For Informations

It is the last week of this module and I have to say I am very very very tired to the point that I'm stupid.

If you want to know what I am like in this very moment, this gif is on point.

(Source: originally Photobucket, found on Google)

I think I disconnected my brain with the rest of my anatomy and my grammar is going to be really bad starting from this sentence as a result.

 And I laugh at pretty much everything tonight, like this gif I casually found on google.

(Source: Google)

Alright, time to get serious, I chose the original prompt rather than the alternative one. For me personally the most relevant theme for our NGO and for our project is the 4th theme which was: 

Week 7: Theme 4 – Marketing/User/Customer Support Communities

First of all, the theme implies a marketing strategy and the strategy is about gaining access to potential users. Our project is about having people gathered to share their ideas and stories to each other and in order to do that one needs to be experienced and is actually committed to the website itself. So it is really important to find the right users for this project.

Secondly, it talks about users' feedbacks, feedbacks are really good for every aspect in life (here's why!) and it plays an important role as well in our project, in fact we have to do some experiments with the webpage and select the right approach for our users (this is a long term to do list for our NGO). In this particular case we need feedbacks and comments, whether the approach works or not, is the webpage good enough or needs some improvements.

Lastly, because our NGO has been busy for the past three weeks it's really important for us to research about customer support communities and see if we could implement the ideas we have in our mind to real life.

"Who or what you think will play a key role towards success during the process?"

Us.

(Source: ign)

I think as long as we go together as a group and respect each other and each other's opinions we're going to solve this and go through all of the problems, I learnt so much from this group work and I even improved on certain things especially I learnt to just say my thoughts even if it sounds stupid. Back in my country (at least where I grew up) if we ask "stupid" questions they'd yell "Do you know how to think before you open your mouth?" at us so I'm so used to shut my mouth although my thoughts are screaming around, but because of this experience I realised that every idea, every question, and every thought is relevant to be said out loud.

We came to a conclusion that we are still going to assume things for Maarten because he has been busy but we do know that he is a man with a big vision and we are assuming things about what he would like based mainly on his vision. We talked to him thrice and we actually could grasp what he wants for this project and we finally formed our advises which you all are going to watch it on the video :] <--- that is a smirk, just so you know.

We are getting closer to week 9 which is the final syllabus of this module and the presentation of the advises for our NGOs. This week unfortunately we were not able to contact Marteen and to schedule another meeting because he has been busy; although that, we have noted down the things that we'll put on the video for the final project.

What we did was summarising what we learnt from each syllabus from the first week until now, by that we were able to collect our thoughts for the video.

The power of teamwork!

(Source: hiremeimemployable)

I learnt a lot throughout the process, I didn't know that online communities play a big role for this project and for my future project with a client or clients. I would say that I was so simple minded before this. Online communities could help us in many different ways, some provide good informations such as their knowledges and experiences as professionals that can help other people; some provide a place for us to communicate with other people and we can ask them about their demands and what are they want to see from us designers.

Some sites like innonet even says, "Do you need new ways to plan and evaluate your programs? Do your grantees need to know how to build a logic model? How do you measure success for your program area? Are your goals aligned with your funder's goals?"

I think if the consumers show the designers what they want, designers sure can design the innovations they are requesting and everyone is happy.

(Source: Google/Tumblr)

Our biggest problem with our NGO is our NGO is so busy it's so hard to schedule a meeting or even contact him. But we figured out that assuming is the best way to get through this phase. We learnt that asking him directly "Is this what you want?" keeps us to remain going on this project.

It wasn't that hard to assume what does he want because we have informations about the project, about the NGO, and about the goal itself.

I would like to learn how the outside world works, such as how do companies make people buy their products and how do enterprises impact the world with their products. I'm always curious about how this works but the main reason I want to learn those is because at the end of the day I want to have a brand and a company; and in order to do that I need to know several things, I can't be ignorant.

"Always." - Severus Tobias Snape

(Source: Wordpress)

I'm already searching for it and reading about it online, I also would look for a book about how innovative designs' world works; and I hope I will learn it during the lesson in projcomm! :)

The first time I read the word crowdsourcing I wasn't concentrating much so I read it crowdsurfing, which is pretty much the same if you think about it. (And it's a lot funner to say surfing rather than sourcing, am I right chaps?) :)

To understand why crowdsourcing and crowdsurfing is probably the same stuff, you need to know what the original word means. Crowdsourcing is, by definition:

The use of this word have risen since 2010, if you're curious about the history of this word, here you go: (what is crowdsourcing)

(Definition source: google)

I said earlier that the two words: crowdsourcing and crowdsurfing, are similar to each other anyway because it is about obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers. It's like going in and surf the crowd itself to obtain relevant ideas.

Right? Riteee?

(Source: kateordie)

Anyway, I'm feeling to talk about the question that popped inside of my head, "Is crowdsourcing necessary for designers and innovators?" and to answer that I need to list the good things crowdsourcing offers. First of all, crowds. The crowds would be willing to help us anytime they want, because there are a massively high number of people, so in other words they are available anytime. Crowds are like the main target in order to sell our innovations, by crowdsourcing, we'd build relationships with the community we are working with. Relationships lead to networks, networks are needed by professional selves, by having networks we are having people we can trust and having people who can help us promoting our works.

Lastly, it's cheaper. Of course it's cheaper to ask online communities to obtain informations for us instead of hiring professionals. I don't have to say much, the word cheaper is already powerful; plus, people usually expect foolish things if they feel like something is too expensive, so cheaper is better.

Yep.

(Source: plated-jeans)

I would say the reason some designers don't use this method is because of the cons of it. It doesn't matter how good somethings are, it'd still have flaws. The main disadvantage interestingly mirrors the main advantage (the cheap part): cheap labour results less credible product if compared to professionals, of course. Professionals have experiences, expertise, and they are dedicated; on the other hand, online communities do not have these things.

I know, I know, the word "numbers" probably makes you don't want to read my blog post this week but it's not like numbers as in maths, but the numbers have a connection with our daily life. Like for example, our social lives, does that encourage you to read this post yet? I hope so. Plus, I suppose it's the right title for this week reflection because yeah, that's what this all about, numbers.

This week we had some conversations and discussions about teams, (since the theme itself was Work Teams). We learnt about different contents, for example: The Dunbar's Number, The Group Pattern Language Project, Group Size by Chris Corrigan, et cetera. I personally learnt things I've never thought of before, because I thought the "perfect" number of members for a team like our group is going to be three until five. I thought five members for a team is good, a group of four is better, and the right number should be three.

But eventually, after I read about The Dunbar's Number (because that was what I supposed to read in the class) I found that the right number of people in a group should be in between five and seven. Because it said right there that a group of two could be creative but lacking of resources, a group of three is not balanced because one person would be feeling left out, and so it came to a conclusion that five or seven is the perfect quantity of a group.

Dunbar also calculated using maths that the maximum amount of people in a big company or maximum number of connections would be 147.8, and people would round it off to 150 people. So 150 connections would be enough, no more than that. Although, I don't think one has 150 strong ties and I don't think that we need to maximise the number of close bonds we can have in everyday lives. I found a blog post that supports my view. But, what I see is this 150 number is relevant enough for a company or for people who wants to start a business, then I would say 150 strong relationships could be useful.

Oh, numbers.

(Source: Wordpress)

This week we had hangouts with Marteen (our NGO) and Nancy as well. With Marteen we were talking about our assignments, last week he said he wanted us to focus more on agriculture rather than social innovation in general because it's so very very broad, like really broad. Then this week he told us that we are supposed to focus more on food consumptions because that's closer to our everyday lives. Unfortunately the connection were not very good so we didn't get so many informations this week. 

Although we had a really nice conversation with Nancy, we were talking about Marteen's website which is the main part of our assignment. We were discussing about the deficiencies of the site and now we had ideas about what to advise Marteen. Nancy really helped us with that one.

Yay, Nancy!

(Source: Me)

You know, the reflections are longer as week goes on, there are so many things to reflect on and to learn from. Which is good, I just hope I don't lose my writing style because I think I'm starting to lose it. I don't know though, you tell me.

So, moving on. About my group, group 6, The Matrix (yay): I would say that for me personally, it's working well this far in general. What works well is how we always manage to complete the tasks we have per week without spending too much times. What I'm thankful for is how nice people in my group, like Maggie is organised as (a place regarded in various religions as a spiritual realm of evil and suffering, often traditionally depicted as a place of perpetual fire beneath the earth where the wicked are punished after death.) and is so nice as a person. Maria is always cracking up jokes which makes the whole situation fun and not to stressful. Domantė is often stating the obvious which is really funny to listen to. And Eva is laughing almost at all times, either it's because of the group's jokes or tumblr jokes.

What's challenging for me personally is how fast the other members think and sometimes I can't catch up, it's on me though. I have to improve my way of thinking. As for the size, sometimes if we have five people sitting together we would often get distracted, it'd start like this usually: Maria'd start talking with Eva and Eva'd laugh for sure then the three of us would get confused about what were they talking about, then it's either they would explain to us or not. If they do, we all would get distracted and so yeah. Then after a while either Maggie or Domantė would remind us to get back to the assignments. It's not a big problem (to be honest it's kinda funny) but if it's named distraction then that means it holds us back from our original goals.

I don't think as a person I have a problem with the cultures we have in our group, everything goes well. Task is something that I see as a piece of work that needs to be done within a period of time. And for me as long everybody is contributing and is done before the deadline then we are doing well and I'd say more or less we do exactly just that.

We did decide something in the last meeting that we'd have a "distraction pen", it's just a normal pen but we'd mark someone with it if she gets distracted in the middle of the task(s). And I think if one can't make it to a group meeting it's best to tell the rest of the group that she can't make it and give some pieces of informations or ideas for the group so she'd be still contributing.

(P.S. I sincerely apologise if I unintentionally said something horrible about someone because I didn't mean to)

Now, about the online tools and spaces I use, like I said I've been using twitter and tumblr since forever (read: 2011—yes, since 2011 is since forever.) I have to say that I never intended to use those social medias to harvest informations or to share my personal stuffs. I'm using them just to stalk my favourite singers and artists, there I said it. Because, yay fandoms!

FANDOOOMS

(credit: fuckyesswift.tumblr.com)

I interact with others of course, without having any idea who those people are, all I know is they are here for the same reasons as mine so I have no hesitation to talk to them. But I definitely got informations from them, either it's relevant or not but it is a some kind of informations. For example, one day I talked to this particular person and I found out that she's taking a course in De Haagse as well. Another example, tumblr is a big place, just one click away and we can see and read people's blogs we don't even follow, three months ago I was on my tumblr and I randomly clicked on blogs by blogs on purpose and I found this industrial design blog which was this blog and i was fascinated by its posts.

My conclusion is that even an individual who at first just wanted to use the networks without wanting to gather informations would eventually harvest informations themselves. Professor Joseph Walther developed this theory on 1992 called "Social Information Processing Theory (SIP)", he said that people could get to know each other in the computer mediated environment, whether it's personal or professional relationships. Conscious or not. (Source).

I would say that I prefer feedbacks than random anonymous questions because it's more like one sided communication. The answerer can't reach out to the asker because he/she is anonymous. A place where feedbacks are allowed and people with open identity is more comfortable for me.

Today we were talking about online tools, what is the most effective tool to use in order to complete our projects. I think that people in this world are curious human beings who always try new things, then they’ll decide how is it useful to them, they like it or not, others are using it or not, et cetera. Social media is one of the things they always try, because it’s free; and if you don’t like it, you can just delete your account with one click, or just let it be there.

Those who tried everything even took their times to explain social media one by one. Using the most perfect example, of course. Bacon.

(credit: ooolalina.tumblr.com)

Of course one’s preferences affect the online tools he/she uses. For example, I, myself have tried almost every social media available (facebook, twitter, youtube, tumblr, instagram, myspace,—I know, lame—and reddit) and I prefer twitter and tumblr more than facebook and the others since I don’t really like facebook and twitter and tumblr are the most interesting than the others. I’ve been using those since 2011.

Believe me, tumblr is a bit complicated, but once you understand, it’s addicting.

Oh, and who says tumblr doesn’t have a national anthem?

(credit: gingershanks.tumblr.com)

Diversity is a part of the world, even not as broad as the world, a group also has diversities among the members. Different preferences led to a discussion about which social media is the most effective and the discussion itself will lead to a conclusion. My group has decided to use facebook to communicate and even though I don’t like facebook, but I must say that it is the most effective of all when it comes to sharing things. Democracy works.

Technology creates a network that expand togetherness, I’m conscious now that understanding the relations between technology and communities eliminate the chance of failure of stewardship. To create a relevant community I realise that I have to be able to spot what kind of social process that technology brings and understanding it.

Tumblr Basics

Today I heard some people said that tumblr is complicated, so if anyone wants to know some tumblr basics, you can watch any videos on youtube about the basics since tumblr hasn’t changed much since 3 years ago.

I found a video that I think is the most understandable and the best for beginners.

Everything starts someplace and this week marks the start of Project Communities. For me, the highlight of the day is how communities and networks affect us. First thing first, I would like to share how communities & networks can support us as students and designers for the world.

Communities

I think that communities can help us learn, not just "what to learn" but "how to learn". Because I know all too well sometimes we just don't know how to study, how to learn the basics, and get frustrated like in high school, in the middle of the night before the tests, and crying and eating a massive amount of foods; so many phases.

Exactly.

What I have learnt is that the communities need us, they need designers who can form the future, they need students who they can teach, and vice versa. In a nutshell, they are the ones who can push us.

Okay, I meant a good pushing. They will provide us with some of their complains of what they think this world is lacking, expectations (as in the gadgets or inventions that can fill the world's "weaknesses"). From there we can see what the goals are, what do we need to do, what can we do about this issue, how to please people, the communities itself.

For example, I saw several tweets from people around the globe about their demands of a portable wi-fi, so they can go anywhere and still get a wi-fi signal. Some even gave designers ideas, for instance: a wi-fi bracelet, a wi-fi necklace, a wi-fi hat (it sounds crazy, but those are ideas); and a company named "Bolt" in Indonesia took the chance to make a working 4G portable wi-fi. How do the public react? Psyched.

I have tried it, works like stereotypical wi-fi. Sometimes even better with their 4G networks (most Indonesian networks are still 3Gs)

Networks

I will delineate "networks" as connections that we have, a group or system of interconnected people or things. I think that the bigger the networks that we have the better, people need to connect, either professionally or personally. As human beings, we are social creatures, pack creatures. We need connections to cope with our surroundings, otherwise it would be chaotic.

Knowing what is happening around us is important. So reach out, there are so many features in today's technologies: facebook, twitter, tumblr. The communities there will help us build networks. As designers: "Hey, check out this new thing!" "Oh, that so nice, who made that?" "*Inserts your name* did!" 

As students we can learn from the professional designers our friends show us earlier from the social networks.

Conclusion: Communities and networks will definitely help us grow and learn, either it's baby steps or tall guy with stilts's steps. It doesn't matter, what matters is we are growing together if we know how to reach out to them.

Oh, and have a confusiasm, it is important to be confused with an enthusiasm otherwise you would look like this.

That is a confusion caused by too much focus, so yeah, be confused! With enthusiasms.