My piece on design and social networking for DCM (the UK Design Council magazine), reporting on and analysing developments, and presenting some forecasting, was published in Issue 3 (the blue 'air hostess' issue). I have now also posted it to my site. (The piece can also be found on pp38–41 of the issue.) The posted piece is as submitted and prior to cutting and editing. (I have also made available, with the permission of the publisher, an Acrobat facsimile of the published article.) The piece is extensively endnoted and I have also included the un-published sidebars.
The piece is entitled ‘Curtain twitchers, the CIA and the rise of Facebook’. I look at the background and history of social networking; the forces driving and shaping the phenomenon; its applications and affordances; how we might realise its potential; and limitations and dangers. Sidebars include Designing with social networking tools; Getting exemplary; Terminology; and Key technical developments. Overall, I believe it is one of the most substantial reflections on the phenomenon and potential of social networking aimed at the general interest reader.
Contributors to the piece include Tom Coates of Yahoo!’s Brickhouse division; Lee Bryant of Headshift; Will Davies of Goldsmiths College; Colin Donald of the digital media research practice Futurescape; Rishi Dastidar of Archibald Ingall Stretton; Paola Kathuria of consultants Limitless Innovations; and Andrew Calcutt of the School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies at the University of East London.
If you would like to comment on the piece, you can do so below or, of course, post a response to your own Weblog and trackback to this journal entry.
This issue of DCM includes a number of other interesting pieces: ‘‘The most important instrument of thought is the eye’’ on the use of visualisation (pp18–21); ‘Can designers inject some creativity into China’s karaoke economy?’ by Rhymer Rigby (pp22–29); ‘‘People don’t trust politicians or business. They need to feel sustainability is not a con or a game’’ by David Kester (pp32–37); ‘Why UK designers need an extreme makeover’ by Rachel Abrams (pp46–49); and a case study of Erik Spiekermann’s re-design of The Economist (pp70–71). The magazine is very well designed (by Farrow Design) and printed. Unfortunately it is not also published online, and has no letters page or associated online discussion. (No surprise there as it is published by Haymarket on behalf of the Design Council.)
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