talia Y sebastian ID

The Bridge between People and Solutions

2011-09-20T12:43:00.000-07:00

Chennai, 15th September 2011

The book’s description of our job is to develop aesthetical, functional objects of consumption that can be industrially manufactured and strive to satisfy people’s needs. However, the obsessive focus for profit, characterized by progressively outdated corporative policies and materialized by great masters like Raymond Loewy, pushed consumerism to turn the profession, with very admirable exceptions, into the frenetic creation of desirable objects to be purchased, consumed, and preferably soon discarded by users who can afford them, and have no need of them.

Our belief in creative potential and interdisciplinary work motivated us to create our own brand, upon the base that our solutions rely on human values and appropriate technologies to meet people’s real needs.

Mobile Plus kindly accepted us to present our vision of design and share it with you. Our international projection and my own Indian working experience in this very city made us convincing and professionally liable to stand in front of you.

2 years ago I (Sebastian) took the chance of doing an internship at Spime Technologies in Chennai not knowing anything about the country, the people and the food. Honestly that was the easiest thing to get used to. I knew (or thought I knew) India was big, overpopulated and less developed than my home country, Colombia. That did it. I was only looking for a way to escape from routine, and to be on my own under less easier conditions than those I chose for myself, when I decided to stay in Austria almost 12 years ago. I accepted a job I was not sure I was qualified for; I was going to live in a city I did not even know existed, and a country that barely interested me in any way. Those proved to be the best circumstances possible to live in India for six months.

Due to the lucky equation of jetlag plus cultural clash, it took me some time to realize I was not here plainly to do interface graphics, but to create. My secret plan to isolate myself in a temple and find the tranquility I needed through meditation had to be postponed again, because I was challenged to do a lovable work. The overwhelming responsibility, which I totally ignored, that awaited me and my job as an interface designer (I insist in calling it Interaction Design) was framed within the concept of creativity. What I got to know later was that I was the only person applying for the job, and that the company was looking for a foreign (!) designer with the “capacity to generate new valuable ideas (for global customers)”. That is how something that was planned to end after six months, ended after eight, which I would have kept extending, if my visa wouldn’t have expired.

Among this time I had to struggle with what I somehow perceive is the most disturbing and, paradoxically, effective defect of the contemporary Indian development: outsourcing. My integration in the Indian labor market turned me into the Interaction Designer I consciously did not want to turn as Product Designer: develop here, and consume somewhere else.

As time went by, the slight impression that creativity or creative thinking was sadly absent from the collective conscience of the Indians was being slowly reinforced by experience, though confronted by observation. I never thought Indians were not creative, they simply thought it was something unreachable or wrong to be creative, and almost restrained themselves, denying their own creative potential, which they mistakenly conceived as artistic talent.

As I had the pleasure to work with an Indian designer, she confirmed what I suspected laid partially in historic reasons: mostly colonialism suppressed creativity; but I was witnessing how education continued misleading promising professionals.

The English word creativity comes from the Latin term creō "to create, make". It is a verb, an action. As such it can be performed by any being capable of doing, making, independent of newness, innovation and quality. That they inevitably add value to the object/subject of creation, is obvious. That is the reason why we stop admiring bee panels, ants’ or termites’ nests, TV-shows, paintings, sculptures, books, etc. and give ourselves into finding other, unseen creations.

Overwhelming examples prove that creativity is a human condition, independent from discipline, educational background, economic status or physical condition; and although deeply attached to talent which is selective, specific and almost as individual as every one of us, creativity can be learnt. Talent as an individual and natural condition, can (and should) be promoted.

However, despite my personal impression, the reality now is, India writes currently a success story in the global panorama, and, even though it is very concerning that the country’s development is dictated by the highly toxic effort to reach a high quality of life in behalf of our environment, people’s creations made in India are displaying amazing examples of creative potential.

The great and most representative example is the Indian IT industry that has naturally evolved from mere application development and maintenance to full service players, funding themselves on the creative capacity of people creating new business models and services. The model this industry was founded upon is becoming outdated positively influencing the encouragement of creative thinking.

“We are looking for people who have the ability to solve unconventional problems, who are quick at finding solutions to basic dilemmas”

Mr. Ajoyendra Mukherjee, recruiting head of TCS (Tata Consulting Services)

Source: Financial Times, July 5^th 2011

Now, still being a very lucrative business model outsourcing will continue booming. However the industrial introspection - which I define as the process that drives the industry traditionally conceived and founded upon exporting values, to discover and create solutions for the local market - might be India’s strongest push towards development within the 21^st century.

“While the sector’s vertical market mix is well balanced across several mature and emerging sectors, FY2011 was characterized by broad based demand across traditional segments such as Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI), but also new emerging verticals of retail, Healthcare, Media and Utilities.”

Source: nasscom.in, The IT-BPO[i] Sector in

India

, Estrategic Review 2011, Executive Summary

India

is a one-time opportunity with growing social issues and massive problematic driven by over population, environmental demands, migration, lack of infrastructure and uneven distribution of sources. Technology and specialization have been nurtured over the past years, maturing until a point that local markets is being supplied with the know-how acquired. The question remains, how the problematic will be faced by Indian professionals.

This drives us to ask,

Where does all this leaves design?

“In an emerging world order, the importance of creative thinking would soon overpower raw economic might. Money without ideas is just a stale proposition.”

Source:

India

, Future of Change, indiafutureofchange.com

Design is the principal service sector mediating between a needy market and a booming industry. It’s most powerful source is creative thinking, because it relies on the ability of people to come out with ideas. They become tangible and perceivable through design, but to realize or implement them, the action of a multidisciplinary team is essential. This again forces design to use the resources of critical thinking, undeniably necessary for a good judgment.

Designers are trained to set themselves under the circumstances of their market, gaining insight, identifying needs, real and emerging, and addressing these needs by drawing out, connecting and visualizing out of the information and knowledge from the correct party of experts in various disciplines.

Full, consequent integration of the creative industries in the development of solutions

Returning to my past experience in India, as I was given the task to find my successor, I interviewed some young designers, looked over their portfolios or visited the web-pages of the schools they were trained at. The contrariety of my feelings was inevitable:

First, I was concerned to see how most of their graduation work was conceived within corporative dictation, which indoctrinated young designers to serve multinational companies and give them insight into people’s lifes.

Then, I was surprised by the amazing research work and solutions conceived during their courses, and the well intentioned and enviable curricula their training was built upon.

The sensitive training young designers receive in

India

knows perhaps no equivalent in other school, but that the outcome is put at the exclusive service of the industry was shocking. The potential Indian designers bare is substantially wasted through the constant inversion of effort in exclusively profitable and, most worrying, exportable solutions. The potential of the creative capital is wasted, when it serves only one portion of the community.

India

can not afford exclusive, though massive occupation of creative capital investment.

We envision design as a bridge between people and solutions, which is supported by technology and development and funded upon a human approach, sensibility and empathy, consequently we point out that Industrial Introspection, should be inclusive and look forward to integrate most of the productive and service sectors into the development of solutions for the common wealth. Being trained under a holistic approach to design, we believe the creation of products and services has to be framed within a human perspective that acknowledges cultural and technological backgrounds, and is motivated by self-sustaining wealth.

The equation is simple

Design + Technology = Empowerment

India

(and the world) faces challenges of proportions never seen in history. This country has, however, more than a billion possibilities to face those challenges. If we want them to face those challenges prepared, we have to put technology at their hands. Design is for us the right tool to do it right.

This requires us designers to leave behind the mindset of designers as authors of elite work, towards designers as indispensable problem solvers.

ð Attend the demand for creative capital to build the bridge between people and solutions specialists come up with and industries can materialise.

ð Concentration of creative capital for the development of integrative solutions to fulfill the needs of people.

ð Widespread of creative thinking among technological institutes for the better utilization of skills among Indian engineers.

Mobile Plus embraces solutions to empower Indian people; we look forward that the outcome of this conference inspires us to ideate new solutions, re-routing to the right path potentiating every single individual talent.

Thank you!

Vannakam!! Namaste!!

[i] IT-BPO: Information Technology - Business Process Outsourcing

Grimsvötn, Architecture for Humanity and the HUB

2011-07-12T04:29:00.000-07:00

Ash traveling south from the eruption of volcano Grimsvötn (Iceland) in late May 2011 may have delayed our flight plans to an all-important presentation with the company we are currently freelancing with, but it most certainly didn´t ruin our day despite the apparent professional set-back.

Our friends over at Neongreen Network organize the yearly “Earth Talks” and were able to bring over Cameron Sinclair from Architecture for Humanity to speak at the one day event. Unfortunately due to the preparations for our pre-planned presentation we were unable to attend, however and thanks to Grimsvötn we made it back to our co-working studio the HUB and were able to take part in a close-knit workshop with Cameron and several social entrepreneurs working at the HUB.

It´s not everyday you get to pitch your ideas, collect feedback and constructive criticism in dialogue form from someone who´s efforts you so admire.

Cameron gave us some background on his reasons for why he does what he does and how he got about getting things done: Unsatisfied with the ugliness of his modest London borough and wondering why other people could live amongst beauty, he set about becoming an architect. Not content with the practice of Architecture and adamant that there were more people practicing architecture that were as passionate in helping as he was, he created his first project and proved his co-workers wrong.

Although the backgrounds that lead us to our mindset are so diverse, undoubtedly what could be seen from this day was the amount of people affected by the Human Condition and willing to go out and DO something about it.

All in all an inspiring day, which set us on a new path towards our goal. Thanks Grimsvötn!

Human Design

2011-02-28T10:46:00.000-08:00

“Human” stands at a point or on many points of a cyclical motion on Earth. To be human is to be a part of uncountable intricate cyclical systems that are interminably connected.

Human Design takes into account the position of our being and acts through design accordingly, so that by challenging habits, mind-sets, processes and systems we may create a sustainable world amongst one another and in conjunction with our environment, in the micro and the macrocosm – be that on the computer, in the living room, in urban space or with our natural resources. Human Design strives for co-existence to secure a future. Human Design is about habits and habitats.

Design Changes the World

2011-02-08T05:06:00.000-08:00

Design changes the world and acknowledging responsibility is the key to generate solutions whose form transform the environment which future generations will inherit from us.

A long-term approach requires us to understand how relevant it is that what we produce is framed within honesty, and envisioned beyond commercial value. The paradox this both terms might embrace is challenged fostering change through design, making people aware about their role as consumers, currently excitingly characterised by a multitude of initiatives pressing industry to change their policies of production and driving designers, or architects to think about processes beyond objects.

We believe in people and through our multi-cultural origin and experience we are convinced everyone has potential, and different localities have the right and need to develop in the way that suits them best, beyond banality and trends.

We define ourselves as contributors of change through the creation of innovative human design solutions that, focused on sensible, natural, and responsible concepts, transcend cultures, respecting their values and the environment. We look forward to support the industry, and work together with it towards the adoption of manufacturing and production strategies that will materialise those solutions into responsible products.

Human design takes into account the position of our being and acts through design accordingly, so that by challenging habits, mind sets, and processes we may create a sustainable world amongst one another and in conjunction with our environment, in the micro and macro cosmos; be that our living room, our urban space or our natural resources.

Our goals are:

- to empower people, generating entirely new product experiences, helping them gain control over their quality of living;

- to foster the vision of better living beyond consumerism;

- to inspire and drive communities to think and act in unprecedented ways.

The Urban Space

2011-01-09T10:13:00.000-08:00

The concept of developing, developed, or under-developed country explicitly involves and includes conditions and circumstances that drive the international community and countries themselves to apply these definitions.

The characteristics they are associated with, are then represented in statistics that enable to read the quality of life the population living within those national borders enjoy (or suffer).

Groups of countries belonging to one of the sets mentioned do not only share similar numbers within the statistics (always in proportion to the population); they are similarly designed (or not-designed) and planned (or improvised). Their physical environments and shape resemble the conditions they share.

Nowadays development is not characterised by lack of industry, but by lack of responsibility and vision, compromising equality and causing low or no access to basic services:

Energy
Water
Sewage
Waste Management
Education
Information
Mobility (Transport)

Transport facilities, roads, rail systems, pedestrian paths, sewage channels, electrical nets, parks, or water plants, among others, shape cities and set clear statements of the quality of life they ought to offer.

Cities remarkably, shamelessly, and obviously expose what conditions its inhabitants are submitted to.

The more liveable a city is, the more services it will offer; or, to frame it from a less partial view, the more equal and well distributed it will be. A city’s quality of life is, therefore, not determined by the amount of money it has in its budget to invest, but rather by what services and how well it integrates them together to serve its inhabitants, regardless of physical location or income. A wealthy budget is, however, an advantage, but when invested in uncreative and exclusive solutions, it drives in long or short term any city to chaos, independent of geographical, economic, or cultural matters.

Remarkable is also the influence the cities’ design exercises on people. Independently of social condition, education or economic and political power, everyone behaves similarly within the public space, except when they are deliberately being observed. The most remarkable effect for the city, and the perception of it, is its personality: either friendly or hostile, active or inactive, safe or unsafe. The design of a city shapes behaviours.

If people are aware, that they all belong to an organism that interconnects them with each other; that lives or survives according to each cell it contains; and, therefore, that they all share a responsibility towards the health of this big organism, the city presents itself as friendly, and, for most of the cases, reflects a properly designed infrastructure. On the contrary, a hostile city is best represented by careless inhabitants; people whose sense of belonging to a greater organism is not awaken and, as a consequence, display no attachment to the urban environment that surrounds them. The city is shaped by its inhabitants.

Mostly due to ignorance, or, even worst, absence of strong values, people around the world justify their behavior in public spaces, and towards their most immediate environment through traditionalism and customs; meanwhile these, now quicker than before, are constantly mutating and evolving or, in the less favorable cases, devolving.

Habits and customs are mostly justified and understood as natural, and are regarded to idiosyncrasy and culture. Thus, since culture is being judged as immutable, a problem is created when new solutions or infrastructural changes are introduced. The opposition is healthy and especially necessary when it prevents abuses, but it is unaffordable, when it addresses the explicit mutation or exclusion of harming traditions and habits, whose power and cultural attachment is judged through routine and not through their benefit for the development of the community. Therefore, as long as traditions and habits are taken for granted, put at unreachable distance, and defended amongst everything, innovation and creativity will be kept on perceived as a challenge against cultural values.
A globalised world encourages influence from foreign cultures or places, and although, it can be either negative or positive, it is the most obvious proof of culture’s rapid mutability. Although extremely brutal, it tends to pass unperceived or slightly acknowledged within the society, but it is anyway quickly accepted due to the apparent comfort it brings into daily life and the glitter it brings to the material culture through visual and sensory enhancement. This is taken for granted by consumers and reinforced by massive media. This is the influence that encourages and justly justifies traditionalism. The latter, however, should not be abused as argument that defends interests of the majority; phenomenon that submerges in a deeper ignorance.
The greatest mistake most administrations are incurring in is the short term thinking and the incapacity to deal in new ways with old problems.
When any public solution will be achieved, acknowledged, or proposed it is decisive to understand that culture is not static; it mutates and it does it fluently and according to the necessities of the environment, the people, and the characteristics that shaped habits and customs. The purpose of this introduction is to realize, that no solution can be imposed from one culture to the next one, but, although radical and seemingly unfeasible, it has to be not only adapted but also properly thought through, so that it does not harm or interfere with values, but that it constitute itself into habits according to the cultural conditions the environment imposes on it. Solutions have to be set in long term and, if globally though, they should be as unique as those places that face the challenge.

"Think Globally; act Locally"

Curriculum Vitae

2009-09-04T05:38:00.001-07:00