Tim Hetherington, the British director and conflict photographer was killed ‘Wednesday April 20, 2011′ while filming rebel violence in Libya.

“He wants to live long enough to witness a new, post-genomic fiction, one that grasps the interpenetrating loops of inheritance and upbringing so tangled that every cause is some other cause’s effect. One that, through a kind of collaborative writing, shakes free of the prejudices of any individual maker. For now, fiction remains at best a scattershot mood-regulating concoction – a powerful if erratic cocktail like Ritulin for ADHD, or benzodiazepines for the sociophobe. In time, like every other human creation, it will be replaced by better, more precise molecular fine-tuning.”
— from ‘Generosity’ by Richard Powers

I already have the voices: what I’m dreaming right now are the instructions that come with the voices, the writing of the instructions, and the packaging of the writing. A writing like radar and radio and radiation and reckless love sonnets and an everyday kind of yesterday; a packaging like homelessness.

In William Gibson’s ‘Spook Country’ there’s a guy who chalks out GPS grids on the floor of whatever structure he is presently staying in and refuses to sleep in the same square twice. I think about him so much – I mean ‘think’ in a nameless, fraying, post-calculative sort of way. The guy’s in deep – real deep – in some ghostly new world that’s coming. A witness to tomorrow’s unimaginable ordinary. People like this make me feel very still, make me able to smile – and disappear. People like this I can trust.

I think about fictional banking and the set of all people who dream of knockin’ in Mitsubishi’s. About landscape poetry and linear deepening and superflatness and cardboard. There are days when every single thought feels like the gift of buddhas. And there are days when I find myself wondering which will disappear first: all my hesitations or all my friends.

“True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one’s self; but the point is not only to get out – you must stay out, and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand.” — Henry James

I think about the different ways different writers take us to the edge of the abyss: Roberto Bolano for example, whose ’2666′ contains a three hundred page section that catalogues the murders of over a hundred women in paragraphs of blank forensic detail wrapped around images of a hallucinatory televisual ‘Mexico’; or Jane Austen, whose graceful and intricate novels contain little UXBs of addressed human sadness, such as when the heroine of ‘Persuasion’ is forced once more to learn ‘the art of knowing our own nothingness beyond our own circle’. I try and imagine Jane Austen inside the world of ‘Spook Country’ or wandering the wastelands that surround the maquiladoras of Bolano’s nightmare. But the real mystery here is this: I imagine her safe.

I look for things to give you that wont waste a second of your time. Things like this 19 minute video diary for instance by war reporter Tim Hetherington, Or these – though I’m a little less confident about them! – these images of I know not what. Mexican ice creams for Jane perhaps, or midnight hats for her to wear in the midst of some absorbing errand. I really dont know.

Until next time

shenyen

Scott Weaver’s Rolling through the Bay from The Tinkering Studio on Vimeo.

Scott Weaver has spent 35 years creating this conceptual model of his very own San Francisco. It’s sweet and a bit twee, but demonstrates how models and gaming methods can be very useful for mapping complex relationships of flow, time, space, user needs, change… “Every doorway has something different,” he says. Or was that Lao Tse as well?

Q: What’s most important to you now?
A: Work wise to stay in transformation together with clients. That means to not accept “because-I’m-the-client” kind of directions, but also not accepting us offering off the shelf directions – even if someone asks and pays for it. The main interest in work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning, as someone said.

Q: What does your typical day look like?
A: I cook myself a quite ambitious breakfast and eat it. I come in a bit late. I then spend 50-70% of my day on administration and meetings. Rest of the time I use trying to figure things out and create.

Q: What is the wildest design practice you have done in recent years?
A: Last year, Imaginary Life, that I run with Tanya Kim Grassley, worked on a project called the Conspiracy for Good. We created a marketing and design strategy for a pilot project and participatory drama that we all felt had the potential to drive voluntary work for good.
Besides a lot of strategy and communications briefing work, I created a design system built on an unfolding grid, that enabled the participants to code messages with paper craft folding. Most of the design profile was shared hi-res, like the logo for artists and participants to use and interpret. The same elements still needed to be configurable for clear official messages. And everything needed to work online, on screen, on mobile, in print, in moving image and so on. So, it was “wildness” in the sense that the design strategy had a built-in lack of control that is very unusual for design systems.

Q: Please describe a moment/thing/person that has a strong influence on your work.
A: I am very inspired by two artists I work with, Goldin+Senneby. They have a way of exposing our financial reality as fiction, and a way of proving fiction to be very real. A Bataille quote that they used as a title for one of their works says it well: “Each thing seen is the parody of another, or is the same thing in a deceptive form.” My strategic practice at Imaginary Life teaches me to constantly redefine and understand what it is to live in an economical system such as ours. My personal design work helps me keep an open eye to everyday visual groupings, and sometimes the ability to understand the narrative they produce.

Q: Who is a leading-edge designer in your mind and ask him/her a question.
A: I’ve come back to Stefan Sagmeister lately. For example his identity work for Casa da Musica, Portugal. I find it both explorative and to the point, connecting the building, the people working there, historic composers and contemporary events in one visual system.
My question to Mr. Sagmeister: I would love to hear if he did work connecting dimensions of a company on another axis than the visual; for example one stretching from business strategy to new modes of business relationships, or joint company/consumer transformation processes where design is a catalyst or interface for co-creation.

Q: What has made you say Wow lately?
A: I just discovered an overlooked street in Nausea by Satre: “The city has forgotten about it. […] There are not even murders there for lack of murderers and victims. Boulevard Noir is inhuman. Like a mineral. Like a triangle.
Wow. Never before have I encountered such a strong portrait of an empty street.

Here are some notes we used in China on turning risk into value.
将风险转化为价值

The reality: Resources- both material and human – come at an increasing cost. Which makes business more and more risky – financially, environmentally, and socially. At the same time, customers are going “back to basics”. They are claiming the service, that has been stripped away by mass production. Once again they are demanding value in exchange for buying a product. Consequently, two different economies are emerging. The thriving and the struggling.

现实：物质资源和人力资源的成本与日俱增，这使得商业活动在财经，环境，和社会方面所面临的风险越来越大。与此同时，顾客却“回归基本”，他们寻求在批量生产下荡然无存的服务。他们亦要求在购买产品时所获得的价值。这两大不同的经济主体应运而生：一个破勃发展，一个苦苦挣扎。

Consumer demands: Not only do people expect companies to make great products, but they also want those products to be fixed, serviced and exchanged. They want all the experiences a product enables – on demand. Having access to these experiences is even more important than ownership. Car companies are helping people choose their holidays, shoe companies are offering lifetime guarantees, and mobile phone companies are letting entrepreneurs develop new services for them. From an X perspective, “service” is the central business proposition, and products are just one way to deliver customer value.

客户需求：人们不仅期待企业能生产出更好的产品，也希望这些产品可以被调整，服务到位且可相互交换。他们希望产品能包含他们对于体验所有的期望。拥有这些体验比拥有产品本身更为重要。汽车企业帮助人们选择度假的方式，鞋厂提供终生保修，移动电话公司正在企业家的帮助下发展崭新的业务。从X的角度来看，“服务”是商业活动的主题，而产品只是实现客户价值的一种途径。

How to leap ahead: Successful companies are organizing themselves to co-create service value through relationships with other entities in society. They are thriving because they have restructured their business and revenue models to deliver service when and where it is wanted. But this doesn’t mean a company has to do everything. They partner with other companies, municipalities, consumers and entrepreneurs, so they can lead in their field across different areas of consumer life. They see their organization as an adaptive network. This is only achieved with clear processes and tools.

如何走在前列：成功的企业通过和社会上其他实体建立合作伙伴关系，重组自身从而共同创造服务价值。这些企业可以何时何地地重组业务和收益模式，因而更好地传递服务–这是他们成功的秘籍所在。但是这并不意味着企业要包揽一切事务。他们与其他企业，当地政府，顾客和企业家进行合作，在顾客生活的各领域里占据领先地位。他们视其自身的组织机构是一个可以调整的网络。实现它只需有清晰的步骤和方法即可。

The Power of X helps its client partners create tools to generate engagement and solutions across a growing value chain. Shared analysis and proven actions create shared beliefs. We develop and amplify the service aspects of our clients’ business, internally and externally, streamlining all the processes and logistics that deliver genuine value. We are a network of independent professionals, with international experience, from diverse areas of expertise, like retail, design, marketing and branding, digital development and business consulting.

The power of X 帮助客户合作者创造工具，实现融入日渐增长的价值链之上，并找到解决方案。共享分析和久经考验的行动创造共同的信念。我们内外合力，发展扩展客户业务的服务面， 一体化所有的流程和后勤服务以传递真正的价值。我们拥有独立的专业人员网络，丰富的国际化专业知识，业务涉及零售，设计，市场营销，品牌设计，数字发展和商业咨询等领域。

The Power of X is a process facilitation partner for using design thinking and business model innovation to develop service value and tackle strategic change. The power of X is founded by Boy’s Don’t Cry & Imaginary Life.

The power of X 利用设计思维和商业模式创新，协助推动发展服务价值，解决战略性变革。the power of x 是由Boy’s Don’t Cry 和 Imaginary Life 共同创办。

Successful global companies know who they are first and foremost. They have a 2020 vision, and a roadmap of how to get there. A clearly defined 2020 brand vision will help your business rise above product category, economic downturn and consumer trends. Successful companies can survive change because they are designing change. This means asking the right questions at the right time: How do you want to serve people and society? What are the needs of the people who make up your business?

成功的全球化企业首先要有自知之明。他们有着2020年的视野，对于如何达到目标了然于胸。 一个定义清晰的2020品牌视野将会帮助提升你的生意，超越产品类别，走出低迷的经济和萧条的消费趋势。成功的企业之所以能在变化莫测的世界中存活下来是因为就是他们在设计着这些变化。这意味着要在正确的时间问正确的问题：你想如何服务于人们和社会？你的顾客有什么需求？

At Imaginary Life, we see brands as partnership platforms. Branding engages people in a shared vision; people at the company, partners in the value chain, end consumers, and even competitors. Imaginary Life designs global communications platforms for people to engage in and share your company’s brand vision.

在Imaginary Life, 我们将品牌视为合作平台。设计品牌将所有的人融合到了一个共同视野之中；企业员工，在价值链上的合作伙伴，终端的消费者，甚至是竞争对手。Imaginary Life设计全球交流平台，让人们参与其中，共享你们公司的品牌视野。

Our work also aims to improve your existing product offering, introduce your brand to new markets, and define how you can expand with new products and services – through modern brand communications practices. The good news is that you can start designing the future today. You already have a lot of potential customers across the world that will share your vision. And with the help of the Internet, you can be anywhere and everywhere they want you to be. So forget about advertising – for a moment. Design your 2020 Vision with perfect clarity, and let people share it.

我们的工作旨在通过现代品牌交流实践，提升你们现有的产品销售，帮助你们的品牌打入新市场，定义你们的新产品，新服务，扩展业务。有一个好消息：你可以从现在开始，设计未来。在全球，你有很多和你们有着共同愿景的潜在客户。在互联网的帮助下，你可以出现在他们希望你出现在的任何角落。暂时忘记广告吧！清晰细致地设计你的2020愿景，和人们一起分享吧！

Imaginary Life is a brand and business development agency that designs integrated brand communications and partnership platforms. We have worked with some of the world’s leading brands, crossing categories such as cars, energy, consumer goods, telecom, and nation branding.

Imaginary life 是一家品牌和商业发展机构，将设计融入到品牌交流与合作平台之上。我们同一些世界上的卓越品牌进行合作，行业跨度之大包括了诸如汽车，能源，消费品，电信，国家品牌各领域。

The Merkel/Sarkozy fiscal reform plan (or the Merkozy recipe, as the Economist calls it, kindly leaving us to read “for disaster”…) aims to impose more automatic penalties for European governments spending over 3% of GDP, pretty much forgetting the fact that our democratic right to vote in leaders relies on the notion that those leaders actually have some kind of authority to define our own local/national economic policies with the support of their citizens. And what happens when our elected leaders don’t pull the Merkozy line? More imposed penalties and debts. Doesn’t anyone see the irony here?
Europe is in a state of panic, a rabbit frozen in the headlights of big banks, passively willing to sacrifice our constitutions with a blanket EU treaty that can permanently cripple vital public spending. Public spending- that, by the way, got us out of the Great Depression of 1930s, for example, that was also caused by blanket fiscal policies such as this. As the Economist kindly reminds us: take a look at Europe’s experience in the 1930s of monetary rigidity without a lender of last resort—see article). Europe, so old and cold and settled in its ways.
Why is that we lack such vision, or such basic common sense, that could manage any vision of change, without reactionary heavy-handedness? Why is that any truly “European vision” that has emerged throughout history, grows up to be nothing more than an ugly nightmare of someone else’s making? Consultants get your pitches ready. If it’s all left to Enterprise to design society, we had better start reframing every aspect of the human experience in purely monetary terms.