Denna Jones: Consultant, designer, writer and lead artist around architecture, the public realm, culture and innovation

Parkinson's Law or the Growth of Creativity

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Today I declare my practice is anti-growth. Shocked? Growth is the benchmark of a successful business, isn’t it? Gloomy headlines in August 2008 state the UK’s economic growth is at a standstill for the first time in sixteen years. Recession is around the corner. Growth is not just good, it’s an axiomatic business imperative.

Or is it? Innovation, flexibility, response and creativity often thrive when “growth” is quashed. Not literal growth like business expansion, but a “stagflation growth” (a contradiction in terms, but bear with me), where the size of the job is finite, but the time allocated to achieve completion is open-ended.

Parkinson’s Law explains my “anti-growth” declaration. The Law is one of growth. But not positive growth. Negative growth. “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” So says the Law. Created as satire by Engish humourist C Northcote Parkinson in 1958, he identified growth as a direct result of a job that “swells in importance and complexity in direct ratio with the time to be spent.” Everyone has experienced the Law at some point in their working life. Many creatives (myself included) are unwilling adherents. In common with all great satire, humour is the razor thin veneer under which lie truths about human behaviour.

The Law, and the book where it first appeared, Parkinson’s Law or The Pursuit of Progress, was an immediate success. Every major British newspaper and magazine weighed in with accolades. “Barbs for the Bureaucrats!” thundered The Telegraph. The Financial Times found it a “devilish book. No businessman should let it fall into the hands of his staff”. The Scotsman declared it, “the best treatise on management we have come across.” In the fifty years since the book was published, Parkinson’s Law is accepted as fact, not fiction, and a time management industry has grown around it.

A case study illustrates how awareness of Parkinson’s Law can either help or hinder creativity:

Stefan Sagmeister is a well-known, brilliant graphic designer. His website used to include what I call “The Parable of the CD”. Every Thursday between nine and noon, Sagmeister designed a CD and booklet insert from start to finish. His job for an imaginary client is the equivalent of an Olympian’s schedule. You keep on top of your game with consistent training. The three-hour CD illustrates how a tight, time-constrained brief doesn’t kill creativity, but forces the mind to reach beyond its normal capacity to find innovation and brand-new creative responses. The current Sagmeister site includes reference to the average amount of time the company allocates to to the design of a CD - three months. Is a lengthy time allocation preferable to a quick turnaround? Parkinson’s book lobbies for a balance between inducement and risk.

There is a postscript to this case study. www.sagmeister.com no longer includes the CD parable. Instead, the site’s “Answers for Students” section includes, “How do you know when to say no to a potential client?” Sagmeister replies, “When the product is bad. When I don’t like them. When they have rush jobs (clients who are bad at scheduling a job are often bad in other areas too.)” The final part of Sagmeister’s answer is puzzling. Yes, in some cases a rush job will indicate a potential client to be avoided, but not in all cases. A rush might just as easily indicate a creative client with a multitude of opportunities. Someone who recognises Parkinson’s Law, and alternates between generous and tight delivery dates. And in doing so she finds she attracts a wealth of work she can share with talented colleagues. Including a graphic designer.

A great opportunity sometimes appears with strings attached. Strings like a tight turn-around. Dither too long deciding whether you have enough time to respond, and your competition will not even bother to wield their elbows to shove you out of the way. All good things come to those who wait? Don’t count on it. Instead, heed the real message behind Parkinson’s Law.

Diversify or be Damned

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Harriette Wilson was a sex celebrity. Her published account of doing the dirty with royalty, aristocracy, and miscellaneous married men was a 19th century version of Heat magazine’s exposÃ©s. Only bigger. The Duke of Wellington called her bluff. When told she intended to publicly tell-all, he bellowed “publish and be damned!”. She did. Her book was a best seller.

Harriette Wilson was smart. If she were around today she’d still publish in traditional media, but she wouldn’t stop there. She’d read the tea leaves at the bottom of her cup of Lapsang Souchong, finish the pink paper and diversify.

Why? Because Harriette knows she’s a brand not a book. Before rising from her breakfast table, she tweets a witticism to her website. (Facebook? No. Bespoke.) She debates mainstream print versus the bijoux top end of publishing. But a book is only the beginning. Offsetting financial exposure is critical for her sustainable business model.

Harriette’s print world and web world link and are mutually supportive. Her website is always fresh. Doesn’t matter if her content contribution is minimal. Fan forums take up the slack. Harriette gives away content. Like Mp3 download teasers so fans can listen to her read selected book passages wherever and whenever they like. For free. Harriette believes in a “give to get” marketing philosophy because she knows a meaningful percentage of the “getters” will return the favour and buy.

Harriette’s fans want to be part of her community. Not just online but live. So Harriette partners with promoters who help ally her brand to an event. In the 19th century she’d be limited to a book reading. In the 20th century she might get a book tour and a seat on the sofa next to Oprah. In the 21st century Harriette still wants Oprah’s endorsement, but she wants to go off-road and offer more. Her branded live event will be multi-layered and appeal to a wide public. The friends, family, partners, and children who might not be interested in (or allowed to read) her book, will want to attend the live event because the organisers will consider their needs too.

It started with a book, but it doesn’t end with the physical printed page. Harriette’s publishing story has a universal message. One that matters even more now that a financial freeze is upon us. (Credit crunch?! Please. Too tame a phrase for the seriousness of the situation. Watch Jim Cramer on CNBC last summer for a scary eye-opener.) Heed Harriette’s lesson. Diversify to survive.

A Summer's Day in 1790, Plymouth Dock Town

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

NB: The narrative is fictional, but people, places, events and quotes below are real, and based on my primary research, which includes 18th century Royal Engineer letter books. Plymouth Dock Town is present-day Devonport. The Governor’s House is present-day Admiralty House where I live in a temporary grace and favour flat. In November 1787 the Duke of Richmond appoints Lt Col Elias Durnford as Commanding Engineer, Plymouth to replace Lt Col Mulcaster who is transferred to Portsmouth.

1790

Your Grace,

The Ordnance Architect, J Wyatt, doth not find leisure to give any answer to the various written applications made …

Lt Col Elias Durnford, Commanding Engineer, Royal Corps of Engineers, Plymouth, puts down his pen and drums his fingers. Playing piggy in the middle to James Wyatt, Architect, and Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, Cabinet Minister, and Master-General of the Ordnance is no job for the feint of heart.

He stares out to sea and remembers adventure. Durnford engineered the shift of swamp to city in the British frontier of West Florida. He faced alligators, yellow fever, the Spanish and still had leisure to design the infrastructure of Pensacola. And now? Townspeople object to the 12 foot high King’s Wall, and send delegation letters that bite with more annoyance than ten-fold of Florida mosquitoes. They believe the wall stops the free circulation of air and renders the Town unhealthy? Let them move to Florida and experience true unhealthy air.

Of greater annoyance is Wyatt. A talented but feckless architect who fails to respond. Wyatt shows no willingness to sally forth and oversee the build of his design for the Governor’s New House in Plymouth Dock Town. Durnford paces his office, and wonders how best to reach a long arm to London, grab the recalcitrant Mr Wyatt Esq of Queen Ann Street East by the scruff, and shake him into action.

Durnford ponders the wisdom of shifting the seat of power from the Governor’s House in the Citadel, Plymouth to this new location. But all are agreed the house Wyatt designed at the Citadel is faulty. Sea air seeps through the stone walls. The Necessary is an ongoing bone of contention for Lt Gov Campbell. The site itself is problematic. In 1787 Richmond acquiesced to a new build.

I think it will be proper for you to write me an Official Letter stating fully the defects of the present Building both with regard to its Construction and Situation, the great Expense that would attend the Repair of it, its unfitness for being the Place of Residence of the Governor even if thoroughly repaired, and recommending the Building a New House in a Situation where the Governor’s presence may be more Necessary than in the Citadel, stating also the advantages that would arise from placing it on the Spot within the Lines which has been already examined with that view.

In 1789 Parliament approved exactly four thousand seven hundred forty three pounds seven shillings and four pence to build the Governor’s New House on a commanding headland overlooking the Hamoaze. The sum is based on Wyatt’s estimate. It is not to be exceeded.

The commission is confirmed in a letter from Richmond to Lt Col Durnford, May 1789;

I would have you begin immediately to Excavate the Foundations for the Governor’s House in the Situation which Lt Governor Campbell and Colonel Fox agreed with you in preferring. I believe you are in possession of all the necessary Drawings for carrying on this executing it. Whether you would propose to build the outside Walls of Plymouth Stone and case them with Red Brick such as you can get at Plymouth, or whether you think it would be better to face the Walls with white Brick from Hampshire and to build the interior part of them with Plymouth Stone, You will at the same time consider what difference there may be in the Expence of these two Methods and for this purpose it will be necessary for you to make enquery at what Price you can get white Bricks delivered at Plymouth.

It is a hot summer’s day. The penultimate day in July 1790. Durnford looks at the letter he has written to the Duke of Richmond.

I beg leave to inform Your Grace that I find the money estimated for Building the Governors New House at Dock Lines will be entirely expended by the time the Roof is placed thereon which I expect will be by the end of next Month and all the Credit due to said Estimate for Drains Reservoirs & the Works performed and not mentioned in the Original Estimate also. I therefore request Your Grace will please to inform me from whence I am to obtain Money to Compleat the Building, as Mr Wyatt hath sent an Overseer for this purpose otherwise I must shortly desist carrying it on.

Wyatt is the last of the Ordnance Architects with such uncontrolled power. His reach exceeds his grasp, and creates a belief he can accept more public and private commissions than mere ordinary men can attend. Delay, overspend, accusations of shoddy workmanship and poor materials result. After his death in 1813 the Board of Works alters the office of the Surveyor of Works to allow a political appointee to oversee the work of three attached architects.

But Durnford is a man with a mission. The Governors New House must be built. Money will be found. And it is. He appoints Lieut Wheldale Director of the Building. Durnford requests Wheldale prepare it with all possible dispatch. Patent Slating, Dun stone, Ironmongery, firkins of cement, rubble, brick, lime etc etc etc are freighted, shipped and carted to site. By November 1790 they are ready to Slate the Kitchen and Court Martial Rooms. The House, at last, is almost complete.

The Power of One (Part 1)

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

“Mr Alexis P Lautenberg, Ambassador of Switzerland and Mr Sunand Prasad, President, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) request the pleasure of your company at the press preview of the exhibition Le Corbusier - The Art of Architecture at the Ambassador’s Residence on Wednesday 16 July 2008 at 10.30 am.”

The Swiss Ambassador’s Residence is a Georgian townhouse in a terraced square in London designed by Joseph Parkinson circa 1813. The marble floored reception is a cool, calm oasis. Design is spare but significant. Corbusier, Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand LC2 sofa and chairs. folding Plia chairs by Giancarlo Piretti. A Corbusier tapestry anchors the far end wall, and an angled glass baluster staircase leads to the private upper floors.

I was invited to the residence for a press preview of the forthcoming RIBA exhibition on Le Corbusier. The Ambassador spoke. The President spoke. We watched a presentation of key images from the exhibition. We mingled over coffee. And that was when I became engaged in a “debate” with the current (but outgoing) President of the Royal Academy of British Architects. He seemed to come out swinging. Maybe something to do with the RIBA leadership contest? Whatever. Buoyed by perfect summer weather, my lovely summer frock and the serene Swiss surroundings, I was ready.

Climate change. Such an emotive subject. It was my use of the “f” word that tipped our discussion from tolerable to tumultuous. The President’s face hardened. “Well I suppose you think I’m facile then!”, he barked. I stretched my left leg as far as possible so it supported my torso like a flying buttress, allowing me to drop closer to his eye level. (Who knew my Charles Jourdan heels would create such height disparity?) Well actually yes, Mr President, I do. It’s both patrician and facile to believe you must witness Antarctic environmental degredation firsthand in order to lobby for UK climate change policy. Why not sit in your London office and get a similar if not superlative understanding of environmental loss by studying the UNEP’s image atlas “One Planet Many People”? Or support the environmental lobbying of The Royal Society? Or here’s a truly radical idea. Instead of a jolly to the Antarctic, why not lobby for change within your own organisation? Censure RIBA architects who work in Dubai or Abu Dhabi. Aside from human rights abuses, architecture-led abuses of the delicate ecosystem of the Arabian Peninsula are being built at a rate of noughts in the desert sheikhdoms. But I smiled these last few thoughts. I didn’t share them.

Tactical shift. I criticised carbon credits and complicated personal carbon calculators. (No surprise. He likes them.) I voiced my belief in the power of average individuals to effect mass change. He countered. Climate change demands leadership. (Was this the tone of voice Robert Moses used with Jane Jacobs? Probably.) But I know businesses are attuned to key stakeholders who in turn mirror the attitudes of their customers. If customers are fatigued by climate change, stakeholders follow suit and the business of change doesn’t happen. Worse are the punitive measures employed by central and local government to get the public to pony up to positive behaviour change. Fear and facts don’t work.

But the President was still in pursuit. What did I think of the RSA Arts & Ecology programme? Not much as it happens. I was a delegate at the RSA A&E launch in 2005. Nick Serota, Director of Tate Modern spoke these words in his opening address. “Artists are not environmentalists, scientists, nor doctors. We shouldn’t expect them to be agents of change.” He was right. If we want positive action on climate change, then we the people must be the change. We can’t expect or hope that artists or the President of the Royal Institute of British Architects will do it for us. We have the power. Let’s use it.

Part 2: “The Power of Many” will be published in August.

Intellectual Insecurity and the Art of Writing

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

NB: The following is a book review I wrote for a forthcoming (2008) issue of Embroidery Magazine (UK). The failure of the book lies in the writing, particularly the lead essay by a professor at Goldsmiths College, London, a teaching institution where obfuscation and gerund creation seem to be considered art forms. (For the record: I hold an MA from The Courtauld Institute of Art, London. Clear, informed language was the permissable style.)

No doubt the professor will argue that all professions have their own jargon. True. But the great practitioners and promoters of niche industries are keen to explain their craft. They will provide glossaries. They will write clearly. They will hypertext unusual words. Award winning art critic Roberta Smith, who writes for The New York Times, loathes “fashionably obtuse language” and believes “two bit words” simply “betray an intellectual insecurity”. Willfully obtuse language also creates a barrier between “us” and “them”. So if you, like me, are a “them” - read on.

Contemporary Textiles: the fabric of fine art. Main texts: Jann Haworth, Nadine Monem, Bradley Quinn, Janis Jefferies. Black Dog Publishing, London, 2008. Â£25.95/US$45.00

Contemporary Textiles is an anthology of fifty-seven established international artists. The selection reflects the expectation held by influential spaces like The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia that artists should work beyond a narrow definition of “fabric” or “textile” and experiment with new materials, technology and outcomes. Standouts in the book include Guerra de la Paz, Ghada Amer and Paddy Hartley.

While the overall choices are excellent, there are inevitable omissions and questionable inclusions. It’s a stretch beyond generosity to consider Matthew Barney’s costume choices as textile art. Franko B, who uses his blood spattered performance canvases to upholster furniture and create “soft furnishings”, would have been a better choice. A prominent omission is Ghanaian El Anatsui, who adapts techniques of West African strip-weaving for his monumental “tapestries”, but uses common detritus - metal bottle caps, wire, foil wrappers - as the materials for these precious metal-like hangings.

Where the book fails is the essays, editing and structure. The authors declare a “rebellion against limitations” and applaud artists who reject “historical hierarchies”, yet the book shoehorns artists into four arbitrary zones - paintings, drawings, sculptures, spaces. ClichÃ©s, clangers and ellipses are frequent. Much of the main feminist academic tract is incomprehensible to readers new to the subject, and a chore for the experienced. The editors indulge narcissistic self-references ad nauseum, and had they not seemingly abdicated editorial responsibility, the book might have excelled. As it stands, the old-school feminism reads quaint, and attempts at currency are dated - references to the influence of the internet read like it’s 1995.

The essays fail to ask why an increasing number of young women and men take up textile-based “craft art” and how the trend relates to artist practice. An exploration of the global economic and social influences behind this movement would have made a vital contribution to the subject, as would a look at the politics of outsourcing aspects of craft art practice - something many of the artists in this book do, but prefer we didn’t know. Lastly, a mention even in brief, of the enormous influence of internet sites like etsy.com and craftzine.com would have brought the text into the 21st century.

sleep shed

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Commission: sleep shed

sleep shed is a site-specific work commissioned from recent graduate Callum Bell for installation (August 2008) in my small walled back garden at Admiralty House. I commissioned Callum on the day I saw his installation Home at the 2008 University of Plymouth Degree Shows. sleep shed will be both practical (an extra sleep area for houseguests), and a metaphor for sustainable creativity and the restorative power of slumber.

A temporary “habitable sculpture” coupled to the main house, sleep shed is a transformative space much like the sleeper carriages on the Night Riviera Sleeper train that transports me - asleep - twice a month from Paddington (London) to Plymouth. Sustainably sourced from found, ephemeral lengths of wood, sleep shed represents the transient, magical and fleeting world of a mobile night.

Background: Home

A large, polygonal, roofless structure, the main materials of Home are discarded lengths and sections of milled wood collected by the artist over months of foraging expeditions on his bike. The first thing the visitor sees is the raw wood exterior, braced and rigidly vertical as though it were the reverse of a theatrical stage set. But Home isn’t a scenic construction where fantasy is foremost, and the audience is not allowed to see what’s behind the constructed reality. Home reflects both the public and private side of home, but in reverse. The public face, i.e. the more “camera friendly” nuanced white space, is the interior. The exterior is the private “raw” side.

Visitors enter Home through reclaimed mullioned glass French doors. White radiators hang on the walls of the pale, neutral interior. One lies on the wood plank floor. The boundaries of each random length and shaped piece of wood are strengthened by shadows formed where each section abuts its neighbour. A small circular cut-out in one wall is a peep-hole from the outside-in and vice versa.

Although there are similarities, Callum Bell doesn’t suggest his forms are influenced by the habitable sculptures of Dubuffet’s L’Hourloupe cycle, or the driftwood constructions of Margaret Mellis, or the ad hoc wood exteriors of 1970s-era adapted domestic geodesic domes. But he agrees his practice shifted from 2D to 3D to satisfy an urgent need to make substantive, sustainable objects. Dubuffet felt this same urge. He abandoned the limitations of the plane to create stand-alone structures. He wanted to inhabit his images.

Frank Stella believes “no art is any good unless you can feel how it’s put together”. sleep shed slumberers will soon feel - literally - how Callum Bell puts his art together. Check back for updates and details of the opening.

The Case for Spectacle

Fri, 02 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

An expanded excerpt from the Arts Strategy (April 2008) I wrote for Devonport (England) as part of my commission from Devonport Regeneration Community Partnership and Plymouth City Council.

It seems illogical, but sometimes spectacle can be so bad it’s good. And when that happens it becomes a “negative superlative”. Mademoiselle de Bovet knew the power of the negative. Hostess of a popular salon in 19th century Paris, she was admired for her wit, not her looks. Meeting her for the first time, Oscar Wilde was caught off-guard. She was plainer than he’d been warned. She demanded Wilde’s confirmation of her negative self-assessment. “Am I not the ugliest woman in all France?” Wilde regained his composure. He bowed low. “Au monde, madame, au monde”. Mademoiselle de Bovet was better than ugly. She was the ugliest woman “in the world”. A negative superlative.

The realization a “bad” event can also be a negative superlative goes a long way to explain just how powerful spectacle can be when it is a shared community experience. “Moose Murders” was performed on Broadway twenty-five years ago. Not only was it panned by critics, it was universally deemed the worst play in Broadway history. Reviews included statements such as “titanically bad”, “indescribably bad,” and “would insult the intelligence of an audience consisting entirely of amoebas.” But rather than turn the play into a forgotten footnote of live theatre, “Moose Murders” became a legend. The show closed immediately, but in the words of its playwright it turned into “a negative superlative”. It entered folklore. The small number of people who were audience members has “multiplied beyond physical possibility, like those who claim to have seen the Beatles at Shea Stadium.” Actors who performed in the play are proud to highlight the show in their biographies.

The moral is simple. Narrative, stories, performance and spectacle are more memorable than objects. Public art commissioners should consider this when making decisions for the public realm. Objects get old and are eventually taken for granted, but experiences live on. A “bad” shared experience can be better for the health of a community than a “good” work of (permanent) public art.

Daniel Gilbert is Harvard University’s “Dr Happiness”. A social psychologist, he has spent decades researching what makes people happy. He confirms that shared experiences are the key to happiness. He uses Bogart’s famous line from the movie “Casablanca” as an example of how a shared experience is worth more than any object. Knowing he may never again see Ilsa, the character played by Ingrid Bergman, Bogart’s Rick reinforces their experiences. “We’ll always have Paris”, he tells her. Their separation was a negative, but Bogart’s Rick makes certain she will look back and recognise their story as a negative superlative.

Castro for President

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I wrote the following in March 2006. It was first published on the BA Hons Art, Design and Environment website, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. A few changes since it was written: Sarkozy won the French Presidential election and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was abolished and replaced with Communities and Local Government Office.

L’air du temps – It’s our moment. Our time. After more than thirty years of metaphorically banging his Gallic head against the wall of Le Corbu’s concrete citÃ©s, now is Roland Castro’s moment. The French architect believes the space (landscape) and not the object (building) should be the focus of an urban approach to architecture. Of equal importance to the space and the architecture is l’aspect politique. These three elements merge to create success or failure. And when a number of Paris citÃ©s (multi-storied housing estates) in the banlieues (a euphemism for housing estates as opposed to its original meaning of “suburb”) burned in the riots of October and November 2005, Castro knew the flames were fuelled by apartheid urbain.

Roland Castro is not anti-Corbusier or Corbu’s disciples. “It’s not the buildings’ design that produced misery in the suburbs” he explains, “but it’s misery that found a home there”. And misery in the “mass production houses” is rife. Public housing lines the Paris pÃ©riphÃ©rique that encircles the city. They house immigrants from Africa and elsewhere, many of whom are second and third generation Parisiens. They speak French, they are French, and yet residents of the citÃ©s are treated as second-class citizens. The root cause of the riots was neither ideological nor religious. Poverty, lack of job opportunities, racism and an inhospitable urban environment fanned the flames.

In 1983 President FranÃ§ois Mitterrand inaugurated a series of housing projects - Banlieue ’89. Castro was the lead architect. The projects were multidisciplinary. They focused on combating social exclusion by improved urban design quality. Although more money was spent on altering public perceptions than on actual physical improvements, Castro made significant changes in designated citÃ©s. Townscapes were introduced. Isolated islands of multi-storied apartment blocks were given an urban context. Car parks were no longer the centrepiece. Dead ends were removed. Trees planted. Lighting improved. Shops, community centres, playgrounds and sports facilities were added. The quality and construction of the original apartments were good, but all received a facelift. Estates that had been unwillingly insular and inward looking became communities connected outwards.

What happened in the three public housing estates regenerated by Castro during the 2005 riots? Nothing. No fires. No rioting. Little if any unrest. Caravelle was one. Situated in Villeneuve-la-Garenne (northern edge of Paris), it was built in 1968, and sat uneasily with affluent areas of the banlieue. Surely Caravelle too should have erupted in flames? But unlike other citÃ©s, Caravelle reached the end of its 10-year Castro rejuvenation just before the riots. Stairways were removed and three openings created to break the 400-metre wall of apartments. Roads through the gaps connect Caravelle with the rest of the town. Caravelle’s physical transformation meant it had one less major reason to riot. Castro would be the first to admit that problems of exclusion, racism and poverty still exist in the banlieues. But making the urban environment equitable, hospitable, green and engaged with its citizens, is one giant step in the right direction.

Search the web for information on Castro and despite the lessons UK housing authorities and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister could learn from these examples, most information is in French. Search Amazon (com, co.uk. or fr) for “Civilisation urbaine ou barbarie”, Castro’s book in which he details the construction of the citÃ©s, and you will find none of the usual reviews or publisher abstracts. Why? There must be bilingual urbanists eager to discuss Castro’s work. Is it irrational fear of an atypical architect seen perhaps as a seditionary? Castro was a prominent leader in the May 1968 Paris student riots. Or is it because the British have always had a uneasy relationship with the French, predicated on fear the French “disease” – revolution – will reach the White Cliffs of Dover?

In December French newspapers reported Roland Castro’s candidacy for the Presidency of France. One of many in a crowded field, his platform is based on propositions for a projet de sociÃ©tÃ© to eradicate the dÃ©sastre tribal. Wish him luck. Now may be Castro’s l’air du temps.

Call, response, create!

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Call-and-response is an African tradition of democratic communication and participation. It translates into all areas of culture and is international in its spread. Musicians interpret it as a series of “phrases” – usually four bars - played and exchanged between musicians who comment, complement or interpret each others phrases. Call-and-response is transformative. It allows any number of people to be influenced by the creativity and ideas of others, adapt the outcome and call it their own.

Transformation is also one of the four analysis factors used to determine “fair use” in US copyright law. Is my response to your call significantly transformative – does it add something new – so it becomes original? Or is it derivative? That is the distinction “fair use” law decides. But since codified in 1989, “fair use” law is used increasingly by the goliaths of creativity as a club to beat down rising – or rival - talent. The most recent case is J K Rowling and Warner Brothers Entertainment vs Steven Vander Ark and RDR Books. Vander Ark’s lexicon of the Harry Potter series is a transformative vade mecum. Christopher Caldwell writing in the Financial Times called it “a leviathan effort of research, criticism and interpretation.” Rowling and Warner Brothers think otherwise. Marina Hyde wonders how Rowling can claim her work is debased by Vander Ark when she endorses “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter” theme park?

Prevention of “fair use” snowballs into other areas. Nicolai Ouroussoff, Architectural critic for The New York Times reports on the shift from open, public debate regarding major US capital build projects to a system where more and more power is ceded by government to big developers. Architects are “asked” to sign confidentiality agreements. Pre-build image release is restricted and cursory. The result? What should be an open public review process is grossly hindered. The call-and-response of healthy democratic discourse is denied.

Similar to countries that decide you are an organ donor unless you specifically opt out while alive, copyright is the default for any newly authored US work. But opt out is possible through a Creative Commons licence. There are several licences to choose. This website uses “Attribution (by)” – the most open of the available licences – for photographs (via Flickr) and written content. It’s a variation on a common marketing ploy “give to get”. Offer the public something “free” and they will return to buy. Or call it karma. What goes around comes around. Any way you choose to look at it, open source is the way forward. Creative Commons works to create a balance between extremes. Neither totalitarian creative control nor anarchy, but a system that encourages creativity, innovation, sharing and a return to a democratic system of call-and-response.

Websites and the Science of Happiness

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The designers of this website are happiness merchants. Ok sure, they don’t call themselves “happiness merchants”, it’s not on their business cards, but that is indeed their primary line of work.

Happiness is the difference between feeling good (e.g. eating chocolate), and doing good (e.g. holding the door open for a stranger). It’s the doing good that truly makes us happy, not personal gratification. Equally important, happiness comes from learning and achieving, especially when the learning comes with a bit of a struggle. And that’s where Jon and Jon come in.

The relationship between client and web designer is often co-dependent. Web developers want a reliable long-term client who provides a revenue stream, and the client needs the developer to provide constant support, regular content upload, and to perform all the little maintenance tweaks a fresh site demands. Once the fun is over (the design and launch stages), drudgery and even resentment can set in. (“Why hasn’t she sent me content?” or “Why hasn’t he uploaded my content yet?!”) This site breaks the co-dependency and offers freedom in its place. And that’s freedom for both the designers and the client.

Jon Tan and Jon Gibbins created this website on the concept of mutual happiness. They didn’t hold back knowledge. They taught me the basic mechanics so I can be self-sufficient. It’s a bit like open source sharing. They built a site that is beautiful and timely but dead easy for me to tinker with and refresh as often as I want. Once I make a change the longest I wait for the site to refresh is 24 hours. And some changes will happen even faster. They made me learn a bit of HTML code. I’m at the beginning of my learning curve but I’m already excited to see the results of basic code upload. It’s like that proverb. Rather than give me a fish, Jon and Jon have taught me to fish. And that makes me very happy indeed.