R. Michael Hendrix

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-11T16:36:00.000-05:00

A new 4-song EP with original artwork photographed in New Hampshire. Download it here for free until 2012.

A is for Argentina

2011-11-23T15:23:00.004-05:00

I spent last week in Buenos Aires participating in the BMW Stiftung World Young Leaders Forum. I was a guest blogger for there site so you can get the goods here.

MoogFest Poster

2011-10-28T16:37:00.002-04:00

A new design I made with Nick at Youngmonster for the 2011 MoogFest.

Royal Riot

2011-08-10T23:17:00.000-04:00

For a good time call 1-D-E-0

2011-07-05T23:54:00.000-04:00

What drives men to graffiti bathroom walls? The men's room in my studio pays homage to this time honored tradition, but as you might imagine, it's a little different.

All original art, by living artists at 485 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge

Images, quieter than words

2011-06-08T23:14:00.000-04:00

My friend Caleb Ludwick received a grant to write a collection of short stories, each enhanced by a graphic designer he handpicked. He gave me an amazing piece, roughly 25 vignettes that collectively paint a picture of a hopeful immigrant's life in the South. I loved the story so much that I didn't want to distract with the layout. So I opted to create illustrations that enhance what he wrote, sometimes abstractly and sometimes directly. This insidious image is one I'm particularly proud of and I hope it makes you want to read his book. Check the link above to glimpse at more of his ongoing project. I believe it wraps this summer.

This post will self-destruct in 5 seconds...

2011-05-18T22:45:00.001-04:00

http://rmhendrix.com/

Easter

2011-05-08T23:05:00.000-04:00

Somerville, MA

Everything in its right place

2011-04-02T12:45:00.000-04:00

I'm dramatically influenced by the arrangement of my environment. I have a pretty high threshold for disorder, but there is a point that I snap, and then the piles of paper or books have to at least be pushed over to some kind of subconscious grid in order for me to feel calm. I only grew aware of this neurosis in the last couple of years and it's actually been a asset because it's a "lever" I pull to give myself some sanity when things are hectic.

I've wondered if this is simply a trait of a visual designer. That maybe we are good at what we do simply because we are compelled to bring balance to what we see— our skills are honed because we have this subconscious, heightened sensitivity. Jane Fulton Suri and I explored these sensibilities in an article for Rotman last year and now science is helping me understand it more fully.

I've been collecting articles about how our bodies and senses are inextricably connected. For example there is a study that found artificial sweeteners may confuse our body's metabolism because we taste sugar; sweetness is a signal to the brain to start metabolizing and if it's not actually there the body begins doing things it shouldn't. There has also been a great deal of research into how our facial expressions cue our our own empathy. When we respond to someone with a smile we feel happy. If we see their sadness, and we respond with a furrowed brow, we then share their concern. People with Botox treatments have difficulty with empathy because their facial muscles can't move properly to spur concern.

Yesterday my wife sent me an article about embodied cognition. Scientists at Yale are learning how objects influence our interactions and emotions. For example, people with warm drinks are judged to be more caring than people with cold drinks, or holding a heavy clipboard causes a worker to take his job more seriously than if holding a light clipboard.

I think there is plenty of evidence that our craft and, perhaps our neurosis, has more to do with things than meets the eye. Personally, this is a challenge to become more articulate about the physical and sensual properties we bake into our designs. We are queuing instinctual, emotional responses through our creations in addition to order, clarity and function. It's putting everything in its right place visually, physically and emotionally.

Rethinking the Bunker

2011-03-27T21:02:00.000-04:00

Central Square, Cambridge MA

Seen, but not heard

2011-03-26T09:30:00.000-04:00

Ball Square, Somerville MA

Want to Innovate? Start Goofing Off.

2011-03-02T09:40:00.002-05:00

One thing I love about IDEO is being surrounded by inspiring people, both inside and outside the company. There is not a week that goes by that I don't learn something from a friend or find myself challenged to consider new ideas.

Case in point: two weeks ago I presented and led a workshop at Ligature 20, a conference organized by design students at the University of Florida in Gainesville. I've presented quite a bit over the past year and so when this opportunity came along, I decided I'd explore some new ideas rather than rehash what I'd been presenting. An inspiration of late is Boston colleague, Matt Brown. Matt has an exceptional ability to let his imagination wander across his mind's plain without restraint. Maybe you've read his Design Fancy column on Core77? Design Fancy is a series featuring fictional designers and their portfolios, straight from the mind of Matt— characters like Carlo Heckman, inventor of the Roman numeral "Heckman Method" of birthday cake candle placement, or Thomas Ruby, designer of the TuneDrink, a device that mixes cocktails based on the sonic vibrations of popular songs. It might first seem a stretch, but I have begun to see design fiction as a means of inspiration and self-imposed constraints; this is what I chose to explore at Ligature.

It wasn't clear to me at first. We have a very playful culture that some people might see as juvenile or misguided— we DID invent the Finger Blaster after all. But the truth is, this culture is the reason we continue to be innovative year after year. 99% of the time spontaneous play doesn't have an intent, but in retrospect we can trace a lot of our design solutions to moments of fun. A culture that promotes risk-taking and abandonment of convention or self-consciousness gets new ideas and innovative results. It's how you can explain Ela's willingness to operate on a cadaver to gain surgeon empathy, or Gwen's vigor for a two-week coastal van trip with colleagues to learn surf culture, or the RWJ Foundation team observing a NASCAR pit crew to re-imagine urgent care.

Matt has brought another kind of play to us and we're only now seeing how it is affecting our work. Dan Deruntz, like Matt, has a wandering mind. At the beginning of a recent project he created a fictional Japanese sci-fi story line for himself that gave him some context for a graphic design language to apply to the work. From all appearances it was unrelated to the task at hand. But after a couple of weeks, what seemingly began as indulgence became influential to the work. The design language served as his catalyst to model opportunities from an unexpected perspective (and if I tell you any more I'll have to shoot you). This blew my mind, and so to make a long story long, became my inspiration for a workshop at Ligature.

The workshop was based on a recent activity in our studio. Every couple of weeks we have a working lunch to create design fiction. One of the recent projects, that I'm sure Matt is the World's foremost expert about, is packaging junk. Take anything, I mean anything — a paperclip, a styrofoam peanut, a broken Hot Wheels car — put it in a plastic bag and give it a cardboard clam seal and you instantly have a story. Why is this being sold? Where? What's the backstory of invention, failure or cultural consequence? Who is the designer, manufacturer, collector? When was it made and when was it purchased? And it goes on… (you can see examples of this on Matt's personal blog). I flew to Florida with a bag of misfit toys and trash. I thought I'd be stopped by TSA at every connection because there was nothing normal about a Ziplock filled with dinosaurs, matches and a kitten doll, but no one touched my junk (insert collective groan).

So what do 15 students do when you lay all this on them and give them two hours to respond? Pretty amazing stuff! Included are more photos than descriptions but you get the picture..

- A space food compound that was discontented due to faulty quality control. The separate pieces never connected and therefore rather than delightful mincemeat, the astronauts were stuck with the taste of plastic.

- An authentic, secret society, Ladies of the Fin membership brooch. This is the first level of membership and so made of plastic. Level three is gold.

- The secret musical weapon of Mexican rock legend and super hero Tony Bandana: strum with the special pick and fire shoots from the barrel.

At the end of the session I requested homework. "Live with the ideas a while, develop them and refine them, then try to apply your ideas to a "real" project you're currently working on; email me the story of what happens." It's only been a week so the verdict is still out but I'd like to think I'll soon hear of how GI Jack inspired a new way of discussing taboos, or how Surf Joe surfaced conversations about manipulating DNA. Or maybe it will just be about how the fonts and color pallet of Bonnet Babies led to a new identity for a local organic bakery. Whatever I receive, I'm sure will be proof that alternate universes do exist and that goofing off is the new black.

Thrust -> Fire

2011-02-27T18:38:00.000-05:00

Funspot, Weirs Beach, NH

All are welcome

2011-02-09T23:02:00.001-05:00

Providence, RI

Goodbye Coffee

2011-01-09T15:13:00.000-05:00

Love this quote from Mike Peck, the Senior Design Manager at SBUX when talking about the new logo:

The logo, or mark, is just a small part of the expression… We’ve looked at the brand top to bottom. We actually started with the business case and before we even went to design we looked at the words that described Starbucks of today and tomorrow.

It's a common mistake to look at refreshes like this and consider them aesthetic exercises. The back stories are equally important and are more significant to the organization than to the consumer. Did we really care when Apple dropped "Computer" from their name? I don't think so. But as a revelation of corporate strategy it was historic. Same here.

The quiet intent is to use the brand as a springboard of new opportunity and ideas. Conventional brand management misses this point. Rather than acting as police and defenders of the brand, we are the enablers, the stewards, the fuel to growth. Good brand management is brand empowerment.

Can't wait to hear the back story.

A New Decade

2011-01-02T20:25:00.000-05:00

2000-2010

A new decade
The radio plays the sounds we made
And everything seems to feel just right

-The Verve, A New Decade, A Northern Soul

I'm admittedly bad at remembering details. I tend toward feelings and moods that define moments. In rare cases I actually can remember facts and so I'm writing them here to be accountable. I want you to know that things have been pretty good - in fact, great - and if I complain you have the right to tell me to shut up. There are more medals of honor here than halls of shame. I'm certain the hall of shame is entered through a skeleton closet best left alone. So, here are some of the headlines from the last 10 years, from meaningful to minutia:

3 beautiful kids, including twins
5,10 and 15 year wedding anniversaries to fascinating and lovely Ramona
Founded and managed a VC-backed sustainable design company for 6 years, Tricycle Inc.
Honored with a bunch of design awards in graphics, environments and products
Moved North to Boston from Chattanooga— first residence outside of the South!
Joined IDEO
Sold a house
Got robbed and mugged but lived to tell about it
Owned a guinea pig
Voted
Worked out of my house for a few years
Bought a bunch of Eames furniture
Said goodbye to Freehand
Had my songs on Current TV, Planet Green and Flip This House
Had at least 10 hairstyles and 4 glasses frame

Started going gray (and becoming distinguished!)
Grew an ironic mustache
Got a tattoo of a Ben Franklin cartoon
Grew heirloom tomatoes
Bought 2 new VWs- a family van and a sports car
Bought property
Went StarTac to to Emerson candy bar to iPhone
Spent 40 days in Europe (not all at once)
Had work selected by the Smithsonian and the National Design Triennial
Judged design shows
Taught 7 years of adjunct design classes in Chattanooga
Was an Index Awards Finalist
Employed my friends
Buried 3 grandparents
Co-Founded an AIGA chapter
Recorded about 20 songs
Broke up a band
Sold and bought a dozen guitars, kept about half
Was published in design books and magazines
Had at least 4 Mac laptops and 5 iPods
Designed 3 mattresses
Went flat screen
Didn't read enough
Returned to Chuck Taylors
Discovered Malbec, craft beer, and small-batch bourbon
Flew more than I had my entire life
Got named a Fellow
Re-embraced football
Went to lots of rock shows
Designed a TV network identity system
Started saving for retirement
Hit a deer and totaled a truck
Had a surgery
Discovered Eva Zeisel and Russel Wright
Stopped buying CDs, started buying vinyl
Built a swing set
Owned a scooter
Gained 5 pounds
Made my best friends
Kept wearing plaid

I'd be remiss not to mention the many amazing individuals I've come to know through my work and the delightful meals and entertainment that only were once enjoyed by kings and queens. I also realize that so much on this list is material. My best explanation is that much of what is listed here is an artifact of that spiritual joy.

Grateful. Blessed. Amazed. Looking forward to the next ten.

Stereotyped

2010-12-21T01:03:00.000-05:00

Last Friday I joined a few of my colleagues for a field trip to the Museum of Printing in North Andover, Mass. There's a little something for everyone: hand-drawn letter forms and cases of fonts for type geeks, mechanical marvels for gear heads, engravings and prints for historians... But my favorite part of the museum is Frank Romano, volunteer, tour guide, president and living encyclopedia of all things printing. For example, did you know that all the lead type used to print the Gutenberg Bible (or anything else at that time) was cleaned in a bucket of urine since there were no solvents? Or that a stereotype was an embossed technological advancement that allowed massive print reproduction (second photo from top)?

Frank is writing a book on the history of Linotype, the first automated typesetting machine, some of which you can see below. Coincidentally a documentary film is also being made on this same advancement. But I suggest you just go see Frank personally for starters, then hang out on a Saturday to watch a few experts print on everything from a 16th century wood press to mid-20th century clam shell.

The beautiful images below were shot by my colleague Coulter Lewis.

Day of the Dead

2010-12-19T00:30:00.000-05:00

I spent an hour browsing typography at the historic Salem Street Burying Ground today in Medford, MA. Some of the engravings are so exact and well-preserved that I had to touch the slates to convince myself they weren't painted. And the ligatures & abbreviations — forgive me — were drop dead gorgeous. Worth the visit.

Music Industry, Hack Yourself

2010-12-11T11:02:00.001-05:00

Core77 posted our C60 Redux project this week. Here's a further look at why I think it was an important project to develop.

Though I started with vinyl, the bulk of my rock and roll upbringing is credited to nylon and metal cassettes. I would spend hours in front of stacked tape decks dubbing one song to the next to make the penultimate mix tape for my friends. I spent weekend sleepovers copying tapes between boom boxes with my friends. These labors of love weren't rooted in consumption. This was about love — love for the way a guitar hook delivered goose bumps, love for a drumbeat speeding up my heart, love for my friends and the joy of giving them something bespoke, love for pursuit and discovery and finding that new band I didn't know existed. This deep rooted passion stayed with me through college and my first professional years. I would dub CDs down to cassette so I could play it in my car, listen to it at work or share with friends.

When I Miss My Pencil launched, the C60 concept was an immediate win to me. It tapped into this reservoir of memories and obsessions. When I learned my Boston studio mates wanted to build it I was unequivocally compelled to help make it happen.

I've come to believe that when we use our sensibilities to create, they transmit into what we make and then transfer to the person interacting with the creation. Hear me out. If we take joy in tactility and sound when we create it, then they will give joy in return when the design is engaged by another person. Watching and listening to Bob Hartman, the electrical engineer behind c60, I witness my hypothesis come true. Each build of the RFID antennae configurations under the hood is a work of art. The multiple, staggered green and gold surfaces line up like toy soldiers in rank and file. Listening to Bob talk about each iteration, it's challenges, the solutions brings the beauty of this alive. And each designer he shows this to gets his contagious smile. We might not understand the explicit details of the schematic, or the code language that makes science seem like magic, but we understand the joy of design. But this is all background— the stuff that makes designers geek out. Joy must extend beyond the process into the users life. This is the litmus test of success.

This summer Bob took the the C60 prototype to a elementary school science fair. The school wants to give kids broad exposure to the future possibilities. It's the technology and design equivalent of a farm field trip to see Holsteins. When Bob returned he told me a story about a young kid interacting with the music player and of the way her face lit up as she dropped the album art on the platter to start the playing a song. Then he said something that stuck with me: "She would lay it down and pick it up to make the music start and stop. It's really an exciting user interface, even simpler than iTunes or the iPod because there are no buttons."

The whole concept came full circle for me. More than referencing past formats through form or name, we were experimenting with a new ceremony, one that takes advantage of today's digital advances without overlooking our desires for play and tangible influence on an outcome. Playing with the artwork through placement and interaction is just plain fun and I think that's what's been lost in today's dematerialized formats.

For years the music industry has blamed technology for their declining sales. Paradigm shifts are complicated and there's likely not a single cause for the change. There are obvious ones like the growth of internet access, faster data transfer speeds and a culture that's been built on the "more is more" mentality. But I think there is a less visible reason that might be just as obvious: the digital world is a dematerialized world and we are physical beings. In some cases we've done well to adapt digital technology to our needs. The ease of long distance communication has become nearly ubiquitous for example. But in the case of mass-distributed music we've failed.

I don't think we at IDEO suggest that C60 is THE new format we should embrace. But I do believe there is an insight to be gained from it and that is to bring ceremony and considered interaction back. In extreme cases we've reduced music to a single sense, sound — how do we bring touch, site and smell back to the experience? How can we make it a physical and spiritual moment again? Could the growth in live music sales be related somehow to this yearning? How can the digital world merge with the music business to enrich experiences?

Riffing on C60 Redux, it's not hard to imagine a ticket stub or poster with an RFID tag that gives you access to exclusive content before or after a concert. More than a memento, it could create a stronger connection with the artist and enrich the performance experience. Imagine adding social networking to it — tickets might contain different content, encouraging you to seek out like-minded fans before the show. Participation creates connection and community. Ideas like the RFID ticket are bootlegs are steroids, enriching the experiences and helping them live beyond their real-time moments

There are a few artists truly seeking new ways to engage fans with their music in a rapidly changing culture: Trent Reznor's USB bathroom releases, Radiohead's Pay-What-You-Want, Twisted Bittorrent and Reckoner remix stems, Mos Def's t-shirt album, Beck's free covers downloads and our U2 Blackberry app to name a few. None of these have suggested a standard yet. Maybe the iPad will make interacting with digital music a richer tangible experience? Or maybe it's going to come from left field, from a bunch of design-loving hackers like my colleagues or the kids at MIT that are seeking a richer interaction. From wherever it emerges, take note music industry, you need to start hacking yourself. If you don't, you'll be become the lost format.

c60 Redux from IDEO on Vimeo.

Wrapping Christmas Carols

2010-12-04T12:33:00.002-05:00

It's Advent and at our house that means a month of Christmas tunes in rotation. Every year I buy a few new ones — reinterpretations of classics and new songs hoping to make it into the holiday cannon. My favorites are mixes of both, most recently from Sufjan Stevens, Kristin Hersh, Low, Amy Mann, Over the Rhine and the amazing Sam Phillips.

About 4 years ago I decided to try it myself and started tracking for "Silent Night" and "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel". Since then I've transferred the songs to three different computers and unfortunately lost different source files and mixes along the way. Last year I pieced them together and shared rough mixes songs with friends but they were just that — rough. So this November I remixed the songs, added new bass tracks and cleaned up the vocals. These mixes are available on iTunes now.

"O Come, Emmanuel" was inspired by a song named "Rutti" by Slowdive. I loved how much room each chord had to breathe and I thought it could be an interesting device to use on this sacred hymn. I re-purposed a chord progression from the chorus of "Longing for the Golden Heart" on my Eat the Young album. My wife sang the vocals, effected to suggest a cathedral performance.

The photo in the artwork is of my brother-in-law's Christmas tree. I set the type in Avant Garde and created my own ligatures to create a rhythm that matches the motion of the photo.

The tune for "Silent Night" is from a canned Flannery song that I recall had inspired roots in "Let Down" by Radiohead. However, I wrapped it with E-Bow and added lots of guitars so in the end it sounded nothing like where it started and got loud enough to wake the baby Jesus and the whole stable! This is probably the worse re-interpretation of a lullaby ever recorded but a great way to start a party.

The photo is from a 'mom and pop' restaurant in Chattanooga called Soups On. Year round they committed signage atrocities that I regularly photographed. I'm sure there were car accidents on Broadway as people tried to read the menu posted on the building. At Christmas it was even worse as yard ornaments took over the 3 x 10 grass plot in front of the restaurant. This pop-culture interpretation of the Holy Family feels like the perfect accompaniment to the song.

Finally is Little Drummer Boy. I've always had a love/hate relationship with this song primarily because the drum part was sung rather than played. There are a two exceptional versions by the Dandy Warhols and The Violet Burning that come to mind because they are so overdriven that the "rum pum-pum pum" is only a side show. Since they rocked it I've taken it a different direction. Here it is, sans rums and pums.

The artwork is inspired by military stencils. I figure only an enlisted boy would be wandering through Bethlehem with a drum!

Merry Christmas!

Freudian Slip 2: Tab

2010-11-21T21:33:00.001-05:00

My second post for logos that look like logos. This designer clearly is a Gen Xer, or a big fan.

Freudian Slip 1: Bonnets

2010-11-08T21:54:00.001-05:00

Here's a weird design association from childhood. I used to think about how similar these two logos are. And I still do.

Do You Like to Rock?

2010-10-23T14:34:00.001-04:00

If you know me, you know I do - sincerely. I love the wash of overdriven guitars flowing through a room, the invisible punch of a kick drum in a club, the way a strong bass line bobs heads uncontrollably. At one time I had a worm of ambition twisting in me to pursue a rock career. I played with friends in basements and garages for years until I finally had enough guts to put together a band we called Flannery— and to get out and play. We had our local fame and after a few years I put it to rest.

Flannery circa 2000 (L-R: Brian Woodlief, me, Greg Bagby, Jake Langston)

Flannery T-shirt - I still sleep in mine.

Since 2001 I've written and recorded songs on and off that span a stylistic bridge from electronica to shoegaze. I used to have these posted with a service called Virb but recently let that lapse due to increase in hosting cost. So I'm bringing a sampling of the work here, from 1998 to today, under various names. I'm currently working on a new group of songs about espionage. It's down to the drums and final mixing so I expect to finish in the summer of 2011.

Southern Cal Pop - Flannery, "Displaced in Nowhere EP", 2000
March of the Bull - Flannery, "How to Destroy the World EP", 2001
Longing for the Golden Heart - R.M. Hendrix, 2007
Joy Sets In - R.M. Hendrix, 2007
The Infamous Mrs. Noe - R.M. Hendrix, 2007

And if that's not enough rock for you check out some photos from recent shows I've seen in Cambridge at the Middle East:

School of Seven Bells

Chapterhouse

Fennesz

MIT Museum

2010-10-23T10:28:00.000-04:00

Our studio is 3 blocks from the MIT Museum and it shamefully took me two years to visit. But yesterday I finally made the trek and discovered food for the creative soul. Highlights for me:

Polaroid Land Camera paper and foam models

Goofy and spectacular robot and AI machines

Arthur Ganson's "Gestural Engineering" exhibit of kinetic sculptures

The Future of Design is the Past

2010-10-09T11:31:00.000-04:00

This week I participated on an AIGA Boston / Future M Panel on the topic of the Designer of 2014. There's been some great thought put toward this subject already that you can read on the AIGA web site. I figured since this was done so well already it might be interesting to take a different approach and talk about which designers we model. I asked my IDEO colleagues to send a list of their professional heroes and then made a Wordle from the list:

There are quite a few contemporary designers here, but the most popular names were modernists. As you know, IDEO is known for design thinkers, and no doubt Charles & Ray Eames and Buckminster Fuller were among the best. This made me wonder why "what was old is new again"? What changed in the design profession and in design education that moved us away from an optimism that we could design anything and placed us neatly in a discipline silo that we're trying so hard to move away from again? (BTW, this isn't a suggestion that we shouldn't be experts of a craft, it's more a commentary on our identity.)

Surley technology and population are at play here. As we've made more mediums and things we've needed greater specialization to design for them. Interaction Design wasn't a concept in 1980, now it's a discipline. The upside of this is greater collaboration of disciplines. Then there's just the math of it. The population is double what it was and the design profession has grown much more than that, so the odds of a "designer author" rising to the top of cultural awareness are just lower.

In addition to prodding my thoughts prior to the event, the joy of panels is getting to talk with people you've not yet met and witness the birth of new ideas. So thanks to my new friends for making it an enjoyable evening:

Angela Shen-Hsieh, CEO, Visual i/o
Jan Kubasiewicz, Professor, Head of Graduate Program in Communication Design, Dynamic Media Institute, MassArt
Gary Koepke, Co-Founder; Executive Creative Director, Modernista!
Marina Hatsopoulos, Angel investor, Windy Street

In association with the conference I recorded a short interview with friends at Hill Holiday that gives you a hint of what the evening was about.

Getting Urban with BMW

2010-08-29T18:51:00.000-04:00

I just returned from an engaging weekend in New York arranged by the BMW Stiftung Herbert Quandt (BMW's foundation). It was the 15th Trans-Atlantic forum with this year's theme of "Social Cohesion in Urban Development". The general idea is to get a lot of interesting and influential people together to hear best practices, get inspired and help folks out. There were the usual panel discussions and the prerequisite "numbed-by-statistics" moments but also some surprising exercises such as the break out workshops in which we spent four hours with a social entrepreneur to help work through specific challenges — a model I want to replicate at IDEO.

I made new friends (by no means all) that are doing exciting things and want you to get to know them too. Check out their work:

John Cary, CEO of Next American City, an organization focused on the future of cities, and editor of "The Power of Pro Bono: 40 Stories about Design for the Public Good by Architects and Their Clients"

Aaron Hurst, CEO of the Taproot Foundation, an organization that enables professionals to donate their skills pro boon to help build the non-profit sector.

Cassim Shepard, director or Urban Omnibus, an online publication of the Architectural League of New York and also a documentary filmmaker.

Alejandra Lillo, CEO of Graft, a world-class architecture studio and co-founders of Make It Right, a foundation established to help sustainably rebuild the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans.

A walk through the neighborhood

2010-08-22T14:10:00.000-04:00

With my family vacationing with relatives in the South I find myself passing time in... well actually just passing time. It's a luxury really and on one of my luxurious, aimless walks through the neighborhood I decided to notice telephone poles (and a dumpster).

A T for Matthew

2010-08-16T14:25:00.006-04:00

Well, this is how things go.. When the official deadline was less than 24 hours away I changed my mind and went a totally different direction.

I quit worrying about using Matthew’s fonts and thought about what I was inspired to focus upon (which is where I really was anyway). This ends up being the T, specifically the Red Line. I ride it twice a day and have an affinity for it. I figure he does too since he lives in Cambridge.

I’ve also been reading publications by and for Matthew. In the most recent Eye he’s penned a short article about designing a woodcut font. I got interested in the punchcut process, designing the counter space. He tells a story about how Frutiger used to start creating a letterform by drawing the negative space with white paint on black paper.

And then I always have this little rebellious nature that seems to make its way into what I do. It’s a tribute to the T but it visual starts as a U...

The T is the punch line to the punchcut. That’s what I’ve always loved about good ad headlines. You get that millisecond to make a connection and have your own "a-ha moment".

I got confirmation from the organizers that NOT using Matthew’s type is a good thing because he’s probably sick of seeing it. So there’s no way he could be sick of seeing Helvetica..... right?

The AIGA event to honor Matthew is on September 24 at the Cambridge Public Library. This poster along with 15 other limited edition letter forms will be available for purchase. Ride the Red Line to get there. Special thanks to my friend Nick at Young Monster for screen-printing these for me.

Boston T

2010-07-13T21:02:00.003-04:00

Breakfast Sketch for a Type Designer

2010-06-26T11:01:00.001-04:00

AIGA Boston has asked me to contribute a letterform illustration for an upcoming tribute to local typography icon Matthew Carter. I was assigned the letter "T", rich with homophonic (can it be an adjective?) meaning in Boston, from the original tea party to our beloved public transport system whose logo was designed by Chermayeff Geismar in 1964.

Just the first thing that popped into my head but it's not directly related to his work. Since this is sketch numero uno I have plenty of room for input and new ideas. Just comment if you have something to share. I plan to intermittently post my progress.

A Soccer Calendar that Rocks

2010-06-12T14:00:00.003-04:00

The World Cup started yesterday and prompted me to post this. Earlier this year Suzanne from The Ucal McKenzie Breakaway Foundation asked me and my colleague Ian Dapot to contribute designs to her 2011 calendar. She posted a sneak peak on Facebook yesterday, so here's mine:
I'm admittedly a bigger fan of rock and roll than the beautiful game, so it's the overlap of the two that inspire me. Queen has become the defacto spirit music for sports so I sought out the original 7" singles for We Will Rock You and We are the Champions. I loved the poetic connection of two 45 minute halves to two 45 rpm singles.

The project has a close visual connection to one Paul Rustand and I did about 9 years ago called Lo-Fi in which we tried to make a graphic compilation album juxtaposing hollow and provocative lyrics from our favorite songs. However the production method was quite different. For the calendar I used completely digital methods but Lo-Fi was entirely done with letter press.

Printing the title page with a broken record was one of my favorite moments.

AIGA 365/30 online & free

2010-05-22T10:54:00.003-04:00

Last Spring I juried the space category for AIGA's annual design competition. Now you can view the selections in a digital book format at Issuu:

or visit the excellent online version at AIGA Design Archive.

Tryk in the Smithsonian!

2010-05-12T23:15:00.003-04:00

As of yesterday Tryk® is officially in the Smithsonian, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum through the National Design Triennial. Its a big deal to me even though I realize that it's not even a blip on the rest of the world's radar. Nine years ago when I co-founded Tricycle we did so with big dreams — we set out to change an industry for the better. It sounds overly optimistic and naive but I think every entrepreneur has to be that way in order to press on and succeed. I can look at what we started with pride. The majority of major carpet manufactures use technology and services from Tricycle in some capacity today and the world is better off for it. That's a little party worth celebrating.

I'm thankful to all the people in the industry who took a risk on us. It's not easy for large corporations to trust a start up made of Young Turks. I'm thankful to every interior designer that decided to give us a try. I'm thankful for my co-founding friends — Jonathan (shown left in the photo above), Jamie and Andy — who each brought their own energy and expertise to the venture and believed that a designer like me was valuable to the mix. I'm grateful for all the faith and hard work every employee at Tricycle has given to make it a success in the midst of huge challenges. Lastly I'm thankful to Ellen Lupton & Matilda McQuaid for taking note and placing the company in a larger cultural context.

In 2006 I spoke at the AIGA GAIN business and design conference in New York City. I was one face of designers having an impact in the world through sustainable design. Tom Kelley moderated the event. As it turns out he was the first IDEOer I ever met and I had no idea that I'd be calling him my colleague two years later or that the journey I had started would lead me to where I am today. In retrospect it all makes perfect sense (right?). Here's the video so you can see what it's all about.

R. Michael Hendrix from Tricycle at AIGA GAIN 2006 on Vimeo.

Font Radio

2010-05-09T13:24:00.005-04:00

I'm a letterform junkie. I snap photos of letters that catch my eye. I buy stencils just because. I can't look at a sign without thinking about the font choice and letterspacing. I keep scraps of found type in my filing cabinet — seriously, I just gave another designer a greasy french fry bag that I've saved for years! This is one reason I've loved print design so much and have been less interested in web design.
The internet has been dominated by the few fonts that Microsoft has included in Internet Explorer: Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana, and Georgia — none compelling and for the most part derivative of the superior designs that inspired them. CSS2 tried to remedy this by allowing specification of the types of fonts such as serif, san serif, monotype, etc, but that didn't guarantee that the font I selected as a designer would be the one viewed by the reader. This gets extremely frustrating when menus or columns no longer align due to letter space differences.

But suddenly the Internet is getting interesting to me again due to more broadly adopted font distribution technology that is the equivalent of streaming music. As a designer I can now specify a font for my site and it will stream to your computer, temporarily residing in your browser without requiring it to be downloaded into your system. When you close out your browser it's gone.

This means I can choose Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk instead of Arial. That's beautiful to me. To build on a recent quote from Ellen Lupton, it's like choosing the right bulbs for your living room — cool fluorescents just don't do it for me. I plan to try this out here on the blog soon. You can read more about this (and read Ellen's quote) in the LA Times.

Digital Analog

2010-04-30T06:08:00.004-04:00

I bought the Hipstamatic iPhone app today. Normally I'm adverse to digital tools that replicate the real world but there's something about this one that appeals to me.

A few from today...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Design Sensibilities in Rotman Magazine

2010-04-27T23:46:00.003-04:00

In my last post I mentioned an article that Jane and I wrote for Rotman magazine about sensibilities requiring the same import as methods in design thinking. It was published this week and now you can download the PDF from the IDEO web site. Please read it and let me know what you think.

Richness over Convenience

2010-03-30T17:01:00.055-04:00

My new turntable arrived Friday (a Rega P1 if you're interested) and everything about it is beautifully inconvenient. It arrived partially assembled, it's 100% manually operated - you literally move the belt between gears to change speed from 33.3 to 45, it fits awkwardly in my component shelf and it requires that archaic and fragile media format called "the record". But you know I love it.

It's the ceremony of starting the machine, removing the vinyl from the large cardboard sleeve, holding it carefully with two hands, cueing the stylus slowly above a desired groove, watching it settle precisely and then sitting in front of the speakers for 20 minutes with no remote control, FF or RW.

It's the sound of gentle contact when the needle touches the record, followed by the warm sound of analog formats and even the occassional undesired pop from a missed dust particle that reminds me this is a complex physical action. It's the exposed bolts, wires and belts that remind that I'm enjoying a mechanical world. It needs me.

Saturday morning it occurred to me that I enjoy making coffee for the same kinds of reasons. I filter the water, grind the beans, carefully measure the resulting aromatic oily powder, brew or French press (more ceremony there), and once finished, drink it from a specific small diner cup and saucer set we bought from a used diner-ware wholesaler back in Chattanooga.

I enjoy the ceremony that builds to a rich sensory experience and the joy is made stronger by the combination. I might argue that the tone and flavor are better too — maybe because it truly is multi-sensory.

I just finished co-authoring an article with my colleague Jane Fulton Suri for the Summer 2010 issue of Rotman Magazine. In it we discuss the balance of methods and sensibilities that makes design thinking successful. The best designs aren't just answers to problems. They are answers that solve and bring delight; it's important for us (designers and non) to remember that it's not just our process or methods that yield results. Our sensibilities are the other half of a successful equation.

Thumbing: blaming devices instead of ourselves

2010-02-07T23:58:00.001-05:00

Remember when "thumbing" meant you were acting like Fonzi or hitchhiking? If you own a smart phone you might be tempted to add a postscript to all of your messages to excuse your poor typing. Don't. Spend the extra minute re-reading your note. I swear you'll sound smarter.

Here is a sampling of disclaimers I've had land in my inbox recently:

Warning: Phone keyboards cause typos.
typed on a phone
Sent on-the-go
Thumbed on a phone
two thumbs on a tiny keyboard
Typed on an exasperatingly small keyboard
sent while mobile
Typed on a phone with British spell check
sent from big thumbs on a small phone

FYI, Typed on a flat surface with short stroke depths and no carriage returns...

Wrong Kind of Sauce

2010-01-20T10:13:00.001-05:00

Ironic? Authentic? Neither works for me. This is a storefront of an Italian chain in Palo Alto. If it were a hotel I'd be into it. Pizza needs something different: Hot Cheese.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Law of Diminishing Returns

2010-01-02T14:54:00.001-05:00

There is a point at which increased effort and expenditure are not commensurate with improvement of a desired outcome. In other words the value decreases while the effort increases. This recent National Geographic infographic shows this fully played out in the health care debate. The U.S. spends more than any other country on health care, yet our life expectancy is lower than many developed and developing nations. Why?

Cop outs for COP15

2009-12-26T12:02:00.003-05:00

By Joel Pett, Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, Cartoonists and Writers Syndicate, for USA TODAY

A few days before Christmas I went shopping in Harvard Square to pick up a few stocking stuffers. As I came out of the T I was greeted by a group of college girls bearing posters of Obama with a Hitler mustache superimposed on his face and the canned line, "The climate sure has changed for Obama hasn't it?" Their demonizing is stupefying and revealing of this age's fickleness. It's not just the libertarians that are upset though — it seems like the whole world has decided to point its finger to the West for Copenhagen's failure. It's easy to see our fault in sidelining the issue for an overdrawn debate on marginally improved health care while the rest of the world moved on an agenda that's been years in planning. But that's politics, and as I learned this summer, the same self-serving agendas play out the world over. While we were infighting, China played their cards well and got what they wanted. The Guardian has posted an excellent account of how it went down here.

Capline, no baseline

2009-12-14T13:32:00.000-05:00

- Posted from my iPhone

Power of Design at Appy State

2009-11-11T22:48:00.013-05:00

Yesterday I spent the day in Boone, North Carolina at Appalachian State University. Boone is about 50 miles from where I grew up so I jumped at the chance to inspire students in my old neighborhood. I was invited by Associate Professor of Interior Design (and fellow Elizabethton High School alumni), Tim Dolan, on behalf of the Design Council, an inter-college faculty group organized to promote multidisciplinary design, for their third annual Power of Design symposium. One cool thing Tim and I learned from one another yesterday was that we were both separately inspired to study design by our drafting teacher, Mr. Fink!

I led an afternoon workshop with about 140 students to design a campus that relied exclusively on human-powered transportation. Students from the Interior Design, Architecture, Graphic Design, Industrial Design and Fine Arts programs got a crash course in Design Thinking and a basic IDEO design process then went to work. The photos below showcase the exciting energy from the afternoon and the great enthusiasm these young designers have to change their environment — from prototyping means to harvest kinetic energy, to making the campus more pedestrian and bike friendly, to outfitting people with better climate-neutralizing gear.

After a quick dinner with ASU faculty I presented a lecture called "Big D, Little D" which shared my own professional evolution from discipline-based design to inter-disciplinary design thinking using Tricycle and IDEO projects as case studies. Thank you to the 300 of you that showed up despite the halo effect of 24-hour rain from Ida!

High Moon

2009-11-03T23:38:00.001-05:00

I'm in the Windy City for an IDEO regional discussion (the new Chicago studio is great!) Caught this shot of the moon on top of the Willis (Sears) Tower.

.... and Klaus signed Lisbon today.

-- Posted from my iPhone

Applepalooza at IDEO

2009-10-28T21:45:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow we're celebrating New England apple picking and creativity in the studio. Here's my lovely Ramona's contribution, before and after.

-- Posted from my iPhone

New World

2009-10-26T10:15:00.001-04:00

Home in Boston and greeted by a gorgeous Autumn!

-- Posted from my iPhone

Auf Wiedersehen

2009-10-24T12:52:00.005-04:00

Berlin mourns during the day and celebrates at night. Much of the city was destroyed during the war and what's standing reminds us of our potential for atrocity. Some is new like the Holocaust sculpture at Alexanderplatz or the Jewish Museum. Some is old like the Wall. Some has survived through the ages like the Brandenburg Gate.

It's impossible to walk through the city without thinking of ghosts. Then night arrives and shrouds them. Neon lights illuminate corners and windows. The street corners come alive and the pulse of the city begins at 120 BPM. It's an amazing transformation from solemnity to revelry and a welcome change after carrying the weight of years all day.

Each city I've visited on this trip has its flavor of this scenario but Leipzig and Berlin have the unique distinction of highlighting the past to prevent any repetition in the future. It's not just German culture, it's law.

Tonight is my last night in Berlin and the last night of the Fellowship. It's been one of the richest experiences of my life. I'm in the city where East reunited with West and as I think back over the challenges I've become exposed to over the last three and a half weeks it's the most appropriate place to end. Division still exists, it's just moved further East. The Balkan states and Turkey are still struggling for acceptance in the rest of Europe. Extreme right-wing politicos crying out for nationalism are beginning to gain followers. Relationships between the U.S. and European countries are strained but not sour.

What is there to say that much more experienced people have not? I'm a designer, not a politician or even a fan of them. I've met passionate people in beautiful cities. They all want a good life like we do in America. But they are different. They have cultural scars from centuries of ethnic fighting, foreign occupation, and mass extermination. I can't understand this but I can accept it. I know why Europeans are against military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. I know why they believe the State needs to care for its people. I know why people commit themselves so fully to their passions. And I know why they like to dance.

I'm going to keep posting more photos and stories over the next months. Check back every couple of weeks to see what's new. Maybe you can help me figure out how to use all this great experience for good.

Der Stasi

2009-10-22T04:26:00.001-04:00

A few shots from the East German secret police
headquarters, now a museum. The Stasi were "the sword and the shield of the party."

Surveillance camera

Document falsification office

Disguises for spying on the citizens

Espionage files

The official seal

- Posted from my iPhone

Leipzig 20 Years Later

2009-10-21T18:37:00.003-04:00

I grew up during the Reagan era and the dying embers of the Cold War. I remember having bomb drills in elementary school and fearing Russian invasion or a mushroom cloud. I had Red Dawn-like dreams and played Missile Command. Then Glasnost arrived, the cold war ended, the Iron Curtain opened and the Wall fell. I remember how good this felt and only then became aware that it had an effect on me.

Today I'm in Leipzig, the birthplace of the East German peaceful revolution that led to the end of socialist rule and the collapse of the Berlin Wall only one month later. We met with Gisela Kallenbach, currently on the city council, but a former EU MP and an activist of '89. She gave us a personal account of her role that historic fall. Over the course of the past week I've had an amazing opportunity to meet more people like Gisela — 1989 revolutionaries in the Czech Republic and Germany. We've heard first hand accounts of what it was like to live under the heavy hand of communism, the unfortunate successor to devastating Nazi rule. We've heard stories of deception and personal betrayal, unjust detainment, secretive weekly meetings and bold protest. Amazingly the human spirit triumphed over the oppression.

This evening we shared stories about our childhoods in each country during this time, our different perceptions of what was right and wrong. We all feared Russia and though they are not the military threat they once were they still wield power here through control of energy resources. We also heard stories of grandparents that lived during the Nazi rule, or as they say here, The Bad Times and of the suffering they endured.

We were split in two dinner tables tonight and for better or worse I ended up at the table that wasn't celebrating the reunion of the Fellows and this amazing trip. Instead we talked about Auschwitz, the SS, September 11, WW2 and more. It's hard not to in this town. Earlier we had walked to Nikolaikirche and Thomaskirche. We stood in their shadows and learned about the resistance meetings that led to the revolution. They are such inspiring and sobering stories and God forbid we ever forget them.

New Bohemians

2009-10-20T19:37:00.009-04:00

The reality of three weeks of traveling, lectures, and site-seeing is taking its toll so this blog isn't comprehensive but covers the highlights.
We had Saturday free to roam the city, find the many landmarks and sample the fare. Since the fall of Communism in 1989 Prague has been on an upward trajectory and now it's an all out tourist destination with as many tourist traps as your typical beach town. The masses of people are staggering and I can only imagine what it would be like if we didn't have the near freezing temps and rain to thin the crowd.

I spent most of the day with my traveling Fellows Christine Staberg and Charlie Hicks. After viewing St. Vitus Cathedral and the Palace we went on a walking tour around the Old Town Square, past the Astronomical Clock and Powder Tower. One of the highlights was St. Giles Cathedral. Since the church was transformed to a Baroque design it's easy to overlook from the outside. But the interior is worth the stop. The ornamentation and craftsmanship is overwhelming and the church is still used by the Polish community for Sunday mass. St. Giles is one of many gorgeous churches here that have mostly become concert halls. The last census showed that nearly 50% of the population has declared themselves atheists reducing the churches to mere memorials. We closed out the evening by starting at one of the few remaining local pubs and finally arriving at the self-proclaimed "largest dance club in Central Europe".

Sunday we took a mini-bus to Pinkse to see the oldest bridge in Central Europe — not self-proclaimed. It's shockingly easy to become immune to the antiquity so I try to imagine living with these monuments when they were new. One interesting view from the bridge is the clear architectural divide between pre (left) and post (right) Communist rule. Clearly "ugly" was a communist mandate.

Afterwards we drove on to Ceske Budejovice for an exclusive tour of City Hall and a lunch discussion with professors Salim Murad and Alena Hospesova. The complications of immigration and racism, Lisbon Treaty, the remaining Communist party, generational amnesia and World War 2 drove the conversation. In the U.S. we've tabled WW2 at the VFWs. Here it's still a complicating reality affecting policy and cultural psyche and its worsened by 40 years of Communism and a new republic.

After a pig knuckle and some original Czech Budweiser Budwar we went to Hluboka Castle, a premium example of a Baroque-style castle from the 19th century. The interior is even more impressive with opulent tapestries, metals, woods, and leathers. Photos weren't allowed so I bought a book to share at home. Next we met with the mayor of Hluboka, Tomas Jirsa, who is also the Senator of South Bohemia. Over the course of another meaty dinner he tied the full day together by using the legal wranglings of the castle to illustrate all of the topics we touched on during lunch.

The Schwarzenberg family owned the castle for 300 years until the last owner fled to Canada when the Nazis invaded. In his absence the State confiscated the property by a specific Parliamentary order in 1947. Since that time there have been numerous law suits from certain family members to regain portions of the estate. However not much has changed because the Czech Republic has only allowed restitution for properties back to 1948 when the Communists took over. He went on to explain a soap opera worthy series of events that started to make the concerns over Lisbon and property rights more clear.

The Germans were exiled to Poland, Austria and Bavaria after the war. There is a fear that former residents of the country will demand return of properties once the Treaty is finally agreed to by Czech President Klaus. Poland was able to get an exemption to this because they have more clout at the EU. So Klaus is holding out trying to negotiate the same for CR. Borders and occupation have been so dynamic in the history of this part of the world that there is a concern that if any part of the Pandora's Box is opened then the floodgates will go back much further than the mid-century and lead to a barrage of lawsuits. That said, it is certain and resigned that Klaus will sign the Treaty in the next 4 months. The Parliament has approved it and it's his constitutional duty to execute their order. Needless to say there is a lot of frustration with Klaus here and a number of measures underway to force his hand.

On Monday we started with an agenda of politics, art and racism so I knew it would be a good one. Two major highlights plus one. First I met with Jana Zielinski designer and organizer of of Designblok, Prague's annual design festival. She's the first design professional I've met on the trip and she was a breath of fresh air after all the politicians and academics. It seems like the language of design is universal. We are optimistic for that the world can be better and that design and help us get there. The world of design is also small as it turns out we both know Susan Szenasy from Metropolis magazine. After the visit Jana sent me to DOX to view a Czech design exhibit, My Europe, and the hilarious and controversial Entropa sculpture by David Cerny. Much has been written about his piece and I hope you take some time to read about it. It's one of the funniest and outrageous public art installations I've ever encountered.

That afternoon we met with Ambassador Vaclav Bartuska , one of the 1989 revolutionaries and the wittiest person we've met on this trip. I fear Joe Biden's visit with him this week. It is an understatement that the Poles and Czech's are outraged with the White House's handling of communication about the European missile defense strategy. Everyone knew it was coming but not via a 12:30am phone call on the anniversary the Soviet Union occupation of Poland. It just showed insensitivity all around. Now we're sending Biden here to patch things up. Frustrating to say the least.

Today we started at the United Nations Information Center with a discussion about the UN's future and the need for reform. Like NATO they are are struggling with consensus building because of the large number of constituents. The rest of the day we connected with academics on the current Czech political crisis and then closed out the day with Czech alum of the MMF program.

Of course there's beautiful Prague to talk about too and its another sad goodbye to such a resilient city. These splendid buildings as symbols of the people, surviving centuries of occupation and war and still standing proudly in the midst of uncertainty.

Tomorrow Leipzig.

Meat

2009-10-20T03:04:00.001-04:00

It's our last day in Prague and the agenda is packed full of issues from the UN to gender equality to Czeck foreign affairs. One other item sure to be on the docket is meat. Like Bavaria (because the Germans were expelled from here), Bohemians were chiefly animal farmers. Yesterday I managed to get veggies but this weekend was all meat, all the time: duck, pork knuckle, venison and beef.

-- Posted from my iPhone

Prague First Sites

2009-10-16T18:52:00.003-04:00

It's the end of a long travel day from Thessaloniki via Munich... after a dinner with Dr. Michael Romancov, a leading Czech scholar, we walked down the hill to the Charles Bridge into the Old Town Square. Here are a few shots from the day.

3 Days in Thessaloniki

2009-10-15T12:37:00.009-04:00

We spent Wednesday in the Greek countryside getting a flavor for rural village life as well as an insight into national pride and passion.

We awoke in Nymphaio and walked to the nearby Arcturous sanctuary, an NGO committed to balanced habitats of wildlife and people with special attention given to indigenous bears, wolves and shepherd dogs. They have a haven for 13 domesticated bears who were freed from performance (illegal in Greece) and track wild bears to learn of their migration patterns and their interactions with people. There are 23 similar organizations in Europe who lobby the EU for various wildlife and habitat concerns to preserve balance in an increasingly populated Europe.

Later we visited the vineyard of one of the founders of the organization who has also been instrumental in the revitalization of Nymphaio, Yiannis Boutaris. The village population dropped from 3,500 in 1945 to only 60 people in the mid 80's. Today it is at about 480 and continues growing due to donations from former residents and grants from the EU. Nymphaio has historical significance as the first capital of Macedonia.

The vineyards provided a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains from which we descended earlier in the day. There are geographical similarities to California: sandy soil, tan brush dappled with green fruit trees, checkerboards of fields and vineyards and large mountains in a big sky. We toured the production line and tasted the Xinomavro, a complex red varietal with a strong olive overtone. The small tower in the photo is the former residence of the caretakers used today as the visiting residence of Mr. Boutaris. It serves as the logo for the label, Ktima Kyr-Yianni, translated as 'from berry to bottle'.

Finally we visited the tomb of Phillip II in Vergina, a preserved site with amazing treasures. The artistry of the paintings and metalwork was exquisite and it was clear how influential it was on the Romans and the Greek Orthodox Church hundreds of years before the styles came into prominence, and even today on designers like Tord Boontje.

I ended the day reflecting on Greek pride in the past, and survival in the present. When Greeks reference architectural history they reference themselves. When we Americans reference architectural history we reference the Greeks. But the legacy hasn't continued. Rapid urbanization WW2 and the civil war resulted in an oppressive architectural style and a haphazard urban plan in the major Grecian metros that was made only worse after the fall of the Berlin Wall due to a second influx of people. It's easy to confuse the city with Tel Aviv.

Yesterday Jamie DeRosa and I met with architect Aris Georgiou to learn about his role in revitalizing the cultural climate of Thessaloniki through industrial reclamation. His Milos project in 1991 is credited by many as the first wave of cultural rebirth here. The mill cum performance hall/cafe/gallery served as the impetus to gain the city the 1997 "Cultural Capital of Europe" title, leading to his appointment as the director of the Photography Museum. Today he is working on projects to bring beauty back to the block buildings of the modern age. He also said that Thessolaniki has declared buildings built prior to the 1930's as historic and now there's a movement to preserve the few that are left. It's a bitter pill that this decision has come so late in a city that has cherished Byzantian and Roman ruins but has neglected its present.

I'd be remiss to paint a picture of bleakness though. Thessaloniki has a vibrant life filled with cafés, culture and politics. It's shifting from Balkan to European and wrestling with this changing identity. We started Wednesday by meeting with a newly formed policy lab, The Navarino Network, led by Dr. Demetris Keridis from the University of Macedonia. The group's mission is to connect the city to the region, connect science to policy and to educate the public in order to move past historical impediments to a stabilized and cooperative Balkan region. For example, there's a problem with the brand of the city. Neither the residents of the city, nor Europe, agree to what to call it. Thessaloniki, Salonika, Thessolanica, Solun, and more. The same kind of dissent continues when one talks of Macedonia — a major issue that has prevented the former Yugoslav Republic from joining the EU. But the primary concerns on the horizon are cross-border interactions, immigration and Turkey. Unlike Western Europe, the Greek administration wants Turkey in the EU to normalize them much like Germany was normalized.

I've asked all of my hosts, including Elizabeth Phocas, our coordinator about the current state of urban planning here. This is an issue that continues to pop up in each city. If the borders open, or if climate change forces mass movements, how will Thessoliniki or any other European city accommodate the influx of people? What are the infrastructure plans for housing, food and water? How will cultural integration be handled? No one has a good answer to these questions. Rapid urbanization is a growing reality that all of Europe will have to deal with as it comes hand in hand with immigration. In Munich we heard that this was one of the fundamental concerns and reasons for not wanting Turkey to join the EU.

Yesterday evening I trekked to the Upper City to see the ruins of the Roman wall that protected Thessaloniki almost 1700 years ago. it's amazing to see it standing lockstep with modern buildings, graffiti and passing cars. It has caused me to reflect on our own plan to build a fence across our border. We are wrestling with the same issues and perhaps approaching them the same way as the Europeans. Rather than proactively designing infrastructure to handle the inevitable I believe we are building barriers that will ultimately lie in ruins like these walls. History has revealed this time and time again and seeing it first hand drives it home.

Today is our last day in the city. We visited the Thessaloniki Science and Technology Museum and the Jewish Heritage Museum. There is a rich history of the Jews in this city which really gained momentum after Ferdinand and Isabella expelled them from Spain in 1492. The community was thriving until a fire destroyed the entire Jewish section of town in 1917. And they were all but gone after the Holocaust with 65,000 — 96% of the population — killed in 1943. Today there is another thriving community who with funds from the EU built the museum for the 1997 for the Cultural Capital event.

The highlight from the technology museum was the exhibit on ancient Greek technology, from the tools that built the Parthenon, to ships, to armament, to construction techniques.

Tonight we have a Greek send off and will likely go bleary eyed to the airport early in the morning. Fahristó new friends!

The Rotunda

2009-10-15T01:13:00.001-04:00

Here are a few more scenes from Thessaloniki. I'm having a problem connecting to the Internet right now so my bigger posts will have to wait until I solve it.

-- Posted from my iPhone

Balcony views in Thessaloniki

2009-10-14T01:54:00.001-04:00

Wow! Here's another great start to a day...

-- Posted from my iPhone

Morning in Nymphaio

2009-10-13T10:41:00.001-04:00

-- Posted from my iPhone

Tschüss, München

2009-10-11T19:16:00.007-04:00

The last two days have been a great mental break and an appropriate way to say goodbye to this beautiful city. We've shifted from political mechanics to culture, learning from experience rather than discourse.

I have one last meeting from Friday to share before telling about the weekend. We went to Munich RE, a US$60B company with nearly 45,000 employees, to learn about the DESERTEC initiative. Since they are global agency insuring "acts of God" they have a vested interested in climate change. To introduce their support for DESERTEC they shared that in the last 30 years geophysical catastrophes have remained level while weather related disasters have increased. This has been exacerbated by greater global wealth that allows a larger population to live on sea shores where the most damage is happening. They concluded that it's in their interest to help find ways to reduce global warming and reduce these catastrophes.

The DESERTEC Industrial Initiative is a private ambition to generate 15% of Europe's energy with renewable resources by 2050. A group of 12 companies is initially helping form the foundation and is raising $400B to make it happen. Interestingly there is no new technology necessary; all of it is proven in the market place. The biggest challenge ahead is the cooperation of European and North African nations. During the next three years they are focused on creating momentum for regulatory and legislation issues in the EU and partner countries so that the nations can share their power grids. You can read more here.

Saturday we toured the Paulaner brewery. Its one of six remaining breweries in Munich, originally established by Italian monks. Our guide told us that in 1830 the average person drank six liters of beer a day here! Today it's much less — only 1 liter. One of my favorite part of the tour was the brewing control panel. It was a combination of mosaic ceramic tiles and analog electronics illustrating the plumbing system graphically.

We started today a little later after a late night at P1. At noon we took a boat across Lake Starnberger to the Buchheim Museum to see a collection of German Expressionist paintings and pop art posters.

Now it's time for sleep. Tomorrow Thessaloniki.

Lake Starnberger

2009-10-11T07:45:00.003-04:00

-- Posted from my iPhone

BMW

2009-10-10T20:38:00.011-04:00

Friday was the first day on the trip that I felt in my element because it was all about brand and sustainability — two things I know about way more than German Federalism!

We started the day with a VIP tour of the BMW München plant at BMW Welt. Amazing! We went from the steel stamping facility all the way through to the final tests. The robotic automation floor for the frame assembly looked like a crowded, choreographed dance floor. Much of the component assembly is done by a workforce of 59% Germans. The remainder is made up of over 40 different nationalities. The tour path itself was a beautiful, architecturally lit, stainless steel sheet catwalk. No cameras allowed.

Munich produces approximately 207,500 cars per year and because of their variable data process only 1.5 cars are identical. Perhaps another way to say it: they are a 99+% custom array manufacturer as each car is made to order. As the parts approach the robot with an RFID tag the command is sent to the machine to tell it what to do. This means that you can manufacture sedans, convertibles and station wagons all in the same line, made as requested without the need for separate assembly lines..

After the tour we were given a real treat and taken through the BMW Brand Academy, normally reserved for BMW employees and dealers. It's a dry understatement that BMW takes brand seriously. The Brand Academy is designed to teach BMW stakeholders about brands and how they take root in culture. It's made up of several rooms and designed much like a museum exhibition that includes rooms dedicated to the brand values of BMW, MINI and Rolls Royce. (They are sensitive about how much is shared so I'll have to skip details.) Teams are guided through multiple workshops so that they understand the core values of the brands, which are ultimately the core values of BMW. This is of course dear to my heart — it's what we recommend to our clients! But I confess I have never seen such an exemplary execution. I asked Hildegaard Wortmann how she pulled it off. (Hildegaard managed all global communications for MINI for the last six years and just took over the X and Z series.) She chuckled and simply said, "it took a lot of convincing." Another dry German understatement on a significant accomplishment.

After a tour of the Academy we were audience to three presentations on sustainability, future trends and the new X1 to be launched in Europe this month.

Sustainability is top of mind at BMW. In the last two years they have decreased the fuel consumption of their entire offer by 30%. Their stated goal is to become a carbon neutral company out of both conviction and self interest. They didn't start down this path on their own though. The EU policies forced the beginning of their journey. Today they see it as a market opportunity and consider excellence the only option.

One of the current experiments is the MINI E, a fleet of 600 electric MINI Coopers being leased in LA, NYC and New Jersey. They are using these cars to teach them about the driving patterns in metro areas and the limitations of current technology. At IDEO we call the Business in Beta, starting small to win big.

We also got the low down on the new crossover vehicle, the X1. It's the station wagon cousin of the X5 and unfortunately it's not available in the U.S. BMW is waiting to see how the economy shifts before launching the product in America. Nearly half of their sales are in Europe followed by a nearly even split between China and the U.S. Then there is Saudi Arabia and India. Basically countries with wealth.

I have a lot more detail in my notebook and can't wait to talk to you about it. Here was my favorite quote of the day: "You don't buy a BMW because it's better quality than Lexus. You buy it because your stomach tells you to buy it, or because your bum tells you to buy it." Obviously the Brand Academy has graduates.

Wow!.... But why?

2009-10-10T13:49:00.001-04:00

Munich reaction to President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. Remember that he has an 86% approval rating here too.

-- Posted from my iPhone

Party on!

2009-10-09T17:04:00.008-04:00

Thursday we went to the Bavarian Parliament building, had a crash course in German Federalism from Dr. Ursula Muench, then met with several MPs from different parties. I was personally interested in their perspective on multi-party systems. It's a frustration of mine that our (essentially) two party system forces all issues to eventually polarize during the process — I say goodbye, you say hello.

In Bavaria there are roughly 20 parties but not all have the 5% of the popular vote to be in Parliament. We met with MPs from the Social Democrat Party, Christian Social Union, Green Party, and the Free Democratic party. One thing they agreed on was that smaller parties are able to bring issues into the public discourse that would otherwise stay behind party doors. The Green Party is an example of a grassroots movement that formed into a party 20-some years ago with a single platform that addresses environmental concerns. They came into status because the people wanted them. This forced the other parties to start addressing the issues and we see this in action. The majority leader from the CSU told us later in the day that the environmental concern was his biggest initiative this year and that the party pushed him in this direction long before the EU did.

The MPs also shared a story about an emerging party in Germany called the Pirate Party. They received 2% of the vote this year and everyone felt they will be a growing force in the future. They have a narrow platform focusing on the opening of IP, right to privacy and government transparency. Apparently they have the strongest favor of the youth in Germany so many of the politicians are paying attention. The multi-party concept here seems to be based on issues. In the U.S. we move issues into referendums. Here people party.

In the afternoon we participated in the Müncher Tafel program at a Lutheran Church. It's a program modeled after New York's City Harvest program that collects food from restaurants and groceries that was ready for discard and then distributes it to the poor on the same day. Germany has a strong social welfare program in which all residents receive a stipend and housing. In this supplemental city-sponsored program qualified families may pick up food every two weeks from a designated distribution center. It's a win-win. Food is not wasted and the recipients get fresh vegetables, fruit and bread rather than dry goods.

We heard a few side comments that hinted at the immigration struggle. The majority of recipients were Turkish and Russian at our location and I heard the same kind of comments I hear about "The Mexicans" in the U.S. Despite this the experience was really rewarding and it felt good to be a part of it.

In the evening I went to my sister IDEO studio to see old friends and get acquainted with new ones. It was wonderful to be in the Munich studio, see new faces, share a pizza and beer with Philipp and catch up with former Bostonians, the Mallards, at their apartment. It gave me further insight into the challenges and benefits of operating in a multicultural, multilingual region. The work here is world-class and it's satisfying to see the IDEO culture of optimism alive and well in Bavaria.

On schedule in Munich, behind schedule in Blogovich

2009-10-08T19:14:00.007-04:00

Yesterday we took a walking tour of the Marienplatz area of Munich, learning about the historic city hall and churches. Afterward we had dinner at a traditional Bavarian restaurant with Jürgen Chrobog, Chairman of Board at BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt and the former German Ambassador to the U.S. from 1996-2001. His commentary on global politics did not differ much from the French Ambassador whom we dined with a week ago, which means that it's far too much for me to take in all at once. Mainly the challenge of a true European cooperative region, the promise of the Lisbon Treaty thanks to Ireland's vote and the need for NATO to transform itself. I have lots to say and more to share but my free time has been short so far... Here are few pictures in the meantime... thoughts to come.

München

2009-10-07T07:45:00.001-04:00

Arrived in Munich, ironed shirts, sent off laundry and ready for a great visit. Lots of time ahead at BMW and an evening with my IDEO EU friends tomorrow.

-- Posted from my iPhone

Parting Thoughts

2009-10-06T19:35:00.008-04:00

Tomorrow morning I catch an early flight to Munich. Our time in Brussels has been rich and it seems a shame to say goodbye so soon. I just returned from a delightfully hospitable dinner hosted by a former MMF staff member who is now at the European Foundation Centre and her husband who is a Norwegian consul to the EU. They've been here only two months after relocating their family of five from Turkey. Alessandra is Italian and Steven is Norwegian. They went to school in the U.S. and have lived in Norway, Berlin, Istanbul and now Brussels; they are the epitome of the new European, proud of their homelands, conscientious for Europe and filled with tentative hope for a progressive unity. Their young sons hint at the future, speaking Turkish, Italian, Norwegian and English like their parents and building a broad portfolio of place.

Before I continue on about today, let me tell you more about yesterday. After visiting NATO a couple of us visited the Département Urbanisme, Ville de Bruxelles. They were organized in 1995 to bring residential density back into the city center. At the time there were 645 abandoned buildings in the largely industrial area. Today they have been able to occupy 572 of the properties and project 8500 new inhabitants by year end. This reminded me of a what was accomplished in Chattanooga when I was there with the founding of the Urban Design Center and River City Partners, and the continuation of that work through Create Here. Some of their tactics were familiar, but some of them were new to me:

- They created a new tax for abandoned floors of buildings to encourage landlords to fill them. If they were occupied then there was no tax. This was justified by saying that if there were residents then the city would be receiving taxes. Without them there was no income so someone else needed to pay it.

- They brokered Collective Property Purchases by finding interested sellers and then helping organize multiple buyers to purchase the building. These seemed to work for commercial and residential.

- They created a Social Housing Agency that functions like a leasing agent. If landlords commit to a 9 year lease the agency will pay 40% of the renovation fees and cover them all for a 25 year lease. The agency will guarantee rent to the landlord and manage the tenant.

- They located their group of seven in the same building where all construction and zoning permits are processed. This gave them the advantage of being able to fast track decisions and again reminded me of the Regional Planning Center in Chattanooga.

Now that they've proven success they have been given other redevelopment tasks in the city, converting an abandoned train station to an art center and revitalizing another historic neighborhood. With all of this success I couldn't help but wonder why America and Europe have this problem. What is it about our cultures that creates this phenomenon of city center flight and is this the solution or just a 15 year bandage?

Now back to today. We met with several constituents of the the European Union and also received an EU 101 briefing. Climate change is a hot topic and as is the Copenhagen summit so I thought it worth sharing some of their thoughts. The baseline is that European governments are very active in taking measures to reverse climate change and there is no partisan bickering about whether or not its happening. Here is how Steven Everts framed it:

1) Growth of energy demands will double in the next 20 years
2) Traditional energy supplies are maturing
3) Climate stresses are increasing

These three facts set the EU policy: more energy with less Carbon. Here are the highlights from MEP Reinhard Bütikofer, Zoltan Simon, Political Advisor, and Steven Everts, Special Counsellor, Council of the European Union.

- Self preservation is personal, not corporate. They believe the U.S. administration is in support of the ideals of Kyoto but won't meet the standards because the American public is not on board. The MEP said that as an empathetic politician he understood why Congress would not sacrifice swing states for an international treaty and that was just the reality of politics. This comment drained my already waning energy.

- People have to see near term benefits to care. Since the Kyoto treaty was signed Germany has produced 280,000 new jobs directly related to the mission. In Hungary climate change became a public concern when it was tied to energy security.

- We still set a global example. Since the U.S. will not meet the 2012 carbon emissions reductions we have to do other things that will convince the rest of the world we are sincere about the issue by pursuing alternative energy and being generous with technology transfer. We are proposing new architecture for the measures of the treaty that are less stringent. The MEP said that our softness here will justify China, India and Brazil's non-compliance and make null any progress of the remaining countries, essentially making Kyoto meaningless.

- The basics are still food, water and shelter. Climate change is a foreign policy concern and is driving poor geopolitical behavior in Russia, Sudan, Iran, Brazil and Venezuela. Continued stress on resources will drive more more people to leave their home countries for places with more food, water and energy causing new crises. Immigration is already a major problem here and this exacerbates it.

- Everything comes back to price. The "cap and trade" program is working in the EU because it is a fundamental change to the economy, costing people money for doing the wrong thing. Mr. Everts said that a carbon tax could work as well and consider both concepts a correction of market failure. The intent is to cause bad behavior to become more expensive so that the free market will find better and cheaper ways to produce goods.

- ... and justice for all. There is European sentiment to "pay for their sins". You may recall my post on the GMF trends report that said Europeans will trade progress for a better environment. Another fundamental difference I've noted since being here is that Europeans are willing to sacrifice to make amends for their past actions. It's why "cap and trade" works here and why you can tax vacancy in a building.

Now, a few hours sleep, then Bavaria.

No politico

2009-10-06T06:15:00.000-04:00

-- Posted from my iPhone

No Photos

2009-10-05T19:10:00.004-04:00

Last night as we were going over the agenda for the next day we were reminded that we had to check our camera phones at NATO prior to entering the compound. Corrina Hoerst, the Deputy Director of MMF in Brussels shared a story of some phones being lost through this process in the past and discouraged us from bringing ours. It was only one out of many visits so the odds were low and I decided to take mine in case I could get a great shot of a random soldier, sign or flag that proved I was there.

Let me continue chronologically. This morning we took a charter bus to the NATO headquarters, an Eastern block-looking former military hospital. We arrived, checked our items, grabbed some coffee and huddled in our cinder block meeting room. The NATO staff asked that we withhold their names so that they could speak freely under Chatham House Rule. What struck me after four hours of presentation and conversation is how little I hear about NATO in the U.S. I admit I am ignorant in the first place, but I'm having a hard time recalling the last time I heard Congress or President Obama talk about the alliance. This seems a misstep to me given that we're acting in an orchestrated fashion with so many other countries. On some days you'd think we were in Afghanistan alone. Currently, including NATO partners, there are 42 countries on the security mission to Afghanistan. Engagement has been methodical. The country has been divided into four sectors and it is only recently that forces have been moving into the last one explaining the recent surge in deployment and the consequent surge in troop deaths. We were told mission will be deemed over and successful when extremism and terrorism are no longer a threat to social stability, Afghan forces are self-sufficient, and their is a stable government leading all regions. We are in this for the long haul.

Here's what else I didn't know about NATO. It's made up of 28 nations. It's an all-for-one and one-for-all treaty meaning that a single contrary vote is a veto to action; an attack on one member is an attack on all. When a decision is made it's unanimous. (This is why it strikes me as odd that we tend to portray ourselves as loners rather than a member of an alliance. Do we consider this weakness in America?) Member countries commit to having 40% of their troops available for missions with 8% available for long term deployment. I'm sure all of this is somewhere on the Internet but I missed it.

Solidarity was much easier when there were only a few countries involved during the Cold War and as more countries join it gets increasingly difficult. And there is not a single agreement on the enemy of security. It's no longer limited to a country like Russia, per se. Cyber attacks, climate change, and energy crises have all been named as primary concerns by different members. There's even disagreement on how to define the European region. What also seems to be complicating things is the increased requests of the U.N. for NATO to take action such as defense of the World Food Program ships off the coasts of Africa. The changing needs of the world are requiring NATO to transform itself — a word I heard a lot. One refreshing near term action I heard was the inclusion of public voices to help guide the change. As I mentioned above I think a significant problem is due to the lack of public engagement with the institution. Lack of dialogue perpetuates bureaucratic churn.

On our way out we stopped at the gate to retrieve our checked items from the wood boxes. One by one each member of the group picked up their phone, purse, etc. Then the moment of panic. No iPhone. I asked the guard to check another box and he just shrugged his shoulders and said this was it! He and I repeated this dance three times then one of the MMF staff joined me prompting him to invite us into the guard station to look for it ourselves. After searching several bins Christina located it, a resounding cheer erupted from the Fellows and the guard just went on apathetically. Sorry, no photos.

Old Europe, New Europe

2009-10-04T18:12:00.006-04:00

I spent the day in Ghent, the second largest city in Europe from 1100 to 1500 with over 60,000 residents. It's a wonderful time capsule because it wasn't bombed during the World Wars. Several amazing gothic structures along with updated Italian renaissance buildings.

Tonight we had dinner with Caroline De Gruyter, a Dutch journalist for NRC Handelsblad and an MMF Fellow from 1993 (seated in photo below). She's written a book on European identity and shared some of her thoughts on this topic as it related to the EU — a great followup to Professor Gary Weaver's talk on what it means to be American.

She said Europe is yet to make an European identity leap. The EU functions as a market unifier but not more. People still question the validity and value of the EU and Brussels becomes a convenient scapegoat for politicians and people when they are unhappy with decisions. In the U.S. we may talk about Washington politicians but it is unlikely you'll hear someone question the validity of our nation. Citizens tend to be nationalistic rather than corporate save for two groups of people: those who have lived through the wars and the children of recently mobile families. These two groups will call themselves Europeans first, then name their country second. She says this remains a minority because only 4-5% of the population ever leaves their mother country and therefore they don't really accept a corporate claim.

She also said that in some ways, though there are more people calling themselves, "European", especially in Brussels, the EU has actually increased nationalism because of its laws. For example, ethnic foods become trapped behind borders such as cheeses from Switzerland and ox blood soup from Poland.

Here's one thing I learned about ox blood from my canal tour guided today in Gent. He kept referring to the ox blood brick buildings. The reason it's a "color" is that it was actually used to paint houses in Flemish Belgium during the middle ages. The blood on the outside of the house would keep the insects on the outside of the home and reduce their entry inside. If that's true I can only guess that the odor was nauseous! I was happy to spend the day surrounded by the aromas of beer, frites and waffles.

Dissecting Cowboys

2009-10-03T18:38:00.008-04:00

It's been a great "breaking in" day in Brussels. We spent some time with Flemish journalist, Evita Neefs, getting a basic understanding of the city and the government — including the healthcare system which I'll share more about at the end of this post. Then we were free to roam. Tonight is Nuit Blanche, or White Night and we spent the majority of the evening wandering the city to see various performances (I'll post some images to Facebook).

But first, let's not forget yesterday which seems so far away for me at the moment. Our time with Professor Gary Weaver was as entertaining as it was enlightening. The subject was cultural differences between the the U.S. and Europe. He said to understand Europe we would benefit from understanding ourselves first; then he called out two common misperceptions: 1) American culture is just Northern European with different languages and 2) America is a melting pot. He said the former is misleading because the people who came to the U.S. were actually abandoning their roots to make new ones. Additionally they were Calvinists that had a dualist world-view that made the new world right and the old world they were leaving wrong. The Latter is misleading because we've not seen equal upward mobility that you'd expect from a true mix of cultures. Rather we've created a cookie cutter archetype of success with the Anglo white male (though this is changing now with people like Obama, Rice, Powell, and Sotomayor). He used examples of early immigrants having their names changed when entering the country which rings true. Even my father-in-law experienced this.

So who are we? Professor Weaver says America's roots in a frontier spirit make it unique in the world today. Once we were established as a nation there were really no foreign invaders to disrupt a continual growth of wealth. What this meant was the same exploratory spirit that brought people here could continue after arriving, resulting in success. The abundance of the land meant that any one could save enough money to buy a wagon then head West to the land the government was essentially giving away (whether it was really ours or not).

Over time we built a culture that finds its identity in 'doing.'
- we believe we earn status by hard work and individual achievement and individual action
- we believe in equal opportunity, that we all start from the same clean slate
- we believe in self-reliance and independence which doesn't extend beyond the nuclear family
- we believe in individual competition
- we define ourselves by our future, not by our past
- we believe in good guys and bad guys
- we believe in abundance

Contrast this with a that finds its identity in 'being' such as Europe or Asia:
- we believe family ascribes status
- we believe in entitlement due to social status and affiliations
- we believe in extended family dependence and resilience
- we believe in cooperation and social harmony
- we define ourselves by our past
- we believe good people do bad things and bad people do good things
- we believe in conservation

He said to think about these two cultural concepts bookending a continuum. America tends heavily toward the 'doing' identity. In Europe, Americans may find more cultural affinity with the Northern Europeans like the Swiss and Germans who are more accomplishment driven versus Southern Europeans like the Italians who are socially driven. And maybe the Greeks are in between. But even with some of this common ground Americans are clearly more independently minded. (A side note. The last five presidents have all posed in cowboy hats!)

He also said that the two cultures co-exist and that U.S. Southerners like me tend to live with both, whereas Northerners tend to less bipolar. After a year in Boston I think I can see this clearly. There's a lot of 'being' identity in Southern hospitality. One could say the same thing about the South European immigrants in the Boston area.

But the point of all of this is not to create divisions but to help us understand who we are: why we believe time equals money. Or why, for example, cowboy movies or films like Rambo and Independence Day were very popular here but were confused as satire in Europe. Or why tragedies are the popular storytelling vehicle in a historically war-torn Europe. It also starts to create understanding about our expectations for a government's role in our lives.

We founded this country to protect the people from the state. In Europe there is still an expectation that the state will take care of the people. This is clearly a root of heated debates in the U.S. as we deal with government bailouts of the auto industry and financial institutions, and seek a better solution for healthcare.

Now back to Evita. She shared a bit about the Belgium healthcare system. It is a distribution of funds based upon need. Each citizen has free choice for their care. They earn this right by paying into a central health fund that is redistributed as needed. Employers match a portion of the payment the citizens make at each pay check. They are free to choose their caregivers and are reimbursed for the most part, though there is still a co-payment to ensure accountability for the citizen. It doesn't sound so different than what I participate in now save for the absence of a health insurance company. The concern (much like ours) is that the aging population increase will throw this working system out of balance.

This morning's walk

2009-10-03T07:49:00.001-04:00

-- Posted from my iPhone

Hello from Brussels

2009-10-03T02:59:00.001-04:00

Two quick random observations:

+ A bus called "Fun-Cars" shuttled us to our hotel this morning. This graphic of the Mannekin Pis which was on the bus comes across ti me as an odd take on the "peeing Calvin" stickers sans the Ford or 3 logos.

+ So far I've lucked out on legroom. Exit row on the flight and now room 417, the 'executive suite' which is clearly bigger than the other rooms my poor traveling companions have been assigned according to this infographic. There's something about the Clarendon numerals and seemingly haphazard floorplan that I really like. There actually is a grid!

-- Posted from my iPhone

Countdown!!!

2009-10-02T17:09:00.000-04:00

7 hrs and 38 mins.

-- Posted from my iPhone

Monsieur Hendrix

2009-10-01T23:29:00.011-04:00

G8 to G20.... struggles for collaboration or control... Ireland and the treaty... sanctions, Iraq, internal revolution... Afghani war lords.. Millennial agreement for Africa.. German elections... three forks and four glasses.. big roses.... I can't read this menu... OH! This must be the casual dinner conversation of the day in the life of a diplomat.. I'm humbly lost and thankful for the knowledgeable GMF staff that guided the conversation tonight. We had a delightful evening at the home French Ambassador to the U.S., Pierre Vimont. My one regret is that the words were not as easily digestible as the delicious meal. I hope I just came across as pensive and well-dressed. I've got a bit of reading to do.

So, here's some food for thought. It's the introduction to a session we have tomorrow with Professor Gary Weaver from the School of International Service at the American University. He's apparently given these briefing for 27 years straight and has a great reputation as a dynamic and entertaining academic.

"Alexis de Tocqueville arrived in the United States in 1831 for a nine‐month trip. Yet his observations, in Democracy in America, about U.S. society seen from a European perspective remain thought‐provoking and relevant. Nothing is more striking to a European traveler in the United States than the absence of what we term the Government, or the Administration. Written laws exist in America, and one sees the daily execution of them; but although everything moves regularly, the mover can nowhere be discovered. The hand which directs the social machine is invisible. In Europe, we are wont to look upon a restless disposition, an unbounded desire of riches, and an excessive love of independence, as propensities very dangerous to society. Yet these are the very elements which insure a long and peaceful future to the republics of America. In no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United States. The Americans have no philosophical school of their own; and they care but very little for all the schools into which Europe is divided, the very names of which are scarcely known to them."

178 years ago! How things haven't changed. I love this stuff. I think most brand professionals are (pseudo) cultural anthropologists at heart. We put our energy into understanding why and how groups and sub-groups of people do things. We even call them tribes. Most times, even though we are outside of the group we are observing, we still share some kind of underlying cultural framework so it makes the learning curve quick. Our jobs get much harder when we don't have that. I've crossed that line into much harder but I hope I can take advantage of being an outsider and see something new.

Umm...

2009-10-01T13:18:00.000-04:00

I'm in DC for the first day of prep. Do you think this hotel supplied robe set is some kind of Eurostyle initiation?

-- Posted from my iPhone

The Gloaming

2009-09-30T22:00:00.005-04:00

It's the eve before I fly to DC and I just finished reading the 2009 Transatlantic Trends report from the GMF. The good news: the U.S. brand is improving in favor. The bad news: not by much.

Why is that bad? It probably wasn't bad 100 years ago before technology unified the world. But now we live in a codependent age when each country's actions can no longer be considered independent. Our economies depend on each other. Our welfare depends on each other. Even my apple juice is homogenized from seven different countries!

I'm stepping into awareness with a deer in the headlights look. I consider how hard it is for our own Congress, representing 50 states, to agree to agree. At least we all speak the same language and have the same fundamental culture. Imagine the same scenario, but each state is a separate country with unique languages, cultures and histories. That's the EU. Now imagine our own disagreements meeting their disagreements and hoping for an amicable resolution.

One of the sections in Transatlantic Trends sizes up EU and American interests in climate change. I was surprised at the the survey results. Portugese showed the most concern with 62% being very concerned. The Netherlands came in lowest at 23%. The U.S. was 40%. Of these respondents, EU countries were more adamant that effective change would only come about through international cooperation (81%) versus one out of every two U.S. respondents that felt the same. I wonder if this is because we still tend to think of ourselves as independent rather than dependent? More telling was the attitude toward economic growth versus climate change. Two out of three Europeans (69%) were willing to slow growth for a better environmental state while majority of Americans (43%) were not.

Yesterday IDEO launched a web site called "Living Climate Change" as a preamble to COP15, the UN Climate Change Conference being held in Copenhagen this December. We asked each studio to create a short film envisioning the world 20 years from now if carbon emissions were reduced or increased. Twenty years isn't that far away so it's no George Jetson or Blade Runner scenario. Imagine yourself with pegged jeans in 1989 and you'll understand what I mean. Over the next few months we'll continue to add new films and content to the site, hoping to create richer dialogue about the challenges ahead.

Rich dialogue is what I'm hoping for on this trip. I'm not well-versed in politics. I've not affiliated with a political party. I believe that people are more important than ideologies and I hope we can find a way to build empathy for one another rather than walls.

Transatlantic

2009-09-29T17:03:00.004-04:00

On Thursday I begin a nearly month-long journey across Europe as a Marshall Memorial Fellow. It’s a program memorializing the Marshall Plan with the intent of strengthening Euro/American relations. I was nominated and selected as a fellow while living in Chattanooga but my original itinerary had me departing in the fall of 2008, a week after starting at IDEO in Boston. Thanks to the flexibility of the German Marshall Fund and the support of my friends at IDEO (and my wife!) I'm able to go now.

I’m looking forward to the trip because it’s quite unusual for a designer to be among the fellows. The majority are on political cabinets, in public affairs or from non-profits. Bringing design thinking into the discussion to explore options as an alternative to legislating limits excites me.

In each city we'll meet with civic leaders, business leaders, dignitaries and like-minded professionals to learn about their cultural and social challenges. We are also receiving broad briefings from the staffs at NATO, the EU and the UN.

I intend to post regularly throughout the trip so check back weekly if you're interested.

Here’s my schedule.

01: Washington, DC
03: Brussels, Belgium
07: Munich, Germany
12: Thessaloniki, Greece
16: Prague, Czech Republic
21: Leipzig, Germany
22: Berlin, Germany

Your past is your future

2009-09-28T21:59:00.008-04:00

I began my career as a junior art director in 1994 at a start-up ad firm in Chattanooga, TN. My starting salary was $13K/yr. (That's not a typo.) After four years of learning the ropes I hit a glass ceiling and decided to go out on my own, working two jobs until I could get established: stereo installations by day, design by night! During these few years I helped start The Urban Art Institute, a non-profit art school for teenagers, eventually moving my studio from my home to the school. I also began teaching adjunct at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. In 2001 when UAI fell into funding issues I took the opportunity to merge my studio with one of my clients, a web company called RSOA. I had been contracting for them and they approached me to build a design team for the business. During this period I came across a simple sketch by Charles Eames that changed my life. The drawing showed how he chose the work for the Eames Office, choosing the overlap of client needs, societal needs and his own interests.

In 2002 I left the tech co and co-founded Tricycle, a sustainable design company. Inspired by the sketch, I was on a search for a career with greater meaning and social impact. I had practiced graphic design in its traditional forms for seven years. Increasingly, I found the piecemeal design projects frustrating. I wondered what it would be like to design large scale systems for industry using the same experience and skill set I used for corporate identity design. At the time we were calling it "Big D" design. Today we call this design thinking.

30 employees and three rounds of venture capital later, I’m happy to report it was a good idea. Tricycle created a new category for digital sampling in the commercial carpet sector receiving recognition worldwide for sustainable design. In autumn 2008 I amicably left and moved to Boston to join IDEO and continue my pursuit of cultural, social and business impact through design. Though I don't get to design my own business cards anymore it's absolutely worth the trade. IDEO affords me the opportunity to apply my experience to multiple industries and organizations across the globe, and collaborate with some of the best designers of my lifetime.

The posts on this blog from 2007 share a little insight into my career prior to this move.

Reverb

2007-09-03T00:11:00.005-04:00

To formalize Tricycle’s reputation as a sustainability expert we designed a self-published 120 page book entitled Reverb, edited and organized by our Communications Director, Caleb Ludwick. The book was made up of eleven articles contributed by eco-consultants, commercial designers and editors from major industry publications, including designers at leading firms Gensler and TVS Interiors, editors at Interior Design and Contract magazines, and the national president of AIGA, America’s professional design association.

They wrote on topics ranging from creating market demand for more environmentally friendly products and marketing to integrating project teams for best eco-practices. All articles were donated by their authors enabling 50% of the sale of each book to go to Architecture for Humanity — a not-for-profit organization bringing architectural and design solutions to humanitarian crises in America and abroad.

In response to the immediacy of the pieces, I and my team spent an extended weekend creating a book design that is itself an experiment. Cut to three sizes including a textbook, a flipbook, or full-size integrated design, Reverb's graphics and layouts react and respond to the content of the pieces.

We launched the book in a smartly design exhibit at NeoCon 2006. The interest was overwhelming and started a groundswell. All 2500 copies were distributed in a matter of months. Editorial coverage was significant in traditional and non-traditional media. Environmental Design + Construction reprinted one of the articles in their nationally distributed publication. Interior Design distributed 1400 copies at their annual gala, the “Oscars” of the interior design industry. The blogosphere loved the book; Massive Change, MocoLoco, Inhabitat, Treehugger and Core77 all ran stories (links to all here).

To date, the book has been honored as one of the top 100 designs of 2006 by Step magazine, and as a winner in Print magazine's A+C=D Business Graphics Review and their Regional Design Annual, the Best of Show winner in the 2007 Mohawk Paper Show and selected for the AIGA National Design Archives housed in the Denver Art Museum. Though it's out of print Reverb is still available as a downloadable e-book.

Nood Fashion

2007-09-02T16:31:00.004-04:00

Opus Carpets commissioned Tricycle to reposition their company by rebranding them and dematerializing their sampling process.

We changed their name from Opus to Nood, a dutch word pronounced "node" which means "need". It is an English double entendre and an ideal name for a company espousing transparency and a minimal environmental footprint. The graphic identity was inspired by global street fashion, emphasizing the roots of cultural trends (see this applied to the web here). There's a interesting process story behind the creation of their logotype that is worthy of conversation with me or Ben Horner, Design Director at Tricycle at the time. (1 beer = 1 story)

They put our plan into action when they developed products for their public launch at NeoCon 2006 and tufted only 700 square yards of carpet to develop and display over 40 patterns. This feat was accomplished by using our simulations (Tryk) to visualize design prototypes during development, displaying simulated carpet and acquiring orders through a custom web platform.

Their sampling process is entirely dematerialized, on principle — it's the way we designed it. The philosophy is only to use eco-best practices, rather than just making them programmatic (like a Prius). Their reps display products as Tryk on iPods. Their sample folder is not a sample folder at all, but a sticker and a few Tryks in a package I named "The Parasitic Binder"… the kit encourages designers to find an old 3 ring binder and adhere a Nood label to it, then clip spec and warranty sheets inside; finally they can order Tryks to make their own customized sample book.

Nood's brand brochure, "Brave Nood World", serves double duty as a manifesto. The booklet is designed with French folds that are perforated on the crease. Tearing them open reveals more in depth information from the spread. Brave Nood World was named by Step as one of the top 100 graphic designs of 2007 and was also selected for the 2008 Type Directors Club annual. Check out the interactive version of the book by clicking on the thumbnail at left.

Greenbuild 2006 Interiors Networking Garden

2007-09-02T16:29:00.002-04:00

Based upon the strength of our Tricycle exhibit designs the U.S. Green Building Council asked us to design an interior designer networking garden at Greenbuild '06; the object was to promote the American Society of Interior Design (ASID) and International Interior Design Association (IIDA). We took this opportunity to invite Gensler, the largest design firms in the world, to partner with us on this venture. Gensler Senior Associate, Melissa Mizell, and myself lead the design team composed of Gensler San Francisco, Gensler Denver, Tricycle and volunteers. We also collaborated with an ad hoc executive committee composed of staff from USGBC, IIDA and ASID.

Specific eco-design principles in play included minimizing the amount of design waste generated by the project, modeling end of life reuse of materials, and choosing products (donated by local and national companies) that feature the same values. Original design elements, custom created for the Garden, included a plywood floor with Tryk™ digitally modeled carpet samples, a five foot floor lamp made of carpet samples otherwise destined for landfill, and a hand crafted table and bamboo plywood chairs.

The booth's interactive elements invited conference attendees to write design questions on the windows, play with sketching and text on the walls of "Hello" nametags, and toss their many giveaways acquired in the expo hall for recycling and donation to local interior design schools ("the No Swag Zone").

In collaborating with Gensler, I discovered our design philosophies were aligned: concept is king, waste is unnecessary, green can always be beautiful, convention is boring. We set out to emphasize the social aspect of sustainability and our collaboration was living a model of that.

Our networking exposure was significant. Not only were Tricycle SIMs and our carpet furniture prototype (a precursor to Ample Sample) in the Garden, but we were publicly paired as peers with Gensler by the Garden’s exclusive media sponsor, Interior Design. In addition to coverage in Interior Design, photos of the booth ran in ASID Icon and IIDA Perspective, which were distributed to their combined 50,000 interior designer members.

Tricycle NeoCon Exhibit 2004

2007-09-02T14:06:00.001-04:00

Tricycle exhibits at the NeoCon World’s Trade Fair in Chicago each June to educate interior designers and architects about carpet sampling alternatives. The challenge is to draw foot traffic from among 1,200 exhibitors, many of which have much bigger budgets and are selling products rather than ideas.

We began by researching furnishings and fixtures with immediate fashion appeal. From these we narrowed our choices based upon cost, physical footprint and the ability to reuse the materials for other purposes following the show. We pursued an academic science lab theme because of the visual opportunities it afforded and the convenience of production. It also provided the ideal context for education. One wall of the exhibit became an oversized chalkboard, rendered with carpet sample and waste information. The facing wall held simulated carpet samples from leading customers with descriptions of how they promote alternative sampling practices. Tables and chairs were placed in the aisle space to suggest a classroom.

The exhibit was awarded the International Interior Design Association’s Creative Excellence Award, a badge that drew traffic simply on the strength of the design. Though the exhibit was a one-off, it was neither a sunk cost nor wasteful. Furnishings were repurposed as office furniture, and the chalk wall made dismantling as simple as using an eraser. The design is also part of the AIGA Design Archives.

Scripps Networks Collateral

2007-09-02T14:03:00.002-04:00

I've been fortunate to have been involved in the development of the DIY Network since it's initial spin-off from HGTV in 1998. The majority of the work has been identity development and media promotion. Some of the "Make It Go" work was done with my friend Paul Rustand at Widgets & Stone in 2002.

Erase Waste Campaign

2007-09-02T12:56:00.001-04:00

Tricycle provides a carpet simulation to design professionals through manufacturers. Initially this was approached as a cost saving measure by the mills. But of course, we saw many benefits beyond cost savings, primarily eco-friendliness and convenience. We decided the best promotional approach was to analyze the design process and the practices that created a culture of sample gluttony. We appealed to design professionals to embrace conservation, responsibility and accountability -- emphasizing design waste and encouraging corporate citizenship. This is the root of the campaign. It was composed of several elements:

+ an online environmental savings calculator

+ a counter (design) culture tradeshow booth (NeoCon 2005)

+ a viral sticker campaign: we gave away tins of stickers to designers with the messaging. We asked them to place them on the back of regular carpet samples and return them to manufacturers.

+ trade publication advertising: we discovered that a typical carpet sample required a quart of oil manufacture. That's just for the content, not the actual production. We created an ad campaign that addressed this -- this is also what the tradeshow booth addressed.

This campaign has been so effective that our customers have adopted it! The carpet mills are actually using our data and messaging in their own marketing now. There's an article on the AIGA site that goes deeper into the strategy here.

Ample Sample Design Contest

2007-09-02T12:51:00.001-04:00

This story is all "concept to completion" with few graphic artifacts to show. In February 2007 I conceived of a design contest to create more brand-building buzz about Tricycle. Ample Sample 2007 challenged 4000 designers to "Rethink. Reuse. Upcycle" by repurposing carpet samples - after their usefulness to a design project - to make a design product. We received entries from as far away as Tel Aviv. Ten finalists were chosen and exhibited at NeoCon 2007. The plans for these designs are available on a web site for download today.

We sought key sponsors based on potential longterm partnerships: Floor Focus because they are the leading carpet manufacturing trade publication and Bentley Prince Street because they, widely seen as the design-centric arm of the Interface group, combine the priorities of stringent environmental stewardship with a commitment to high design. We're going to do it again — just do a cursory blog search to read the buzz or pick up a September 1, 2007 issue of the Financial Times of London. Visit www.amplesample.net to see last year's finalists and winners or to enter for this year's contest.

Hendrix Design & the Urban Art Institute

2007-09-01T14:09:00.001-04:00

From 1998-2000 I freelanced from my home and eventually set up a studio in downtown Chattanooga as a design mentor at the Urban Art Institute. This grouping of work shares a lot of similarities and represents a period when I spent much more of my time at a workstation. My interest in found objects and, dare I say it, vernacular design continues in Tricycle's newly launched Tryk brand.

What's Fake Carpet look like?

2007-09-01T03:01:00.003-04:00

Wondering what "Tryk" carpet simulation looks like — and maybe how a company can be built upon it. If you want to deep dive just google "Tricycle", check out Wikipedia, visit the Tricycle blog or Tryk site. Here are a few photos of Tryk in use.