I get it. Metrics are important and I know that in order for me to become more than just a digital metaphor for the fresh coat of paint on whatever the latest device happens to be, I need to perform and show value in a clear and measurable fashion.

The short-term works great, especially if you want to bolster up immediate numbers. But I am more interesting in the lasting quality of the crafts I buy, interested in developing into an artist and designer that brings lasting (if everlasting isn't any option) quality to the forefront of any product I'm interested in backing.

I guess people, even the non-creatives, are starting to realize the importance of design. It’s just they don’t see it’s worth in dollars. The smart ones do. It’s up to us to change that value-balance by valuing ourselves.

What does it mean to design experience? The artists and crafters of our digital lives owe all the credit due to them. But what else do we experience when we find interest in a product, when we release our own product?

And that goes for everything. The packaging is a part of the user experience, the customer service is a part of the user experience, the instructions are a part of the user experience, the purchasing, and of course, using the product is a part of the user experience. It’s not a feature-fest, it’s about the experience.

Design should be invisible.

"Mom, you're getting old, please stop working overtime," I lightly scolded. "Besides, don't you ever get bored?"

She candidly responds in Vietnamese: "How can you be bored when you have a purpose?"

The matter-of-factness took me back. It startles me even now in its simplicity, especially because she truly believes it.

And that's my mother. A 5'2" Vietnamese woman who quips wisdom and whimsy without knowing she does either. Working since she met her sponsor family at age 18, still working every hour she can get her hands on. Hotels, sewing factories, engineering facilities, her GED. Mother's come a long way since she's hit these shores.

"I get tired. But then I remember. The tiredness goes away when you have vision."

As a modest woman she's paid her dues to the open opportunity presented by this country. She doesn't see her working days ending anytime soon and still, she works hard. Because damnit there's just no other option. This is life.

Even as her kids are rounding well past a life's quarter, "I work for the family," she tells me. Talk about realigning perspective.

The old adage, "follow your dreams," was only half right.

The saying should be "Follow through with your dream."
That's the only way to get things done.

The Spaces Between Your Fingers Project (The SBYF Project) has a simple mission: reconnecting. Tangibly with your senses, with rewarding awkwardness and fresh supplication. Digital preservation and sharing of wisdom between generations may make sense for posterity, but collecting wisdom the old fashioned way, that makes sense for the soul.

And so it made sense Matthew Ross Smith wanted to share his POSTCARDS live. I'm glad he did. Having heard the EP in all it's stages, it wasn't until Friday night's performance that I realized Matthew's objectives to help reconnect was as much to reconnect with ourselves as it was to reconnect with others. When we go out to shake hands and share stories we are forced to constantly reflect and assess the wisdom gained and the wisdom given. This is conversation.

What would you say if you had the chance to send a message back to a previous version of yourself? What would you do then had you known what you knew now? And would you be the same person if a “future you” saved you from heartache, but spoiled all the mystery? The fun of POSTCARDS is in it's ability to invoke these questions. Matthew may have written them for himself, but the postcards speak to everyone.

If you missed out on the release party, you can always head over to matthewrosssmith.com for a chance to hear an artist reflect on such things in his own way. On the road putting faith in strangers, in the idea they all had something to teach him, he learned to also put the question to himself. His postcards, the music acting as his reminders of where he’s been, of where he’s headed, was his way of doing it. And in the process having some fun.

Circling a coffee table sat a writer, a social worker, two designers, and an accountant. One sat in a love seat, another a stool, a couch, a dining chair, a bench. Different occupants with differing occupations in different chairs. It was a fitting first official meeting.

They had met in preparation of this meeting the past seven years or so of course, some longer, even if they didn't know it. College. New Zealand. Philadelphia suburb. A pub. A restaurant. The point wasn't necessarily where, though locale played a large part in the development of their relationships, but more on the concept of what happened when they met.

The ‘what’ is displacement.

Learning is the process of constant displacement. It is the constant nudge that forces realignment, a rebalancing act that stretches and pulls the sinews of the mind and of your choices. It is this refinement which suitably adapts you to new locations, tasks and people. In his book Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer speaks of two concepts that allude to this:

1. As we age time appears to pass more quickly. Since our level of experience is more controlled than when we were younger, less variables differentiate the repeated processes of our daily lives. This leaves little memorable mark on our timeline as we find the route of our lives routine. This is the first concept.
2. We plateau. As we learn things we get better at it until we hit level of autonomy. We no longer focus cognitively to do these tasks. It is at this stage that we, having done enough to get by, no longer push ourselves and therefore meet little-to-no growth. Joshua calls this point the OK Plateau.

How do you combat both of these seemingly inevitable outcomes, these byproducts of progress? Simple. Through displacement. By thrusting ourselves into new situations, uneasy tasks, and engaging conversation we imprint marks upon our memories. We simultaneously cultivate a sense of wonder and exploration as we elbow our way out of autonomy. We introduce new stimuli to modify our responses.


Joshua points out to four tactics experts use in their respective fields to fight the OK Plateau:

• Experts tend to operate outside their comfort zone and study themselves failing.
• Experts will try to walk in the shoes of someone who's more competent than them.
• Experts crave and thrive on immediate and constant feedback.
• Experts treat what they do like a science. They collect data, they analyze data, they create theories, and they test them.

And it is exactly in this scenario that the writer, the social worker, the designers, and the accountant meet. To say that they only ever met for intellectual benefit would probably be inaccurate. But to say that a byproduct of their friendship resulted in the eventual official gathering would more likely suffice. Friendship may have brought them together, but common life questions and debate fostered something more meaningful.

What brings disparate paths and interests to meet at the common point of ingenuity?  A drive for creating remarkable memories and a refinement of excellence When thrust into a situation where all seems too steady, displacement may be the place to start.

A glutton for all things drenched in history, my first stop in mainland Europe this summer was Copenhagen, Denmark. And I was excited. I was inching closer into Scandinavian territory, swooning at the proposition of finally traversing myth-soaked lands while downing pints of Danish lager. What I found was a modern city fused with old grandeur and an emphasis on design. (In actuality, after leaving JFK I entered Europe through Iceland’s airport in Reykjavik. And being Danes, their sense of architectural design using wood, steel and glass was, for lack of a better word, enchanting.)

My initial impression of Copenhagen was welcoming. With the strong sense of community infused with an open utilitarian social emphasis, despite the lack of mighty heroes and thundering gods, Copenhagen was an instant love affair. The proclamation elegantly draped along a large stone building confirmed it: “Design can save the world!”

But what did these Danes mean when they declared design could do so much? And what could such a simple word save us from? The word “design” may appear simple, though describing it may not be.

Howard Gardner, Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education suggests there are varying forms of intelligence, with our most recent era focused predominantly on the numerical, logical and mathematical type. The result: skewed focus on numeric value leading to what I refer to as the productivity/production problem— a slant towards quantity of output rather than quality of output.

Design means many things to many people. Most look at the word thinking “creativity” and “imagination.” What most miss is the conjunction with left-side-brain attributes. Organization. Structure. Hierarchy. Dominant factors in successful problem solving. And this is exactly design, a language unto itself, one stemmed in solutions and problem-solving. Like the physicist who applies mathematics as language to convey the functions of the universe, designers use problem-solving to construct the visual and read language describing our world.

In the span of fifteen days, Fast Company Design published two articles dealing with the emerging design-focused entrepreneurial movement in the United States, and specifically, Steve Jobs and the design-centric nature of his startup-like company. Tumblr, Twitter, Behance and 37Signals are all technology and social-based companies sharing the commonality of design or creative backgrounds.3

“The emerging trend represents a headlong crash of creativity into capitalism.”4

It is this remarkable trend both Gardner and the Danes speak of. To simply lump the concept of design as purely aesthetic or superfluous is to undermine the very value of artistic-based intelligence. Intelligence manifested through marriage of the analytical and the inspirational. This is where true innovation exists.

"When we look at a design, we don't see a design, we are experiencing it."6 Steve Jobs and Apple understood this and that is why other companies will continue to try and be like Apple but completely miss the point. Tech specs, numeric crunching and features will not make a difference in this shifting economy. The Danes, and much of Northern Europe, understand this and why they believe functional and inspired design can make a difference. We are beginning to as well.

IQ, quantified intelligence, cannot exist as the sole form of intelligence. Artistic intelligence, crafted experience, social development and human interaction. It will take a heaping dose of the human quotient to lead entrepreneurship forward.

Artisans were broken into two specific categories: the masters and the apprentices.  Artisans were held of social esteem, if not like a nobleman, then at least as people who had value by transfering that value into what they made. A common misconception is that artisans were as what we consider workers today; in fact, it was quite a different time, only displaced with the advent of the industrial revolution.