things that go boom

Perceptive TV

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:49:00 +0000

Still a long way to go with this stuff but im interested in where its going.

I've been busy...

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:49:00 +0000

...with work, amongst other things. My head is rather full at the moment so i dont have a whole lot to say on here. So, a picture of a bird at rest will have to suffice

Slippery Slope

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 14:25:00 +0000

... this is just the start. "Refusing to fulfill it"? The internet is becoming sentient, its a slippery slope

Economic violence

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 22:39:00 +0000

from economics to violence

A great post by will.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Video 3.0

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:56:00 +0000

There a number of interesting film and video production aids recently launched that are worth noting. The first is wiremax (above) which is a motioned tracked tagging tool for videos.

The second and slightly more impressive is Aframe (below) that is a collaborative storage and editing tool for a range of film and video formats. This is the brainchild of David Peto who also started Unit Production, the first full Apple digital editing facility in Soho.

I am intrigued to see how these things begin to get used in the mainstream as well as industry. The line is getting even more blury.

Aframe silent from Aframe on Vimeo.

Educational Hierarchy

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 17:39:00 +0000

There is literally nothing more i can add to this. Sir Ken hits the nail on the head once again.

Our Children's Futures

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 10:42:00 +0000

Today I came across this from a twitter tip off by @jamessamperi. It is a lovely website that invites people (many of them children) to draw what they think the internet looks like. Its sort of meant to be a competition between creative ad agency types and children to see who has the best imagination.

It reminded me of a fantastic project by Alan Outen who I studied with at the RCA a while back. No Robots is the output of a project which engaged children specifically to speculate about the future around a range of topics including nanotechnology. The ideas ranged from the banal to the practical but all gave insight into their hopes and dreams for a future which does not yet exist.

This in turn has got me thinking again about the fantastic work of Sugata Mitra and his vision for child-driven education. It's a sad fact that after a certain age we stop letting children imagine and create the future they want and start stuffing their heads with 'knowledge' about how things are.

In a recent talk as part of City Camp at the RSA a chap from IBM talked about the need for greater statistical literacy in an age of information. I'm wondering, do we also need more futures literacy, especially within in our education system. What would it look like if we did?

Drawing the Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 10:35:00 +0000

My favourite

This is a lovely website that invites people (primarily children) to draw what they think the internet looks like.

It's just policy

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 09:11:00 +0000

We are (hopefully) about to buy a house. As part of this we have to jump though the kind of hoops that make a Cruffs champion look like street dog. One such hoop has been getting a mortgage. I wont go into the ins and outs of all the devilish behaviors inherent within this process. Instead, I'd like to bring up one more example of really ill-considered service.

Here is how it goes:

In order to get a mortgage at a rate which can be considered humane we have had to bring a large deposit to the house buying table. Fortunately I have a lovely friend who is able to 'give' us the money.

The mortgage company doesn't want us to use dodgy or debt riddled money so asks the person giving us the money to confirm it is a gift via a short 1 page form (see picture) below. They fill out form, I send it in; signed, sealed, delivered, house please...or so I thought.

The mortgage company called us to confirm that my friend would not be living with us or indeed own any part of the house. After confirmation of this they seemed happy...house please. Not so fast.

2 weeks later I receive another phone call that went something like this.

"Sorry, your mortgage application has been denied"

"Really? why?"

"Your gift has to come from a family member"

"Really...why?"

""Its our policy"

"REALLY........... WHY?

"It just is" (computer says no)

Note: you cant argue with this kind of logic but I stupidly tried to. My argument was comprehensive yet simple, centering around the obvious; that family members were just as likely to fiddle money and are no more or less legally bound than a friend.

To cut a long story short I wasted an hour of my life before resolving to kneel before the great computer in the sky and get the money via other family orientated means.

What frustrates me most is that no one, at any point, informed us of this illogical quagmire until the last moment. Not our mortgage adviser, not the nice women on the phone that confirmed living and buying arrangements and not the gift form itself.

This is an oversight at every level and touchpoint. For an company who's sole purpose is selling and lending money, 'policy' can surely never be an excuse for poor service. I'd like to ask them one simple question.

"Why could you not just write something about the need for it to be gift from a family member on the form?"

To which (I imagine) they'd say.

"Its just policy"

Idiots.

'Time is money' - bad service should be too

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:30:00 +0000

According to this article Americans lost more than 2.75 billion hours waiting for an in-home service or appointment i.e a utility installation, furniture delivery etc.

To make sense of this massive number, that's the equivalent of 1.3 million people out of work for a year!

Ok, so this is America but I would hazard a guess that the UK is the same, if not worse proportional. What is interesting is that some companies are now offering to pay for the inconvenience caused. A step forward in the right direction for sure.

But surely if we can fly to the moon, invent the internet and get Rage Against Machine to Christmas number one, we can find a simple way to get a boiler delivered and fitted at a specific time...not within a 12 hour period.

Please tell me some consultancy or company somewhere is working on this. Just a little hope.

Image taken from here

iphone band

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 11:25:00 +0000

I'm not a massive fan of the tune but I think the approach is great and produces a surprisingly coherent sound.

Bad object, bad service

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:34:00 +0000

I’ve just opened an account with The Co-operative (to get a mortgage) and today received one of those nasty, plastic, looks like a calculator, designed by a club fisted banker, spawn of satan card verification units.

It took me my entire run in to work to calm down...one day I wont be able to and will just flip and make it my life's mission to burn every last one of them.

I t's just dumb and I mean that in the most pejorative sense. There is no rational, no alternative and no opt out.

These things offend my intelligence...no, my humanity... I cant be the only one. There must be a better way to keep my account secure.

p.s those are not my hands int he photo, I found it lying about on the internet floor

Google have the power

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 12:22:00 +0000

Google have no interest in the energy sector other than being an innocent facilitator...or so says this chap in Japan. And yet they are still doing this which makes Google TV look like chicken feed.

Everyone seems to be fussing over Google TV, I say keep a check on what they are doing in the energy sector.

On another energy monitoring note som ex RCA student are behind Watson which along with other such home energy monitors is an interesting challenge to the so called 'Smart meters' which may soon roll out. This of course depends upon the energy companies, who ironically seem to have very little energy when it comes to shifting their sector.

Service Design could...

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:42:00 +0000

In response to Rory Hamilton here

I think that the problem of overselling is the problem of a young 'discipline'. More often than not there is a lack of clout to work as high up as needed to fully specify the boundaries of who does what, when and how. To do this well takes a longer term relationship where both parties 'understand' each other.

Unlike many other disciplines service designing does not take a cookie cutter
approach (and arguably inherently should not) towards the wide variety and scale of projects and clients. So, in my experience, its possible to get quite far down the road with a client before the realisation that they cant or wont do the necessary to take the work forward. The bigger or more complex the organisation the longer this takes.

I think Service Design needs to be more more service, less design.
Meaning, more ongoing servicing of clients (and their clients/customers) needs much like the ad world 'retainer' model, as opposed to the delivery of a 'design' as in the product/industrial design world.

INDEX: Pig 05049

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:36:00 +0000

via designtoimprovelife.dk

Posted via email from Rather Random

Bubbles On The Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:24:00 +0000

via devour.com

This is one of the most lovely things ive seen in a while

Posted via email from Rather Random

Pakistan flood - Breaking down the disaster

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 14:42:00 +0000

Check out this website I found at pakreport.org

Posted via email from Rather Random

Freelance Whales

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:46:00 +0000

via myspace.com

lovely rendition of a great song

Posted via email from Rather Random

BBC News - Mystery surrounds 'horse-boy' on Google Street View

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:45:00 +0000

via news.bbc.co.uk

how many other humans dressed as animals are lurking out there? I love this

Posted via email from Rather Random

Is masculinity in crisis?

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Thu, 27 May 2010 23:49:00 +0000

via bbc.co.uk

Martin Daubney suggesting masculinity can be sorted out down the pub.
"You'd be a lot less depressed if you read Loaded"!

Posted via web from Rather Random

Im in faro... For 5 hours!

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Mon, 17 May 2010 11:06:00 +0000

Its beautiful and sunny but i will be back on a plane again soon to visit two ore cities today.

Posted via email from Rather Random

Tokyo couple married by robot in rooftop wedding

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Sun, 16 May 2010 12:38:00 +0000

via news.bbc.co.uk

This relates to a recent documentary I saw on current.tv about how Japanese people are becoming extinct because they don't have sex, but instead just make robots for everything.

Posted via web from Rather Random

Schooloscope

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Wed, 12 May 2010 16:10:00 +0000

Check out this website I found at schooloscope.com

well done Berg for making this happen

Posted via web from Rather Random

Dog and balloon

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:07:00 +0000

I saw this, i liked it, i've blogged it.

Man in a pan

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Wynne-Morgan) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 10:13:00 +0000