Design Sojourn

Sorry friends. It has been a while since I made contact with anyone via this blog. It was partly due to the fact that I got pretty sick and sadly I still am. It’s one ailment after another in never ending vicious cycle. I cannot seem to shake it off completely. I must be a germ magnet!

Fortunately during my sick leave, I had the opportunity to do some serious thinking and reflection. In particular, what I wanted to do with this blog and it’s role in my life.

Early in January this year, I announced the launch of Design Sojourn Version 4.0. It was a good revamp of the site and as well as refocusing its content. Particularly important was that I shared a new blog description and focus which was “How to master the business of strategic industrial design”.

However at the back of my mind I still could not decide what I wanted to get out of this blog. As it is now 6 months since the last update, I thought it might be a good time to share with you how I see my blog going forward.

I have this bad habit. My attention to things get somewhat shorten due to my very wide and diverse interests. Luckily this blog has prevailed as it is not like the 95% of the other blogs out there that have not been updated in the last 120 days. So I decided to focus my activities to keep things simple and in perspective.

I made a list of in all the things that I did or things that were important to me. I then reorganized a few things and painfully “deleted” the others. In particular, I searched out for synergies in my interests, activities and personal goals. As part of this analysis, I had to asked myself again: Why do I blog?

I felt in many instances that this blog was drifting aimlessly. What I realized was that while this blog had a focus, it did not have a purpose or an end goal. While some bloggers may be happy with this, as in blogging when they feel like it, this lack of purpose did not sit too well with me.

I learned early on that as I have so many things to do, I need to be selective in what I end up doing. Therefore, I needed to be clear why I would invest the time to write and maintain this blog. Life is too short to waste doing pointless or senseless things.

Thus I have decided to evolve this blog into a conversation platform that will lead towards my writing a book called “The Art of Design Leadership” or something close to that.

I find a lot of comfort in this decision, and making it was a lot easier then I expected. I have been blogging for almost 4 years and this blog has more than 500 posts of rich Strategic Design content. Compiling all this time an effort into a book just makes sense to me.

Going forward, my posts will still be a journey in Strategic Design, but it will now have a higher purpose and over arcing structure towards the creation of the different chapters in my book. Finally, in true Web 2.0 fashion, you will be able to interact, feedback, and comment on the book’s content as I develop it.

So with this new purpose in mind, I have spent the last couple of weeks cleaning up my blog with the focus on readability and navigation. I removed “chicklets” that were redundant, reformatted the site to improve logical flow and reduced the amount of ads you would see.

However the biggest change is in simplifying my categories to reflect this new blog direction. Here they are with quick descriptions.

About Design Sojourn: What’s new at the Design Sojourn Blog or what I am up to in my adventures in design. A place to put the more general and non-design administrative stuff like this post!

Design Articles: Pillar and foundation articles on Strategic Industrial Design and Design Leadership that define what Design Sojourn is all about.

Design Leadership: Short reads about Design Strategy and Managing the Business of Design. This new category combines these two old topics in a logical manner that also reflects this blog’s new direction.

Designer Lifehack: Quick tips, hints, random musings and activities that could help make you a better designer. Majority of this content was written during in this blog’s first 3 years, much of which are still relevant today.

Entrepreneurship: Thoughts on my experiences being a design entrepreneur. More legacy content that can still be an interesting read.

Industrial Design: Multi-disciplinary Industrial Design related discussions and critiques. I used to have to have another category called Meta Design, but as Industrial Design has evolved into more than what it used to be, I felt comfortable to use this as a general description for both categories.

*****

So what do you think? Does this make a lot more sense to you? I am looking forward to reading all your awesome feedback. Thanks in advance and do stay tuned, as regular programming will resume shortly!

Ok, I might as well spill the beans. One of the big reasons why I have been really busy, is that I am helping organize the next icsid congress 2009 here in Singapore! The congress will run from November 23rd-25th, and if you are interested to go the early bird registration (about 25% off!) is currently open to all !

So back to this discussion. I was invited to be the Chair of the Special Operations Sub-Committee. We were originally meant to sort of be a fast-response, stop-gap group, looking at issues or “dirty jobs” that no one else has the time to do. However the role has since evolved into social media strategy and networking. Strange things I get up to these days, no?

The interesting thing about this congress is that we planned this congress to be like no other! The congress will be a platform to communicate a bigger all encompassing story called “Design2050″, or “It is not what will, but rather, what can our world be in 2050?”.

Central this story or theme are The Design2050 Studios. Lead by recognized Design Thought Leaders from industry, the Studios will explore key topics like Mobility, Farming, Sustainability etc. in 2050. These Studios will not only brainstorm what the world will be in 2050, but will also use Social Media to engage people from all around the world to share their thoughts on the world in 2050. That is where I will also come in!

As you can see this effort will span in the time before the congress and far beyond the end of the congress. The final objective is to put together a global “manifesto” and a commitment to how we will get to 2050. Great stuff don’t you think?

Anyways do check out our official icsid congress website which I helped co-creative direct and managed. Also follow our updates on our design2050 twitter and soon to be launched design2050 blog. If you do come to Singapore, do give me a “shout” and we can catch up during the congress?

What a crazy few months I had on both my work and home front! As a result of this I have not had the time to blog, and so I like to apologize for the lack of posts or updates. However I have been keeping track of all your comments so do keep them coming!

Furthermore in the last couple of weeks I had to prepare for and make a business trip to Amsterdam. The jet lag did not help my nights in Amsterdam much, but it did get me to up at 4.30am which resulted in really long days. So now I’m safely home and recuperating.

While the last months have been busy, I have not been idle. My Moleskine has been slowly growing with lots of great ideas for Strategic Industrial Design posts, so now I just need to the time to write it! I believe things might have settled for a bit all around, and I hope to get some posts up soon.

My next subject will be a good one and likely a “Pillar Topic” here on Design Sojourn. Unfortunately I have not decided if it will be in a format of a post (or multiple posts), a PowerPoint, or a downloadable e-book. However I have decided it will be a yearly feature, and will focus analysis of the latest Industrial Design strategies available for Design Managers to use.

So do stay tuned to Design Sojourn as this “Pillar Topic” will be up soon (as long as I don’t get sideline along the way!). Take care friends!

The very lovely Pat Law from Ogilvy’s 360 Digital Influence Team, has invited me to share some of my thoughts on this theme. I will be thinking about what to present over the next few days, but at this time it looks like my presentation will be something along the lines of blogging, building your personal brand and getting ahead in your career.

It’s currently open to bloggers only and restricted to something like 30 spots. I’m pretty sure the spaces are filling up fast. So if you happen to be in Singapore and interested to attend, do email Pat at her email address above and mentioned you heard about this event via Design Sojourn.

See you there!

First off I like to say a big HELLO to all visitors coming from Yanko Design!

Secondly I like to announce to all Design Sojourn readers that I have accepted an invitation by Takashi Yamada (The Publisher) to join the Yanko Design team an industry consultant.

I know some of you may be wondering “Why?”, so I thought I would share with you some of the background of this partnership.

Takashi had contacted me sometime in the middle of 2008. After a few rounds of getting to know each other better and sharing our views on design, he asked if I would like to join the YD team. However at that time I was going through a transition phase (who’s life isn’t eh?) and was too busy to take our discussion any further.

Earlier this year, I had blogged about this transition and celebrated it with a new look Design Sojourn 4.0. After getting settled in my new role, I got back in touch with Takashi.

One of our key discussion points was how to differentiate the content here at Design Sojourn and at YD. Takashi had originally asked me to carry on what I did here at YD. At first I could not figure out how to differentiate my content between Design Sojourn and YD. However as this blog has now evolved, it is now a lot clearer what I will write at YD.

Design Sojourn will continue to be about “How to master the business of strategic industrial design.” The content will focus on explorations in strategic design management, navigating the different aspects of the entire design process, and getting to the finish line. In short a “helicopter’s” view of Design. This blog will also have snippets or snacks that will help paint a better picture of the multidisciplinary influences to my design strategies. It is a personal design blog after all!

YD articles, on the other hand, will perhaps be more “tactical” in nature. In other words looking back at my original focus of “How to do good design and create clever products.” Even though this blog will focus less on this aspect, it is still very much apart of my daily work and I have decided to continue writing about this at YD.

I like to close this post with some of my thoughts on YD. Many people have criticized YD’s focus on on “Vapor Wear” or Concept Ideas that do not have a shred of realty and thus not representing the realities of Design.

I agree.

However, I see YD as really just about “celebrating the beauty and cleverness of an idea”. Of course, all of us know that coming up with an idea is only 2% of the work required for a successful product. However the idea is the starting point of everything and I notice that we, that are so abused in the design trenches, often forget this. I know I did. A crap idea, well implemented, is still crap. So I hope my time at YD will be a fruitful one as I will have an opportunity to help designers fill in that other 98% by sharing how to take those next steps!

See you around, there or here and please keep in touch?

I have to say, that I have been enjoying the use of Posterous a lot recently, especially the site’s ability to publish my stuff via email. They can store, re-size and present your media (pictures, music, video etc.) very efficiently. So I have been racking my brains to figure out how I can better utilize this wonderfully simple micro-blogging site.

And now I have! Enter my new micro-blog called “The Design of Everyday Things” or TDOET.com.

One of my favorite past times (or curse) is allowing my overly critical design mind to be triggered by good or bad designs that I stumble over in the environment around me. Therefore, I think it makes sense to create a site that catalogs these “triggers” by “The Design of Everyday Things” around me. Not to mention a convenient social outlet for my media slut of an iPhone!

The great thing about this site is that it can aggregate and store your content. So it could be sort of a visual diary or notebook of my stuff. The other good thing about the site is that it can cross post stuff all over the place like Twitter, Facebook and even a Wordpress blog. So on advice from a fellow design blogger, I will set up Posterous so that it will cross post my thought triggers back here on Design Sojourn! How cool is that?

However “The Design of Everyday Things” will still have it’s own domain name, just to formalize things a little. I decided to keep the title of the site simple by calling it by its acronym, which was amazingly available for purchase. So we now have TDOET.com, is a 5 letter easy to remember .com domain name, how about that?

So if you like, do bookmark your visit to TDOET.com (The Design of Everyday Things) or just come back here and enjoy my take on the less serious side of design.

And oh, do check out the inspiration for TDOET.com:

The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman

Not only can it be a great source of information on usability and product ergonomics, it is also a fantastic source of learning how to be sensitive to the product’s user experience. If it is not a textbook or required reading for your design school, make it so!

Image by: Inobras, via HongKiat.

Gong Xi Fa Chai!

Design Sojourn would like to wish all readers a Happy Lunar New Year, good health and happiness in 2009!

From Wikipedia:

The Ox ( Niu ) is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. The Year of the Ox is denoted by the earthly branch character. In the Vietnamese zodiac, the water buffalo occupies the position of the ox.

———-

The Ox is the sign of prosperity through fortitude and hard work. This powerful sign is a born leader, being quite dependable and possessing an innate ability to achieve great things. As one might guess, such people are dependable, calm, and modest. Like their animal namesake, the Ox is unswervingly patient, tireless in their work, and capable of enduring any amount of hardship without complaint.

Ox people need peace and quiet to work through their ideas, and when they have set their mind on something it is hard for them to be convinced otherwise. An Ox person has a very logical mind and is extremely systematic in whatever they do, even without imagination. These people speak little but are extremely intelligent. When necessary, they are articulate and eloquent.

People born under the influence of the Ox are kind, caring souls, logical, positive, filled with common sense and with their feet firmly planted on the ground. Security is their main preoccupation in life, and they are prepared to toil long and hard in order to provide a warm, comfortable and stable nest for themselves and their families. Strong-minded, stubborn, individualistic, the majority are highly intelligent individuals who don’t take kindly to being told what to do.

The Ox works hard, patiently, and methodically, with original intelligence and reflective thought. These people enjoy helping others. Behind this tenacious, laboring, and self-sacrificing exterior lies an active mind.

The Ox is not extravagant, and the thought of living off credit cards or being in debt makes them nervous. The possibility of taking a serious risk could cause the Ox sleepless nights.

Ox people are truthful and sincere, and the idea of wheeling and dealing in a competitive world is distasteful to them. They are rarely driven by the prospect of financial gain. These people are always welcome because of their honesty and patience. They have many friends, who appreciate the fact that the Ox people are wary of new trends, although every now and then they can be encouraged to try something new.

It is important to remember that the Ox people are sociable and relaxed when they feel secure, but occasionally a dark cloud looms over such people and they engage all the trials of the whole world and seek solutions for them.Also the Ox people are all caring and loving but at times when you mess with them they will tear out in anger.

In case you did not know this Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States is 48 and thus born in the year of the Ox. Probably one of the most famous “Oxen” around.

Wishing all readers a HAPPY 2009!

Wow oh wow. Three full years of me being online and ranting and raving about everything industrial design! I have to say it was a bumpy ride from the start and while looking back to see how I can improve I have to say that my older posts were really poorly written. Hopefully the posts are a lot better these days?

With the constantly evolving nature of the Internet, and perfectly reflecting the growth of an individual, I thought it is about time I update this website. This update is also significant as it represents my transition into my 4th year of blogging and also some changes in my personal career goals.

Also dear reader, I have also taken your feedback, synthesized it, and used the best ones that gel well with my goals for this website update. So I like to officially announce the new look Design Sojourn Version 4.0 that contains a number of significantly new features and changes. They include:

1) Full RSS Feeds
This is has to be one of my biggest reader requests to date. The reason why I never had full RSS feeds because I kept on getting my copyrighted content stolen by SPLOGS or Spam Blogs. So I decided to turn down lots of requests my Full Feeds. However recently I better understood my reader’s requests when I got really irritated when sites I wanted to subscribe to did not have full feeds. So I concluded that my readers, whom are so inclined, would feel the same way. Therefore I had to weighed the Pros and Cons of readability vs. thief of content. As my readers come first, I have decided to give full RSS feeds another try and see how we go.

Oh, if you are reading this post by RSS, please do come and visit the site (DesignSojourn.com) and let me know how you feel about the new look?

2) Featured Story
One thing that I noticed on Design Sojourn is that my featured design articles often need some extra time on the front page before I get feedback. Sometimes on a productive blogging week my newer posts tend to bump these design articles off the front page. Not good as I do I spent quite a lot of time crafting these Design Articles. Also with a few reader emails and comments telling me how they missed this and that article, I decided to create a “Featured Article” section up top. This allows me to keep certain articles around a little longer so that I can get additional feedback or comments.

3) Favorite Stories and other reformatting
Occasionally I create Design Articles that receive heavy traffic and lots comments. These “reader favorites” are also often significant posts or articles that really define what this website is all about. Therefore under the “Featured Story” bit I have created a Favorites section for all such defining posts.

The discerning reader would have noticed that these post “chicklets” used to be in my sidebar. But with this new placement, I have the opportunity to reformat other elements, such a a new Twitter cell and creating post excerpts. Overall I think the new blog design has now a better hierarchy and a comes together in a tighter package.

3) Less Ads!
Recently Design Sojourn got featured in a local Marketing magazine. That was cool. What was not cool was the screen shot the magazine took had a butt ugly 480×60 Google picture Ad slot in the area below the post title. Arrgh, never again. Readability and Image before anything else in design. So out that ad slot went.

4) New Blog description and focus!
This blog was and is about “How to do Good Design and Create Clever Products”. Lots of tips and tricks on how a designer can do his/her job better. A year or two ago, I added “Mastering the Business of Design” to the end of the description. This reflected my move towards design entrepreneurship as well as focusing on the ’selling” aspect of design.

As my blog evolved, my passions moved in the direction of strategic design. I think I have always been a very strategic thinker, it just took a awhile to manifest as I believe I had to acquire the skills first. True to the name of this blog, mine was really a design journey.

Therefore simplify things and make the focus of this blog more meaningful I have revised this Version 4.0 blog description to a more simple “How to master the business of strategic industrial design.” This brings a lot of clarity to this website and also really reflects what I do in real life.

On a personal branding note, this refocusing should be done anyway as more often than not sites like these are can be instrumental in your career as it has been to mine.

5) iPhone viewable
Not much to say here, but if you visit me via your iPhone’s Safari browser, my Wordpress backbone should auto detect that and reformat the site to fit your iPhone. I think it should work for any mobile device as well, but I have not confirmed that.

6) 500 Posts!
I like to end this post a little nugget. According to my Wordpress meta stats, I have written 500 posts! 500 posts, now that to me is amazing! So this would be my 501st post, and how apt, seeing this is my first post for the new year and all.

———-

I had planned to update a lot more stuff, including a new color, logo and perhaps even a brand new theme. However I was not able to find a theme that I was happy with nor a color that made sense to my personal brand. At the end I decided not to go for a theme change, however I still think I will take another look at a color and logo refresh. So do stay tuned to that!

I like to personally thank you for being part of my design sojourn or journey, and I hope you will continue to enjoy being part of my process as much as I will be sharing it with you! I look forward to all your feedback and still continue tolove receiving your emails. Please keep in touch?

Hat Tip to Pat Law and David Airey for their feedback during my redesign of this theme.

I like to wish all readers a Merry Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Edit: I am also taking the opportunity during this quiet holiday season to redesign and update my website. This initiative came about due to a few strategic decisions I have made from both a career and personal branding standpoint. I am also looking to improve and optimize my website’s reading flow and implement a number of user requests like full RSS feeds. So do stay tuned, the look site should be up before the year is out!

Image: Happy 3rd Birthday by Laura-Beth

Wow I almost missed it yet again!

Yesterday, November 09, was Design Sojourn’s 3rd birthday. It has been 3 great years of blogging and to mark this event it I have been thinking about what I should do to celebrate it with you dear reader.

Oh before I forget, I would like to extent a big “Thank You” for all your support, comments, or just sharing this journey of design with me. Recently, I have not had too much time to really keep up with my commenting and keeping in touch with all of your emails, but fear not, I do make sure I read every single one!

Ok back to this celebration!

I had come up with a whole bunch of “hair brained” ideas. From drinks on the house, viral memes, link farming, practical jokes, crazy prize giveaways, and even collecting donations for charity. Many of these ideas, have been done before, and the result was always the same. Some kind of self-glorification short term traffic boost, which seems to me a pointless exercise and something against the spirit of blogging. Done often enough is something I find very annoying as it does not really add to the blogosphere but spam it.

A while ago, I had a discussion with an old design lecturer on the pros and cos of blogging. One of the points we though about was the medium was a chronological one and there was no way to really index or keep track of your work from the past. Blogs will be great education and learning tools if it only had a glossary of some kind!

With that in mind, I think what I will do this Birthday month is to look back at some of Design Sojourn’s best articles, created when the site was just a new seedling with very few readers, update them with new information or data, and republish it for all to enjoy.

So do stay tuned for some hard hitting Industrial Design posts!