services that are the start for building new services by themselves. That asks different approaches to make data available for reuse. Just like the open-ended playground. Combined with some non-transparency and non-predictable service experiences like Hipstery new services will mix openness with guided experiences.
All in all the sessions provided some fine inspiration for our work.

First of all. The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) is all about smart objects. Just like a lot of other technological developments, the difference is not made by the technology itself, but by what it accomplishes. And for the IoT is that the fact that object will be smart and social. Using the knowledge available in the cloud and the context awareness of the object makes it a smarter object. All the examples, how cheesy there are sometimes, are on smartness. See for instance the examples in this article of BBC from last week.

Second. Smart objects will operate in their own ecosystems. Think of your car that will be collecting different data from stream it needs to be smarter. Or your smart scale creates its own ecosystem with other fitness related products like a Fitbit. Those ecosystems are valuable on its own, and the smart objects need a ecosystem to be valuable. Building these kind of ecosystems are vital for the success of a smart object. The ecosystems are not necessarily interconnected. To obtain differentiation, the ecosystems will be even more closed than expected.

Thirdly. We are in a transformation, and we will for a long time. Some things are smart, some are not. It is like the development of a car, or the television; it will take years for the whole system to change. Therefore isolated value per object-ecosystem combination is key for success. But to make these valuable it is important to have a system to connect the objects to ourselves. We need a hub to receive all the sensors.

In the presentation of Usman Haque, one of the front-runners with Pachube in making the Internet of Things a valuable service, a graph shows the tipping point we are heading. In his view we are are leaving the period of Machine to Machine communication into an Internet of Things. He proposes that the success of this development will depend on the open data. Like the example of the sensors during the earthquake in Japan that were made available by the people themselves and were more valuable than all the government stuff together.

Another interesting statement came from Mike Nelson. As privacy is one of the hot topics he addresses this by a clear definition of the concept of transparency. We should focus on giving all transparency to the user in exchange for the data he shares. Something I also stated in my presentation; designing for privacy means a flexible approach to layers of privacy. In essence an Internet of humans will emerge, something that was little addressed during the conference.

As in the kick-off (video-)presentation by Nelie Kroes addresses a privacy by design and the right on silence of the chips. The European Union makes a shift there by not demanding a demolishing of the chips in goods as soon they leave the shops, but demands for control with the user to control the transparency. It is important to have the right to be forgotten.

An important conclusion from different sessions was that regulations will the works the best if they emerge from actual services that are developed. Not everyone agree on that, some find regulations still a starting point, but I go for the emerging model. As I put it in my own presentation; I don’t think the Internet of Things is the center for the grow, but the enhanced smartness that we can get. Products and services will use the smart data as material. And companies will need to give the control of the data use with the clients to be a trustful brand.

As Alexander Bassi said; the Internet of Things is also triggering new question on ownership and consumption. I was not the only one to mention the Greenwheels example; we grow into a access based economy, where IoT makes a pay-what-you-use system possible on an individual level. Something that triggers new challenges.

In my presentation I gave a preview of the results of the survey we did together with Council, Latitude and Machina Research. It turned out that the respondents saw privacy as the biggest concern, but see a lot of possibilities in creating a more efficient and comfortable life with the Internet of Things. The answers shows that the Internet of Things is not a total distant concept and users will drive the growth of IoT, just like Pilgrim Beart showed in his presentation on the AlertMe platform.

We are creating normal products in super products as Inaki Vazquaz put it. In the Internet of Things we have dual business models based on different combinations of objects and services.

Christian Nold put it sharp with his three elements that are important for these new services. Affect, proximity and system thinking. Systems that encourage face-2-face contact, that are used by more than 5 people and are designed by at least 20 people. The hackspace is an important way to develop the new services from a making culture.
It turns out there is a some dispute on the way standards should be developed. Duncan Wilson plead for enough standards to be able to develop stuff for homesense that is compatible and future proof. You need an API to make propriety stuff relevant.

The last session looked to the radio spectrum field. An important technical problem if the spectrum will be congested with all the new data of objects. Contextual data from individual objects, or sensed data from sensors, or status information of actuators from the new grids. Spectrum sharing between different IoT communities could solve the problem.

Overall you see the emerging regulation is important. Personal data protection should be garantueed, privacy is the hottest issue. We should know that privacy has different layers and transparency is the recipe to achieve that. Privacy by design, learn by doing is way to go. The conclusion of Rob van Kranenburg at the end of the conference was that the IoT field has all the wagons are on track, but can use some extra boost to get them running.

Find my slides here.

Wat is een mobiel device?
Een draagbare, connected (met het internet), apparaat. Waarbij de grens heel snel aan het vervagen is, met name door tablets waarmee je kunt bellen maar die net (of net niet) in je zak passen. Naast tablets worden steeds meer apparaten voorzien van internettoegang. Denk aan televisies, spelcomputers, E-readers, video players en fotolijstjes. “One of the interesting estimates is that there are about 35 billion devices connected to the Internet. Soon, there will be so many that we’ll stop counting. – Eric Schmidt, Google”  Een harde scheiding tussen mobiel en niet-mobiel is niet te maken, we moeten rekening houden dat alles wat we publiceren op veel verschillende manieren bekeken kan worden.

 
Explosieve groei van mobiel
Sinds de komst van de iPhone groeit mobiel internet snel, veel sneller als andere internetontwikkelingen. Boodschap van meerdere sprekers; ga niet wachten totdat mobiel verkeer daadwerkelijk PC gebruik inhaalt, want met de huidige snelheid haal je de achterstand nooit meer in.

Web vs App
De sprekers die het aanstipten gaven aan dat de keuze rationeel gemaakt kan worden. Luke Wroblewski zei er helemaal niets over, hij zette de App vs Web rap op. Gebruikers zijn meer gewend aan de App stores. Dit gaat door de groei van stores (door OS’en maar ook van carriers) in de toekomst voor versnippering zorgen. De gebruiker zal in de toekomst een applicatie minder gemakkelijk in de store vinden, terwijl er maar één internet is waar iedereen toegang toe heeft. Ook wanneer gebruikers je app wel hebben, verwijzingen vanuit sociale media, e-mail, websites of apps gaan altijd naar een website. Peter-Paul Koch ziet de 3e wereld als aanjager van de mobiele web-ontwikkelingen. In de 3e wereld is het aantal telefoons erg hoog maar het internet verhoudingsgewijs erg duur. Hij denkt daarom dat kleine WebApps via bluetooth of wifi onderling verspreid gaan worden.

Context van de mobiele gebruiker

Locatie context
Mobiele gebruikerscontext is niet zo stereotiep als we denken. De context is lang niet altijd ‘onderweg’, ‘slechte verbinding’, ‘snel even wat opzoeken’. Cijfers geven aan dat de meest populaire context ‘Thuis voor TV’ is, met een goede WiFi internet verbinding.

Device context
Het aantal verschillende devices groeit, qua OS, browsers, hardware, schermkleuren en schermresolutie. Het is onmogelijk om voor alle devices een specifiek ontwerp te maken. Hoe kunnen we dit waar gaan maken?

• ‘Loosen up’, je bent niet volledig in controle, accepteer dat (bv. websites kijken op z/w kindle)
• Laat gebruikers zelf kiezen (bv of ze de HQ youtube willen zien op mobiel of juist de lagere kwaliteit)
• Classificeer de onderliggende data, dan kan het op verschillende manieren worden weergegeven (dat kun je toch niet tegenhouden, bv. Flipboard, Q-wikki, Tweetdeck)
• Maak keuzes, ondersteun niet alles overal (zo kun je met Facebook voor Nintendo DS alleen foto’s maken en plaatsen, BBC ondersteunt WAP alleen voor BBC World in Afrika)

Adaptive layout vs context van de gebruiker
Tijdens de conferentie is veel gesproken over het toespitsen van de mobiele context, waarbij een aantal sprekers vooral keek naar de schermafmetingen. De aangedragen oplossing voor het serveren van een website voor meerdere schermafmetingen kan gevonden worden met adaptive layout. Dit kan een goede oplossing zijn voor content gedreven websites. Voor applicatieve toepassingen (web/app) moeten we echt gaan kijken naar de specifieke context van een gebruiker en zijn device.

Content over navigatie (en de invloed mobiel op websites)
De beperkte mobiele schermen, soms beperkte aandacht, maakt het noodzakelijk te focussen op waar gebruikers werkelijk behoefte aan hebben. Dus focus op de service of content. Een aantal sprekers ondersteunt het ‘Mobile First‘ principe. Dat gaat er van uit dat je eerst de mobiele variant moet maken, vervolgens de PC versie. Op die manier krijgen we weer webcontent en services die de focus leggen op de voor de gebruiker belangrijke zaken. Dat gaat straks ook doorwerken op de manier waarop we PC websites gaan ontwerpen en bouwen.

Snelheid is een belangrijke requirement
Een belangrijk deel van de gebruikservaring wordt bepaald door de snelheid van een applicatie. Onderzoek door Netflix, Google, Yahoo! en Bing geeft weer dat zelfs een kleine vertraging de waardering door gebruikers en het aantal kliks sterk reduceert. Voor mobiel is de vertraging, door beperkte verbindingen en processoren soms veel groter.

Tip van de spreker (Steve Souders): maak van de snelheid een requirement!

We are entering a new phase in the Internet of Things. It is a promise for years, but it seems that we are heading to a tipping point. And Apple’s new iOS5 could be a accelerator. Tomorrow the new version of the mobile operation system for the iPhone will be introduced, and one of the most interesting speculations on the news is the integration of Twitter deeply in the OS, together with the introduction of iCloud. The real difference of a Twitter integration comes not with the sharing your pictures directly from the tools, but will be the way Twitter will evolve in a notification platform for smart objects via your phone. How does this could work?

First of all. The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) is all about smart objects. Just like a lot of other technological developments, the difference is not made by the technology itself, but by what it accomplishes. And for the IoT is that the fact that object will be smart and social. Using the knowledge available in the cloud and the context awareness of the object makes it a smarter object. All the examples, how cheesy there are sometimes, are on smartness. See for instance the examples in this article of BBC from last week.

Second. Smart objects will operate in their own ecosystems. Think of your car that will be collecting different data from stream it needs to be smarter. Or your smart scale creates its own ecosystem with other fitness related products like a Fitbit. Those ecosystems are valuable on its own, and the smart objects need a ecosystem to be valuable. Building these kind of ecosystems are vital for the success of a smart object. The ecosystems are not necessarily interconnected. To obtain differentiation, the ecosystems will be even more closed than expected.

Thirdly. We are in a transformation, and we will for a long time. Some things are smart, some are not. It is like the development of a car, or the television; it will take years for the whole system to change. Therefore isolated value per object-ecosystem combination is key for success. But to make these valuable it is important to have a system to connect the objects to ourselves. We need a hub to receive all the sensors.

The phone is a strong possible candidate for this hub function. It is already happening with things like Google Goggles where real objects are connected, or shotcodes, or even augmented reality. But all still only as a sensor, sometimes as part of the object ecosystem. What is missing is a connection between the ecosystems. And there are two existing platforms with great potential. Facebook of course, an extension of the like-system to real objects can be expected. But the like-systems is focused on persons, connected to my own profile. That is its power, but also a barrier for inter-object-communications. On the other hand we have Twitter. By being so basic it has more potentials. We see it already happening with bots that live on themselves on Twitter.

So, Apple teaming up with Twitter on the integration of the platform in the OS, could be an indication that there is a strategy to play a defining role in the object-Internet. Object ‘sensored’ with the phone can interact with other objects via an open platform, and services can be built on the platform. Twitter may get a new role next to the peoples communication platform. The API will be more important for object services. Maybe Apple can help Twitter with the deep pockets to add the necessary data storage from their new cloud center.

As always others will react and follow quickly. Facebook maybe first by letting objects have profiles. And maybe it is a good idea for Google to acquire Pachube? But Apple can set standards for a usable implementation to boost this. I’m very curious if we will see this development in the announcement of tomorrow. Directly or between the lines.

Looking back at the talk I see some interesting stuff between the lines. The Twitter integration is presented as a purely human focused service to make Tweeting more easy. Interesting is that, with this integration, Apple and Twitter together are creating a similar system as Facebook did with the like-system; all content objects you use on your mobile device can now be shared. And of course this can add up to your profile that Apple stores. They can easily connect the choices by the tweets to the other interest profile stuff of music, video and even content categories on sites or mail. No ads, like Steve says, but the gold are not the ads, but the profiles.

Much more interesting even is of course iCloud. We knew a bit what to expect, but it is done in a way that only Apple can do. The biggest lock in is the free and easy back-up of all stuff, including photos. Who wants to think on back-ups… So we will be fully attached in the Apple ecosystem.
What I find interesting is the iCloud Storage API. Every app can use the potential of the storage in iCloud. And there lies the basic toolkit for connecting all kind of stuff to the cloud. Just like all apps you have on the phone will be cloud-enhanced, so can new stuff.
Most interesting is the fact that Apple has not created a storage solution in the cloud, but offers a hub to make a seamless experience possible. Just like the Internet of Things is not on connected devices, but is on smart devices by using connections, so is iCloud the hub between all you experiences with apps on different touchpoints. And with that concept iCloud will be able to connect the smart object ecosystems to each other.

For me the first revelation of algorithms as a true trend was set by the great presentation of Kevin Slavin at Lift in Geneva. In other bigger events like SxSW and The Next Web the ideas resonates in different ways. In our own presentation on the Future of Services we connected the ideas to the emerging impulse shaped services. Interesting also is the way Eli Pariser talks on the Filter Bubble, his book was released at the same moment of the conference.

I think FutureEverything offered a balanced view on these developments, spot on. James Bridle had the most direct related talk, closing off day 1 with a plead to become friends with the data centers, try to talk their language. Just like Kevin Slavin did at Lift he showed the gap that emerges in the way we think and the algorithms we created act.

Earlier the same day there were some interesting presentations related to this. The day started with David Bausola from the Filter Factory who showed his project on social bots called Weavrs. Algorithms creating social characters here that live in the different social websites. Alter Egos for the social web. Still in alpha phase but some interesting examples already.

It fits the whole idea that we are moving into a digital social space where more bots are living than real people. We need to think on post-user experience design on the post-user internet says Bausola. Like the black box that is selling itself on eBay (A Tool to Decieve and Slaughter) and a cardboard robot Tweenbot that is moving around in a park, inviting people to push it in a certain direction. Beautifully connecting a digital life with the influence of real people. And of course the example of the flashcrash.

Bausola thinks it is like Mr Potato Head where a face is built by adding pieces to the potato. Method acting resembles the process of a robot learning how to behave. Chris Speed, who did a talk on ‘an Internet of things that no longer exist’ and is replaced by the tales of things. He promotes to let go the linear look to the Internet of Things, like the EU does: the idea that we will add Internet of things to all products from a certain moment would mean we loose all memories to products. He therefor commissioned some projects to connect memories to things. Things will be more important as containers of memories and stories.

Interesting are two concepts that he explores. Used things have different stories; as soon a thing is used an extra layer is added that makes the thing much more valuable. On another project he created archetypical things in white that are just the transporters of the stories that live in a virtual world. A temporal spatial artifact, the things will become the media. Will we also connect conversations to things? Chris compares it to the concept of ghosts, that also have a lack of presence. Ghosts that come out when you play them.

I like to connect that concept to the open-ended games Kars Alfrink promoted in his talk ‘New games for new cities’ later that day. He gave a very thoroughly and inspirational plea on why gamification won’t save us. We need open-ended play where the gameplay is not defined, gamification does the opposite, create scripted play. Find his complete presentation here.

The concept of gamification is often connected to the concepts of a world of algorithms and bots. We gonna need a extra layer to play the world in order to understand what is happening on one hand and be able to influence the system on the other. Kars introduced the open-ended game as the way to play the city of non-scripted. The literacy of the cities lie in people not in things he advocated. I don’t think this clashes to the world of things Chris sketched, in contrary. The things are the carrier of the open-ended play in a way, in order to make things human.

Thinking of the open-ended aspects, two talks are interesting on day two. The panel on hackatons explores the way we can use a kind of open-ended play to create new stuff. The next phase of the hackdays are differentiating to more disciplines. But the flow of the hackdays stays the same, open-ended by default. The installation ‘We are Forests‘ by Émilie Grenier and Duncan Speakman is an audio game in the open space balancing on the open-ended aspects. They try to play the people by giving them continuous instructions. But at the same time they challenge and encourage it when people try to break out the gameplay.

Cities will become more and more dominant in culture, Luis Bettencourt showed us. He shared his research data on cities. Since 2008 humanity became more than 50% urban. In 2050 this might be 80%. His research proved very nicely what we all thought already: the way cities are organized and the way we live together, trigger economic productivity and save material in infrastructure and energy. Cities are greener, and the interactions of people in cities drives the creative development. He shared some remarkable stats on the size of cities: the economy of Tokyo is greater than the whole of India and the walking speed is correlated with the size of a city. The supercreatives correlates with the size of cities. The research showed how stats tells the story and create the fundament for the development.

We do disconnect now with the algorithm driven Internet, but on the other hand we are more and more evolving to creatures where the continuous connection with the data is essential in our functioning. Tom Chatfield believes the Internet is more human than one person is, tells more about us. Our way to amplify ourselves with labels like brands is amplified with the digital presence. Will this mean the end of the analogue identity, or will it blend? Like Bill Thompson told us in the closing keynote. We are making new culture by our digital data trails. Going offline is like cutting of part of the mind. “Say no to offline existence.”

So in my opinion, FutureEverything touches perfectly the tension that is emerging in the new algorithm context. A context where things are merging with the digital artifacts and we as people merge with the bots and virtual knowledge in the cloud. To play this complex context we should shape open-ended gameplay that aim to give maximum space for creativity and in highly connected cities.

Insights we certainly will use in our model to design engaging online service ecosystems, as the model is built on the four pillars ‘service is marketing’, ‘data intelligence for relevancy’, ‘play for persuasion’ and ‘make and learn development’.

Steve states that in the constant increase of new information streams in an infinite digital space, the limitations are with humans. We don’t scale as much as the digital space does. That is the basis for the attentionomics, the new system where value is generated around attention. An example is the Edgerank that Facebook uses to filter your newsfeed. The pagerank of Google filtered the web of information, Facebook filters the streams of attention. Time is critical in the attentionomics. It turns out that the impact correlates strongly with the moment it is send.

Steve promotes three steps to handle the attentionomics.
Step one. Hand craft your content for each embassy. Networks are not homogeneous.
Step two. Activate expert employees as thought leaders. We are entering the era of validation of friends as the experts for filtering.
Step three: tightly integrate owned and social assets. Social is not a channel, it is behavior

And be sure to take in account:
One: mindfulness through bifocal awareness. Build awareness of the world around you
Two: optimize for the best time of day. Mining builds mindfulness, and time is critical
Three: plan, test and measure

So, filtering with trust is essential. Friends are important, but we see more and more the filter algorithms define what we see. That is something Eli Pariser talks about in his new book on the Filter Bubble as he call it. In a TEDtalk that came online this week he shows what the algorithm curated web can lead to; a web of one. I highly agree on his thoughts that we will see a erosion of value if all content is presented through a relevance filter. We can be disconnected also with these rise of algorithm experiences as Kevin Slavin showed us earlier.

You can say that the filter bubble challenges the advices of both talks of Mark Randal and Howard Lindzon that put failure in the middle of a road to success. Failure is a much better conversation piece, Randal says. For the first time we have a near future that is fully unpredictable because of the velocity of changes. Prepare for flexibility.
Lindzon fired a pile of inspiring onliners how to use a strategy of learning on failures. Know the macro and execute on the micro, tomorrow will be the same as today, be prepared for anything else. Check out his list of philosophies.

The talk of Tammy Camp can be summarized in her statement: fantasy is selfish, dreams have purpose. Or in my translation: fantasies can never become reality, dreams can come true. Something of course that gives context to the startup rally The Next Web is too. We see in the startup presentations also some of these topics pass by. A bunch claims literally to be inspired by the famous thoughts of Clay Shirky: the real problem is not information overload, it is filter failure. Silkapp tries to bring back the structure in content and Wosju tries to bridge the online and offline networks to create more trusted relations.
Others add new data to the profiles for filtering in line with the quantified self movement. Foodzy let you track your food consumption stimulated by social playfulness.

It is interesting to see how there seems to be a shift in the acceptance of the use of our personal data. People start to understand what can happen with their data. Like the buzz on the tracking of your iPhone data, and the way Sony looses privacy data. The last speaker on the The Next Web – Pablos Holman – shows what a hacker can accomplish to manipulate your profile. With the example of him hacking the hotel tv system and let you watch completely different content.

The way Holman showed how big data can be collected by everyone is also subject of a lot of the contributions in the hackaton that were presented at the first day of The Next Web. The challenge the organisation gave – who is the most bad ass user of the API’s – was not for nothing won by Emailtox, that shows how easy you connect a face to an e-mail address.

So The Next Web conference rode on the waves of the current discussions of the gathering and use of big data in our everyday perception of online experiences. A topic that just started to come to surface.