• Editorial
• ID News
  • Eat the World at the International Dinner
  • Web Portfolio Workshop
  • An Attitudinal Approach to Ethnography
  • Sustainability, BOP Presentation
• Recent Events
  • SocialID: ID Ultimate Frisbee Championship
• Showcase
  • challengeID: Can the ID community "crowdsource"?
  • ID Twisted Portrait Photobooth Contest!
• New IDers
  • New IDer: Ido Mor
  • Past IDer: Craig Zaplatynsky
• Of Interest
  • Around Town: Weiner's Circle
  • Observed Links

Intersession, for those of you non-ID initiated, is meant to be a peaceful and relaxing week in between session A and B. IDers can take a breath, wrap up some of the classes that just finished, keep on working on some of the 15 week long workshops they are currently involved and probably take the highly engaging, and lightly loaded for ID-standards, 5-day Physical Human Factors course taught by Stanford's (and ID's) legendary Professor Bill Verplank. Fabulous. It sounds like exactly what IDers needed... but that's not exactly what happened this semester.

ID has the luxury to have fantastic professors, both full time faculty and adjunct faculty. But the fact that many of them work professionally at the highest level means that they have more important commitments, which is good for them and their companies, but, sometimes, not as good for the students because we get our classes rescheduled very often. Just some examples: Larry Keeley is traveling constantly and he generously ends up giving his classes on Sundays at Doblin and holding meeting with students along the week. Matt Mayfield is traveling next week for a Motorola research project and he advanced the start of his course to Intersession. In summary, an unusually packed week that will help keep IDers on their toes, with no chance to get caught with their guard down for the B session.

On a side note, we think it is worth mentioning this semester's biggest comeback. Chuck Owen's dedication to ID and its students really has no limit. Just 6 weeks after having surgery he is already back in school teaching and fully dedicated to his annual Systems Workshop class. Does anyone know another septuagenarian Professor in the world with Chuck's charisma and stamina? We don't.

your stuttering editors,
Alex Cheek and Enric Gili Fort

Upcoming: Eat the World at the International Dinner
October 20th, 2006.

Contribute something delectable or $13 to wine/dine/judge. (Sorry if $13 seems steep, but this is to prevent past debacles where everyone comes but no one brings anything to eat and a lot of pizza money is taken out of the SocialID fund that would otherwise be used toward a future fun event!) Prizes will be awarded to the best dishes.

Drinks tab is on us!

International Dinner Competition
7:30 pm on Friday, Oct 20
6th floor Steelcase room

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Upcoming: Web Portfolio Workshop
October 23th, 2006.

Hosted by: John Kestner
Blurb: "Reluctant to put your portfolio online, in hopes that this Interwebs thing is just a fad? It isn't, and web-based portfolios are now a must-have. John will help you get up to speed, covering everything from authoring tools to web etiquette to converting your existing work to an online format, with the goal of making a good first impression on potential employers."

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Upcoming: An Attitudinal Approach to Ethnography
October 24th, 2006.

Hosted by: Dan Chichester, Doblin
Blurb: "I would like to open a dialogue with ID students where I can share some of my experiences in doing User Research at Doblin. I think a good place to begin this dialog is for me to talk about how I approach ethnography and why I think that matters. After all, most big corporations have highly trained market researchers, why would they hire out someone to do this 'ethnography stuff'? I would also like to share some stories about myself and my clients and how those relationships worked or didn't work. I would like to think about this talk as a place to build a dialog instead of a tidy lesson plan."

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Upcoming: Sustainability, BOP Presentation
October 27th, 2006.

This talk will be of specific interest to people interested in Sustainable development, BOP, Business to 4 billion, ICT for Develoment.

When: Friday, Oct 27, 12:30-1:30pm
Where: 6th Nathan
Speaker: John Paul/ Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise/ Cornell University

John's talk will explore how business can serve the needs of the world's four billion poor. He will characterize the markets at the base of the pyramid and discuss their importance, citing several examples of businesses that are already succeeding at the BOP. John will talk about his experiences in India and Nepal, and will also discuss recent work by WRI that attempts to quantify the BOP markets for the first time.

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SocialID: ID Ultimate Frisbee Championship
by Jordan Fischer

At 2pm last Saturday, a group of ID students, one ID staff member and three friends left taunting messages and long meetings at school for a few hours to compete in the 1st ever (as far as we know) Ultimate Frisbee Championship, held at Oz Park.

Although leading up to the game there was taunting suggesting the Westside Preppies were "yacht club jockeys lounging around in red Nantucket pants," and the Eastside Hippies were "casual, used garment and expanded consciousness beings," the game was an overwhelming success (preppies won, of course).

The weather was beautiful and there were some most memorable getups (of note, Joyce Chen, Enric Gili Fort, Annie Nguyen, John Kestner). Some highlights from the game:

Let's do it again soon.

- Jordan Fischer

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We certainly know that the announcement of this newsletter is sent to almost 4000 alumni, friends and family of ID. If you sum up all we collectively know about ID currently and its history we could probably have a page as complete and informative as any other school.
So why not do altogether as ID community some crowdsourcing (buzzword of the month) and fill it up with great content?

You say you don't know what to write about? Why not start with some history (past locations, faculty, notable alumni, etc.), follow up writing about awards and then add some pictures and trivia? It’s up to you. Enter your contribution (basic free login required) and in the next issues we will report about its evolution.

ID wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Design_IIT

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The prize is hours (or at least several minutes) of laughter and enjoyment for
yourself, and for all those who get to laugh at your ugly new face. Come
on, put those tiny, shiny new iSight cameras to use!

in the next issue…best caption contest. (Here, Chelsea and Alexa come across
a batch of freshly baked scones...)

Hope it's at least a good laugh for you guys! Oh, and Chelsea, you are allowed
to veto the distribution of this photo if you want!

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new IDer: Ido Mor
MDes Design Planning, 2008

How did you end up at ID?
American Airlines flight #1241.

What were your motivations for coming?
I was thinking in the direction of design planning while studying at RISD, but didn't know at the time such a program existed. After graduating I kept knocking on doors of consultancies, ambitiously trying to do this kind of work. Some folks at IDEO in Palo Alto were kind enough to point out that I was competing with graduate students who've been living, eating and sleeping these techniques I was dreaming of, in a very structured way ... I guess ambition alone wasn't enough for them.

Where were you working before?
Most recently with Nasir Kassamali, the owner of Luminaire (www.luminaire.com).

What are your first impressions about ID (people, faculty, the space, the city..)?
People and faculty:
I generally find you can't go wrong when you put a bunch of people together (in this case students and faculty) who love what they do.

Space:
I would love to see the space more fluctuating than stagnant. There are so many incredible ideas bubbling up between all the classes – it would be great to have common passages in this building, like the hallways and elevators, posting the kinds of projects people are working on. Maybe a different student from each class each week. It would potentially spark 'accidental ideas' and get more communication between students and staff. It would help inform students with selection of classes if they can progressively see the kinds of projects happening around them. Also we would be good citizens of this building if our neighbors upstairs and their visitors had some clue as to what happens below... assuming they care.

City:
I wake up to the radio every morning. Last week NPR came on and the weather forecast said something like, "Our high will be 42-degrees." Having lived most recently in Miami, there's something fundamentally wrong with hearing the number '42' in relationship to weather. Maybe there's a tiny bit of good in global warming coming to Chicago winters.

What do you think you can bring to the people here at ID (culturally, socially,..)?
An honest opinion.

Is there anything amazing from your culture or where you come from that you think people should not miss? (music, culture, design, food, cities, believes...)
Culinary:
Make sure not to miss the Turkish coffee with cardamom.
Alon might argue otherwise, but I would recommend against gefilte fish.

Culture:
...any culture is worth getting to know

Design:
Israel is a big consumer of European couture and design in general. Its own designers have struggled in the past with the lack of resources in the manufacturing sector to produce good design. The country's existing industries have in recent years began shifting to the design sector as Israeli designers have developed a stronger identity in the international press.

Cities:
Israel is a very small country. You can easily drive from the Northern tip to the South in under 10 hours. In between you have everything from hot springs and alligator farms to cities that date back thousands of years, to desert oases, to some of the best scuba diving in the world, to cosmopolitan cities with really good restaurants and a crazy nightlife just about any night of the week, and of course the dead sea... one of the coolest experiences you can imagine.

Which designers or thinkers have impressed you the most lately or you are following now?
My brother and his wife. They made a baby less than two weeks ago and I'm an uncle for the first time. I expect to keep an eye on that for a while.

What kind of activities are you planning to do in your free time in case you have any while at ID?
I hear Chicago has great restaurants – I want to try them.

past IDer: Craig Zaplatynsky
Undergraduate Design Program / Product Design, 1997

My name is Craig "Zap" Zaplatynsky. I graduated from ID in 1997 in the Communication Design Track. I was born in Chicago and have lived my entire life in and around the Chicago area and suburbs. Age: Old (so I've been told) 51.

What was your background before coming to ID?
I came to ID as an undergraduate, transferring from IIT's Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering program.

What came after ID?
Well, quite a lot happened while in ID since it took me several years to complete the program. I was full time for a few years then transitioned to taking class on a part time basis. I was working for Motorola in Schaumburg, IL as a design engineer during my part time years. After ID, I was still working at Motorola, as a technical program manager and had moved to different opportunities over the years. My current role is quality assurance manager for the Mobile Devices Business of Motorola where I am creating new ways to measure and improve our product quality.

In which ways and dimensions you think ID has changed your career?
This question would require more space than you have in your news letter... the short version; Though I am not working in a product design capacity in my current job, ID still has played a big role in my professional journey. ID had reshaped the way I approach problem solving and the way I think about the physical world around me. ID had given me a new perspective of the end user, the customer/recipient of what I create. It has also given me insight into the dynamics of the corporate world and how design (of product, process, or human interface) plays an enormous role. I've learned that design isn't just what you look at, it's what you live with. Design is the phone you talk on, the carton it came in, the car you drove home in, the roads you drove on. I've learned that design is everywhere, design is everything.

Can you imagine what would you be doing if you had not attended ID?
Because ID had been such a large part of my life, this one is a little tough. I honestly think that I would probably have ended up as a design engineer for a small manufacturing company. I already had the drawing skills and a good mechanical aptitude, but doubt I would have gotten much further than that.

What are the skills learned at ID that you use the most in your current job/life?
Actually, I still use quite a number of the skills I learned such as analytic problem solving, presentation skills, project management skills, written communication skills (often referred to as word smithing by Chuck Owen), and how to work effectively in a team environment.

What was the most valuable class that you took while at ID?
If I was going to pick only one I'd have to say design methodology, taught by Chuck Owen. I believe that this was the solid foundation for everything that followed.
...Though the most fun class was film appreciation.

Which member of the faculty influenced you the most and why ?
Over the years while at ID, I have come to know and learn from some of the greatest minds in the design field, so it is difficult an unfair to pick just one. So to spare your readers from an on-line novel, I'll choose two. My first choice is the late Jay Doblin. I had the honor of taking several classes taught by Jay, and can recall the countless discussions we had about corporate America and the role the designer. Jay had a vision for what the role of the designer should be in society, not just in the corporate world. He was a captivating individual who inspired me to make an impact in the world of design.

My second selection is Chuck Owen. Chuck taught me the value of user research and how to properly synthesize that research into meaningful information. He showed me the importance of getting the details right and that a well defined problem is half the solution. Chuck also exposed me to design methodology and process design, of which both serve me very well today.

What hard times did you have ID, and what got you through them?
My hard times at ID were rooted in financial problems. ID is not an inexpensive endeavor when it comes to product design material (my major) and photography equipment (my minor). Without the supplies I found it difficult to perform to the expectations of the teaching staff. A few part-time jobs and some very long hours got me through, not to mention a few gracious instructors who extended some deadlines.

If you could have changed one thing about ID while a student, what would it have been?
This is a tough one. In spite of the tough times I encountered, I learned a tremendous amount at ID.
I think that a scholarship fund of some kind to help with my school expensed would have been a big help. I believe that my personal struggle back then is why I am a contributor to the ID scholarship fund today.

What's the best anecdote you have from the time you were at school(professor or student related)?
I was one of the team leads for a project being prepared for the Japan Design Foundation, 3rd International Design Competition, Osaka. The theme was simply water, the project was Aquatecture, a water borne mega system being developed under the watchful eye of Chuck Owen. I was leading the Patterned Energy team that had developed a series of floating energy producing devices covering solar, wave action, thermal gradient, bio-mass, and others. We had just finished a team meeting where we were completing the final presentation posters for the first phase of the completion. The team was tired and had insisted that we create a layout that was less than appealing. I went along with the teams wishes only to have Chuck come along and start yelling that this was not going to represent the school unless we did some serious modifications. Unfortunately the team was gone with the exception of myself and Shri Jambekar. We looked at each other and started a total redesign of our work. The two of us work feverishly through the night and into the morning. When it was time to photograph the series of posters before shipping them to Osaka, Chuck came by to see what we had done. He took one look and a big smile came across his face. He then turned to us and said,"This is the best work out of all the teams. This is the kind of work that will win competitions." The rest of the team started filling in the room and took a look at the revised effort. Their reply,"Ya, that looks good too." The rest is ID history.

How many nights did you sleep at school?
I never slept a night at school, I was always working while there. One instance when I was working in the basement of Crown Hall (where ID was in the early days of my undergrad experience) for 72 hours straight. I was under the gun to complete several projects and was afraid that if I stopped to sleep, I'd never complete them on time. I finished them on time, set them up for final critique and when back to my room and slept for a solid 24 hours.

What is the last book that has impressed you the most?
I don't read many books, never did as a student either. There is one book I have that I read not too long ago, "Your Creative Power" by Alex Osborn. Its about exercising your creative mind and how creativity can help you in nearly all walks of life.

What other advice do you have for current and/or future ID students?
Never forget what you learned yesterday, and remember to apply it to what you will do tomorrow. (You can quote me on that.)

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Around Town : Wiener's Circle
By Amy Palit

Recently I had the opportunity to try out a new hot dog place. Wiener's Circle is located in Lakeview and proved to be a delicious and popular destination for greasy food for both the post party crowd and food enthusiasts like Eric, Lise, David, and myself. Well, maybe sans Eric. Much like my trip to Ed Debevic's, we were informed of the employee rudeness, but we were not to be deterred. Upon arrival, I actually was shocked by obnoxious behavior - of the customers. The employees appeared to all be rather aggressive women, looking down from the counter windows taking orders at rapid fire. That, combined with some moody, rather unalert (read: drunk) customers didn't bode well. We arrived as one man was being especially forceful and shouting obscenities at one of the employees. It was much more raucous than the usual scene at, say, the late night pizza places I've been to. Apparently, part of the fun of the Wiener's Circle is the trash talking instigated by the employees.

Once we got through the line and got our food however, all was worthwhile. Its hard to go wrong with hot dogs, and Wiener's Circle did not disappoint. Lise's and my hot dogs were pretty good, toppings plentiful, and at $2.40, you can't ask for much more. Although, the bratwursts might be on the crisp side according to Eric. Still, The Wiener's Circle is a winner in my book (can't resist the pun) and will be visited after many late night parties to come.

Wiener's Circle
2622 N Clark St
Chicago, IL 60614
(877) 280-9602




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Observed