MIT MEDIA IN TRANSITION 2007 CONFERENCE
April 27 - 29, 2007. Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Foresight Lead Mathew Lincez presented his recent paper “Le Confiture: A Jam, Jarring Cultural Preserves” at the fifth annual Media in Transition conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The conference aims to generate a conversation that compares historical forms of cultural expression with contemporary media practices. This year’s topic of creativity, ownership and collaboration in the digital age meshes perfectly with his on-going projects in remix and emergent digital cultural communication techniques.
WOMEN IN GAMES 2007 CONFERENCE
April 19-21, 2007. University of Wales, Newport, Wales, UK.
Annie Spencer presented her paper “Sex, Suicide & Divinity” at the Women in Games 2007 conference. The annual event highlights the most recent, groundbreaking work in computer game research and development to both academic and industrial worlds and aims to empower and facilitate professional development for women working in and researching into games and the games industry. Her paper was enthusiastically received and many attendees were impressed by the Beal methodologies she introduced. Annie also met and made many useful contacts, including Alice Taylor, director of Digital Media Content for the BBC in Hollywood; Liz Goodbeth, who heads the SmartLab Digital Media Institute at the University of East London; and Suzanne Stein, alumni and faculty at the CFC Media Lab and a member of the foresight team at Nokia.
JUMP ASSOCIATES WORKSHOP AT DESIGNWORKS
April 5, 2007
The Beal Institute organized the Jump Associates workshop at Rotman’s Designworks initiative, held on April 5, 2007/ In a morning session, Jump presented a brief sampling of their capabilities, demonstrating recent perspectives in opportunity mapping, scenario planning, and developments in innovation action plans, management systems, and collaborative workspaces through the creation of ideation sessions.
ROTMAN BUSINESS DESIGN SPEAKER SERIES/ DEV PATNAIK
April 5, 2007
The Beal Institute has organized and sponsored the lecture “New Opportunitites” by Devg Patnaik, founder of JUMP Assocites of San Mateo, California.
STRATEGIC CREATIVITY IN EUROPE
March 19-28, 2007
Alexander Manu visited several European countries in March 2007. In Denmark, he discussed new focuses on innovation, expanding on critical ideas in The Imagination Challenge in a meeting hosted by the Danish Design Centre.
In Finland, Manu was invited to speak at the Finish Design Forum with a group of professors, government and business people abut the value of innovation along with Tuula Antola. He also met with Jussi Lystimaki of Idean, Peter McGrory, director of the Design Leadership and
Management program, and Markku Salimaki, Director of the
Helsinki School of Economics; Together, they’ve have started planning Strategic Foresight Workshops for September 2007
Lastly in France, Manu explored opportunities for strategic foresight courses in France in meeting with Liz Davis, Responsable pédagogique at the Responsable Studio international, Les Ateliers/Ensci
UPCOMING EVENT: Hans Jensen, director of the Learning Lab Denmark in Copenhagen, will be visiting the Beal June 18-19, 2007.
SXSW INTERACTIVE 2007
March 9-13, 2007. Austin, Texas
Michele Perras attended South by Southwest, an incubator of new, cutting-edge technology, with some of the world’s most creative web developers, designers, bloggers, wireless innovators and new media entrepreneurs, including Kathy Sierra, Alex Steffen, Bruce Sterling, Henry Jenkins, Phil Torrone, and Will Wright. In addition to attending the captivating keynote presentations and scintillating panel sessions, Michele also made many new business connections on behalf of the Beal Institute at the three-day Trade Show & Exhibition.
LIFT '07
February 7-9, 2007. Geneva, Switzerland
Michele Perras attended LIFT07, an international conference devoted to discussing the opportunities and challenges presented by technology in society, culture and business. Designed to encourage social networking and openness between participants, this conference created an intensive space where the sessions fuelled animated conversations and exploration. Community events included a 300+ person fondue, art installations, open stage talks and interactive games. Conference organizers also provided space for participant authors to promote their books in the Author's Room. Representing Alexander Manu, Michele discussed key concepts and methods from The Imagination Challenge with fellow LIFTers, and was pleased to see the book sell out almost immediately.
TRANSINNOVA
January 19, 2007
The Beal Institute welcomed members of Transinnova, a non-profit network with French National and Regional Institutions, to the office for a presentation from Alexander Manu. Transinnova visited the Beal as a part of a series of corporation visits and meetings called VirtualTech2, focusing on info and communication technology, with an emphasis on Digital Economy and multimedia development.
BROOKLYN POLYTECHNIC GUEST LECTURE
December 8, 2006
Matthew D. Jones and Richard Thomas delivered a layered and provocative online seminar on the subject of Duality in Dataspace for students at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn. The presentation and discussion grappled with new paradoxes and opportunities arising in the realm of spaces, tools, communities and identities through our increasing use of digital networks.
The opportunity for outreach arose through an invitation of the Beal Institute's Greg Van Alstyne, who is enrolled as candidate for Master of Science through Brooklyn Polytechnic's Integrated Digital Media Institute (IDMI). Co-organized with Deborah Levitt, PhD, of the New School for Social Research, the event was tailored for the penultimate session of Levitt's History of Media course, which traces developments in media from early civilizations through the present, looking at the causes and conditions—technological, political, socio-cultural, and aesthetic—that provoke or permit new media to emerge.
To facilitate the Internet-enabled seminar, Beal associates at the Ontario College of Art & Design uploaded a presentation file on the IDMI wiki site, and connected via Apple's iChat and iSight video conference tools with the similarly-equipped Integrated Digital Media lab at Brooklyn Polytechnic.
ROTMAN BUSINESS DESIGN SPEAKER SERIES/ ROBERT BLAICH
December 6, 2006
The Beal Institute has organized and sponsored the lecture “Product Design and Corporate Strategy: Managing the Connection for Competitive Advantage” by Robert Blaich, a session in the Rotman Business Design Speaker Series. The lecture followed by a reception took place at the Rotman School of Management.
DESFORM 2006 EUROPEAN WORKSHOP ON DESIGN & SEMANTICS OF FORM & MOVEMENT
October 26, 2006. Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
Richard Thomas presented his paper "A New Dialogue" at the 2006 European Workshop on Design & Semantics of Form & Movement. The scope of the conference is the design of products, systems and services with a focus on the meanings conveyed by the products and how they behave. DeSForM 2006 aims at a further exploration and exploitation of the development of design semantics in a systematic and scientific way.
LOOK INSIDE
October 21, 2006
The Beal Institute participated in OCAD’s annual “Look Inside!” event. Beal staff spoke about the Beal’s philosophy and process with the diverse group of people who attended. Exciting dialogue ensued, prompted by curious visitors considering how to bridge their own “Imagination Gap.”
STRATEGIC CREATIVITY IN ASIA - TOUR 2
October 2006
September 29th, Alexander Manu and Lenore Richards met with key executives from LG Electronics, in Seoul, South Korea. The meeting focused on discussing a framework for the BISC and LG to partner on a strategic innovation research plan.
October 2nd, Alexander Manu gave the keynote speech at the Taiwan Design Forum, entitled “The Imagination Gap: How Strategic Imagination can Drive Change.”
October 4th, Alexander Manu and Lenore Richards met with staff of the Taiwan Design Centre to review the Taiwan 5 Year Plan for
Design Research, authored by Alexander Manu as part of a consulting agreement between the Beal Institute and the Taiwan Design Centre.
DYNAMIC SPACE, DYNAMIC IDENTITY
June 2006
Richard Thomas and Catharine MacIntosh traveled to Phillips Design in Eindhoven with Senior Associate Researcher and Phillips correspondent Job Rutgers to present their latest findings in the development of ambient experience design and the perception of meaning through human interaction within spatial environments. Their presentation was the finale of a project exploring seamless architecturally embedded ambient environments capable of dynamically responding to and expressing individual identities.
Their visit resulted in the production of a considerable collection of intellectual property, three pending patents, a demonstration in their annual corporate exhibition, and an induction to the Philips Intellectual Property & Standards Inventors Database as the inventors of Re:684555 Ambient Experience to Enable Intuitive Orientation.
MEDIA ECOLOGY ASSOCIATION @ BOSTON
June 8-11, 2006. Boston College, Massachusetts
Duality in DataSpace: A Media Ecology Perspective
Insight Lead Matthew Jones presented his paper “Duality in DataSpace: A Media Ecology Perspective” at the Seventh Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association: Prologues to Exploration, in Boston in June.
STRATEGIC CREATIVITY IN ASIA - TOUR 1
April 2006
Director Alexander Manu visits Nagoya, Singapore, Taipei and Seoul, meeting with design and business innovators, lecturing and organizing Imagination sessions.
In Nagoya, Alexander visited the International Design Centre Nagoya (IDCN) and discussed new possible Strategic Creativity opportunities with Toyota.
In Singapore, he met with several educational institutions: Temasek
Polytechnic, Nanyang Polytechic, NUS: National University of Singapore, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. In meetings with officials from the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts, joined by executives from the Designers Association Singapore, the Beal was asked to serve as a consultant in establishing the thematic approach for the 2009 ICSID Congress to be held in Singapore.
In the summer of 2006, the Beal collaborated with the Taiwan Design Centre research group in sharing methods developed so far by the Beal. Alexander Manu was invited to hold three Strategic Creativity workshops at the TDC in October 2006 for in house researchers at the TDC as well as local research groups.
Lastly in Seoul, Alex met with several Korean institutions have become collaboration partners of the Beal Institute as of October 2006: the Hong-ik Graduate School of Industrial Arts, the Design Innovation Centre, and the International School of Advanced Design. In collaboration with Professor Soon-In Lee, Director of the Design
Innovation Centre, the Beal is exploring opportunities for Strategic
Creativity Workshops to be delivered every six months to leaders
of Korean industry and educational institutions.
