The new rules of content are simple:

• The content must be SEO-friendly.
• The content must be available for every topic imaginable.
• The content must be cheap to produce.
• The content must generate ad buys.

Yahoo’s purchase of Associated Content last week, for a whopping $90 million, highlights the growing race for ad dollars going on among the Internet’s biggest players. The best way to get those ad buys is to offer companies highly-targeted content that will attract a niche audience. The best way to get the most esoteric content in the shortest amount of time is to prioritize quick and dirty efficiency over expression.

The result is something akin to an online industrial revolution, with content sweatshops churning out cheap, choppy, but sufficient bullet point lists and how-to videos. Like most physical factories, the emphasis is on making money, not producing quality work.

Sure, the content has to hold up, but it’s far from thoughtful exploration. The fact that I’ve been working on this post for about four hours (I wrote the end first) would make me worth less than $4 an hour to Demand Media.

Demand Media advertises itself as the leader in social media, claiming:

“Every day Demand Media makes it possible for people to create and publish valuable content, for millions of Internet users to engage around passionate communities, and for thousands of websites to grow with social media features their audiences want.”

The idea of “social media” has been through more mad libs than I can count, but there are still surprises to be had by the liberties taken at its expense. Media is media, but affixing the word “social” implies that there is some emotion, some modicum of unprovoked human expression involved.

Or it seems it should be that way. Phrases like “the death of journalism” have been thrown around for years, but if you were looking for the smoking gun, here it is.

The goals of companies like Associated Content and Demand Media are light years different than those of the Star Tribune or Los Angeles Times. Both need money to survive, but while content factories produce useful content solely to sell ads, we have to believe that most writers at these newspapers still want to tell a story.

But it takes too long, and it’s too inefficient. Major newspapers across the country now rely on this Sam’s Club model to fill the empty space by writers they could no longer afford to keep on staff. In turn, many of these writers now find themselves absorbed into the very system that is working hard to replace their brethren, churning out 30-minute articles and videos on how to draw horses or steep green tea.

We want content, we want it now and we want it pre-digested.

In 2009 Wired covered Demand Media in depth, dubbing it “The Answer Factory,” and the nickname is scary accurate.

Content Sweatshops, Algorithm-based Ideation

Companies like Demand Media employ a huge number of freelancers, producing content in bulk for pennies per piece. These are the “how-to’s” you find on sites like eHow, and each one pays about $15 if you’re a writer – $20 if you’re a videographer. You get paid even less to proofread.

The process is more machine than human, a journalistic terminator of sorts – intent on subjugating search results through esoteric optimization and algorithm-based imperialism, while struggling to portray a human facade.

Contributors operate more like factory workers than content creators, fitting blocks of information into prescribed patterns without much creative flexibility, racing towards mindless efficiency. It’s not a commentary on the creators themselves, but the system they’ve been left to create within.

With Demand Media, it’s all about the idea-generating algorithm. Computers analyze user searches, ad buys and competitor content to find holes in the material that’s online – ranging from semi-general (kayaking) to very specific (origami frogs) – and spit out keywords.

Another algorithm then determines what context these keywords might be queried within and regurgitates a meatier, but jumbled lump of search-optimized  phrases terms. Finally, a human editor picks this up and, for 15 cents, turns the mess into something resembling a title.

Then it’s creation, editing, plagiarism-checking and posting. Someone, somewhere, will now be able to find a tailored article detailing the fine art of constructing a pirate hat out of construction paper. Perhaps they will also click on an ad for a trailer of the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean while they’re at it.

And it’s not just about content that people will want to read – it’s about content that advertisers will want to pay to have their ads placed on. Most of the money generated by these companies comes from PPC-based ad buys. To get make more money, you’ve got to have more ads – to get those ads, you have to have content to attach it to.

So the machine continues to turn. In the near future Demand Media hope to produce one million pieces of content a month. Sooner or later, traditional journalism will seem like John Henry racing the steam engine.

Mass Production Gone Mainstream

Demand Media isn’t alone in this quest for content, either. AOL’s Seed system, introduced last year, operates in a similar fashion, and Yahoo’s recent purchase of Associated Content highlights the search engine’s desire to join the fray.

In light of Yahoo’s recent partnership with Bing, the move makes sense. With Bing handling search and Yahoo taking over the ad network, it’s no wonder Yahoo is looking for ways to produce more advertising revenue. For $90 million, Yahoo now has a stable of 350,000 contributors shelling out content based on algorithms designed to maximize ad buys.

Even Google has dipped a toe, using video content from Demand Media to pursue more ad buys on YouTube. Google also powers ads on sites like eHow, so while they’re not yet in the content game they seem more than content to dine at its table.

For those of us who still like our answers with inflection, there are places to go, but how far are you willing to dig. Are you prepared to siphon two-three pages of Google search results to find something worthwhile?

de Soto asserts that the rule of law is what allows rich countries to prosper, and that the lack of it keeps poverty entrenched in the developing world. For de Soto, the rule of law begins with a fundamental distinction: property rights. Give people a deed for land and you have documentation of their right to it. If you have documentation, you can keep records, and with records, an accounting can be made, and with accounting comes accountability, the exercise – and protection – of one’s rights.

Implicit in accountability is a value for truth-telling, since a written record of transactions (and contracts) allows verification of an agreement. Further, it allows verification of value, the central construction for a functioning economy which must, necessarily, be rule-based.  That’s the only way to ensure that the value of something is real and can be compared to other similar products/services (else-wise known as transparency), the very basis of a market economy.

Feudal landlords kept records; they collected rents and taxes. When the time came to overturn that system (in the case of post WWII Japan) or start from scratch (as was done in the U.S.), it was relatively easy to turn around and issue deeds for land (to former serfs and peasants). Land is a basic form of capital, deeds ensure rights to it, and so capital formation can grow and be leveraged by the individual landowner.

It’s a very compelling argument, which de Soto makes with great passion and charisma. His point: it’s futile to address economic development without establishing property rights first. Without it, there is no way to curtail corruption and the shadow economies that flourish alongside it.

de Soto has long held the U.S. as a model of how property rights done right, and their benefits. Americans like to think that their prosperity springs from a Protestant work ethic, status as a chosen people, an innovative and entrepreneurial spirit, and the good fortune of abundant land and resources. “Fooey!” says de Soto (my expression, not his). Many countries share land and resource wealth, and the ingenuity of their people; what they lack, relative to the U.S., are property rights.

Yet, the recession of 2007-present that hit the U.S., he attributes to the same fancy financial instruments that created such huge cash flow — derivatives and the like — which became ‘toxic’ precisely because record-keeping failed. The paper trail that typically tracks mortgages > second mortgages > rating schenanigans (i.e. you call those assets?!) > derivatives, etc. failed, and no one knows the real value of what they hold. This exposes us to unimaginable vulnerability because if you can’t account for what is/isn’t there, you can’t fix it. Worse, says de Soto, the derivatives effectively made confetti of the paper and now it’s scattered all over the world. The result: you don’t know whose hand is in whose pocket, nor do you know that when they remove their hand, what they actually hold. A crisis is just a pocket-full of confetti away (Exhibit A: Greece).

The good news, says de Soto, is that it’s fixable. Return to what you/we already know: accounting. Put everything on the table again, determine what’s toxic, what’s not, and take the bad stuff out of circulation. The TARP program was supposed to have done this, but it instead made us all shareholders in the banks that hold the debt which means that we now own shares of their debt. The problem: if the bank collapses, it hurts a whole lot of people. Rather than face it head on, the answer has been to print more money under the naive and dangerous rationale that if people have more money, they’ll spend more money, confidence goes up, allowing consumption to kick-start the economy again. Not only is this like putting a bandage over a pothole (structural failure), it’s what’s called inflation.

Doing the right thing, as always, requires courage. This could be handled within the efforts on financial reform but, unfortunately, accountability is what everyone (legislators and regulators, politicians, Wall Street execs, and voters) is trying to avoid.

de Soto is a great story-teller, and he makes his case with terrific clarity.  He’s a must-see/read/listen to thinker. Start with the video above and, if you want to hear the presentation he gave this week, you’ll find it in its entirety here: http://www.cce.umn.edu/media/greatconversations/atwood_desoto/player.html

According to sources cited in Popular Science, these thought-controlled robots would use the brain’s electrical signals and blood-flow to interpret thoughts. As any diligent science fiction aficionado would imagine, users are expected to employ  a sensor-loaded headset, probably looking like something out of  X-men, to control devices.

It shouldn’t be too hard to think of potential problems with robots or electronic devices that react to your thoughts. Hot for teacher? Leave the helper robot at home.

Of course, there are more practical – and acceptable – uses for such technology. Helper robots for the elderly or disabled, for example, could be a huge boon to families that need help caring for relatives.

And at any rate, errant thoughts shouldn’t be a problem – at least initially. The fact that such robots and devices will likely be controlled using a helmet should keep most from unintentionally causing trouble.

Still, in 15-20 years? It’s not hard to imagine such robotics being controlled via chip implant. Late last year, Popular Science covered HP‘s plan to do just that. By 2020, the same year Japan’s mind-controlled robots are supposed to roll off the assembly line and into homes, HP hopes to be marketing chip implants that allow users to control electronics via thought.

Sure, the ability to produce isn’t always equal to the public’s willingness to purchase, but the simple fact that this technology is becoming a reality … it’s not science fiction anymore and Kansas is miles away, fading fast.

They say, “A picture is worth a thousand words … “  Nowhere is that more true than in the case of the following chalk-talk with renown designer and illustrator Milton Glazer. Here, Glazer, Fulbright Scholar and founding partner of the celebrated Push Pin Studios, discusses the codependent relationship between drawing and thinking while sketching a portrait of William Shakespeare.

In his book, “Drawing is Thinking,” Glaser suggests that all art is a form of meditation and that drawing is “a primary way of encountering reality.” He addresses societal reticence around the arts and the individual’s resistance to drawing (“Oh, I can’t draw … my drawings look like they were done by a 3^rd grader … “) as missing the point, asserting that the value in drawing is not about “making things look accurate,” but rather drawing is a way of “becoming more conscious of what one is looking at” and “expressively interpreting the world. “

Comments on Glaser’s theory hearken back to the cave drawings of primitive man,

“ … art started as a way of noticing things, focusing on them, fixing them in our minds, … that when our ancestors drew animals on the walls of caves, it was a kind of sympathetic magic … If they could draw them, they knew them, and they could control them. “

Fast forward to the digital age, where Michale Sankey discusses the effects of changing nature of “visual literacy” as it applies to education and curriculum design,

“In contemporary western culture, particularly the youth culture, visual mediums and genres are becoming increasingly popular at the expense of other mediums, in particular the written word (schirato & Yell 1996). Others suggest that the constant bombardment by visual images from so many quarters is already shaping [the youths] lives, influencing their attitudes and tuning their responses. As media simulations become more popular and persuasive they will increasingly encroach upon life experience to the extent that new senses of reality will be formed and media representations will in fact become our first order reality (Walker & Chaplin, 1997).”

New York Times Weekend columnist Brad Stone (1/10/2010, p. 5) observes that his three-year-old daughter’s world view and life will be shaped by myriad technological advances and gadgets, “ … digital books, Skype video chats, … toddler-friendly video games on the iPhone … she’ll see the world a lot differently from her parents.”

Stone goes on to discuss current research which suggests that “the ever-accelerating pace of technological change may be minting a series of mini-generation gaps, with each group of children uniquely influenced by the tech tools available in their formative stages of development.”

This phenomenon could only raise questions around Glaser‘s dynamics of drawing and foster an increased impact on what our own Cecily Sommers describes as our “associative fluency” – taking in information in multiple ways (seeing, hearing, moving) – a mechanism which serves as the foundation of creativity and innovation. The act of drawing or dancing or interacting with digital media (?) opens new pathways in the brain, shaking things up and creating opportunities for new connections to form. Until the age of eight or so, children are able to learn and absorb large quantities of information, forging extensive neural networks to handle the massive influx.

Conversely, over time, under-trafficked neural connections, thought processes and information that see little action, are unceremoniously closed down. Eventually the adult brain winds up using only the most well-trodden neural pathways as a short-cut default system (read: old people stuck in their ways). It continues to be our challenge then, to maintain ample neural capacity such that we are able to “encounter our reality” with resolution and vigor… lest we find ourselves in the cross-hairs of a virtual Wooly Mammoth with only a sharpened pencil to our name.

“If we don’t take the opportunity to form a baseline understanding of natural soundscapes, we’ll lose part of our own humanity. These sounds taught us to dance, and they’re part of our language. I think we owe them something.” – Bernie Krause

Western culture has long favored sight over hearing. Bombarded with thousands of visual images every day, we pay very little attention to the subtle sounds that enter our ears. Middle school sleepover games of “Would You Rather?” always resulted in a unanimous group decision that being blind would be, like, WAY harder than being deaf. American bioacoustician Bernie Krause thinks otherwise and has devoted the last 40 years of his life to recording the earth’s rapidly disappearing “biophony” — a term he coined to describe what the world sounds like in the absence of humans.

He believes that biophony is unique all over the world; nowhere in nature sounds anything like anywhere else. He also believes that in a biophony, animal groups each communicate at a different frequency so they don’t interfere with one another’s voices. When the pitches are mapped out, it ends up looking like a musical score, with each instrument in its proper place.

The problem with this lovely orchestra concept is that man-made noise (anthrophony) greatly intrudes on this natural symphony. The noises of machinery and cars interfere with a part of the sound spectrum already in use and suddenly some animal can’t make itself heard, which Krause has proven can have a significant impact on evolution.

Today, there are fewer and fewer places on Earth where man-made noises don’t prevail — over 40 percent of his original field-recording locations have been lost due to increasing habitat degradation and human noise.  To combat that, Krause is making it his mission to compile the largest private archive of natural sound anywhere — fittingly named Wild Sanctuary. The collection of sounds represents over 3,500 hours of wild soundscapes and nearly 15,000 species. Even more intriguing, Wild Sanctuary’s Internet home base is Google Maps and Google Earth, an innovative bridge between the virtual and the natural world that allows you to click on any location you’re interested in and hear exactly what it sounds like.

It’s easy to see ecological problems. Now we need to learn to listen to them as well. Should we be focusing on developing quieter, as well as cleaner, technology and machinery? Would more noise ordinances benefit animals in nature? There isn’t really an answer — it’s just about using all of your senses when trying to make sense of the world around you.

Mental stimulation is the name of the game when it comes to keeping our wits about us, and the simple act of searching for information online (“Googling”) is great for keeping those synapses snapping. Even more than Sudoku or crossword puzzles, searching for new information online is a continuous learning experience.

You’ve been warned.

Luckily for all of us, there are people out there enlightening those around them with more than the special edition of C.H.U.D.

One of them is George Ayittey, champion of Radio Free Africa – a non-profit organization with the goal of facilitating the flow of information on the continent. Specifically, the group is most interested in the sharing of ideas and supporting public watchdogs to expose criminal and political wrongdoing. Though an equally large undertaking is the creation of a viable network for spreading said information.

Knowledge is the ability to create change – voice is the ability to share it. Opening the lines of communication leads to the ultimate open source community. Only, instead of building iPhone apps, it’s building the future. The iPhone app store is a good example, though, in the sense that it shows how the empowered masses will always move things forward more quickly than the entrusted few.

I remember taking “The History of Mass Communication” in college (almost as stuffy as it sounds) and discussing the role of the colonial press in the birth of the nation. It’s hard to imagine this rebel press as a very big deal because we already have things like Consumerist.com and FactCheck.org. At this point, we truly seem to live in a country where the watchdog is thriving.

In fact, I can barely picture a world where I don’t have access to the outside through my computer, iPhone, coworker … etc. I am empowered and the fact that I’m even writing this post is proof that I have the potential to spark change, or at least Diggs, outside of my own, immediate sphere.

Radio Free Africa is picking things up at a different stage because this freedom of information – this flow of ideas – does not exist in Africa, or at least not to the extent that it does here.

Radio Free Africa is currently focused on:

• collecting current events and news articles relating to free press and violations against it
• collecting information on similar grassroots programs
• academic and policy review
• legislative outreach
• technology outreach – penetrating hard-to-reach locales through the use of tools like mobile phones and services like SMS, in order to create a framework for engagement and free media
• identifying areas where free speech is under attack and developing plans to intervene

In short, the visionaries at Radio Free Africa are building the reservoir, developing the pipeline and determining where to plant wells.

Meanwhile, across the pond, Luis Soriano Bohorquez and his donkey have worked out a system that – while not quite as expansive – is no less inspiring. Instead of connecting a continent through free media, Luis gets on his “biblioburro” every weekend in order to deliver books to the surrounding towns and villages.

With a few thousand books haphazardly piled in his home and at friends’ houses, it’s a little hard fill requests. And to think I groaned at having to use a card catalog once!

But, in the same way Radio Free Africa is seeking to open the lines of communication to and build community, Luis is broadening the horizons of the children around him. The children are becoming stronger readers – developing the tools to communicate on a much broader level.

Said one child, “It’s important because, when your parents ask you to read them a letter that they don’t understand, you can read it to them.”

Not only are they developing technical skills, but they are learning how to dream bigger, and through these books, they are allowed to step outside of their own worlds.

There’s a good chance that I’ll never see half the places I’ve visited in books. But I’m certainly better for all the places I’ve dreamed. It’s a question of scope. It allows me to dream bigger in the world I do exist in.

If we believe that change literacy is written in the language of dreams, then both Luis Soriano Bohorquez and George Ayittey should be thanked in the dedication.

Without their faith and support, this [insert dream/change/invention/cure/work of art/etc.] would not have been possible.

Historically, tough economic times have catalyzed surges in innovative thinking - Hewlett Packard and Polaroid were formed after the Great Depression, MTV came close on the heels of the recession in the 1980′s, and Apple’s iPod (developed during a sharp decline in sales and margins of consumer electronics in 2001) joined the “pantheon of game-changing innovations born of hard times, alongside Depression-era breakthroughs such as nylon and the jet engine.” (HBR, July/Aug. 2009) If history repeats itself, the current economic downturn is the perfect storm of opportunity for innovation.

The rustling in the bushes is all there – at the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer suggests that, “Companies and industries that continue to pursue innovation during tough economic times will achieve a significant competitive advantage and position themselves for growth…” … And, “… companies investing countercyclically in R&D (biz-code for innovation) during downturns tend to outpace their competitors on the upswing.” (HBR)

What all this means is, between random jolts from the Federal Reserve and the pitch and yaw of consumer confidence, companies and industries around the world are rifling through drawers, combing executive profiles, and making the mad dash into the ethers in search of both survival and triumph in the huge pot of gold at the end of the Next Big Innovation. Suddenly, the fluffy and elusive x-factor of creativity/innovation/design has become the imperative “it-force” behind economic recovery and prosperity. From Washington to Wall Street, everyone is using the “I” word, rushing into the vortex with new takes on how to pin down and quantify innovation.

Dev Patnaik, founder and chief executive of Jump Associates, a Silicon Valley growth strategy firm (clients include Nike, Target, and Hewlett-Packard) discusses the underpinnings of innovation in this month’s Fast Company, ”Forget Design Thinking and Try Hybrid Thinking.” Fast forward to his point, Patnaik suggests that there is a unique role that designers and their skill-set/way of thinking can play in making everything — products, services, experiences, and industry-specific entities such as finance, education and government — better.  He then pushes beyond that thought to propose that something bigger is going on in the minds of successful innovators:

“… something bigger is going on, more powerful than the adoption of a single school of thought. The secret isn’t design thinking, it’s “hybrid thinking “: the conscious blending of different fields of thought to discover and develop opportunities that were previously unseen by the status quo …”

We’re not talking about “multi-tasking” here … True hybrid thinkers (you know who you are) traffic in the cracks between traditional areas of expertise and are able to ”connect the dots between what’s culturally desirable, technically feasible, and viable from a business point of view.”  The new face of innovation demands that we “see the world through multiple lenses and draw meaning from seemingly disparate points of data.”

According to Patnaik, “hybridity” matters now because the problems we need to solve are too complex to be handled by any one skill-set. Gone are the good old silo days where depth in a single field trumps breadth in multiple areas. Audiovox design executive Lou Lenzi asserts that those who want to innovate, must be “one part humanist, one part technologist, and one part capitalist.” 

Well, “hybrid thinking” might be a catchy modern phrase, but it isn’t a new concept. In the spirit of “Everything old is new again,” hybrid thinking can march to the back of the line behind lava lamps, lime green and liberal arts.  Two words for Dev: 1. da; 2. Vinci.

Take this example:

Earlier this month, Britain unveiled their new take on the national ID card to much public dissatisfaction. Their decision to respect the identity rights of Irish Nationalists living in Northern Ireland (as decreed by the Belfast Agreement) was done in a way that inflamed the rest of the UK population: there will be no union flag featured on the card design. Instead, a shamrock, daffodil, thistle, and rose will represent the four countries of the UK.

Although I don’t doubt that the intention of the British government was well-aimed in allaying the concerns of the Irish Nationalists (specifically those who remain armed), but they have forgotten that the Unionists of Northern Ireland are also armed and expect adequate representation from their government. As reported by the UK’s Daily Mail, DUP Northern Ireland Assembly member Iain Paisley Junior remarked, “I can’t imagine anyone would want a so-called national identity card if it expunges the symbol of our national unity, which is the union flag.”

Further complicating matters, those living in Northern Ireland who identify themselves as Irish will only be able to use the UK national ID card as a “personal ID.” If they wish to travel outside of the country, the must be issued an ID from the Irish Government. In essence, British, Irish, and those claiming dual citizenship are able to reside in Northern Ireland; you may carry both forms of identification, but you can only use certain ones in specific circumstances. If it sounds like an identity crisis, that’s because it is.

Most of us have dealt with this dilemma in some small form, like when you’ve finally lived in a new place long enough to start telling people you’re from “Colorado” instead of wherever your parent’s house is – confusing at first, but not inexplicable. However, for those who live in disputed places, it may be that the land they identify with is altered or no longer even exists. When I studied in Northern Ireland, for example, whether my hometown was called “Derry” or “Londonderry” was an ongoing battle. To get by, I soon learned to spit it out quickly enough so that no one could determine which one it was that I said.

A way of getting around this is to identify yourself in hyphenations. This is a choice that is most common to the United States and is frequently interpreted as a “cultural-national” identity, i.e.) “Mexican-American.” “Jewish-American.” “Hispanic-American.” If you travel elsewhere, you will find a whole new set of examples to describe identity such as “negro, mulatto, mestizo, indigenous” – primarily associated with race.  The case of Northern Ireland is an anomaly in that where a person’s identity is generally viewed as compilation of both cultural, national, and racial elements, Northern Ireland’s dispute does not fit this stereotype. Everyone is Anglo-Saxon, their cultural histories run relatively parallel, but the dilemma of what they should call themselves still remains.

What’s in a name? Apparently everything. It is fascinating to dig into the connotations behind identity because they invite questions that we should all be asking about ourselves. It is important to address the different meanings and associations your identity holds for you as well as the varying perspectives it might to convey to others. It will help you to stamp-out short-sightedness in any venture  that you choose to pursue. Here are a few appetizers to get your started:

What is your identity?

National, ethnic, cultural?

How important is it to you?

Is it fixed or fluid?

Is it government ordained or a personal choice?

How does your identity influence your decision-making?

How does your identity shape your relationship with others?

If you’re still stumped, don’t worry – it’s a complex issue. Take it from Dr. Seuss:

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You!”

So,

The plan for this forum is to present a design find — something immensely informative, enlightening, inspiring, entertaining, or even enraging (which can be fun); do some thinking, pondering, ruminating, conjecturing, and reflecting on it; and then, open up a dialogue around the issues that need to be raised and the questions that need to be asked.

In this exploration, I’m hoping we’ll get close enough to touch the elephant, but also back-off to a broad enough perspective that we can behold the bigger animal. As for tone, look for something between academic and improv. Note: I am totally aware that chances are good that you will know a whole lot more about all of this than I do, which begs the open invite to step up and share your thoughts, wisdom, snark, whatever. Me blog es su blog.

Design defined — A nice tight definition of terms can be a good way to wade into a broader discussion — except that the concept of “design” is so elusive and complex that even the ubiquitous resource Wikipedia had trouble nailing it down. Design is a noun and it’s a verb, it’s a philosophy, it’s subjective, and it’s omnipresent. There’s applied design, graphic design, industrial design, fashion design, interior design, information design, process design, interactive design … good design, bad design, provocative design, and “designs on you.”  Some random perspectives that speak to design defined include:

“Design is the planning that [provides] the basis for the making of every object or system … as a verb, “to design” refers to the process of originating and developing a plan for a product, structure, system, or component with intention … as a noun, “a design” is used for either the final solution/plan or the result of implementing that plan in the form of the final product of a design process … more recently, processes have also been treated as products of design, giving new meaning to the term process design.”  — Wikipedia (See what I mean?)

“Design implies a conscious effort to create something that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing.” — more Wikipedia

“Design is about doing something — a process more than a product. Design is about identifying problems, asking good questions, and finding better answers.” — betterbydesign.org.nz

“Great design is deceptive … it looks so simple and obvious. Great design only works — only happens — when it goes right down to the heart and soul of the [entity] that produces it.” — Rod Oram, Journalist and Adjunct Professor at the New Zealand Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship

“To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.” — Milton Glaser

“… to inform and delight.” – more Milton Glaser

“Design is thinking, materialized in objects and environments, inscribed in patterns of use, and addressed by analysis and planning.” — Ellen Lupton, Curator of Contemporary Design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

“About half my designs are controlled fantasy, 15 percent are total madness and the rest are bread-and-butter designs.” — Manolo Blahnik

Ok, so, maybe a pithy definition of design isn’t going to help us as much as catching design in action — design created in the minds of people – revered icons, dewy-eyed students, purists, practitioners, … folks from all walks of life, trafficking in different disciplines and realms of influence, and impacting aesthetic and material experience in all corners of the globe.

Look for some of that in the blogs ahead.