Insights 1.29

Design:

• The changing approaches to the design of political campaign graphics.

 

Roadmapping the Future:  

• Anab Jain asks individuals and organizations to "stop shouting future, and start doing it," which means going beyond speculative workshops and into work mode. The challenge here is that work of better-future-making is, well, work. That work requires sacrifice and the kind of patience that is rare in the world of business: a willingness to plant seeds of change that won't bear fruit in the span of a financial quarter or two. As Jain writes: "While the appetite for innovative ideas abounds, there is less gumption when it comes to following alternative trajectories." 

• Humans are terrestrial creatures, with terrestrial features that make many of us ill-suited for the zero-gravity hazards of space travel. Rose Eveleth, writing for WIRED, examines the idea that people with certain disabilities may be better adapted for space travel, once again underscoring that the future not only belongs to all of us, but requires all of us. 

Machines for Moving:  

• Just a few weeks ago we linked to Postmates' launch of a delivery robot, and now Amazon has announced their own entrant into the category. Given that cities are struggling to make sensible policies to address streets and sidewalks crowded by existing modes of transport (like the current controversies around electric scooters, dockless bikes, or Mayor de Blasio's e-bike crackdown), the growing hordes of delivery robots will almost certainly mean more chaos and conflict than slick press releases suggest. 

Waste:  

• A new service from TerraCycle, called Loop, is designed to deliver a more circular relationship between big consumer packaged goods companies like Proctor & Gamble and their customers. The service delivers reusable containers directly to users, then ships them back to producers for cleaning and refilling. 

• The electronics waste stream is growing faster than any other discarded goods or material category. E-waste is hard to process, but contains small quantities of valuable metals that, in aggregate, amounts to a substantial sum. A recent report from a group called the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy says that the total value of the world's e-waste exceeds $60B per year. 

More next week. 

Insights 1.22

Design:

• It's the 100 year anniversary of the Bauhaus Movement. 

 

Building Things:  

• A worthwhile read from the 3D printing trade publication TCT on how HP used their own additive manufacturing technology to improve part/assembly designs for their 2D printer products. One example that stands out is a sensor mount that they switched from machined aluminum to topology-optimized 3D printed plastic. That change reduced the carbon footprint of producing that part 95%, cut cost in half, and slashed the total part weight 93%. As 3D printable plastics become more capable and generative design tools become more common, incredible improvements in production efficiency (at least for shorter production runs) can be achieved.

• Foxconn's project in Wisconsin, already having hit a few snags, continues making the wrong kind of headlines. The company says they may need to adjust the timeline for hiring for the some 13,000 jobs they promised the state in exchange for a massive subsidy, citing changing conditions in global demand for the kinds of goods the contract manufacturer produces. Foxconn representatives say they have hired 1,000 workers to date for the Wisconsin facility.

Automatons:  

• Robots are great at performing highly routine tasks in controlled environments, but not so adept at dealing the messy variety of the world at large. This means that while factories around the world are integrating robotics at an amazing rate, applications for retail and domestic environments are still limited. A recent 'layoff' of robots at a Japanese hotel demonstrates that in many contexts, robots fail to increase efficiency or perform reliably enough to deliver on the frictionless expectations we have of them. 

Designing Space:  

• "An open office might be suitable for a company coming up with new ideas, but when someone has to implement them, it becomes distracting." On how Silicon Valley companies paved the way for the resurgence of open offices, much to the chagrin of the workers that have to use them.

Communication:  

• The algorithm killed the blog-star. Caleb Crain writes about how search engine optimization over-indexing for recency leads to low-value content, and a general glut of temporarily relevant but hollow takes:  "A blogger who only posted a few times a month was doomed. Over the course of one fateful week, my visitors dropped away, day by day, as Google’s rankings of the pages on my blog were quietly recalculated...One’s only recourse was to post more content, faster! But the sweat-shopping of oneself can only be carried so far, and the psychological costs of trying to always have the latest, hottest take probably aren’t worth bearing." In the face of infrequent likes, retweets, or slackening traffic—how does one justify efforts (to themselves, to others) that appear more and more quixotic? For all pursuits that are not business, we must remind ourselves to resist the nudges of platforms designed for engagement at the expense of all else. Instead, we should revel in the pockets of meaning-making that the algorithms will never reward. Life is more qualitative than quantitative. 

More next week. 

Insights 1.14

Design:

• Andrew Edman (aka the guy who writes this newsletter) recapping his 2018 R&D projects, looks at how we can use 21st century fabrication technologies to move from consumers to active participants within our systems of production. 

Automatons:  

• Unsurprisingly, Amazon has once again hit an all-time sales high coming off the U.S. holiday season, but this time around, they did it with about 20,000 fewer workers than in previous years. 

Mapping Markets:  

• You can learn a lot about what is going on in markets of all sizes (local, national, global) by keeping an eye on what goods are worth the risk carrying out a real-world heist for. A story from Bloomberg Businessweek on the theft of over 100 tons of cobalt, a highly-valued commodity due to its use in the production of lithium-ion batteries. 

• Amazon's sprawling empire, all mapped out. The article details all of the miscellaneous business units and holdings of Amazon, which run the gamut from obvious to obscure: sure, there's Whole Foods and Kiva systems, but there's also wind farms, cargo planes, and IMDb. The company's physical footprint alone is around 250 million square feet.

Waste:  

• Repair remains one of the most valuable practices when it comes to reducing both the energy and environmental impact of manufactured goods, and politicians are beginning to take action to improve the odds of fixing. In the European Union, this has taken the form of extending the reach of so-called "right to repair" laws. In this article from iFixit, they detail some of the draft language: "[EU Member States] also voted that spare parts be available for at least 7 years, with parts such as door gaskets and trays available to end-users, and thermostats and temperature sensors available only to professional repair technicians." Companies that design and manufacture products that fall into these right to repair categories face a predicament: either ship new models less frequently or deal with sprawling spare part inventories. It's quite possible that regulations like these, if passed, will spur more interest in 3D printing spares on demand, either through service bureaus, or the original manufacturer's own facilities.

Material Culture:  

• Kyle Chayka analyzes consumer culture and Airbnb-oriented home renovations in the U.S. via  reviewing some recent Netflix TV shows, including Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. Whether it's Marie Kondo's interventions or creating adequately but appropriately quirky Airbnb rentals, what's really on display here is how domestic spaces cease to exist just for our own living. Instead, possessions and environments morph into pseudo-advertisements for a focus-grouped version of own lives, directed at our friends, neighbors, and the world at large.

More next week.