November 2011
13 posts
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“Relationships between people
TIme based, co created, flexible transactions...”
– Rachel Abram’s definition of service design.
(via coopersmith)
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“A friend who moved to Silicon Valley in the late 90s said the worst thing about...”
– LOVE this. http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html
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Can Virgin Money create a real alternative to high...
Virgin Money announced that it was buying Northern Rock and introducing a “real competitor in UK retail banking”. Whether or not they can put their money where their mouth is and truly improve service and value in new sectors is yet to be seen, but I would argue that their ability to do this has to focus on people first.
I have been thinking about how to redefine banking services....
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Defining and pitching a topic
This past week I made some great progress in further defining my thesis project and the larger context where it belongs. Admittedly, there is still room for some serious improvement and definition, but slowly. surely it is happening. Bear with me. Here’s the basic definition I came up with:
A mobile application for people in financial transition who need to reframe their relationship with...
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“The small business is the idealized social form of our time. Our culture hero is...”
– A great and poignant article from the New York Times via Dave Bellona
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“As money becomes completely digitized, infinitely transferable, and...”
– Excited to see that some of my previous insights are confirmed by The Future of Money article from Wired Magazine.
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“There is… a massive inefficiency to be exploited. And so, an army of...”
– A great article by Wired Magazine, The Future of Money, 2/22/2010
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Why money should be more like my dogs.
I am wondering how our economic worlds would be different we took care of our money in the same ways that we take care of our pets.
We would have a much longer term relationship with our money. We wouldn’t be so hasty to let go of it and we would be very deliberate about where we got our money from. If we took care of our money in the same way we took care of our pets, we wouldn’t...
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Imagining money as behavior
What are our ritual behaviors around our money, exchanges, and transactions?
Money makes some people nervous, to others it bestows confidence. It provokes anger just as easily as it inspires belief. The way we conduct exchanges — our nervous ticks and most assured gestures — can betray thoughts, feelings, emotions or assumptions about money that we didn’t know we had. A man...
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Some thoughts on The Road Not Taken
Kiyosaki’s introduction to Rich Dad Poor Dad and Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken led me to write this about my thesis:
A world increasing in change and uncertainty, I will design ways for money to influence worthwhile decisions
It seems to be talking about goals and finding the proper methods to achieve those goals. Looks like I’m getting myself into another cybernetic...
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“Many of today’s youth have credit cards before they leave high school, yet...”
– A relevant quote from Robert T. Kiyosaki in his book Rich Dad Poor Dad. I’m especially interested in the very last phrase about the emphasis on spending and saving. It is fascinating to me the number of services, apps, technology, and tracking devices that help us keep track of our...
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Calvino. Clarice. Catching up
About a month ago, I revisited Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, and found inspiration in the story of the city of Clarice. You can find the full text of the story here (starting in the 3rd paragraph) but this is an excerpt about the citizens of Clarice that I found particularly compelling:
They grabbed everything that could be taken from where it was and put it in another place to serve a...
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“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards”
– The White Queen to Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass
I am again finding amazing inspiration from Alice in Wonderland and have reposted some of my thoughts …
I think the White Queen has some wise words about how we can anticipate, rather than just follow the information,... 