New Brief and New Interview

Tonight I posted the Project 2 Brief on the forum and then posted a recent interview with Rob from our class. 

I think this second project is a bit more likely to run though the system well because it has a stronger supporter base and it is a little more familiar to most people. We will see and hopefully there will be some interesting differences to make changes to the product pipeline.

The interview, I think, will help inspire some more activity on the forum. Outside of one person in particular who I know is interested and but has not had a chance to submit, there has been very little activity so far. Hopefully this will change as failure is not the nicest way to win. 

ReBook

On Tuesday, after my review of my review, I was talked to in regard to my book resubmission. It is my strong belief that we should not have to resubmit the book as we were responding to our teachers comments when we submitted the work that we did at the end of last semester. His expectation was that we should provide an extensive context and dialogue of our research and findings during the first semester however when everyone in the class talked of doing a much more interesting document he seemed in agreement. However at the time of grading he was insubordinate to our discussions and gave the majority relatively low marks. In fact I got my lowest mark of my entire university carer. 

After stating my point of view I was dissuaded from this plan and convinced that submitting a simple soft copy of an updated version of my original book would be acceptable. The updates requested are inclusion of contact profiles, statement of case and reasoning where needed and background on other elements of the project. Specifically there was a comment during this discussion that my presentations during the first semester reflected more work than my book so my intention is to include some of those ideas in the revision. 

The submission will be next Tuesday.

Review of Review 1

On Tuesday this week I had my review of my first review presentation from last week. A small sheet of paper was handed to me with the following text printed on it:

"Good Progress: It is reassuring that the project is starting to move. You have conceived of 2 sup projects with quite a different focus (sic). You need to consider how you will use these to inform each other and the larger project. There will need to be a conversation between the 2; you also need to elaborate why you chose these to (sic) projects to test you ideas or hypothesis. That said you need to clarify what your hypothesis is."

At the same time a discussion was created around my project including a the few present members of the class. The specifics are not a whole lot more interesting that the review comments however a few things were identified to me. Firstly I realised that the project that I am doing needs to be done, that is the project that I originally set out to do, still needs to be considered. Which is to say that I really do have to come out with some kind of realisation at the end of the semester. A point of learning about collaborative distributed systems or similar things. What that point is, I need not claim now, however some sort of hypothesis is expected to be in the workings and will need to be unveiled at some point. Hopefully before the Mid Semester review. 

Secondly it was made obvious that though involvement may or may not exist it is important that I document my thoughts and reasoning on all the aspects of this project. Not that that is a new idea however it is something I have not done as well as hoped. I need to start writing about every element of choice that has been part of this project to date and that will be part of this project. Especially I need to talk about why I chose the projects I chose and why I should be able to do them. Also I need to look into why this is a valid thing to do not so much what my drive is. 

Review One

Yesterday I had my first formal review. It was not too bad but I think it could have run a little smother. For some reason I had decided to do it from Compendium early in the afternoon but I had not done everything I needed to to update my compendium database. My Compendium layout is pictured to the right, you can click on it to view it at full size.

During the review a few interesting things were brought up including some aspects of my reasoning for the project and my reasoning for the specific sub projects. Though I had answers as I always will I think these issues are things I should revisit.

In addition to this I was asked a bit about the review methods that will be used at the end of it all. This is something that I have thought about before and had included in my gantt chart however I think I may try to make it a bigger part of what I am doing. One point in particular concerning how people from these fields like working in this kind of environment and how the like being driven by an industrial designer. Especially in regard to the Copyright project.

One other issue of concern was the name of the copyright project which may need revision. I will be talking this over with my Lawyer later in the week.

Last but not least after this was all done and so on I was talking to the editor for the second project's brief and she was quite interested in some of the methods it proposes. To me, as a design student, they are nothing new or interesting, but to her they were really interesting ways to look at issues. The think she liked was the three teared approach to solution storming with a worst case, mad max case and likely case solution set. This interest, however, brought about an awkwardness when she asked ways to apply this method, specifically the mad max case to problems she deals with. I was not sure of the best way and I think I misrepresented the method. I am going to seek council with Soumitri on this matter tomorrow.

The Brief Second Project

Today I started the brief for the second project. According to the Gantt Chart it is not due for more than a week so I am getting in early. I am also getting at least on member of the team to proof-reed it before it's committed. 

The document is not yet public so I have not linked to it.

Charting Key

Last night I added a key to the gantt chart and also added deadline dates and a section at the bottom that outlines all of the school related deadlines.

Here is another link to the chart.

Mindquarry

I have come across an interesting open source package called Mindquarry that is designed to help groups work together online. It is not quite ideal for what I am doing however it does seem like it might be a little more specifically designed than they system I we are currently using.

I think if I were to do this project again I might try using software like this as the backbone.

Writing on the wall

Recently somone in the community found something interesting and then emailed it directly to me. This is nice but an issue as it should have been posted on the community. This problem is a psychological one, I think, and I hope it can be ironed out. If not it may be the downfall of the entire project.

Why the World is Not a Better Place

Last night I came across an interesting movie including the head of the Pirate Party in Sweden. It is part of the Google Tech Talks which are often really good and free. In any case I think though the talk is a little ungrounded it offerers a good introduction to the next branch of my project.

Talking and Not Talking

Today I went to the same talk as yesterday except for it being held at RMIT. It was quite interesting yet again but more so was a talk I had with the guy beforehand. I think it is likely we will stay in contact which is quite nice.

Today I also posted details about my recent talk with Luca. I think it is nice in theory but I am sort of getting cold feet about how to deal with all the issues of this project. Of course I will keep pressing and submitting something every day. If for no other reason, to make people aware about this market spot.

Also. I have realised that using the online interface with Google Groups is a waste of time as it has lost my files a few times. Instead I have started submitting items by sending them to the address. This is good and bad but it does mean I can use Gmail to write up the articles. In this regard I have also removed the prefix which was coming in with the emails because it annoys me that it does not compensate for that in the naming of threads on the groups site.

The Wealth of Nations and P2P

Today I went to a really great talk by a guy called Michel Bauwens who spoke on the implications of various kinds of topology, especially P2P, within various aspects of humanity. He is an interesting man and had a lot to do with the development of the P2P Foundation. I think this is applicable because his talk was really about the benefits of getting people to work for passion not for profit and how that inspires people to do things of much greater value. Obviously this is integral to my Design 2.0 project so at the end of his talk I discussed some of the related issues with him. He encouraged me which was great and also gave me some advice along the lines of seeking interested individuals to take part in my system.

On another note, during my conversation with Michel another member of the audience became involved and we later discussed this project as well as a few similar things. He was a Melbourne University Law student and seemed interested in this area. It is possible that I have found yet another member for the copyright system project.