tumble together

On an album like Sgt Pepper’s it almost seems unfair to...

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 17:48:00 +1100

On an album like Sgt Pepper’s it almost seems unfair to say that one track stands out. But it’s hard to ignore the sheer scope of the album’s closing track, A Day in the Life, a track Rolling Stone said “made rock’s possibilities seem infinite.”

It’s hard to pick a track from the Beatles catalogue that better reflects the two unique songwriting talents at the heart of the group. Paul’s upbeat bridge a great foil to John’s prosaic verse. This was the two in absolute sync, separate identities fused into one song worthy of them both.

Musical experimentation

It’s not just the songwriting that shines in the track. There was much inventiveness and whimsy in the decision to include a high-frequency dog whistle on the track.

And by encoding a musical loop into the ‘inner groove’ of the record, the band acknowledged the experience of their listeners, who were tripping out even as the record was playing out.

The original four-part harmony recorded as the song’s ending was felt to not have enough impact, so they brought three grand pianos and a harmonium into the studio, and played the final E-major chord with 10 hands.

They sustained the chord by upping the recording volume as it faded out, so much so that you can hear the ambient sounds of the studio in the background. This was a band challenging themselves in the studio, and challenging their audience.

A lasting impression

When Lennon’s hand-written lyrics for A Day in the Life came up for auction 43 years after they’d been penned, they sold for $1.2 million.

Hardly surprising considering this was the final statement on the most ambitious album by the world’s greatest band at the height of their powers.

The cover version played by Jeff Beck in the video in this post is an apt tribute to this epic song. Stripped of its lyrical power, you’re left to marvel at the dual intertwined melodies.

As part of a new project for 2013 I’m calling 52SOUNDS, each...

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 00:48:00 +1100

As part of a new project for 2013 I’m calling 52SOUNDS, each week I’ll pick an album to explore in depth in a series of posts here. I’m looking to get even closer to the music I love, discover great albums that have passed me by, and to find out why some albums have become such defining cultural moments.

And because I believe music is an inherently social experience, I’ll be reaching out to my friends to have them nominate albums they love, so that I can explore those in conversation with them, tapping into their passion for their favourite records.

Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles (1967)

Rolling Stone called 1967’s Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band “the most important rock & roll album ever made” so it seems like the perfect place to kick off 52SOUNDS.

It’s an album I remember listening to 20 years ago on vinyl in my older brother’s bedroom, fascinated at how the opening title track segued seamlessly into With a Little Help from my Friends, and wondering who this enigmatic singer Billy Shears was.

If I was confused, then I wasn’t the only one. Sgt Pepper’s was the sound of the Beatles consciously trying to escape what they had become. Camouflaged behind the garish garb of the Lonely Hearts Club Band and joined by a collage cast of their creative peers, they had license to play the kind of free-wheeling concert they had hinted at on 1966’s Revolver.

No more soft music

The band were exhausted from relentless touring and were finding it increasingly difficult to arrange their ever-more expansive musical leanings into stadium-sized romps for frothing, Beatlemaniac teens.

Where John’s assessment at the time was characteristically blunt - “We’re fed up with making soft music for soft people, and we’re fed up with playing for them too” – Paul’s later reflection took on a more lyrical hue: “We were not boys, we were men… artists rather than performers.” Either way, though still together, the idea of the Fab Four was no more.

Guaranteed to raise a smile

Disillusioned with and yet unencumbered by their own brand, sonically grown-up, and tuned into a different zeitgeist to their fans, the stage was set for the Beatles to give their command performance, 40 minutes of the “world’s biggest rock band at the very height of its influence and ambition.”

Do you have a favourite track from the album? Let me know what it is in the comments.

My kitchen diary My Christmas present to myself this year was...

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 23:14:00 +1100

My kitchen diary

My Christmas present to myself this year was Nigel Slater’s cookbook, The Kitchen Diaries. I love Slater’s approach - simple, fresh ingredients, regular local shopping, and where possible, growing your own.

Tonight I made basil and bocconcini stuffed beef tomatoes, with toasted bread and olive tapenade. I would have photographed it but I forgot and ate it up so quickly there was nothing left to snap!

New Year’s Eve I made a delicious herb and barley broth, threw in the last of the dark meat leftovers from Christmas and served it with some really simple soft turkish bread.

There’s lots of leftovers so lunch is sorted, and with the insides of the tomato I made up some Spanish rice, which is a great accompaniment for mains this week.

Every now and then I’ll post my own kitchen diary posts here, reflecting my journey towards buying more local, cooking from fresh, feeding the family more healthily, and who knows, maybe even growing my own!

As delicious as they are, there are only so many turkey,...

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 20:17:56 +1100

As delicious as they are, there are only so many turkey, cranberry and stuffing sandwiches you can stomach after Christmas before you’re looking for something else to dress up the leftovers.

So I whipped up this quick pasta, which tasted great and had bags of flavour.

Pea, prosciutto & turkey pasta

Preparation and cooking time: 20 minutes

What you’ll need to feed 2

6 strips thinly sliced prosciutto

1 turkey breast (leftovers)

2/3 cup frozen peas

2 spring onions

4 cloves garlic

Splash red win vinegar

Pasta (I used bowties)

How to make it

Get some water boiling away in a medium-sized pot on the stove. Thinly slice the garlic and spring onions and cut the prosciutto into thin ribbons. Get a tablespoon of olive oil heated in a pan and throw in the chopped garlic, onions and prosciutto. Check how long your pasta takes to cook and get it into the water. Back to the pan, toss the onions, garlic and prosciutto around until things are getting brown and crispy, then pour in the splash of red win vinegar. It’ll deglaze the pan and add some zing to proceedings. Put the peas into the pan frozen and toss them around with everything else until they’re softened but not mushy. Drain your pasta, and stir through everything in the pan. Lastly, throw in a pinch of Italian spices (basil, oregano, marjoram - you can buy these pre-mixed at many supermarkets), tear up the turkey and add that.

Was a welcome change to turkey sandwiches. If you decide to cook it let me know in the comments and we can work out how to improve it together :)

I was looking for something light and tasty for dinner when I...

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 10:06:00 +1100

I was looking for something light and tasty for dinner when I came across this great little recipe for a Lebanese fattoush salad in the Guardian:

Angela Hartnett’s fattoush salad recipe

I couldn’t find sumac at my local Coles*, so I just upped the amount of lemon juice and peel that I included, as sumac has a tart lemony flavour.

I was worried the salad wouldn’t be filling enough so I pan seared some silverside beef steak strips and added them in.

As it turns out, I shouldn’t have worried as the salad is a healthy meal in its own right, but if you want to add some beef, I would recommend slicing the beef as thin as the pita bread so that it mixes well.

*I got a helpful heads up from a friend, Memi, that you can pick up sumac at the Lebanese grocer St Mina on Crown Street in Surry Hills, so next time I make this I’ll grab some sumac powder from there.

Four more years

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 21:02:41 +1100

Four more years

Photo

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 10:04:37 +1000

"1. Design makes all the difference 2. Design the organization 3. The product is the marketing 4...."

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 08:47:40 +1000

“1. Design makes all the difference
2. Design the organization
3. The product is the marketing
4. Design is systems thinking
5. Design out loud
6. Design is for the people
7. Design with conviction”

- The seven principles of designing insanely great products, from John Edson’s forthcoming book, Design Like Apple: The Seven Principles of Designing Insanely Great Products, Services, and Experiences.

(ᔥ Thought You Should See This)

‘Housing First’ is an approach to ending homelessness that...

Thu, 03 May 2012 15:02:00 +1000

‘Housing First’ is an approach to ending homelessness that centers on quickly providing homeless people with housing and then providing additional services as needed.

It is an approach first popularized by Sam Tsemberis and Pathways to Housing in New York in the 1990s (Padgett, 2007: 1928), though there were Housing First-like programs emerging elsewhere, including Canada (HouseLink in Toronto) prior to this time.

The basic underlying principle of Housing First is that people are better able to move forward with their lives if they are first housed. This is as true for homeless people and those with mental health and addictions issues as it is for anyone.

According to Pathways to Housing, “The Housing First model is simple: provide housing first, and then combine that housing with supportive treatment services in the areas of mental and physical health, substance abuse, education, and employment.”

As described by the Guardian: “When he’s bored,...

Thu, 03 May 2012 11:01:00 +1000

As described by the Guardian:

“When he’s bored, there’s nothing Damon Albarn likes to do more than knock out an Afro-pastoral folk opera. Especially when it’s an Afro-pastoral folk opera about a 16th-century mathematician.”

"The feeling that you may have just boarded a Scientology cruise ship is not accidental. It’s rooted..."

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:01:12 +1000

“The feeling that you may have just boarded a Scientology cruise ship is not accidental. It’s rooted partly in Silicon Valley’s techno-Rapturist soil, and partly in Anderson’s own evangelical yearnings. Those invited to speak at TED are mailed an actual stone tablet engraved with “The TED Commandments.” (One is “Thou Shalt Not Sell From the Stage”.) June Cohen, who runs TED’s media operation, told an audience two years ago that her sister-in-law calls the TED Talk “a secular sermon”. The atheist Daniel Dennett suggested that TED could “replace” religion, observing that it “already, largely wittingly I think, adopted a lot of the key design features of good religions”, including giving away content.”

- Really fascinating article all about the phenomenon that is TED.

http://www.afr.com/p/lifestyle/review/flat_out_talking_at_club_ted_pi8xrho3fx79WCiGkv1VeO

2012 is shaping up to be the year of the city. This project from...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:01:00 +1000

2012 is shaping up to be the year of the city.

This project from the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at the University College London is a dashboard that displays a single, open overview of almost all available data streams across eight different cities.

It’s all part of the smart city movement, which looks to bring data around environmental and social capital into the urban policy and planning process.

And 2012 is also the first year that the TED Prize didn’t go to a person. Instead, the TED Prize for 2012 went to a thing - The City 2.0

TED prize 2012: the city 2.0 from designboom on Vimeo.

I spoke at Vibewire’s fastBREAK event at the start of the year on how we can all nurture our creative and imaginative capabilities and put them to use on the things that matter most.

The CASA dashboard project starts to show how we can take real-time urban data streams and use them to come up with creative solutions to the most challenging issues in our cities: public disorder, crime, and homelessness.

I’m looking forward to seeing the reinvention of our cities kick into gear in 2012.

I’m on the board of The Awesome Foundation in Sydney,...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:31:00 +1000

I’m on the board of The Awesome Foundation in Sydney, where we help turn awesome thoughts into awesome deeds.

Experiments in micro-philanthropy

Every month we award a $1,000 no-strings-attached grant to the most awesome submitted application. Previous grant recipients include: a project to develop the world’s smallest patch synthesizer, the Green Bans Art Walk and Exhibition, and Physique, a weekly 80s themed aerobics night.

Our latest experiment in micro-philanthropy is a crowd-funded pitch night called Awesome Soup that is taking place on Saturday 2nd June at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

What is Awesome Soup?

The event is aimed at creative people who are awesome. Ten people will pitch their creative project ideas on the night, and the audience will debate which of the ideas they think is the most awesome and then vote for who gets $5,000.

How can I get involved in Awesome Soup?

APPLY

If there is a project you are working on or are thinking of working on that is awesome and could benefit from $5,000, then please consider applying to pitch your project idea live to the audience on the night at the event. Just head here and fill in the application form: http://www.bit.ly/awesomesoupapply

ATTEND

If you want to show your support for the Awesome Foundation and decide which project gets the $5,000 then please consider coming along to the event. For just $30 you get a delicious soup dinner, the chance to debate what is awesome and a vote on which project deserves the $5,000. Invite a few friends and make an awesome dinner date of it! To buy your ticket, head to http://bit.ly/awesomesoupattend

Help share the awesome news!

Everything we do at the Awesome Foundation is completely volunteer based, and organising an event like this takes quite a bit of effort. Any help you can give us by spreading the word would be much appreciated.

Please consider reblogging this post, tweeting about it (we’re @awesomefoundsyd, hashtag #awesomesoup), sharing it on Facebook and with any other creative awesome people and communities you know or are part of.

Thanks, and I really hope to see some of you at the event on Saturday 2nd June!

At the start of the year I spoke at the kick-off event for the...

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 15:49:00 +1000

At the start of the year I spoke at the kick-off event for the 2012 Vibewire fastBREAK series on the topic of Beginnings. You can watch all the five-minute talks from the event in this YouTube playlist - fastBREAK: Beginnings.

I wanted my 5-minute talk to serve as a provocation to members of the audience to nurture their creative and imaginative capabilities, and to put those capabilities to work on the problems that matter most.

It’s always interesting to watch yourself present. Lots of gesticulation, some verbal repetition and ticks, the gentle swaying from side to side - but overall I was pretty happy with the pacing and with the way I managed to connect with the audience.

I’m always grateful for opportunities to speak, as among other things they help me to improve the way I communicate.

I’ve been part of the fastBREAK series since I spoke at the inaugural event as part of the 2009 Innovation Festival. In 2012 I have been helping to source inspirational speakers for the series.

Do you know someone inspirational who would be perfect to speak at the fastBREAK series?

"The world is full of order that doesn’t necessarily deserve our respect. Sometimes there is meaning,..."

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:32:14 +1100

“The world is full of order that doesn’t necessarily deserve our respect. Sometimes there is meaning, justice, and logic present in the way things are — but sometimes there just isn’t. And I think the moment that we realize this is the moment we become creative people. Because it prompts us to mess things up and do something better with the basic pieces of experience.”

- Designer Kelli Anderson reflecting on her practice of ‘disruptive wonder’. Worth taking the time to watch her TEDxPhoenix talk below:

There is a great collection of videos over at the Tate Modern...

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:09:00 +1100

There is a great collection of videos over at the Tate Modern website that I’m enjoying exploring. There are over 300 artist interviews alone!

I especially loved Olafur Eliasson’s exhibition at the MCA in Sydney a while back, so worth checking out this clip. Click the image below to be taken to the website to watch the video:

Some of you may know that my better half Karla maintains a baby...

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 12:07:23 +1100

Some of you may know that my better half Karla maintains a baby fashion blog featuring our wonderful son Marshall. It’s called The Tiny Sartorialist and she’s been running it for nearly a year now.

The thing I love most about it is that she takes such incredible photos that really capture Marshall’s happy-go-lucky personality. The Tiny Sartorialist is a fantastic record of how joyous and delightful our family life is, and for that I’m really grateful.

And today The Huffington Post recognised just how awesome Karla and Marshall are by featuring a gallery of photos of Marshall from The Tiny Sartorialist. You can check out the full gallery over on the Huffington Post Parents section.

Really proud of Karla and really happy to be able to share the fun with more people.

Meet Faraday, one of three beautifully designed bicycles that...

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 22:26:30 +1100

Meet Faraday, one of three beautifully designed bicycles that came into being as a result of the Oregon Manifest Creative Collaborations.

Fittingly as I’ve been investigating service design of late, this is an IDEO x Rock Lobster collab joint.

Pretty much ticks all my boxes, and while I probably wouldn’t opt for an electric bicycle personally, this thing is a work of design genius.

Read more about this fantastic design over at IDEO, check out the website of the team that built it here, and read some reviews of the bike here and here.

Make sure you check out the other two Creative Collaborations entrants too, Fuseproject x SyCip Design’s The Local and Ziba Design x Signal Cycles’ The Fremont, both gnarly bicycle too.

Much of my time is taken up helping brands navigate the...

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 21:37:00 +1100

Much of my time is taken up helping brands navigate the fast-changing world of social media. So the recent Facebook Marketing Conference has given anyone who works with social media plenty to think about.

Alongside announcements about new advertising units, the biggest announcement was the launch of the Timeline page format for Brands. There are already a few great examples, but my favourite so far is the Fanta Facebook page.

I like it because it’s one big game.

The four Fanta characters are lost! Visitors to the page are tasked with scouring the decades to find each of the characters. When they find the characters they are then asked to Like the relevant status updates to return the characters to the Cover image.

I’m looking forward to seeing how other brands get creative with the new timeline format.

3 ways the Global Service Jam changed my life Last weekend I...

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:21:00 +1100

3 ways the Global Service Jam changed my life

Last weekend I took part in a service design jam in Sydney, one of many events taking place that weekend in 90 different cities all around the world as part of the Global Service Jam 2012 (GSJ12).

Reflecting on the experience, I can already see 3 key ways that GSJ12 in Sydney has changed my life meaningfully for the better:

1. It helped me realise what matters most to me

On Friday the global theme was announced that all Jammers across the world would be using as inspiration for the services they were to design. That theme was ‘Hidden Treasure’.

Placed on the spot to think about a user-centric service that was worth designing I immediately thought about the problem of homelessness. I have been fascinated by the challenge of addressing homelessness my whole life but had never found a clear way to get more involved.

The fact that it was such an easy decision to focus on homelessness showed me just how deeply held my belief is that this is a complex societal problem I care deeply about and want to work on.

2. It introduced me to new ways of thinking

I signed up for GSJ12 because I have been interested in design thinking for some time but have not found a way to incorporate more learning about it or practicing of it into my life.

Over the weekend we were mentored by a number of great facilitators. The were incredibly giving of their time and energy, and observing the way they operated opened my eyes to all sorts of new techniques and ways of thinking and acting.

We created personas to brainstorm need states, we role played, and we mapped out the touch points in our core stakeholders’ days. I learned so much about what Dave Gray and others have usefully called Gamestorming and I have already started to incorporate some of that thinking into my daily work.

3. I met many wonderful people

When you throw a bunch of strangers together and get them to collaborate on each others ideas over 48 hours, in that intense environment you learn lots about people very quickly. You also learn lots about yourself too.

Working with Jakob, Ollie and Jarryd was amazing and I can’t wait to catch up with them all again soon. Ben’s interest in our project gave me confidence that I was working on something that mattered and his understanding of the subject area was a real help.

Samuel, Christian, Jax, Alex and Michelle were all incredibly giving of their time, as were the totally amazing organisers. Meeting these and other people at the GSJ12 I already know has improved me as a human being and as a thinker and doer.

Taking part in the GSJ12 is something I would recommend to anyone looking to challenge themselves. The experience helped me recognise and work on the things that matter most to me, learn all about service design through doing it, and meet and work with inspiring people.

Can’t wait for next year!