SushiLog

It’s not everyday that I get to walk into an international disputed territory, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that Palestine has its own network operator. What surprised me was the message I received when I entered:

I don’t know if this is familiar to those outside of Europe, but when traveling in Europe with a European carrier, when you cross international borders, you receive a text message informing you about the roaming charges. This is usually very factual and boring like the example below. Nice to see some sense of humor from those fighting to have their own country.

二年連続でブログに年賀状を掲載させていただきます。

去年、「毎年、来年はどこに住んで正月を過ごすかわからないような人生を歩んでいますが」と書いたら案の定、七月にパリからドイツのフランクフルトに引っ越しました。ドイツ語はまだままなりませんが英語がよく通じ、生活水準が高く、なかなか住みやすい国です。

相変わらず目隠ししながら全速力で走ってるような人生ですが、これに懲りず今年もよろしくお願いします。

平成二十四年　元旦

If you ever want to get a taste of what police/CIA/FBI questioning is like, try to leave from the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv with a stamp on your passport that’s in Arabic (for me, it was Morocco). This was probably one of the more interesting 45 minutes of my life, and while the interrogators were very nice (one man, one woman), they asked for every single detail of my visit as well as my life (what I do for a living, who I work with, name of my girlfriend, all the restaurants I visited in Tel Aviv, etc.), and it didn’t help that I went to Jordan and Palestine on this trip. They also tried incorrectly repeating what I said to see if I would correct them or not (one of the oldest trick in the book, though they didn’t try good cop bad cop).

For those considering visiting Israel, note this advice from Wikitravel:

Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen block passports containing stamps or visas from Israel. If you intend to visit any of these nations, ask immigration to stamp a blank page, rather than your passport, when entering. Note that those countries will also search for Jordanian/Egyptian exit stamps from land borders with Israel and will likewise prohibit your entry if they find one.

The Israel-Jordan border control was also one of the most time consuming border controls I’ve ever experienced (especially on the Israeli side), and the Swede standing next to me commented that it was easier getting into the Soviet Union back in the day.

Jetting around Europe and the Schengen Area, one forgets how divided countries and borders still are. That’s of course when I don’t forget my passport.

They served Chinese lo-mein as “Japanese.”

There was a 23kg limit to the check-in luggage but unlimited for carry-on.

The captain pointed out a single cloud over Doha as we approached it and commented on the rarity.

Armagnac was introduced as the “Italian-alternative” to Cognac.

The agent at the checkin counter turned out to be the pilot, who was also greeting passengers as they entered the plane.

The emergency oxygen system deployed accidentally and the captain dismissed it as a “misplaced April fool’s joke.”

There was a 14 year old Food & Wine magazine left in the seat pocket.

The airport security at the Doha airport wasn’t looking at the X-ray screen.

The chief flight attendant announced that Jude Law was on the last flight from Doha to Osaka.

They showed the direction of Mecca relative to the plane at regular intervals.

They held a lottery right after dinner was delivered, but no one won because the chosen seat was empty.

One of the toilets was converted into a prayer room.

The in-flight entertainment system introduced “Friends” as an American remake of a (supposedly) famous Chinese sitcom.

Full disclosure: Most of this is fiction (as I was feeling creative), but three of the thirteen are true. Can you guess which ones?

I am an avid user of Read It Later on Firefox and the iPhone. I particularly like the integration with Google Reader and the Twitter app for the iPhone, which allows me to save posts and links straight to Read it Later. Now I rarely consume articles and blog posts on the computer but instead do it on the iPhone while using public transportation, standing in line, or any other time spent waiting. I no longer need a considerable chunk of time to consume the news or read a magazine. Instead, I am able to utilize all the small breaks during the day.

In a way, I am creating my own micromagazine which is continuously updated, both in addition of new articles and subtraction of articles I finished reading. Compare that to the traditional paper media where a fixed set of articles were compiled together by some editors who don’t even know your name.

Similar phenomena have been happening in other forms of media as well. For the longest time, music was sold in albums, compilations of dozen or so songs encapsulated in some form of hard media. Now people are buying individual songs off of iTunes, Amazon, etc. and creating their own “mix tapes” on their computers and mp3 players.

I’m not arguing against professional curation. I can appreciate a good magazine or album once every so often, but to expect that some nameless editor can create the perfect reading or listening experience overtime is outrageous.

This is another way we are becoming more responsible for designing our own experiences with the aid of new technology.

What is one’s “full real name”?
Is it the name that he or she is given at birth? (Birth name?)
Is it the legal identity of the person? (Legal name?)
Or is it how someone is known to the world at large?

As always, my existence in itself seems to be a challenge to existing conventions.

There is a class of products out there that exist because they are products, barely. They are usually the cheapest products available of a certain kind and are from a brand most people have never heard of. People buy these products because they need XXX and this product happens to be XXX. These usually are not high-function hi-tech products like mp3 players or cellphones but simple products like clothes racks, garlic presses, ice cube trays, etc. sold in large retail stores like Walmart or Target. The user experience is often miserable, the manufacturing quality terrible, and many don’t last over few uses or years.

Look around you. Do you have barely products around you? Did you get the cheapest trashcan from the store instead of spending the time and finding the one that fit your life best? Did you comparison shop for the cutting boards in the kitchen?

Barely products are side effect of the incredible diversification of products we’ve had over the last few hundred years and the industrial production and consumption that accompanied it. When the average person could purchase and own only a few dozen kinds of products, they spent a lot of time thinking about them and getting the right ones. They also knew the people making and selling the products that if something went wrong, even if the notion of warranties didn’t exist, the producer and the seller would lose social currency within the community.

I’m not arguing against the centuries of progress that we’ve made in bringing new and more products to the masses, but I do wonder if we are on the right vector when many of the things we buy go from the store to landfill so quickly. Do we need a mechanism to establish minimally acceptable products even if that means more expensive products? and if so, what will this look like?

Almost a year ago, I had the joy and pleasure to talk about design at TEDxNHH in their standard 18 minute presentation format. As a firm believer that one learns best from doing, not only hearing and seeing, in the time allotted, I launched the TEDxNHH design challenge where I provided step-by-step instructions on redesigning for improvement. Through the instructions, I tried to spread the underlying principles and thinking modes behind design thinking.

Also, thinking that sharing and having a place to share would be a motivator, I created a Twitter hashtag and an e-mail address where people can submit their results.

Nothing happened, or at least nothing happened as much as I could see.

I know that getting people to act is incredibly difficult, but I hoped that at least few out of the three hundred people audience would participate (and I dreamed that many more will participate via the online video clip).

This doesn’t mean that some people didn’t try the design challenge or that my talk made absolutely no impact, but I would consider it a near catastrophic failure on my part…

Which isn’t a bad thing. I learned a lot from the experience: how it feels to listen to different talks with no common theme back-to-back, how such events were organized and executed (and the TEDxNHH hosts did brilliantly), or how we all have everyday lives to go back to after being inspired.

It also got me thinking a lot about the TED format.

I love TED. I’ve watched hundreds of talks, on trains, on planes, everywhere. The presentations are incredibly well crafted, the length is perfect for casual viewing, and the content is almost always interesting. TED has done an amazing job of spreading “Ideas worth spreading,” and even spreading itself through the TEDx platform.

But why do we want to spread ideas?

I would argue that it is ultimately to create change, change for the better. Many of the people presenting at TED are taking on the world’s greatest challenges and trying to improve the world with what they believe in. If that is the end goal, can we do better?

We have this ingrained belief that the spread of information will cause change, and while that’s still true today, the effect is thinning. Once upon a time, spreading information was expensive, usually requiring labor and resource intensive physical media production and distribution. Now we live in the age of information overload, and there is an overabundance of inspirations fighting for our limited attention.

While I agree that video is a great medium for spreading ideas, is it the best way of spreading change?

The TED prize is a step in the right direction. For those who haven’t come across it yet:

The TED Prize is designed to leverage the TED community’s exceptional array of talent and resources. It is awarded annually to an exceptional individual who receives $100,000 and, much more important, “One Wish to Change the World.” After several months of preparation, s/he unveils his/her wish at an award ceremony held during the TED Conference. These wishes have led to collaborative initiatives with far-reaching impact.

But I think more could be done to support those who are trying to change the world for the better. I don’t know what a platform for change could look like, but I bet there is someone out there with the bright idea, and I hope he or she will get more than 18 minutes.

P.S. I originally titled this post “You can’t change the world in 18 minutes,” but then realized that I really don’t believe in that statement. The world definitely changes in 18 minutes, and one can at least start to change the world in 18 minutes.

Properties of environments where things happen:

• People don’t need permission to do things.
• There is a mechanism for people to find others with similar interest and interact.
• There are resources available for people to find and fulfill what they are lacking.

Where can you find all three? Few places I can think of: Silicon Valley, University Campuses, the Internet. (I don’t know enough about Google but from what I hear, I think it comes close)

For those who are trying to design innovative companies, active design programs, of the Silicon Valley of ______ (insert country or geographic location here), are you lacking something?

For those that are trying to create an authoritarian government, make sure the above three things don’t come together.

Does anyone want to buy this for me?

And I wonder how much sushi.com is.