October 2008 Archives

Last week, I realized that with all the time I've been devoting to my classwork and projects, perhaps I've been missing out on some of the other important aspects of life out here. I remembered my forgotten list of goals that I made before departing Chicago, and promised to review them for this week's reflection.

For the most part, I've made some progress in each area, although there's definitely room for improvement, especially on the bigger-picture goals and the others that can't be achieved solely inside the classroom. Something to keep in mind at least, as I navigate the next couple years at the JPD.

1) Become a better prototyper (both rapid and refined) - definitely improving with all my design projects in class

2) Learn to weld - had my first experience welding last week, with surprisingly encouraging results!

3) Improve soldering skills and circuit design

4) Become a better sketcher - getting there, between the sketching sessions and art classes

5) Learn to design/spec a bathroom or kitchen (sketching, colors, textures, etc) - learning a lot about colors and textures in Art so far, although not kitchen/bath specific

6) Go from identifying/appreciating good design to being able to create my own good designs - just a slow, gradual process that'll take practice

7) Figure out where I fit in the whole design world and design cycle - hoping to figure this one out in the next 2 years, we'll see...

8) Figure out my true long-term life and career aspirations - ditto...

9) Be less risk and change-averse - definitely feeling more comfortable getting outside my comfort zone, between the supportive Loft community and all the improv exercises

10) Develop my professional network - haven't done nearly enough with this yet, with professors' office hours, seminars, local design events, etc.

11) Develop a new media profile (website, resume, letterhead, etc)

12) Improve web programming skills

13) Become a better photographer/videographer - find myself "seeing" good photos and wishing I had a camera with me more often

14) Improve computer modelling skills

Just a blog formatting update -

I changed the Comments settings, so anyone who previously tried to leave a note can now do so without being required to register or provide an email address.

Unleash the questions, comments, and snide remarks...

So here we are, at the start of the 5th week at the JPD (that's the Joint Program in Design for the non-initiated out there). I actually had to check a calendar to figure out just how long I've been doing the design thing out here. Days seem to both fly by and drag on forever at the same time. It was just a couple days ago that I was reflecting on the progress I'd made in just the first 2 weeks... ...and then another 2 weeks just passed.

Lately, I've been trying to be at the Design Loft (my home away from home) by around 9-10am each day, and I come home somewhere between 1-4am, pretty much just to sleep. Getting to bed by 2am now feels like a pretty good early night.

I'm not sure whether I am slow, inefficient or just plain busy. It's probably a mix of all three, although I honestly don't find myself wasting that much time at the Loft (maybe my loft-neighbors would disagree).

Everyone who's been through this before tells me that it's just a matter of figuring out priorities, setting time limits for yourself, and just working faster. So far that hasn't really happened for me. On the one hand, I don't want to work myself to death and make life miserable for the next two years. However, on the other hand, I also want to get as much out of this program as I can, not cutting corners or shortchanging myself. It's going to be a difficult balance, especially for someone as particular and prone to perfectionism as myself.

At the moment, I find myself treading water furiously, and just barely keeping afloat.

There's so much more at the JPD, Stanford, and in the Bay Area than just classwork, and I certainly don't want to miss out on anything. Personal connections and professional networks; interesting seminars, lectures and guest speakers; pursuit of my greater career and life goals; on-campus activities... the list goes on.

Before I moved out to California, I started a list of goals for the next two years. With all the craziness of the last few weeks, I actually hadn't even thought about that list since leaving Chicago, until just now. I'd probably be well-served to take another look, and evaluate whether my efforts thus far have been focused on those goals. Just guessing, I think I've probably gotten a little carried away with all my projects and a little too bogged down in the details, and have been missing the bigger picture of why I'm here.

I'll report back next week with my findings.

Our first design project for ME313, Human Values & Innovation in Design, was a short two-day project on the divide between the digital and physical worlds, especially as it related to digital assets and memories.

Problem Statement:
The digital age has brought many affordances such as digital imaging and easy video recording, but their ease of use has not been without a cost. The success of digital technologies has created a deep gulf between physical experiences and digital ones, and experiences such as passing a photograph around has almost vanished entirely. Even though we have evolved as creatures who have an intimate relationship with the physical world, our digital experiences underutilize our intuitive understanding of physical spaces and manipulating physical objects.

The ease and low cost associated with photography causes a flood of images, a huge back-end task that is difficult to get around to. One's memories get buried among hundreds of folders.

Design Challenge:
Create a novel experience in the physical world to deal with one's memories and digital assets. Express your concept in any medium that you are comfortable with.

Solution:
I began by outlining the problem I wanted to address: digital photography has made it so easy to take, edit, and store photos, I end up with thousands of pictures in countless folders on my computer that begin to lose their relevance and significance in my life. After being filed away in deeply nested folders, I rarely revisit these pictures, perhaps when I occasionally clean out my hard drive or if I accidentally open a wrong folder.

Those occasions when I do browse through my old photos are wonderful. I enjoy the element of surprise and unexpectedness at stumbling upon these memories and reminiscing. Unfortunately, this is a rare occurrence.

With this in mind, I raised the question, "Can I recreate this experience of surprise and delight on a more regular basis?"

I've come to the end of my second week at Stanford (feels more like second month), and I think I can summarize it so far as being frustratingly inspiring. Perhaps it's a little oxymoronic or grammatically incorrect, but I think it's a pretty accurate description of how things have progressed through the first couple weeks of projects and classes.

For example, take my first design project completed for Human Values and Innovations in Design, which involved developing a concept to bridge the digital-physical divide of one's memories and digital assets (namely photos). We received the assignment on the first day of class, and presented our ideas just two days later.

In two short days, I came up with what I thought was a fantastic idea, along with an even better presentation -- I could hardly wait to tell everyone about it. When it came time to present, I think most of the class thought my idea was pretty solid, and they definitely liked the presentation. They said it was engaging, charming, convincing -- certainly the highlight of my Powerpoint career thus far.

After the whole class had presented, general consensus was that we had done impressive work in an unbelievably short amount of time. I even recall the words "blown away" being used by the professor once or twice.

However, before I even had a chance to bask in my own glory, he said, "That was great, now here's your next project."

Wait a second... what? Don't we get some time off to relax and rest on our laurels? We all had such great ideas -- surely you don't expect us to come up with another one so soon?

Such is life at the Stanford Joint Program in Design. Come up with one great idea, and then do it again. And again. And again.

I suppose that's the point of the whole program - to teach us how to innovate on a regular basis. I guess I'm just not used to innovating on much more than a once-in-a-while basis.

Therein lies the frustrating part of frustratingly inspiring. Frustrating because it's not easy to come up with the best ideas ever in the history of the universe more than once a week. Frustrating because I can think and work for hours on end without seeming to make any progress. Frustrating because there's always room to improve on a design.

However, the inspiring part usually also comes just about then, like a lightbulb switching on in my head, when I am least expecting it and when frustration is at its peak. Inspiring because there might be a glimmer of a good idea and potential for success after all. Inspiring because just maybe I'm on the right path (for project... program... career... life, etc). Inspiring because there are twelve brilliant other designers in my class who all get frustrated and inspired the same way I do.

I'm hoping it might get easier to innovate regularly with practice, but I'm doubtful. I think this is probably how it's going to be for the rest of my life, so I'll just have to get used to being frustratingly inspired (or is it inspiringly frustrated?)