Future Perfect is an exploration of people, culture and technology. (中文)
I’m a Executive Creative Director of Global Insights at frog design – a global design and innovation company. Prior to this role I worked for almost a decade as a strategist in Nokia’s Los Angeles design studio and Principal Scientist in the Nokia Research Center, Tokyo. I specialize in taking teams of concept/industrial designers, psychologists, usability experts, sociologists, and ethnographers into the field and, after a fair bit of work, getting them home safely. The tough part of the job is in using the data to inform, inspire and affect how my colleagues think and what they do, and in turning research into products, services and core intellectual property that underpins the future business. At various times I’ve lived in London, Los Angeles, Berlin and a ~decade in Tokyo. From July 2010 I’ll be calling Shanghai home.
The material that you see on this site is what I do in my spare time – the stuff that inspires or challenges me, helps me understand how the future might turn out. To avoid any confusion regarding the photos that are posted here – this site contains both my personal material and also draws on my published research. If you want to use material from this site licensing is explained here. (The studies generate huge volumes of data, and the externally published photos are carefully filtered and limited to photos that directly explain and communicate the research findings. We don’t take participant’s privacy lightly). I won’t ever cover confidential work stuff, so don’t expect to find glimpses of new products designs, or a heads-up on cool new stuff. I tend to buy and try a lot of new technology to figure out the user experience but if you see it posted here it doesn’t reflect my employer’s interest in the company that makes the product, merely my own. The content and opinions on Future Perfect are my own and not my employer’s.
I sit on the advisory board of: FrontlineSMS; The Pecha Kucha Foundation; and the The Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion.
I haven’t published too much formal research (yet) though given the choice between understanding the lives of interesting people in different parts of the world in and trying shoe-horn ‘life’ into lifeless journal submission formats do you blame me? Doubtless this will change, or maybe the publishing formats will change? Let’s see…
Pushing technologies on society without thinking through their consequences is at least naive, at worst dangerous, though typically it, and IMHO the people that do it are just boring. Future perfect is a pause for reflection in our planet’s seemingly headlong rush to churn out more, faster, smaller and cheaper.
We get to shape the future.
Jan
