IFTFs Future Now: The Future of Presence::
I did this for life style reasons, but it is nice to know I also am cutting my for personal visits, and expanded my use of blogs, wikis and other social media.
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Last week, I visited the MIT Media Laboratory in Cambridge, MA. Though Interpublic and McCann have been financial supporters of the lab throughout the years, Ive never had the opportunity to visit and tour the facilities. With some clients funding research, I was given able to accompany a group of visitors to the lab for a one-day immersion session.
All I can say is, thats some very cool stuff. Design Sojourn | Strategic Industrial Design Blog How to sketch a ::
The MIT media labs are just too cool. Starting a Wee War in My Browser is a Sign of Things to Come! The Future of Creativity and Design
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Though its impossible to grasp, in an eight-hour visit, all the work being conducted at the lab, we did get to sample many different research areas. Some of that research is direct applicable to interactive marketers.
Our guide was Dr. John Maeda, associate professor of design and computation and director of the Physical Language Workshop at the Media Lab. Maeda is spearheading research that embraces the concept of simplicity. As reported by The New York Times (May 20, 2004), Despite the lip service paid to ease of use, plug and play, and one-click shopping, simplicity is an endangered quality in the digital world... and it is time to break free from technologys intimidating complexity. Think Google: simple, quick, intuitive.
Maeda took us first to the Physical Language Workshop, where researchers are working on tools for creating digital content in a networked environment, and the means by which the content can be leveraged. Their primary areas of focus are general digital media service architectures, global e-commerce, distance education, and visual information display systems. We previewed a number of projects, ranging from simple applets to make sharing digital images easier, to more complex systems that would make organizing, searching, and sharing all digital information (video, audio, data, etc.) quicker, easier, and more intuitive. I knew I was looking at the next generation of search and digital asset management tools.
Next was the The Business Innovation Insider: The once and future MIT Media Lab::
According to the Boston Globe, the legendary MIT Media Lab (a hub of the 1990s February 2 Innovation linkage, Super Bowl Style. Innovation in urban warfare
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RAI partners with MIT::
a common vision of the future of media and the development of new technologies. Style orders Making It Big Planet Green taps Lagasse. ABC Family
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Interactive Experience Group, where we were greeted by Dr. Pattie Maes, an associate professor of Media Arts and Sciences. The goal of the Interactive Experience Group is to radically rethink the human-machine interactive experience... creating systems that are more responsive to peoples needs and actions, and that become true accessories for expanding our minds. Within this group, much of the personalization intelligence (e.g., the engine that powers Amazons recommendation functions) was conceptualized and created. In fact, the technology for creating personalized Web experiences was completed at MIT in the early 90s, though it didnt become commercially widespread for 10 years. Its now commonplace across the Web.
Another project of particular interest was the interaction of RFID tags between a cellular device and a wearable personal accessory, such as a wristwatch or bracelet. The wristwatch is embedded with an RFID reader. When someone picks up an object with an RFID tag in the physical world, such as a book, the wristwatch reads the tag and communicates via Bluetooth with the cell phone. The cell phone display then gives a wealth of information about the book: reviews, summary, similar books, one-click ordering, and so on. The systems possibilities are truly limitless.
The Sociable Media Group investigates issues concerning society and identity in the networked world. This area is red hot, with the proliferation of communities such as Friendster, orkut, Ryze, and Meetup, to name a few. Some of the specific projects we saw dealt with the visualization of conversations in the digital sphere (social networks, online newsgroups, message boards, e-mail boxes, etc.). Looking back at our interactions with others and viewing them as constellations or connected grids (or any other visual metaphor) has tremendous implications for both the commercial and intelligence communities. I was astonished to see a five-year inbox converted into a graphical representation of conversations and the conclusions that can be drawn by looking at the data in that way.
Its nearly impossible to do justice to the research being conducted at the MIT Media Lab in a forum such as this. I strongly encourage you to spend time on the lab Web site and browse around some of the research being conducted. All the people we met were warm, inviting, and open to discussion. Im sure theyd welcome e-mail from someone in the trenches so they can marry their laboratory experience and academic rigor with real-world applicability.
Its not often you can peek at the future. Last week, I did -- and it was awesome!
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The Future of Media, MIT-Style