Link:
Additional credits:
15m are always on the look-out for people who can bring new ideas and perspectives to the company, and we are convinced that Ensi Mofasser will do just that.
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Castilñano's post-graduate thesis deals with car sharing in Oslo. The thesis describes a holistic and sustainable car sharing service that aims to attract new users to the service. The strong emphasis on the overall experience, and the use of new technology to enhance the experience of the service, both impresses and inspires us.
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The project consists of a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest. In a map, the size of each country or geographic region is drawn in proportion to variables, like population size, wealth, infant mortality, energy use, or other things. There are currently nearly 600 maps covering a large set of subjects on Worldmapper.
Internet users in 2002
The people behind Worldmapper are also responsible for the initiative SHOW/WORLD. SHOW/WORLD is an online informational tool launched in 2008 and is an extension of the Worldmapper project. SHOW/WORLD enables the users to interactively explore the maps, providing an even more immediate and engaging user experience.
15m is inspired by the clever use of information design presented by Worldmapper and SHOW/WORLD, and thinks that these maps are important eye-openers to the current state of the world.
Read more:
Frontpage: This map shows the worldwide distribution of people over 65 years old.
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Deepak Chopra and Mike Myers, ©2008 The Sundance Channel.
15m thinks that Iconoclasts has turned out both involving, inspirational and slightly unpredictable, this in spite of the definite potential that this concept has for being boring and annoying. The series explores the intersection where two creative talents meet - and 15m thinks this is a wonderful starting point for a portrait series.
The series is a product of Sundance Channel, and is executive produced by Robert Redford. Iconoclast is airing on Star! on Tuesdays (21.00-22.00) and Wednesdays (15.00-16.00)
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Spotify calls itself "a new way to enjoy music" - at first glance the service doesn't look all that novel, so what is it with Spotify that makes everyone (including us) instantly fall in love with it?
Well, the client application is nice looking and easy to use, it is fast and provides good streaming quality. The possibilities to share and collaborate on playlists is also nice. But best of all is this: Using Spotify gives you instant access to all music you can think of, on any computer, without having to pay for it, organize it or store it.
Right now, Spotify is an invite-only service, but don't despair because 15m is handing out 15 Spotify invites (hey, it's Christmas, isn't it?). Just send us an e-mail - the first 15 respondents will get lucky!
Front page: 29 cent commemorative stamp imaging rock legend Elvis Presley issued by US Postal Service in 1993. Copyright Time Inc.
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Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell's book provides a number of great examples of "thin slicing" from science, advertising, sales, medicine and popular music to reinforce his ideas. One implication of the book is that how we blink is a function of our experiences, training, and knowledge.
15m thinks that the book provides an important and compelling contrast to the world of requirements and analysis that surrounds us and informs our daily decisions and design processes.
Frontpage: Racing driver Sam Posey testing Ferrari prototype race car. © Time Inc.
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Zappos is an interesting company in many ways: They've done little or no traditional marketing, and the primary source of growth has been repeat customers and word of mouth recommendations. The company has been called "quirky" by journalists and analysts, often quoting the company's ten core values:
15m is inspired by how Zappos has build their business entirely on the customer experience rather than the products. The business model is to acquire customers cost effectively (word-of-mouth, social media, etc.) and make them so happy with their experience that they not only keep coming back, but also will recommend Zappos to others.
15m think that if companies are to achieve lasting competitive advantage through experience design, the experiences they deliver have to be meaningful to the customers. This means understanding what people feel strongly about when interacting with products and services and then deliver great experiences on those terms.
Juletre fra skogen ("Christmas tree from the forest") is an art-/political project that aims to (translated from Norwegian) "..spread a message about respect for whatever falls outside the standards of our uniform society, and at the same time enhance the awareness of alternative sustainable consumerism"
The website lets you surf through individually-named trees that are photographed with a 79 cm tall garden gnome to give you an idea about the size. When you have selected the three you want to buy, you can send an e-mail to reserve it and the guys behind the website will kindly cut it for you and bring it when they can.
15 meanings is inspired by the originality and communication aspects of this idea as well as by the project's message. And the website is wonderful!
The dating site is based on the idea that the books that we read say something defining about us and the type of people we are and therefore are a good starting point for romance. The members of Penguin Dating are asked to write in their profile about the last book they read and will also be able to search through the site's other profiles for mentions of their favourite book.
15m thinks that this is an intriguing business case: The dating website builds on the strong emotional connection that people have with their favourite books - and on the fact that people are passionate about what they read. Combined with an integration with the Penguin book shop, this becomes an interesting platform for selling books and establishing customer loyalty. Penguin says it will promote the site in the final pages of more than two million paperback novels.
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The basic idea in the book is that feedback from the use and behavior of a building will allow for evolutionary design improvement. Since a building (probably) will need to serve different needs, the best buildings are those who successfully change to suit new uses, and one should therefore avoid elements that work against this.
The more general idea is that your product might have a long life and you should construct it so that it can easily be modified to handle future requirements.
In July 2008 Stewart Brand released the six-part, three-hour, BBC TV series aired in 1997 based on the book on Google Video. The series is presented and co-written by Stewart Brand, the music is by Brian Eno, and this is definitely one of the hidden gems of the Internet. Enjoy!
Cheskin Added Value is a design and marketing consultancy that was founded 60 years ago by Louis Cheskin - a pioneer within the field of marketing research and customer driven product design. Each year Cheskin interviews over 100,000 individuals worldwide in order to understand how people adapt new products and services. In these interviews, they've found commonalities among the meanings people feel strongly about, independent of geographical location and culture, and have ended up with a list of 15 core meanings that seems to be universal:
While the relative importance (and number...) of these meaningful experiences might vary and their interpretation will differ slightly, all cultures seem to recognize their significance.
15m thinks that by understanding what is meaningful to the people we design for, we can create great and innovative experiences that make people happy and that deliver real value to both users and businesses.
The 15 meanings is an excerpt from "Making meaning" by Steve Diller, Nathan Shedroff and Darrel Rhea
]]>Adrià's stated goal is to "provide unexpected contrasts of flavour, temperature and texture. Nothing is what it seems. The idea is to provoke, surprise and delight the diner". He combines this with a sense of humour, and his dishes are truly innovative and wonderful.
Ferran Adría
15m is not only inspired by Adrià's incredible creativity, intuition and gastronomical ideas, but also by his clear focus on the experience of the guests in his restaurant (quote): "The ideal customer doesn't come to El Bulli to eat, but to have an experience". He is famous for his thirty course gourmet menu.
In this inspiring 15-minutes long behind the scenes film, you can get a glimpse into the facinating personality of Sr Ferràn: "A day at El Bulli".
Eating at Sr Ferran's restaurant seems to be a prime example of a designed experience - and we would really like to experience it at least once in our life - if we can get a table! The last time 15m checked, we would have to wait for at least two years.
El Bulli is only open from April to October. Adrià spends the remaining six months of the year perfecting recipes in his workshop "El Taller" in Barcelona.
Frontpage copyright of Barnes and Noble Inc.
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Sarah Palin" was the fastest rising search query on Google in 2008
15 m loves to explore the aggregations of the billions of search queries that people type into the Google search box, as it gives us a glimpse of what millions of people have on their minds. Some of the popular queries lists are even quite narrative, telling wonderful little stories.
The Indian top ten "how to"- queries
While many of you probably are familiar with Google Zeitgeist, you might not have heard of Jonathan Harris. Jonathan Harris is an artist and computer scientist who makes online art that captures the world's expression - and gives us a glimpse of the soul of the Internet. His projects troll the Internet to find out what we're all feeling and looking for.
Wefeelfine.org is a project that aims to harvest human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches newly posted blog entries across the world for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence together with the age, gender, geographical location and local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written.
The result is a database of several million human feelings. Through a series of interfaces, these feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices. Do Europeans feel sad more often than Americans? Do women feel fat more often than men? Does rainy weather affect how we feel? Find out on wefeelfine.org!