Okay, so based on feedback, we’ve decided to include the text version of the newsletter along with the link. This way everyone can skim the subjects of the newsletter, and then worry about getting around to reading it later.

This semester is already approaching full swing hurricane caliber. Recruit ID is on its way, the lecturettes are lecturing, About, With and For is getting an early start, and teachers have not hesitated to pile on the work. It appears we are getting our money’s worth (don’t talk back).

Look forward this semester to seeing more internship spotlights (thanks to Jenny Fan), richer IDSAB news, and we are working on establishing communication with Alums for the Alumni spotlight. Also, we will include more images now that we are putting the newsletter on ID’s website. Its like a real live newsletter!

See you at the car show, bring a hanky for the drool.
-engageID posse.

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--> student activities

Bowling Together

It has recently been discussed that some people shy away from the IDSAB process because it carries characteristics of a bureaucracy. This is an understandable concern. However, the nature of IDSAB is intended to be just the opposite – a solution to the bureaucratic process ID students have been faced with for years. The goal of these committees is to empower the students through coordinated efforts and financial assistance. Remember, it is your money. Hopefully, the IDSAB is a solution in that it is accessible to the students, unlike the usual bureaucracy. Furthermore, it is a way of penetrating into the higher ups – the inaccessibles. We are making people listen (though we are still trying to crack into main campus). If you have ideas, please voice them.

In the near future, ID inside will be repeating a successful project from the past. They will be hanging paper on the walls of the 3rd and 5th floors for people to comment on things they want, things they don’t want, and things they want changed. This means you can talk about absolutely anything, from trends you hate to problems with students / staff / faculty to supplies and software. Markers will be included for you to satisfy your inner graffiti artist.

The point is, IDSAB is about the student community. If you have recommendations, please let us know. And thanks to those who are taking part.

-Phillip LaFargue

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About, With and For Meeting

The About, With and For meeting last Wednesday was a fantastic start to the project ahead. The students who came were enthusiastic, conversation was good, and some great ideas were bounced around. First we discussed last year's conference - the pros and cons, the speakers and structure, and what we would have done differently. We talked about great programming done at other conferences and agreed that we need to add more transparency to the schedule and more clarity to attendees' choices. We discussed possible themes and speaker talk structures, we played around with dates and venues, and we started to get excited. Then the group broke into smaller teams - Content, Marketing/Communications, Logistics, and Project Management. Our next meeting is set for Tuesday, February 17th. Get ready for a great event next fall.

- Sara Cantor

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IDBeerSocial
Friday, January 30, 2004

The event started a bit on the rocky-side. Around 4pm I went up to the 4th floor and found that too much wine had been ordered as well as a minimal variety of beer. I enlisted Cobie to walk with me to Binny's. We walked all the way there and back--carrying four six-packs and 30 cans of Pabst on the return trip. I think it was 7 degrees outside. Cobie is a prince. Anyway, I went and started setting up (with beloved alumni April Starr keeping me company). At some point I accidentally exploded a soda and got it all over the place.

People started arriving around 6pm, when classes let out. It was mostly Foundation and First years (although there were some Demo/PhD/MIA students as well as Alumni, friends and family). The party had a different feel than last year's Beer Social--mostly because it was dark outside and it felt like a real party. The Pabst and Bell's Two Hearted Ale went quickly, as well as the cheese puffs (next time there will be real food--I promise!). An intense game of quarters was, once again, at the heart of it all. It knocked-out "some people" so fast that "they" had to enlist people to drink for "them" (don't worry--it could happen to anyone, Sara).



I want to thank the following people: Barbara (for ordering the beer), Arlonda & Emmanuel (for helping me get access to the kitchens), Cobie (again, because ya'll owe having the Pabst and Bell's to our cold, cold trip), Steffi & Cheongha (for helping me ice the drinks), Jenny, Yi Leng, Elise, Matt, Abby's boyfriend, Taylor, Jose, Matt, Etc. (for helping me clean up--I know I'm forgetting people here, but it was late), and Rachel and any others who helped with IDSocial and this event.



Anyway, I don't know what else to say. I hope people had fun. Next time I expect to see more of you. Let me know what IDSocial can do to make these parties better (other than "more PBR"--I already know that).

- Hillary Schuster

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--> special feature

Welcome to my Nervous Breakdown

I think I’m having a nervous breakdown. I’m not certain—what are the symptoms, exactly? Either way, I have a ton of work to do and nothing is getting done. I think the main problem is that, along with all of the work, there is all of the planning and coordinating of the work. Like, I start to freak out when I realize the number of hours in a day and the amount of work there is. I start making lists and emailing people and having to meet with teammates and contacting Professors and this and that.

However, this is ID. The particular problem I’m having the past week is that things out of the ordinary have been happening. I had to go home last weekend for family stuff and was busy the whole time--nothing got done (I mean, other than karaoke and gambling). Now I have to leave Thursday night to go to St. Louis for a Texas Instruments-sponsored conference. I almost had to sacrifice tonight to go to a user observation—but I threw a tantrum and got out of it. I have cancelled plans to watch the past two episodes of “Sex and the City” with my friends. I am missing a free Stella Artois at a bar in my neighborhood. I eat, sleep and breathe sustainability and human factors; computer-based laboratories and middle school education…

Oh. And then there’s my IPRO. Don’t get me started on that. I could complain about it for ages. It is so time consuming that it makes me want to scream. I can’t wait until spring break. I’m going to Malibu. I’m staying at a friend’s aunt and uncle’s place. They won’t be there. We are driving their Escalade.

- Hillary Schuster

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--> of interest

Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments team representatives from the Product Line Strategy of Education and Productivity Solutions were warmly welcomed for the first time by students and staff alike. Interested in extending their current TI calculator/ CBL platform to the middle school grades, Texas Instruments is sponsoring a multi-track project involving two product workshops, as well as a communication workshop. ID students from both product workshops have been sponsored by Texas Instruments to attend the regional T3 (that’s T cubed) conference in St. Louis, MI this coming weekend to learn more about the teachers that interface with TI’s platform, as well as gain further insight into TI’s processes and capabilities.

- Jaime Chen

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Mattel – The Presentation

On February 2, 2004 John Reale from Mattel Design visited the Institute of Design and offered a motivating presentation about Mattel and how they design and develop toys. John has a background in Toy Design and is responsible for the Hot Wheels line of toys, one of Mattel’s most successful brands. His visit was part of the company’s involvement in our brand new Master of Design Sponsorship Program: Mattel will be sponsoring a project about ‘smart toys’ that will require designing “concept ware” design prototypes for the Hot Wheels brand.

As an introduction, John presented an overview of the current situation of the toy business, which he defined as a “fashion-driven business” where the lifecycle of a toy typically last one year, with some exceptions lasting three years. He also explored the vast number of categories that are part of the toy market, such as action figures, building sets, vehicles, and puzzles, to name a few. He mentioned that today, the most profitable categories are electronics and educational toys, the latter usually geared toward the parents.

John explained that video and computer games, currently having 35% of the toy market, are redefining the play value for all toy and game categories. As a result of this trend, John foresees a “convergence” towards ‘smart toys’, product experiences that combine computer use with physical toys. He anticipates that successful toys will be those that deliver innovative hybrid play patterns adapted to the physical and cognitive level of the boy. These play patterns include competition, conflict, transformation, sensation, problem-solving, learning, among others. And to provide a strong “play experience”, the toy must have depth of play, be transformative, contextual and innovative.
In this context, Mattel is introducing a sponsored project where the challenge is to create new play experiences for the design of ‘smart toys’. Therefore, what new interactions between physical toys, computers and kids are possible? What new play experiences will enable socialization? And learning through discovery? How can an innovative and immersive play that captures kid’s imagination be provided? What new play patterns are possible? The questions are many and the search for the answers should be fun!

- Martin Zabaleta

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Mattel – The Student Project

On Monday February 2, John Reale spoke at the Institute of Design. Mr. Reale is a design manager in the Hot Wheels division of Mattel Corporation, which is based in Southern California.

Mr. Reale’s talk was on “Toys for Young Boys.” He described the basic profile of boys between the ages of 4 and 10 and detailed the way Hot Wheels has addressed this market through the company’s history. He went on to describe the peculiar culture at Hot Wheels which is driven by passionate industrial designers, many of whom have Hot Wheels tatoos.

The purpose of Mr. Reale talk was to present a design challenge to members of Chris Conley’s Architecture and Platform product design workshop. The design challenge is called University Design Summit 2004 – Future Smart Toys. Besides ID, three other design programs have been chosen to compete in the event: Stanford, RCA, and NYU. The goal of the project is to develop new ideas for smart toys which combine physical and computerized play.

So far, 12 people are working on the project for ID. In the last three weeks, Teams have focused on user research and market research. My team visited three boys in the suburbs to observe typical play. This is an interesting user group to research because many of the standard ID methods are not effective. We found ourselves scrambling to catch up with the rambunctious boys. The next phase of the project will be conceptualization and prototyping followed by detailing and refinement. A final presentation will be made to Mattel in California this summer.

- Coburn Everdell

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Ethnography Conference

The 6th Annual Ethnography Conference is being held at Northwestern University on Saturday, February 21. This year’s theme is "The Chicago School of Ethnography: Past, Present, and Future." Keynote speakers will be David Snow and Kevin Henson. Additionally students (including some from ID) will present a wide range of topics that includes original research findings, ethnographic methods, ongoing fieldwork and ethnographic research in the context of design. There will also be informal lunch sessions with ethnographers in professional fields.

This conference is organized as a collaborative effort of several Chicago graduate programs. Participating universities include Loyola University Chicago, The University of Chicago, Northwestern University, DePaul University, The Illinois Institute of Technology, Northern Illinois University, Western Michigan, and The University of Illinois-Chicago.

David Snow is a professor at UC, Irvine. His teaching and research interests include collective action and social movements, qualitative field methods, social psychology with an emphasis on self and identity from a symbolic interactionist perspective, changes in cognitive orientation and interpretive perspective, and socioeconomic inequality and marginality with an emphasis on homelessness and poverty.

Kevin Henson is a professor at Loyola University. His teaching interests include work and occupations, the sociology of gender, and sexuality. His research focuses on how contingent work, particularly temporary employment, recreates and perpetuates gender, race, and class inequalities.
The conference is free and further information about the program and timing will be forthcoming.

-Taylor Lies

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Local Yoga - Bikram

Bikram Yoga, a.k.a. “yoga in hell”, or as I prefer to think of it: “the endurance test.” Twice a week, a small crew of ID students spends 90 minutes in a small studio heated to 110 degrees with 30% humidity… a recipe for pain. Sweat pours off our bodies as we contort ourselves into 26 consecutive poses that constitute Bikram’s regiment. The real test is the mental endurance, focusing on each position without panicking. I remind myself: it will end and I won’t die. It is worth it.

A young man named Bikram Choudhury created Bikram Yoga in India. At seventeen, he injured his knee in a weight-lifting accident and was told he would never walk again. Not accepting this prediction, he used yoga to heal his body. Six months later, his knee had totally recovered. He has since brought his curative methods of yoga therapy to the world, including Chicago. A body hunched over a computer for the greater part of the day could use a little therapy.

Personally, I find Bikram Yoga extremely rewarding. Because you repeat the same poses and endure the same intense temperatures every class, it is easy to see your progress each time you attend. The cold winter and the hours of indoor monotony seem more tolerable as a result.

The closest Bikram studio to ID is Bikram Yoga in the City, 219 W. Chicago, 6th Floor
Chicago, IL 60610. http://hansifer.com/bikramcitychicago/default.asp

- Laura Patterson

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--> internship spotlight

My summer at Fiskars – Sara Cantor goes to Wausau

Last summer, as Institute of Design students were scattering to various parts of the country in pursuit of summer jobs, internships, or just plain old sun worship, Sara Cantor drove up to Wausau, Michigan, in a borrowed car stuffed full of clothing and bedding. She was to work as a product design intern in Fiskars' School-Office Craft Division for the next two months.
Sara tells me about her summer with Fiskars, what she learned, what she didn’t learn, and what she took away.

Jenny: Tell me about yourself?

Sara: Well, I mean, you know me. I’m a first-year design-planning student at the Institute Design. I got an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University in mechanical engineering….I was a camp counselor…um, a recruiter…

Jenny: You had a winter internship, right?

Sara: Right. That’s more applicable. I interned for a toy company called Creata Promotions last winter. I designed a Happy Meal toy. One.

Jenny: Okay, so, tell me about your internship search last spring. Did the work at Creata help you?

Sara: Well, I made a portfolio in March, compiling work from Foundation and from my work at Creata. The portfolio included work in product and graphic design, as well as photography. Then, I attended RecruitID in April, where I interviewed with Fiskars. The interview went really well, so I went for a second-interview with the product designer of the office-crafts division about two weeks later.

Jenny: Then what happened?

Sara: Well, after that nothing happened for about a month, and I’d almost given up hope when they emailed and said they wanted me.

Jenny: Yeah!

Sara: Totally. I was like “whoooooo-hooooooo”

Jenny: What were your initial impressions of Fiskars?

Sara: First, they’re from Wisconsin, so they’re very nice. In a dorky, cheesy way. But they are also very committed to quality in their products, and since the division I would be working in had a focus on children (they made school tools), I was very excited. I’ve been interested in toy design ever since I was a kid. Last, it seemed like it cared about its users, so it fit in well with the ID methods I was learning.

Jenny: Great. Tell me about your internship experience.

Sara: Well, I worked mostly on one product—a collapsible quilting workstation—which didn’t really make that much sense, but anyways. I was the “champion” for the product, since I had ownership of the design process from start to finish. So I did some initial research, but it was all secondary…that’s the one thing that would’ve helped, to conduct primary research, but I didn’t get to do it,

Jenny: What kind of secondary research did you do?

Sara: I went to home depot and checked out other kinds of collapsible things, stuf like that.

Jenny: Cool. Then what did you do?

Sara: Then, I sketched initial concepts, chose to pursue one, and made a foam model showing that it worked. I presented the foam model to a big room full of people, including the president of the division, the marketing teams, and the designers. The meeting went really well, they loved my table, so I made some 3D renderings.

Jenny: That sounds great! So then what happened?

Sara: Well, at that point, unfortunately, my internship was over, so I didn’t get to see the project end. But I also worked on a bunch of other smaller products throughout the summer.

Jenny: Okay. What did you think about the people you were working with throughout your internship?

Sara: People? Well, I worked a lot with the designers and marketing teams, and got a lot of good advice from them, since it was sort of like my first real job. At the same time, my direct manager was very hands off—I would say that I saw him no more than once a week—which was interesting because it allowed me a lot of autonomy over my own work day. So that was a learning experience as well—how to structure my day.

Jenny: What else did you learn from your internship?

Sara: I think the disconnect in a large company between marketing and engineering was the most surprising thing for me. The two departments just didn’t seem to see eye-to-eye. I sometimes felt like the role of design was just to bridge the gap between the two teams…I mean, sometimes I felt like I was a conduit of information more than anything else.

Jenny: Wow, that sounds kind of…sucky. Would you want to work at Fiskars again?

Sara: No, I don’t think so. I mean, Fiskars is so large that there seems to be a lot of miscommunication within the company, and it also seems like it would be a very frustrating environment to work in. But their products are great! How do they do it? Its weird. Well, I mean, they have really great product designers.

Jenny: Okay. Last question. What advice would you give to students who are just starting out on their internship search?

Sara: Okay, lots of things. First, design your portfolio. Don’t just throw a whole bunch of work together. Instead, design it as a whole document. Emphasize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. Also, be what they need you to be. That’s really important. I don’t want to be a product designer for the rest of my life, but for this internship, that’s who they wanted, so that’s who I was. Basically, if you want the job, understand who they want, and be that person.

Jenny: If you want the money…

Sara: Right. Suck it up. And then, last, I guess interviews are the other really important thing. You know, be clean, be professional, shower…

Jenny: Don’t smell.

Sara: Yeah, don’t smell. It would be bad to smell. But joking aside, the interview is really important. Be well spoken, focused on the details, you know. Nail that interview.

-Jenny Fan

--> student projects

Product Design Workshop
Spring, 2004
Taught by: Denise Steiner, Eui-Chul Jung

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS PROJECT
By: Jaime Chen, Laura Patterson, James Schulman, Hillary Schuster

In Chris’s Product Platform Workshop, we have the option of working on one of the two sponsored projects. Jaime, Laura, James and I are working together on the one for Texas Instruments. The project is to create new applications of their Computer Based Laboratory (CBL) for grades 5 through 8. The hardware--a TI: 73 and CBL2--has to remain the same, but the interface and engagement activities need to be evaluated and redesigned to meet the needs and desires of middle school kids.

In the past few weeks we have focused on understanding the TI/CBL system, activities and users (mostly high school students and teachers), as well as middle school curriculum, cognitive issues, and the daily lives of these kids. In addition to secondary research, we have been doing some in-context interviews and performing some of the CBL exercises. I met with my old high school math teacher to get information and resources (we ran an experiment with one of his students) and tonight James and Jaime are doing our first interview with a group of kids. We mostly want to get a feel for what they are interested in and what their daily activities are.

Tomorrow we are leaving for the T3 Conference (Teachers Teaching with Technology), which is sponsored by Texas Instruments. We are hoping to get a better understanding of how middle school teachers are currently using these technologies and how TI presents the info to the educators. Additionally, we have another meeting with kids next Thursday and then hope to do some classroom observation to wrap-up our investigation into the product category and its users.

After our research stage, we are planning to come up with new activities and engagements, as well as a new interface (with Jed’s help), to test with kids. The eventual deliverable will hopefully be a new and exciting learning experience for middle school kids.

- Hillary Schuster

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Editor: Phillip LaFargue II

HTML Author: Lucas Daniel

Contributors: Sara Cantor, Jenny Fan, Philip LaFargue II, Christine Choi, Taylor Lies, Hillary Schuster, Jaime Chen, Laura Patterson, Martin Zabaleta, Coburn Everdell