One of the best aspects of the ‘club’ is that it offers an alternative to Utrecht’s terribly cramped and overpriced city center. Everybody wants to live and work in the Utrecht within the ‘singels’ but that privilege costs a lot of money and doesn’t give you a lot of quality of life. Only if you manage to strike a suitable property deal with the city you can do whatever the fuck you want.

The Vechtclub XL is a fifteen minutes bike ride out of the city on a derelict business park, about here. There’s nearly nothing nearby which means the building needs to be self-sustaining. That necessity is actually causing that to happen. They are setting up a fully functional cafetaria with world class coffee and more facilities. Being there right now is not terrible. People make do with whatever they have already brought in and there are upsides such as somebody training for a barista championship, lunch being brought in once a week and other events being organized.

This is a continuation of a previous non-XL Vechtclub. Most of it has been funded by the people there who run it not as a cooperative —which looks to be vital. Development is autonomous and moves at a fast clip. The space which is already pretty great is improving continuously.

You can imagine that I was a bit envious and loathe to leave. The upside is that it’ll probably be all new again next time I get there.

Going down everywhere

#

I was looking around a bit to see if something similar is happening in Berlin or other places as well.

Adam Greenfield mentioned the Institut for (X) in Aarhus which looks very similar in its setup and goals. In Berlin there is the Alte Gießerei which is being converted into a similar setup ¹. There are a bunch more spaces that do something in that direction but most of them do not manage to hit the scale or communal vibe that I try to describe above.

I updated my Thinkup which proved to be something of a mixed bag now forcing me to upgrade my hosting package.

Wednesday I had my first class of my language course at the Goethe Institute which proved to be a bit too easy for my taste (which is probably always the case if you already know a bunch of languages). The practice will be good for me in any case and I hope to apply the practical parts more and more in German professional life.

Having started everything in Berlin —to my chagrin— on Thursday I went to Amsterdam for the Open State board dinner and some other odds and ends that needed seeing to. That day I also fasted for my friend Bassel who is jailed in Syria just for being a free software activist.

The board dinner that night at the new restaurant my brother runs Fa. Speijkervet was a lot of fun. There are a lot of changes coming up and almost all of them are for the better.

Friday I hung out at Koko in Amsterdam. A nice new coffee place run by two girls who are totally into coffee and fashion. A big recommendation if you want to escape the hectic Amsterdam city center. After I did our meeting at De Gids (again see the Hubbub weeknote), we did a run of the town with Kars and Alexander Zeh.

Saturday I learned about the suicide of Aaron Swartz an immensely respected figure in freedom and/of information. He was one of the rare people both whose software I used and whose thoughts resonated with me. He got so much done in that short time he was here that his passing places a big burden on the rest of us to continue that work.

I then ended my theater going life by seeing the final Mightysociety show in Frascati. More on that when there is time.

Sunday was another Hubbub workday —yes we have a lot to do— with ample visits to the Village which is really an even funner place then than it is during the week.

Everything only got into gear again on by Thursday when I got my copy of Gun Machine (and finished it two days after) and caught up studio flows with Hubbub Utrecht. I did my work on TORREON and had lunch with the vvvv guys.

Friday it was more TORREON going on through the weekend and some consulting on KAIGARA.

I also caught up with some talks at the CCC this year (along with all of the other issues the event had this year). Best of show is this one by Eleanor Saitta and Smári McCarthy about the advantages and disadvantages of networks and institutions:

http://twitter.com/Dymaxion/status/287634115807805440

A short week that one too, but more to come.

I messed around a bit with it and managed to produce this bit of media art. It is very interesting to have the power of DirectX9 under your fingers without having to program at all, though the whole fact of non-programming feels a bit strange to me. [flickr video=8281500739 secret=e80d6a27c3 w=400 h=225]

Also there was this bit about the journalistic climate in the Netherlands:

https://twitter.com/alper/status/280658121272217600

I would recommend anybody interfacing with journalists to be wholly guarded and keep clearly in mind what’s in it for them in the interaction. The way it is played by most actors, it hasn’t been about the uncovering of the truth for a long time.

Tuesday was my travel day to Amsterdam where I wrote a bunch of stuff in the train and had an Open State board meeting that evening.

I spent most of Wednesday in Utrecht at the Hubbub studio. That night I had dinner with Tim de Gier, Loeki Westerveld and Justus Bruns partially by plan, partially by coincidence.

Thursday was also spent at Hubbub discussing business and getting work done. That night I had drinks with Kars and Lieke in a smashing new Utrecht establishment.

On Friday I met Edo van Royen at Studyflow, had lunch with Peter Robinett, coffee with Justus Bruns, dropped by at my accountant, had a beer with Thijs Niks and then drinks at the Open Coop with Lex and Alexander. Having said that: these visits to the Netherlands always tend to devolve into a flurry of errands that barely leave any time to think. That is going to change for the next one.

The Genius there was less than helpful. Determining that it was my hard drive, he tried without avail to erase it and then load up a new version of the OS. I am more or less pleased that he wasn’t successful in doing that. In Amsterdam I tried another couple of things but finally handed it in at Maccare.nl who without touching it said ‘it was probably the cable’ and the very same day had replaced it for me. Since the Genius hadn’t even managed to erase my disk, I could incredulously resume working from where I was a week ago.

Not having a laptop I did manage to finish The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoete and a Monocle on the flights from Sydney to Guangzhou to Amsterdam and the layover.

Thursday morning I got my Macbook Pro back and spent most of the day working at Brainsley’s offices which are small but rather cozy. I dropped by the Open Coop to chat with Lex and pick up my Open State business cards. And that night I met up with some old friends who work now mostly as hired guns in the Amsterdam startup scene for cocktails at the famed Door 74.

Friday I dropped by the Village (again!) and then got onto the train to Berlin where I am typing this right now.

On Tuesday I took the train to Amsterdam and landed at our Amsterdam offices to catchup with Lex Slaghuis and friends about the current state of Open State and upcoming events.

Tuesday was also my sixth twitterversary: https://twitter.com/clclt/status/242982186037411840

Wednesday I had planned to give a programming lesson. I dropped by at Johan Schaap’s offices to prepare some stuff and also managed to finally make it to the Stadsbranderij Noord (in our office building) where Kees Kraakman has been brewing the finest coffees of Amsterdam for the past couple of months.

I pulled something together based on my presentation at the last Hack de Overheid and the tutoring I’ve been doing in Berlin at Open Tech School. The event I made on Gidsy for that sold out pretty quickly and Peer Reach (thanks Zlatan!) offered to let me use their offices, so that came together rather rapidly. On a side note: big data and semantics related startups seem to be statistically overrepresented in Amsterdam right now.

The evening itself went by in a flurry of code and learning. I decided to use Javascript because that runs in everybody’s browsers and there is a readily available graphical environment to work with: Processing.js. There were quite some snags, but everybody managed to work through the exercises and claimed to have learned a lot.

https://twitter.com/erwblo/status/243393487825952768

https://twitter.com/erwblo/status/243448305923813377

https://twitter.com/jerryvermanen/status/243447862527135744

https://twitter.com/kooistra/status/243442967061356544

I really enjoyed giving the class and I mostly wanted to know how much interest there would be for something like that in Amsterdam. Seeing as it sold out rather quickly and that everybody I mention this to says that they too would like to participate, it seems that interest is about as high as in other European countries, but that nobody is doing something yet. I’m strongly considering pursuing this further and create something more sustainable. If that is something you would be interested in, get in touch with me.

Thursday was spent in Utrecht where the awesome people of the Village smothered me with great coffee and merchandise. Always a pleasure to hang out in their store and see their enterprise maturing. Kars and I spent the day discussing strategies past and future for Hubbub and we managed to get the entire team together to celebrate the delivery of Beestenbende with a glass of champagne.

That same night I had the pleasure to catchup with most of the rest of Amsterdam’s hackers at the Hackers and Founders meetup.

On Friday I caught up with my agent Tessa Sterkenburg of the Next Speaker about digital things and where the current attention of the market is focused. It seems that our thinking is —as always— a bit ahead of the curve which may make it somewhat difficult to market, but we would not want to be anywhere else.

I quickly visited the Humans next door who are working on their own very nice health tracking app. Then it was another visit to the Open Coop, a visit to my accountant, some work at my old office and then off to the Hague to celebrate the graduation of up and coming GIS engineer Simeon Nedkov.

Then on Saturday we were in the Hague to do a hackathon in Dutch parliament. More on that in a separate post. And Sunday it was back in the train to Berlin.

I also booked my ticket to Australia for the end of October. I’m flying in on Melbourne via Beijing and flying out of Sydney some three weeks later. I always thought I had to see the economic miracle of China for myself, so I’ll be stopping over there for a couple of days before going on serious surfing/hiking/diving in Oz.

I also launched an activity on Gidsy to teach programming to absolute beginners which —I am glad to say— has been fully booked by now. Strangely enough this is a topic that is massively underrepresented in the Netherlands while in other countries there are groups popping up left and right. I hope to play some part in spreading knowledge of programming, but I cannot do this by myself and it should spread out to be a wider movement.

Thursday afternoon I spent two and a half hours outputting two and a half thousand words for the book I’m planning to write on the future of client based creative work. I believe this is a topic that does not get enough attention or love from the people who are active in this conversation. There are still a lot of people who have not made the transition from client work into product work and that kind of work will probably always exist. I think it is time to redeem working for clients and show a way to do it that maintains both dignity and fun.

That same night I went to the iOS meetup in Berlin and presented a sneak peek of Beestenbende to my colleagues iOS programmers. I was glad to see that our app was well received by those present.

And Friday finally we had a full on integration of the Pig Chase game running remotely from the Berlin studio to Utrecht. That was a pretty difficult nut to crack and very nice to finally have working. You don’t see a lot of games doing stuff with real-time video and remote real-time action because it’s pretty damn difficult. Fortunately that is our recipe for broad succes: pick difficult problems and solve them properly.

Then I dropped by at my friends over at HIIG where they were taping yet another radio show about the internet:

And finally I rode with the Berlin Critical Mass on Friday night. Quite the experience and I’ll be looking to repeat that soon again.

I spent most of Saturday afternoon tutoring Python as part of the Open Tech School workshop to get people into programming. That was very fun and utterly draining.

Then after spending the day teaching people to program with a dangerously low blood sugar level I moved over most of my stuff from Adalbertstraße to Oranienstraße proper. Notifications of address changes and invitations for office warming drinks are forthcoming.

Then for the rest of the weekend I did a lot of nothing during the day and lots of programming during the night which resulted in the first private release of kohi. Get in touch with me if you want to be a part of the initial group of users and I’ll include you as soon as we have something more substantial to share.

On monday the protocol of the meeting we had in the Berlin parliament about open transit data was published. It contains all the proceedings and slides.

On Tuesday I went to Hilversum to give a workshop on journalistic data visualization over there. It’s always fun to give these and it’s going to be even more fun to see the results coming out of it.

After that I bounced over to Utrecht to relax a bit in the Village. It had been too long ago and it’s still the best coffee store in the Netherlands. After that I went to Hubbub headquarters for some future planning with Kars Alfrink.

On Wednesday we had a lot of stuff to do with the (Open State) foundation (more on which later). That same evening we had a board meeting.

On Thursday I had a nice lunch with Tim de Gier and finished my next game review for the paper.

This is the view from the Amsterdam office. Pure luxury for that city.

Also I had to buy the new book “Koorddansen in de Kaukasus” by Olaf Koens about his adventures in the Caucasus. It is a fast paced collection of stories in this very bizarre part of the world.

I also managed to visit the newly opened EYE movie institute on the IJ shore. A beautiful building with a stunning view, heralding in a new era for this part of Amsterdam.

Next it was the train back to Berlin and prototypes for some new applications.

The face of Rotterdam is changing massively and visibly right now with the construction of a new central station that is going to be architecturally impressive:

Glad to see so many friends out for the event it was great to present a new aesthetic, algorithmic design (& peril) presentation to the audience of Rotterdam designers.

Wednesday it was off to meet a client in the Bijlmer and then a workday at the Coop.

Thursday I called at Utrecht among other things to celebrate the first anniversary of The Village Coffee and Music. Their continued presence makes working in Utrecht more than bearable.

The other pleasure is hanging out all day at Hubbub base where a lot of things are on the burner waiting to get shipped.

I got to play Hokra at Tweetakt which is one of the social games that are programmed there. The other Joust is pictured below and got a lot of play time:

This Monday I finally made it out to the Finanzamt with a fully filled in form for Steuerliche Erfassung (or something). After that I went to the Agora Collective to get my stuff. It is a great place, but I don’t want to be fixed in a coworking space. There are a myriad reasons why that is not a great fit, but being able to shape and own your own workplace is built-in in most offices and is purposefully left out of coworking.

Then I moved into the contur & konsorten office on Adalbertstraße with my stuff. A Burogemeinschaft with 10 people where everybody has their own independent desk, with its own walls and bookshelves, a place to put my professional library and hang my posters. In short: a place to call my own. In a total coincidence I am now a staircase neighbour of my friends at the Maker’s Loft which could lead to more serendipity in the future.

The office is smack on Kotti, the most important urban maelstrom in Berlin. It is a place where many large streams of traffic and people meet with the U-bahn transport hub (connecting U1 and U8) and the roundabout connecting the main thoroughfare of Skalitzer Straße with the Kottbusser Damm. Betahaus, co-up, the Maker’s Loft and many other creative places are within throwing distance and the area sports equal amounts of hipster cafés and Turkish eateries with the addicts holding their own on the main square. They can be a hassle, but their presence is inseparable from the conditions that made that part of Kreuzberg exactly what it is: a free-haven for people looking for cheap housing be they immigrants or artists —or both.

Tuesday was spent at the new office in presentation prep with the evening closed off by meeting with the local Open Knowledge Foundation chapter. It was a fruitful discussion exchanging various ideas on how to boost the openness movement in Berlin.

On Wednesday, I took a leisurely train ride to Amsterdam which seems to feel shorter and shorter the more I get in the rhythm. That day the long awaited Code 4 video launched. I’m immensely proud of the work we did and I don’t think there’s anybody who has pulled off a game like that anywhere in the world, so it might be well worth a look:

A more detailed write-up on that project is forthcoming.

Thursday I continued working on my presentation at the Open Coop. I also ripped the video of minister of economic affairs Maxime Verhagen endorsing open data from the NOS site, because their site sucks.

Friday was the big day of Social Cities of Tomorrow where I got the honor to be the first to present our case of ‘Apps for Amsterdam’ to the assembled audience. It was a wonderful event put together by our esteemed friends and colleagues of the Mobile City: Michiel de Lange and Martijn de Waal who have been leaders in this field for the better part of the past ten years. The keynotes by Usman Haque, Natalie Jeremijenko and Dan Hill were superb and they remain a source of inspiration for our creative work.

I feel like I have to remark on two things that I thought of during the conference:

The entire day was infused with a critical stance against open data and transparency within government. Usman Haque served the opening volley with a criticism of indiscriminate data transparency and an approach to further civic engagement by giving people the tools to collect data themselves. After that Dan Hill also added some criticism against traditional methods of social change.

I agree with their points and criticisms and I would have liked to address them but that was impossible in the time given to me to present our case. I would like to say that if anybody in the Netherlands has been deeply involved on all levels in the government transparency movement and is acutely aware of the problems, issues and realities of data transparency, it is probably us ¹. Besides that we have employed most of the techniques Dan Hill presented during the last couple of years: shaping decision making processes, deploying long lasting interventions and using the sleights of hand required to realign large organizations and work with far too many people.

We have been and will be hard liners for the cause of government transparency out of necessity and conviction. I will always defend that data that has already been collected by government and carries no issues of privacy or national security with it, belongs to the public and should be accessible by the public.

The other issue is that the conference should was probably most valuable to the people in the Netherlands who are not as current on design and technology as I have come to take for granted. The lack of reflection was painfully clear in some of the questions asked by the audience. This is a common issue, but I have seen it often in the past during Mobile Mondays or the lecture Manuel DeLanda gave in Amsterdam.

Dan Hill talked about going from the matter to the meta level and back again and all three keynoters showed that they are very capable of doing that. In the Netherlands I have found that many practitioners struggle a lot with the matter and they don’t have the time or the interest to ascend to the meta level, even though that would feed back positively into their material undertakings.

I have been looking for collaborators in the Netherlands who look beyond their narrow field and manage to recombine multiple theoretical and practical strands back into their work but there are very few. I hosted the UX Book Club Amsterdam a while, but found that most attendees there took their field of design too narrowly and the field of UX too seriously. Similarly the Berlage Institute is doing a postdoctoral course ‘to explore the forces that shape the built environment in the contemporary world’ which is limited to architects. I don’t know anybody who believes that the problems that will plague our cities in the next fifty years will be solved drawing from the monoculture of architecture school.

It is as if most people in the Netherlands are trapped within the operational closure of their own practice.

I don’t know where I would fall, but I struggle every day with striking a balance between theory and practice and I think if you do not feel that struggle you should take a long hard look at what it is you are doing.

After Social Cities of Tomorrow we had a party at our offices in the Open Coop because they officially incorporated as a cooperation and are set to do great things. The party was rather tremendous and good parties are key to getting things done in Amsterdam.

And now it is Sunday while I am typing these notes and because of a lack of gourmet coffee, it is off to the Hubbub studio in Utrecht to be the murder board for Kars’s LIFT presentation.

I flew into Amsterdam on Monday morning (takeoff Schönefeld at 07:20) to a rather broken working day. My locative transgressions leaving at least Peter Robinett confused enough to do something about it. He built me a personal glanceable: Where’s Alper? (write up). That is the best reason to build software: because you need it.

Attended to it by my speaking agent Tessa, I submitted a talk brief to NEXT12 about Love in Time of Gamification. And I registered at Hybrid Plattform in Berlin, looking to see what kind of collaborations come from that.

The rest of Monday and Tuesday were spent preparing a workshop for the Dutch broadcasting corporation the NOS on the topic of data visualization using off the shelf tools. The course was mainly focused on Google’s tools such as Motion Charts, other charts APIs and Fusion Tables but we also managed to touch on some theoretical and ethical questions during the workshop.

For me it was great to see how far Google’s Fusion Tables offering has come since last I looked at it, becoming a proper tool for big data analysis and visualization for those with the right skills and inclination. Though the data import/export as well as the ties to Google are problematic for corporate customers. It is also very promising how a web savvy group of people as those at the NOS can use the data they have at their disposal to create public facing interactive products. That is the aim and I am very curious what comes out of the NOS during the next year when it comes to data.

After the course I got the obligatory television studio tour and despite having foresworn television some years ago, I could not help but be awed by the studios, the proceedings and the massive disconnect between what happens in physical space in Hilversum and how it is experienced throughout the country. The process of media power at play is an impressive thing to behold.

I met with Erik Kroesto talk about the intersection of photography and the internet. And then I went to a lecture in the Facing Forward series by Amber Case and Manuel DeLanda. I had read this piece about Case before and the talk contained not much new and DeLanda who I had got pointed to by Matt Jones very recently took his time to introduce us to genetic algorithms as form finding functions. A laypersons introduction to genetic algorithms for me does not contain anything novel either, but DeLanda delivered it with intelligence and wit, which made it still immensely bearable.

Most surprised I was still at the relative novelty the audience experienced for material that has been old hat in my social sphere for the last couple of years. Tellingly in a room of hundreds there were only a handful of people who had even mentioned the event on Twitter let alone who participated in any kind of discursive backchannel.

I was and still am more interested in DeLanda’s book on simulation. The next day I participated in a workshop in W139 where DeLanda gave me and a bunch of art students an introduction into Realist philosophy as opposed to the other branches.

We ended the week with talking about the communications plan and the merger for Open State (the future foundation into which all of Hack de Overheid and het Nieuwe Stemmen are to be combined).

This was accompanied with a bunch of festivities among which a Coop party on Thursday, constitutionary drinks on Friday and then off to Utrecht for the Hubbub studio warming. Kars Alfrink has crafted himself an ultra fine place of work and I count myself lucky to be allowed to work there from time to time.

We doen het in het vervolg elke keer uit een andere studio (dat moet ook wel lukken met 30 game bedrijven) met korte interviewtjes.

@polledemaagt An account manager is the clearest sign that you are paying too much. — @alper

Thinking of stuff to do while in Berlin and underemployed (in the beginning maybe).

Last week’s Pirate Party victory in Berlin where they got 10% of the vote should serve as a wake-up call to left-ish political parties that are paying lip service to the internet. There is a massive untapped populace who are completely disillusioned with the out of touch politics of today. GroenLinks and D'66’s only luck right now is that the Dutch Pirate Party is so incompetent for now.

And it seems that time travel maps are still popular while we still don’t have access to the data. Here’s a project being executed by my office mate Arjan Scherpenisse:

Skimmed this book by the Council for Social Development (RMO) about the public debate in the age of the internet:

Tuesday

Our friends at Two for Joy Coffee Roasters have opened their second store in Amsterdam. It’s a new favorite place to work and meet:

Kars put the slides for his dconstruct talk on the Transformers online. Well worth a read for a realistic view on the city and games.

Work on Apps voor Nederland and culiacan working at pace. I’m very proud of the community that is coming together.

Wednesday

I dropped by Ernst-Jan Pfauth and Ward Wijndelts who are settling in their new offices for their startup:

I concluded the day by chairing the jury deliberations for Apps for Noord-Holland. The day was concluded with the award ceremony and festivities.

Thursday

Finished reading The City & The City by China Miéville. A poignant book. The science-fiction book for this year. I read it on Readmill which is a pleasant enough reading experience but I don’t know yet if it will be the home of my future library.

Dropped by the great design team at Buro Pony in Rotterdam to discuss the future of the specialty design store: Dufarge.

Met with Christian Friedrich at Rotterdam’s new espresso bar Hopper.

Caught up a bit on the Fyra back with Yuri van Geest. A pleasure as always.

Friday

Friday was concluded in Utrecht with more writing and working at the Hubbub studio.

We had a great time playing The Resistance a mashup between Mastermind and Werewolf.

Yes, that is the best we have found thusfar for a Microsoft Surface Table.

Catching up on the news of the week in die Zeit, here a profile of all the elected Pirates:

Most of them have either studied sciences or work in IT (or both). Politicians who can do maths. That may be an actual solution to the economic crisis we are in.

And an editorial about the lack of responsibility in society both on the macro as in the microscale:

Blogged about the Foursquare screen we made with a video which finally wrapped up that project (try to find a slot between 12:00 and 17:00 to make it to Leidseplein on a workday).

Interesting bit of news that TfL is implementing systems to prevent Oyster overcharging. This is where the transit card in the Netherlands is used as a way to surreptitiously draw money from unsuspecting travelers.

Found this random shirt design site: Zufallsshirt.de

Wrote a small review in Dutch of the theater experience De Club we went to last week. It aims to be an engine for social change instead of a traditional play, but in that respect it is somewhat lacking still. We are somewhat interested because this —creating systems that yield interesting experiences— is our work.

Tuesday I finally got to see this video from our visit to the fortress:

We are quite busy planning the next events for Hack de Overheid.

Wednesday was spent working in Utrecht and I got featured in an interview where I called out gamification for the bullshit it is at Virtueel Platform: “De keerzijde van gamification”

Thursday my profile got featured on The Next Speaker where you can now hire me to present at your event.

Amsterdam is also increasingly getting more machine readable:

We are also very glad with the funding of Venus Patrol a publication that we hope can shed a new light on the relation of games and culture.

I was present at the launch of a new Dutch Literature Magazine: Das Magazin (yes, German name…).

Friday after breakfast with Dirk van Oosterbosch en Alexander Zeh, I helped out with painting the Open Cooperatie.

On Monday busy finishing a bunch of stuff and exercising my bureaucracy muscle by writing different varieties of administrativa.

Got started using Amen which is a ridiculous amount of fun. Any such service that relies on human input will need to be fun to start with to garner any amount of critical mass. I have some invites left for those that want them.

Also saw this zombie themed ARG running in Amsterdam throughout the week:

Tuesday saw the happy celebration of the Eid al Fitr (in our language called the şeker bayramı) along with work on culiacan.

This video regarding the internet and physical shutdowns of the SF BART is not to be missed:

Also found this fab produced bike fender the “Fendor Bendor” (by Wit Industries) at the other office sitting in a rack:

Wednesday saw a day in Utrecht preparing for the trip to dConstruct to see Kars Alfrink speak about the Transformers.

Regarding the discussion that came back again: I do think that designers should code, but that answer should be a bit obvious seeing as I am a creative technologist. It does deserve a blogpost of its own.

Thursday saw travel to the UK with a direct transfer to the Moo party taking place in Shoreditch. The expected group of hipsters and old friends had congregated on a parking lot (which was more fun than I make it sound right now). Met some interesting people doing similar things in the UK as we are over here (such as the organizer of the Mozilla festival).

Also read the shocking announcement that the prices for Google App Engine are going to increase some 30 times when the service goes out of preview (they call it a ‘new pricing model’). It was a formidable place for quickly developed applications that need to run solidly with little attention. I even gave a presentation how it is *better* than Django for a certain class of developer needs. Now I do feel forced to cancel any subscription I have running there and to stop investing in that particular platform because running any serious application would be unsustainable at current pricing.

Bashers launched a linklog Beat for everything game related, which is worth browsing through on occasion.

On recommendations from highly regarded friends I bought The Information by James Gleick though I already get the feeling that I am not going to read a lot of new things in there (seeing as our history of informatics, science philosophy and information theory classes in university were pretty thorough):

Upon entering the UK I was hit by some encounters still reminiscent of the social problems that just recently plagued London. That and the general grittiness of the parts of London we went through gave me a lot of misgivings about the city. I am pretty sure I’m not going to go to London ‘for fun’ anytime soon and I found myself very glad to be living in Amsterdam.

dConstruct contained some gems and some platitudinous talks as was expected. Me and my friends appreciate a different talk than the agency based web people that also attend which must put conference organizers in something of a bind when programming.

It was a lot of fun to hang around with my crew of Iskander Smit, Taco Ekkel and Kars Alfrink (who gave a terrific and hard hitting presentation) and to meet people such as Ben Bashford, Sjors Timmer, Marrije Schaake, Albert de Klein and many others I forget to name.

Saturday was spent recuperating from the trip and on Sunday more of the same. I celebrated my fifth Twitterversary and both of the offices I keep in Amsterdam (the Volkskrantgebouw and the Open Coop) were featured in the Parool magazine:

Nice to get recognition for writing from long long in the past. James linked to an old piece I wrote about getting stories from your database.

Apps for Noord Holland (saltillo) is this coming Saturday and signups are shaping up nicely. How could they be otherwise for the opportunity to spend a day programming and learning together on a fortress from the defense works of Amsterdam. There are still some spots open, so sign up if you want to make it an awesome experience.

I was over at Utrecht last week just to escape the many meetings plaguing me in Amsterdam. A new rule which I will try to adhere to: I will participate in a maximum of one hour of meetings every week.

My review of the Cat and the Coup (a documentary game) was published over at Bashers and I wrote a short Jane Jacobs inspired piece lamenting the narrow sidewalks of the area I live in.

Tuesday I coworked at Hack de Overheid’s offices in the Open Coop in the newly fangled hip(ster)ness of Amsterdam North. Williamsburg it ain’t, but it is a place where one can breathe and build pyramids:

And then it was off to our friends over at Booreiland also in North to finalize work on a fun project we’re doing. See a pattern here?

Wednesday we kicked off an exciting new project that we’re running over the Summer break with Hack de Overheid. Look for some beach side entertainment announced soon.

Thursday it was off to the Open Data Experiences Conference in Rotterdam to serve as a milestone for open data development in the city of Rotterdam. I presented there on a track to supplement the heroic presences of both Toby Barnes and Tom Steinberg over from the UK to witness the great progress that is being made here.

I strayed a bit from the brief to give a hard technical talk and talked more about the open problems that we technologists should be solving. The technologists (developers/designers) I think are our only hope to break open things with functional interventions. I have had my fill of seeing people talk and do nothing much more than talk. There are more than enough thorny interesting problems for us to solve still, so we should be doing that.

On the highest level I identified three moral issues which I think is something of a nice niche on events such as these. I very much hope people took something away from these:

1. The rationale for opening up data is usually stated in terms of efficiency and effectivity. This may be necessary to sell open data to bean counters, but it is too inhuman a formulation of why we are doing this. We are doing this to see if we can improve the lives of normal humans a bit, to make sure that the uses that open data is being put to create experiences that are interesting, useful and beautiful.

2. We should make sure that the data that is being opened up and its uses are inclusive in a broad sense. If we manage to open up all of the data we want to and the smartest/fastest/evilest people take off with it and manage to build stuff for their own ends to the (partial) exclusion of others, we will have managed to switch out one power structure (an archaic but institutional one) for a new power structure of cowboys and parvenus. We will seem to have won, but we will have failed.

3. Finally, the main point that Michal Migurski made at a panel at EYEO about the book Seeing Like a State. That the reductionism inherent in recording data (and the subsequent opening it up) manages to lose the essence of things and creates the high-modernist idea that that view of things is the right view (see also: “All Watched Over: on Foo, Cybernetics and Big Data”). Michal says:

   My response to all this is something to the effect that people should help other people to see and represent their world usefully and accurately.

   Which I paraphrased to say that we should make tools to help every person see as a state of their own and be able to decide better for themselves and others how to organize their lives, to in effect become better states themselves.

The next day (Friday) we did a big stint in Utrecht to plan things for project SABA and another secret project that is more on our own brief to unite games and television in an interesting way. Look forward to the first playable prototypes for that hitting this week.

As always proceedings in Utrecht are supported by superb coffee (four shots to start the day!) from the fine lads at the Village. Here we’re taking care of their pies:

And as usual Sunday nights are closed off at the kitchen table catching up with the week to come and doing some iOS development:

Tuesday was another day spent in Utrecht and in between things I pushed out the releases for Statlas with posts in Dutch and English.

Also I managed to bait (thread) Dutch member of parliament Jeanine Hennis on the topic of her party’s (the VVD) entanglement with large corporate interest when it comes to copyright law (or any internet related law). There is a lot more to be said about this topic and I don’t know how effective this is as a strategy, but somebody should do this.

Thursday there was a meeting about game journalism at the Waag (and a flurry of coverage of the topic this week), by Niels and David:

That and other engagements however did mean that I had to miss the Cognitive Cities Salon (though I heard it was most ace).

Friday was spent doing iPhone tutorials all day and night to get up to speed on this medium and to create some interesting interface experiments in the near future.

The entire weekend was spent working unfortunately. Saturday we talked about the potential merger of Hack de Overheid and het Nieuwe Stemmen to formalize an already ongoing collaboration and create a more robust organization.

Sunday I acted as the jury member in a pilot for an interaction design television programme. It’s not clear yet whether it will be produced, but it would be a good step forward popularizing the more functional design disciplines.

Tuesday I was in Utrecht to work on the Code 4 presentation for CHI Sparks. Working at the garden again was a very enjoyable experience made more so by the unexpected visit of Christine who’s making forays into game design herself.

A lot of the rest of the week was occupied with testing and preparing Statlas for a launch this week, which it did, so you can check it out and read more about that in next week’s notes.

Mr. Morozov visited the Netherlands which made for an interesting night out along with a very unexpected meetup with Babak and Ulla.

My takeaway from Evgeny Morozov can be summarized in this tweet:

Conclusion of a night with @evgenymorozov: government meddling on the internet doesn’t do us any good and can only hurt us in the long run.

Government control of the internet’s technologies seldom nets anything and is usually implemented on the back of scare tactics about terrorism or child pornography. When things turn sour, the systems that were deployed can be used to a very great effect against the entire population without much effort. This means it is imperative to maintain a free and open internet to safeguard freedom.

Thursday it was off to Arnhem to present at the CHI Sparks conference. The place where all seriously academic HCI people get together to present their findings. I presented on a serious game we made with Hubbub in the Games and Play track. Thanks to the organization for giving us the stage and thanks for the kind support from friends in the audience. I hope our presentation was worth your while.

And that was that, like I said, this week is even more exciting and with the return of Kars from the Land of the Rising Sun, it promises to become a hot Summer.

In Utrecht studio proceedings are supported by the Village which may quite well pour the best coffee in the Netherlands. This is how they do it:

There is a vibe floating around at the office about studio++. I have had lots of ideas, visions, hopes and ambitions for the future studio, but most importantly: it should be similarly (de)central, be about twice as big and we should have a full kitchen to our disposal. Too much to ask for in Amsterdam’s slumping professional real estate market? I think not. The search starts in earnest sometime after I move house this weekend.

Finalizing maguro, doing onsite work with Kilian Valkhof on Statlas, talking with old school publishers, putting the final touches on mérida.

And in between all of this, trying to produce some original writing on the subject of games.

Also I cannot stress how instrumental the lovely guys at the Village in Utrecht are for keeping us caffeinated (and by extension sanely productive):

Lots of work this week on Statlas also a bunch for the Groene Amsterdammer. Maguro got finished with a large scale finale event which they tell me was all the rage. Also our work on acapulco got finished, pictures for which are due soon.

Visited Mobile Monday. Prepared various proposals to do work on the border between computer science and architecture.

Also our friends from the Village in Utrecht opened their coffee store. Needless to say a lot of the work we do over there is fueled by quality caffeine and we will be paying them more than regular visits. I suggest you do the same.

Friday we of course also had our regular drinks at @ouroffice. You are welcome for any of our next installations.

And as if the week was not filled enough with highlights, I also got to play my role as the Design Misanthrope:

I met an old friend from Delft to talk about aiding him in his architectural PhD doing information architecture and visualization of the concepts in his research. This looks like a great opportunity to bring into practice my thinking and engagement in the field of architecture.

Finally, I rushed over to the TMG building to give an interview for Dutch Radio 1 during WNL’s Avondspits show. I ripped and uploaded the interview (in Dutch) to Soundcloud. You can listen to it below: WNL Avondspits - Hack de Overheid by alper

Those that know me may be surprised by my parliamentary tone (which is a discipline that comes in handy from time to time).

I also put the last touches to the article on Hack de Overheid recapping our event and its success.

Maguro is running strong during its pilot, though small inbalances forced us to do some run-time tweaks. All in a day’s work.

Wednesday, I made my way out to Ermelo to give a workshop for the journalists of the regional broadcasting corporations, the ROOS-dagen. My subject matter —data journalism and visualization— is rather edgy for this crowd which was visible in the turnout. Those few who are willing to run with it, may find though that at the local and hyperlocal levels, a little data goes a long way.

Made it back just in time to congratulate Alexander Klöpping on the book he wrote “Wikileaks: Alles wat je niet mocht weten”.

Thursday we celebrated our friends’ achievement in organizing the tenth This Happened Utrecht. Organizing ten editions of any event is a feat in and of itself, organizing ten This Happened Utrecht events to the consistent high quality standard of curation, facilitation and audience that Kars, Alexander and Ianus have, is nothing less than formidable.

Through Kars’s curation there are also a number of very nice interactive installations on display to play with on the Neude square for the Tweetakt theatre festival. I encourage you to drop by (free!) and try them out.

Worked a bit more on acapulco, some projects should receive more attention (and this one certainly will). Frideay we also received our soon to be new office mate Joris Machielse.

Statlas is running up to its first public release. Very soon now.

Gave my first lecture on data visualization at the Willem de Kooning. That was fun.

Then after I went straight to This Happened Utrecht #9.

Met with the people behind IAmsterdam and updated on Statlas with Kilian Valkhof.

Found this permalink:

Finalized the rules for maguro and codified them.

Spent a day at Buro Pony working on a very aesthetic affair.

After that it’s mostly a blur of hustling at maguro. Staying in at the studio ’till midnight day after day. Hard hours but good work and company. So no biggie.

Quoting Jack Schulze: “It’s brilliant to have these people around.”

And finally the version was finished and we went off boozing.

In the weekend it was mostly doing catchup on other projects. Did the briefing and wireframes for hermosillo. Updated the event page for March 12th’s Hack de Overheid.

Then closed off the day with an architectural dinner.

Touched up some stuff on Sunday and prepared my WdKA lecture of the following day.

Progress on the design framework of Statlas. This week we should see that coming together and look at the progress on the renderer, but I’m getting ahead of ourselves here. I rounded up the research I did on personal mapping platforms that are online now.

Dinner with Johnny Wonder Jaap was nice, collaboration on the public affairs side of things looks promising:

Apps for Amsterdam should come along nicely and we should announce a bunch of stuff this week (or else!). You can pencil in March 12th as the next Hack de Overheid event but don’t tell anybody I told you.

I also went to the Open Streetmap drinks in Amsterdam. Wherecamp EU may take place in Amsterdam, so that would be very good geo news.

My business cards for Monster Swell have also arrived, more about those in a separate post: Information Compression on Paper

Started writing a document describing the end of life of TipiT for our investors. Nothing new there but still interesting to reflect.

Took in Dutchstats and starting planning that in earnest. Subsequently spent most of the day in Numbers. The phrase: “Project management is hard, let’s go shopping.”did come to mind…

I had been increasingly frustrated with Dutch media’s treatment of the Wikileaks affaire but also was somewhat too busy to write anything better. Inbetween business Jaap and I posted a ‘drive-by essay’ on a week old nrc.next blog post.

Wednesday was a kickoff on prototyping for Maguro which needs to leave the ephemeral stage sometime quick. That night there also was a very well curated Ignite at Mediamatic about games. Fifteen presentations is a bit on the long side, but none were really boring or bad due to the Utrecht gaming scene having come out in force.

The rest of the week was filled with more of the same and tying up loose ends for the end of the year.

Our office also said farewell to one of its members, typographic hero Gustavo:

One big ticket was finishing and launching the Bandjesland addition to PLAY Pilots.

Hung this poster on the studio:

Some more nice additions to the office:

Had a bunch of meetings with people: Utrechts UIT Bureau, Vrij Nederland and de Groene Amsterdammer.

Friday Bandjesland was launched and I worked a bit on the new Hack de Overheid site and went into a wonderful work-free weekend.

Last week was a busy one (are there any other?). A bunch of PLAY Pilots integration work getting ready for the release of Bandjesland and some work getting back up to speed with Urbanode.

Monday marked work for PLAY Pilots and Urbanode and finished with another This Happened Utrecht. The fourcelabs guys really swung it out of the park with their presentation on Wip ‘n’ Kip. I also wrote up some soundbytes for This Happened.

Tuesday I went to Hilversum to meet with the friendly people from the VPRO in their awesome headquarters. That night there was the opening of the installations of Mediamatic’s Sensorfest (sort of the Dutch version of ITP) and I did a bunch of data journalism work on project querétaro.

Wednesday I worked all day in Rotterdam at Buro Pony’s offices on mérida and finished the first version deliverable for querétaro. Also announced the third edition of the Dutch Data Drinks.

Thursday I got interviewed by Reimer Meulenbeek for Johnny Wonder about serious gaming (which is getting very serious indeed). We had a strategy meeting with the journalism track of Hack de Overheid and finished the day with a great dinner with professional friends.

Friday I met at the Amsterdam department of Economic Affairs to talk about interfacing with the city and about our presentation for the Open Innovation Festival this week (Friday morning at 11.00 in City Hall). There was a bunch more roundup integration for Bandjesland before heading to Utrecht to go to the opening in Tivoli at Le Guess Who?

It is hard to describe just how much the Bandjesland experience rocked if you weren’t there, but we are going to do our best by at least putting the full tracks and all the recorded samples on PLAY Pilots. Stay tuned for that, it is bound to be hilarious.

Friday also the outcome of the press innovation subsidies were announced and a project we submitted made the cut and we got featured on a large Dutch blog. I am still to formally plan the project and write-up our plans and aims what to do with the money, but rest assured that we will be open, we will deliver quality and that we will take things to a higher level.

Sunday played around with cablegate.wikileaks.org till deep into the night as anybody with an interest in data and journalism is wont to do.

Ianus

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Then we will have those infamous drinks sponsored by Microsoft.

Helma

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Five minutes later she forgot that it all happened and she was all nice to me.

Something that really makes these people happy is cake, because they think it’s somebody’s birthday or there’s a party.

Everybody is in a different timezone and they have difficulty connecting to each other.

They had the need but they couldn’t really interact with each other.

They should be able to show off to others what they can do.

There were people falling asleep and during our user test only one person fell asleep.

What you can provide is some fun during the day, that they’re not just sitting there and staring.

Even when the phone is ringing the caregiver has to direct them what to do.

The caretakers really like to have more control.

Rainer

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The term generative has been used too broad lately.

Usually when you talk about generative methods, they result in visual complexity.

I could talk about my interest in noise for hours.

I always use random parameters and noise functions that transform my images.

After we got commissioned we found out that the opening of the room was in two weeks.

This emerged from the idea that we wanted to work with the architecture in the room.

At first sight it’s not clear what’s projected and what’s fixed.

Somehow it always resulted in noisy visuals.

I started to bring back the analog aesthetic.

Lotte

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I was working in New York and I was mildly bored.

It wasn’t very attractive.

Let’s ask her to make a Wordpress skin.

We just had all this content on the site and we needed a place to put it.

Aren’t there periods? They said: yeah there are periods.

Minor details but really part of the process of figuring out where you’re going.

I did all this in Illustrator because I didn’t know there were other tools to do this.

Wanted to find a visual way of dragging people in.

We want to provide an alternative to the really expensive art history books.

If you send out a survey you never get good answers.

We’re just five art historians and an information architect.

I know it gets more audience than the Boijmans website. And it gets less than MoMA.

Adriaan

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It’s also my first keynote so I went a bit overboard with the transitions.

They really try to make the most of exposing themselves.

We decided to visit the location. This was very good.

Once you’re standing there and you see the area, you really see the potential of the area.

It would be really absurd.

There were all these connotations of playfulness from your childhood.

We modeled it using lego. It has nice affordances.

Here’s a man staring at something he built with his own hands.

It’s as if his face is about to break from smiling so hard.

We didn’t imagine that two people wanted to sit on the thing at the same time. Which was quite erotic actually.

Two girls one chick.

There were definitely people coming back for more.

On Twitter I was reading: I think I broke my arm. It’s quite a strenuous exercise.

Monday I presented an introduction on data for Mobile Monday, roundup post here: “The Rising Tide of Data on Mobile Monday”

Tuesday we picked up development of PLAY Pilots for the next live game: Bandjesland. And that night an open data proposal we helped author was adopted by Amsterdam, write-up: “Open Data in Amsterdam Center Adopted”

Wednesday and Thursday were spent doing roundup on data related issues (lots of stuff brewing) and further work on PLAY Pilots.

Friday I did a bit of consultancy for a next generation dating startup being spearheaded by three very nice friends.

And part of the weekend was spent preparing the presentation for Social Media Club Utrecht.

Het is echt een heel leuk spelletje wat je pas echt merkt als je hem zelf speelt. Dus hij staat nog een paar dagen op de Neude dus ga er even heen als je in de buurt bent.

Nu mét NRC Next artikel:

Monday we also saw the launch of Stweetfightr, a game by the friendly people from Carsonified. The mechanic is mostly the same as PLAY Pilots, with roles, moves and turn taking except that theirs is resolved by a straight roshambo mechanic (one which we considered, but rejected).

Monday I also attended the first meetup of the Quantified Self Amsterdam chapter co-organized by our office’s Maarten den Braber.

The second half of this week was taken up mostly by PICNIC which was a great event again. Criticism aside, Amsterdam should celebrate a cross-over event such as this that combines various disciplines and gets so many luminaries to coalesce within its borders. The conference was great and even better the catching up with various people from across the world.

Friday the Stereoscoop was launched oficially at the Dutch Film Festival. I unfortunately could not attend this because I was organizing the first Dutch Data Drinks for Monster Swell. A resounding succes and the first of many events focused on the coming Big Data trend.

Friday our friends from the Utrechts Uitburo also launched their integration with Foursquare (the first in the Netherlands), something which has been a long time in the making. Writeup: Foursquare Page for Utrechts Uitburo

PICNIC taking a large bite out of the week’s productivity, the weekend suffered (in a good way).

On Saturday I sat on the terrace of Two for Joy catching the last rays of the sun, while sketching out a concept model for an ethnographical study of metropolitan minorities in the Netherlands with regards to digital services and informal economy. This was partly prompted by the Urban Lenses panel at PICNIC where certain panelists displayed an inexcusable amount of cultural insensitivity and simplistic thinking. This is a tendency among many of our colleagues to see their affluent, technologically able, privileged selfs as the model for which to design. Not to mention to see the disconnect between the nation’s policies and its ethnically diverse periphery high streets. I propose going into these burbs and talking to these people to see what their lives are really like and how they use technology. Think Jan Chipchase but without the permafuck ¹. A project for fun, but I can’t guarantee we won’t make any profit. Up for it?

You may have noticed the transition of Monster Swell from a static placeholder site to a full Wordpress installation of its own. That is the first improvement on that domain for it to become a fully scalable information consuming and producing entity. How that will impact this weblog remains to be seen.

Sunday was occupied by taking the Urbanode integration at the Melkweg to a next step and learning more and more about lighting systems. Also project mérida started with some custom django deployment more on which later.

Continuation of Ebi and first deployment to the server. One of my biggest beefs with Django is that any fresh deploy to a server will cost you at least one hour, despite it being the same old stuff you have been doing for ever (as opposed to App Engine).

Tuesday

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Ran some updates on Haitinu.nl which is an aid site that I delivered recently.

Continued with Ebi and prepared a talk with the people that run our national transit information site.

Wednesday

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Done an Ebi brainstorm and progress review in Utrecht.

Then back to Amsterdam for the transit information meeting with @mdebruin, @jelleprins and @alexandernl.

I skipped the douchebag extremism of Social Media Day in favour of a book presentation on journalism by Alexander Pleijter and Arjan Dasselaar in Dauphine which was next to my house (and where a bunch of friends from the ‘Confetti generation’ were checked in).

It was entertaining enough and confirmed again how out of touch with the internet the journalism profession is.

Thursday

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Inbox management and Ebi.

Friday

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Did another sprint on Ebi and got out of Utrecht before the match started.

Sunday

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Had a nice 4th of July BBQ and squeezed in some pre-Monday updates to the Ebi site.

So thinking what would be an easy way to journal ¹ this edition both for me as a writer and for you as a reader I came up with this format. Session division is left as an exercise for the reader.

Going to school in the 90s. By the time they graduated everybody had multiple e-mail addresses, multiple browsers and access to mobile phones.

I took an indulgent three week break just to sketch.

I’ve never seen anybody smell a Microsoft mouse before, touch it to their lips because it was so smooth.

How we husband and harvest computational wood. We water them with a conductive ink at least yearly and then they become computational.

The only way to solve these interaction design problems is by going out there and using the application.

And then bam! there’s the sun.

This is just a very fancy animation to conclude.

Preferences are evil, they are the work of the devil.

Archie and the Bees, our last show or our last therapy session.

I always get inspired by other people.

I’m still using Director 8 and it runs great!

If you work with technology, it always will crash.

I once had a show where nothing went right and I never saw people applauding so hard in the end.

First we do an experiment and then that evolves into a show.

My dynamic is to make it easy to grasp for everybody.

See the This Happened site for the presentations of this session.

The Papercakes presentation was interesting, though I would have wished that they’d focused more on the creative process and not so much on the implementation and user testing. It is a very compelling game and I’m now even more seriously considering buying a Bamboo for my desk.

The Love Hate Punch punching bag hit close to home for me as I used to have a bag like that at home and I definitely can relate to the aggression remediating effects of such a bag. It was an epic story of how to create something interesting using mostly home brew and tenacity.

The Swinxs is impossible not to like. The presentation was oddly paced, but still everybody thought it was great and got a great look behind the process of putting a digital toy on the store shelves (quite a feat!).

Daan Roosegaarde went off in all kinds of tangents talking about creating poetic interactions for public space. His installations are in a league of their own and are a custom designed experience for a certain area. I have experienced LiquidSpace but I had a hard time getting much more out of it than its novelty.

This Happens seems to have arrived at a next level with a space that is comfortable and organizers that are comfortable within that space. Let’s see what’s next.

Mark de Bruin, marketingmanager bij 9292, heeft een twitter account en is bereid om tekst en uitleg te geven. Dat is tof en ik denk een essentiele eerste stap om verder te komen in de verstarde eenrichtingsverkeerkanalen waar deze hele sector zich in bevindt.

De uitleg rammelt hier en daar nogal en de noodzaak voor open vervoersdata blijft bestaan ¹, dus laten we eens kijken wat hoe ver we komen. Mark nodigde uit om de discussie over e-mail voort te zetten. E-mail is niet schaalbaar en twitter is te kort, vandaar deze blog.

Zoals ik schreef zijn de voorwaarden van de wedstrijd nogal in het voordeel van 9292 maar heeft dat 22 teams toch voldoende gemotiveerd om mee te doen. Ik ben meer dan een beetje benieuwd waar zij mee komen.

Rechten

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Alle deelnemers moeten op dit moment de rechten op hun applicaties afstaan aan 9292. 9292 zegt de applicaties niet te zullen overnemen maar te zullen gebruiken als inspiratie. Waarom kunnen deelnemers dan niet gewoon een verklaring tekenen dat ze 9292 toestaan om ideeën uit hun applicatie te gebruiken en gewoon hun rechten zelf behouden (tweet)?

Wat Mark en 9292 verstaan onder delen is dat de applicaties ergens intern verdwijnen en ideeën en onderdelen eruit verwerkt zullen worden in hun gratis applicaties. Dat is geen delen maar gewoon het uitoefenen van de taak waar ze al mee bezig waren ².

De teams doen willens en wetens mee. Het is ook de vraag wat een team zou kunnen doen met hun eigen applicatie en wat voor nadelen dat voor 9292 zou kunnen hebben. De API tot de vervoersgegevens wordt (nog) beperkt vrijgegeven en zonder die gegevens zijn ontwikkelde applicaties weinig waard. Het lijkt dus niet veel uit te maken, dus waarom dan niet het goede doen?

Inspiratie

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Mijn andere vraag was waarom dit soort conceptueel gebruikersonderzoek eigenlijk nodig is. De noodzaak en de behoefte lijken me apert.

We kunnen wel de wildste dingen verzinnen, maar op dit moment hebben we nog niet eens een fatsoenlijke app die de basics goed afhandelt. En dat is nog niet eens zo makkelijk, een applicatie als Trein.app ziet er heel simpel uit en is niet veel meer dan een dunne laag over mobiel.ns.nl, maar ik denk dat er veel tijd in zit om dat goed te laten werken.

Er is op dit moment een 9292 applicatie voor de iPhone die op basis van je locatie de site opent. Dit is best een aardig idee en zou goed kunnen werken, maar ik heb hem pas getest.

Een paar weken geleden zaten we met vrienden op de verkeerde plek in Utrecht Terwijde en moest ik onder tijdsdruk snel een nieuwe route vinden naar een plek ergens anders in Utrecht, en de eerstvolgende bus, en de bushalte etc.

Dit was redelijk lastig voor elkaar te krijgen in de applicatie. Het was ontzettend moeilijk om een adres gevonden te krijgen ³, de kaarten die bij een advies komen zijn compleet onbruikbaar, en het is lastig om adviezen op te slaan en alternatieven te vergelijken. Met wat heen en weer schakelen naar Google Maps op mijn iPhone is het me uiteindelijk gelukt, maar makkelijk was het niet ⁴. Bedenk dan dat Google aanbiedt om gratis en voor niets onze vervoersgegevens online beschikbaar te maken met de Google Transit website die op zich al bijzonder vooruitstrevend is maar die ook geïntegreerd is met de Google Maps applicatie op de iPhone. Waarom hebben we dat niet in Nederland ⁵?

Mijn vraag is dus niet direct waarom we de vervoersgegevens niet mogen hebben en aan Google mogen voeren. Ook al zou dat een hele goede vraag zijn, maar we hebben al gezien dat vervoerders daar nogal uptight over zijn. Mijn vraag is meer of gebruikersonderzoek en testen niet belangrijker zijn om goede vervoersapplicaties te maken dan dit soort vrije conceptuele input ⁶.

Ik zie graag de antwoorden tegemoet.

Stephan (van ons geliefde Sargasso) wist me onderweg nog op de foto te zetten. Hier zie ik er nog redelijk fris uit, dat was aan de andere kant van de vaart wel anders:

De eerste keer dat ik zo’n afstand liep, ontzettend pijnlijk maar zeker niet de laatste keer.

Hieronder een verslag van de vragen (en antwoorden) na elke presentatie op This Happened Utrecht #2 ¹. De teksten volgen vrij nauwkeurig wat er gezegd is maar zijn zeker niet letterlijk. Als je het ergens niet mee eens bent of je er niet in herkent, laat dan een commentaar achter.

Sanne Kistemaker — Piece of Family

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Sanne Kistemaker van Muzus vertelde over hun project Piece of Family dat ouderen in staat stelt om de communicatie-kloof met hun kleinkinderen te overbruggen en in directer contact te staan met hun familie.

Marc Fonteijn: Wat heb je als grootste uitdaging gezien? Wat zou je anders gedaan hebben? De grootste uitdaging is steeds naar je doelgroep toe te gaan. Het is veel makkelijker om achter je bureau zitten te ontwerpen en te Googlen. Elke keer die stap zetten om naar oma toe te gaan kost veel tijd want je moet er de hele middag zitten en het ‘voelt een beetje als een verplichting’.

Had ook liever het prototype meer getest en daar meer tijd in gestopt.

Bas Bakker: Je hebt het gemaakt voor deze vergrijzing maar de vergrijzingsgolf die eraan komt die kan al met een computer werken. Het is een tijdelijk product en ook echt voor die oudere ouderen. Dat is echt een uitdaging om daar iets voor te maken.

Gaat Vodafone het op de markt zetten? Er is geen patent. Er was een fabrikant die het zou doen maar dat is niks geworden. Niet duidelijk wat de toepassing gaat worden.

Yohan Creemers: Je hebt twee families gebruikt. Als de familie uit de Haagse Schilderswijk was gekomen, had je dan een ander product gehad? Wie je spreekt beïnvloedt het, een andere ontwerper had misschien ook tot een ander resultaat geleid. Het is een probleem waar veel mensen zich in herkennen. Nadat ze een prijs hadden gewonnen waren er veel oma’s die het terplekke wilden kopen.

Waarom codesignen met twee participanten, waarom niet met 5? Krijg je dan geen betere resultaten? Het kan wel iets bijdragen maar op die schaal is het misschien handiger om kwantitatieve data te gebruiken voor de richting en kwalitatief voor de uitwerking. Je hoort in de kwalitatieve fase veel hetzelfde dus dan zou je ook veel overlap hebben.

Heb je het technisch helemaal uitgewerkt van het scannen tot het doorsturen naar de tv? Alles was draadloos wat belangrijk was omdat er bijna een oma gestruikeld was. Er zit een laptop in en die laptop is verbonden met de tv. Het was trial and error maar het werkte wel.

Victoria Donkersloot: Wat is jouw definitie van co-creatie? Niet om de gebruiker zelf dingen te laten creëren maar om ze te laten reflecteren op jouw ontwerpen. Dat is waar de ontwerper voor is en dan met ze door te associeren. Het scannen en de knop waren een lastig gegeven. Dat is digitaal en lastig te bevatten voor ouderen. Samen kom je er dan achter wat werkt. Wat betreft de knop bleek de Senseo al bekende semantiek te leveren.

Niels Keetels — Softbody

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Niels Keetels vertelde over de ontwikkeling van zijn game Softbody.

Bastiaan Terhorst: Jullie hebben methoden van kinderen geburikt om het spel te maken maar had het ook effect voor degenen voor wie jullie het spel maakten? Ze wilden weten of ze de fascinatie van kinderen konden gebruiken en of dat ook werkt bij onze generatie. Het was moeilijk te valideren maar het leek niet echt op wat die kinderen aan het doen waren. Op de HKU vroegen mensen al snel om een soort doel.

Peter Boersma: Hoe bepaal je of de game succesvol/goed genoeg is? Als mensen vragen om een doel, dan is er geen doel. Ik hoop niet dat het antwoord is: “hoe lang de mensen het spel speelden”. De intentie was niet om een spel te maken wat extreem boeiend was, maar een research case. Uitgaan van spel en gestructureerde elementen toevoegen en kijken of het leuk wordt. Maar het is waarschijnlijk eerder leuk voor mensen in de experimentele game scene.

Ronald Mannak: Je beschreef een incrementeel development proces met kleine stapjes tot het einde. Waarom zulke kleine stapjes? Er is twee maanden aan de game gewerkt, daarvoor alleen theoretisch. Er waren niet zoveel momenten om het spel te laten testen, teveel bezig gehouden met de kleine dingetjes en focus op het volgende prototype. Op een gegeven moment hadden we alleen maar een balletje dat door een level rolt, zonder levels, graphics etc. Ronald Mannak: Hoe zou je het veranderen? Minder prototypen en beter projectmanagement inzetten om het overzicht te houden.

Ianus Keller: Bij de observaties bij de school had je waanzinnige foto’s. Hoe belangrijk waren die observaties? Zaten er grote inzichten in? Ja, grote inzichten. Als kinderen om je heen aan het rennen zijn kun je ze vragen wat ze aan het doen zijn, maar ze kunnen het niet vertellen. Ze zijn heel geconcentreerd aan het spelen.

Waarom hebben jullie gekozen voor de kleuterleeftijd? Dit was meer een crèche waar ze niets anders doen dan rondrennen en je kunt zien hoe ze zelf hun spel construeren. Op een basisschool is er meer structuur via spelletjes van de juf.

Marc Fonteijn: Vraag aan Kars: Je zei dat dit het beste project van toen was. Kun je dat onderbouwen? Kars Alfrink: Het is een research object wat toch op zichzelf staat. Vaak heb je een lezing van 10 minuten nodig om het te kunnen spelen. Hierbij kon je zitten en je was los. Verder ziet het er geweldig uit en heeft het een hele ander esthetiek dan je normaal tegenkomt in de gameswereld.

Sam Warnaars: Wat had je gedaan als je op het laatst een maand extra had gekregen? Meer werk en tijd in het level design gestopt en de end state is niet zo goed. Hadden dat dan meer kunnen testen en meer aandacht aan besteden om dat meer compelling te maken.

Tjeerd IJtsma: Jullie hadden een research question en het spel is onderdeel van een research project. Was is heht antwoord op de vraag. Heb je hem proberen te beantwoorden? Felix Boatsch heeft de vraag beantwoord in zijn thesis (“Paidia and Ludus”) die te downloaden is.

Irene van Peer - Mahlangu Hand-washer

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Irene van Peer vertelde over de handenwasser die ze hadden bedacht in antwoord op lokale behoeften in Afrika.

Ronald Mannak: Je zei dat er veel projecten uit het Westen niet lukken. Hoe zou jouw project door Afrika verspreid kunnen worden? Het was tien jaar geleden maar er is nu weer hernieuwde interesse bij een handenwascongres en reacties uit India. Ronald Mannak: Is het verspreid door Afrika? We hebben iets achtergelaten maar daarna niet gevolgd hoe ver het verspreid is en hoe goed het opgepakt is. Ze zou graag teruggaan om het te zien. Dit is een betere manier van helpen door iets terug te geven aan de mensen. Andere projecten worden te veel en te lang binnenskamers ontwikkeld en dan ineens daar top-down neergezet met weinig contact.

Hoe kun je zorgen dat het verspreid wordt? Via onderwijs, de tekening verspreiden. Er is een basisgezondheidszorg, die je zou kunnen gebruiken om de tekening te verspreiden zodat ze het zelf kunnen maken. Een reactie uit Amerika om allemaal flessen te gaan verzamelen en ze daarheen te brengen is nu juist niet de bedoeling. Zou je met het oog op de orale cultuur niet een toneelstuk en verhalen kunnen gebruiken om de kennis te verspreiden? Marinka Copier: Kun je iets meer vertellen over het project waar het uit is voortgekomen? ICSID organiseert nog steeds uitwisselingen van industrieel ontwerpers met het doel om ter plekke te proberen bij te dragen en ontwerpers internationaal maar ook lokaal kennis uit te laten wisselen.

Sanne Kistemaker: Je zegt dat veel goedbedoelde projecten niet aankomen. Hoe werden jullie ontvangen? Ook met argwaan? Het was opgezet vanuit Zuid-Afrika en er werd een goede gelegenheid geboden om met de mensen in discussie te gaan en je oren de kost te geven. We hebben hetzelfde gedaan wat je zou doen als je een project in Nederland doet, zorgen dat je je startpunt en je referenties samen bouwt en van daaruit stappen maken.

Kristian Esser: Kwam je oplossingen tegen die zij hadden gemaakt waarvan je dacht dit is briljant en dit had ik nooit bedacht? Dat badkamertje op de presentatie was briljant. En anderhalf jaar geleden zag ze een mooie oplossing voor handenwassen bij een latrine.

Naomi Schiphorst en Mieke Vullings - MIMOA

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Naomi Schiphorst en Mieke Vullings allebei architecten vertellen over de beweegredenen achter hun sociale architectuurgids MIMOA.

Wat zijn de overeenkomsten tussen een interactieontwerper en een architect? Een interactieontwerper doet grotendeels hetzelfde als een architect. Je gaat denken in een programma van eisen en wat gebruikers meer zouden willen doen dan wat er in dat programma van eisen staat. Het idee om een agenda op te nemen was compleet onrealistisch. Dus toen gefocused op wat er nodig was en de communicatie met de techniek.

Jeroen Coumans: Hoe meten jullie het succes van jullie website? Dat kunnen we zien aan verschillende dingen. Google Analytics met waar gebruikers vandaan komen en of er een stijgende lijn in zit. Hoeveel projecten er worden toegevoegd, welke dagen de drukste dagen zijn (toch vaak onder de baas zijn tijd). We hebben een inschatting gemaakt van hoeveel gebruikers er van zo’n dienst gebruik zouden maken en hebben die verwachting overtroffen.

Kristian Esser: Jullie hebben te maken met twee totaal verschillende werelden wat betreft scope en geld, worden jullie niet helemaal gek van het verschil? We zijn het erover eens dat we architecten zijn. Vanaf het begin al vragen mensen wanneer ze de overstap willen maken naar het ene of het andere, maar ze zijn er zelf niet mee bezig. Ze blijven het doen zolang de combinatie houdbaar is. Architectuur is heel traag en op het web gaat het sneller en heb je sneller resultaat.

Jasper Koning: Hebben jullie ueberhaupt iets aan marketing gedaan buiten vrienden en kennissen? We hadden geen budget dus we waren creatiever. We hadden een goed getimede lancering met een feestje en daarnaast hebben we een lijst van weblogs gespammed dat er een geweldige website was en meer van dat soort truucs.

Aldo Hoeben; Jullie zijn met de dienst begonnen omdat jullie hem nodig hadden en jullie gebruiken hem ook neem ik aan. Op een gegeven moment hebben jullie besloten om er geld aan te verdienen, verandert dat dingen? Ze zeiden nog tegen elkaar: ‘We moeten wel onthouden waarom we het doen en we hoeven er geen geld mee te verdienen.’ Maar dingen zoals ontwikkeling en hosting kosten wel geld en dat zelfstandig kunnen onderhouden is goed voor je geloofwaardigheid. Nadat ze een prijs hadden gewonnen hebben ze een business plan geschreven en ander mensen met sites leren kennen om ervaringen uit te wisselen. Daarnaast zijn ze nu bezig een plan uit te werken hoe je geld kunt verdienen door middel van sociaal entrepeneurship. Het doel is niet om hier rijk mee te worden maar dat het blijft bestaan en groeien.

Gebruiken jullie het ook zelf? Ja, net nog een weekendje naar Milaan geweest. Bij de projecten zitten pareltjes die je anders zelf niet gevonden had. Dingen in kleine dorpjes waardoor je verbaasd bent dat er zulke mooie projecten op staan.

Ianus Keller: De tone of voice is heel leuk valt me op, jullie zijn allebei gezellig en dat spreekt ook uit de site. Niels Keetels: Hebben jullie ook een soort contentfiltering of gaat elk gebouw er zomaar op? Voor iets toegevoegd wordt, wordt gekeken of de informatie compleet is. Er wordt niet beoordeeld of iets mooi is of niet, dingen die mensen niet mooi vinden zakken vanzelf weg. De belangrijkste voorwaarden zijn dat de achitect bekend moet zijn en dat het zichtbaar moet zijn vanaf de straat.

The presentations promise to be interesting again, it’ll be nice to catch up with people and I’ll be writing a blog report of the Q&A sessions ². So it would be nice if people would ask questions worth blogging and worth talking about after the event. I’m pretty sure comments will be open.

MIMOA

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Of the people presenting I’d already heard about MIMOA. I’m pretty interested in architecture ³ and I gave the site a brief test run.

It’s a great open catalogue (or is it a personal architectural guide?). It’s mostly functional and I saw that they also syndicate their content to for instance the Stylos ⁴ site. Some of the flows and layouts of the site are a bit jarring and could use fixing but they don’t detract from the core usefulness of the site ⁵.

The only thing I’m curious about is whether MIMOA could be used as a tool to bridge the gap between architecture professionals and us naieve end users (or should I say victims) of their creations. The current blurbs and comment system do not really invite to such.

I had prepared a bit for the day by listening to the photographers’ commentaries on their pictures. As is the case with many artists, the artist should not try to explain his art but in some cases the commentary really adds a lot to the picture.

I would recommend Platon about his portrait of Poetin, John Moore about the Bhutto assassination and Brent Stirton about the preservation of gorillas.

Ik denk dat mijn initiatief gebaat is met een grote hoeveelheid openheid en ik denk zeker ook niet dat ik het in mijn eentje zal kunnen doen. Daarom zal ik binnenkort op dit weblog uitleggen wat ik wil hebben (en wat ik bereid ben te bouwen).

Maar nu eerst even iets anders.

Mobiliteitsmanagement

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SenterNovem is een overheidsinstelling in Nederland die subsidies uitdeelt aan mensen die daar nuttige dingen mee denken te kunnen doen. Ik was een paar weken terug in het kantoor van SenterNovem in Utrecht bij een informatiebijeenkomst over hun programma mobiliteitsmanagement.

Ik schrijf hier een verslag van de bijeekomst en probeer daarbij de inhoud te filteren uit de overheidstaal ¹.

Belangrijke informatie van de eerste spreker was dat er binnenkort een kwaliteitsimpuls reisinformatie komt. Ik kwam hier later meer over te weten van iemand van Connexxion. Het houdt in dat er een platform komt voor dynamische reisinformatie door heel Nederland. Ik kom hier later nog op terug.

Daarna kwam Klaartje Arntzen die vertelde over het programma en de invulling ervan. Het programma mobiliteitsmanagement van SenterNovem is er om veranderingen in reisgedrag te bewerkstelligen en de bereikbaarheid in Nederland te vergroten.

Wie?

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Bedrijven en instellingen die zich met mobiliteit bezighouden en belang hebben bij de uitkomst van een project ² die een project in Nederland uitvoeren komen in aanmerking voor het programma.

Budgetten

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Projecten worden ondergedeeld in Haalbaarheidsstudies, Onderzoek & Ontwikkeling en Praktijkexperimenten.

Haalbaarheidsstudies krijgen 75% van de kosten vergoed tot een maximum van €40'000. Onderzoek & Ontwikkelingsprojecten krijgen 50% van de kosten tot max €120'000. Praktijkexperimenten krijgen 25% van de kosten tot een maximum van €350'000.

Er is €1.5M beschikbaar voor praktijkexperimenten en €500k voor haalbaarheidsstudies en O&O (elk?).

Proces

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Er is uiteraard sprake van een proces. De termijn voor indiening is verlengd tot woensdag 2 april 2008. De kosten zijn subsidiabel vanaf het moment van indienen. Een adviescommissie adviseert over de rangschikking aan de hand van de gestelde criteria ³.

De criteria zijn:

• Bijdrage aan de doelstelling van het programma (hoe nieuw en hoeveel impact)
• Bijdrage aan bereikbaarheid en kwaliteit van de leefomgeving (CO2-effect en verkeersveiligheid)
• Kans van slagen project (reizigers laten meedenken)

Senternovem biedt begeleiding door informatie, adviesgesprekken en het bespreken van concepten, de adviescommissie velt een oordeel en na de toekenning van het geld dragen zij zorg voor de beheer en begeleiding.

Praktijkvoorbeelden

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Hierna kwam iemand van Connexxion vertellen over praktijkvoorbeelden van projecten die al dan niet gesubsidieerd waren en al dan niet geslaagd waren. Het was een duidelijk verhaal van ‘where the metal hits the road’ dat de werkelijkheid meestal een stuk weerbarstiger is dan in dit soort plannen staat en er rekening gehouden moet worden met generaties aan systemen die al in functie zijn.

Subsidies

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Ik heb een gesprek met een subsidieconsulent van SenterNovem gehad. Deze kon mij niet al teveel verder helpen, behalve dan met de constatering dat mijn idee wel degelijk innovatief was en dat ik maar een aanvraag moest indienen en het met de juiste persoon bespreken om te kijken hoe we het beste hiermee verder kunnen.

In dat gesprek stelde ik nog wat dingen aan de orde, maar degene met wie ik sprak was te low level ⁴ om me een zinnig antwoord te kunnen geven.

Openheid van boeken

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Ik heb wat brochures meegenomen over het programma in zijn algemeenheid en (verantwoordings)publicaties met daarin de projecten waaraan subsidie is toegekend in elk jaar met speelse illustraties en leuke verhalen over hoe goed het allemaal wel niet is gegaan. Wat me daarin meteen opviel was dat bij geen enkel project stond wat het toegekende subsidiebedrag was voor dat project ⁵.

Ik weet niet wat de reden is om die bedragen niet te publiceren. Het lijkt me dat het de eerlijkheid ten goede komt als de bedragen publiek zijn en dat het toekomstige subsidieaanvragers ook iets geeft om op te mikken wanneer ze hun aanvraag indienen.

Openheid van data

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Bij de presentatie van de man van Connexxion viel me op dat sommige van de dingen die hij noemde al lang ontwikkeld zijn door ondere OV-bedrijven in Nederland. Volgens mij hebben bussen van Connexxion bijvoorbeeld nog steeds geen bord waarop staat hoe de halte heet waar je nu bent.

Het lijkt me een aardige eis aan projecten om binnen redelijkheid hun methoden en data open te stellen.

Dynamische Reisinformatie

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Ik schreef hier al eerder over en de man van Connexxion was buitengewoon negatief over het vrijgeven van de statische informatie omdat die ‘van hen’ was. Het feit dat reizigers al twee keer betalen voor die informatie negeerde hij vanzelfsprekend.

De partijen die in Nederland verenigd zijn in een platform om de reisinformatie te regelen, houden zich op dit moment meer bezig met de invoer van systemen voor dynamische reisinformatie, zodat je dus op elk moment kunt weten waar vervoersmiddelen zich bevinden.

Hiervoor wordt een nieuw platform opgericht en gelet op hoe mensen in deze sector aankijken tegen hun klanten ben ik niet hoopvol dat het algemene publiek iets met die informatie mag gaan doen of dat partijen als Google Transit hier voet aan de grond gaan krijgen.

Wat observaties:

• Ik mag dan naast de beste bakker van Delft wonen; ik kan er ’s ochtends om 07:50 geen croissants halen ¹. Ik dacht dat bakkers vroeg opstonden enzo.
• NS-automaten bedienen is geen goed idee, slaapdronken al helemaal niet. Ik kwam er direct nadat ik een kaartje met korting gekocht had achter dat ik het niet kon gebruiken. Ik gok dat 90% van de mensen die bij een automaat een kaartje koopt het koopt met het doel om het binnen een kwartier te gebruiken. Een flitsende waarschuwing dat je voor 09:00 niet met het gekozen kaartje mag reizen zou niet weg zijn.
• Zo’n kaartje met korting kan dan geruild worden aan de balie (die wél open is) maar dan moet je je naam en adres opgeven en iets tekenen. Wat de NS met die gegevens doet, weet ik niet en kon me op dat moment erg weinig schelen.
• Over die automaten gesproken ², waarom leveren die dingen geen reisinformatie voor het traject dat je koopt? Ofwel live op het scherm, ofwel geprint op je kaartje.
• Zowel de treinrit Den Haag CS — Utrecht als de treinrit Utrecht — Rotterdam zijn lang genoeg ³ om een aflevering van House M.D. in te kijken.
• In de file staan schijnt niet leuk te zijn, maar hebben de mensen die daarover klagen weleens de trein genomen in de spits? Juist.
• Het congres was gemengd maar interessant. Het ging over wat marketingmensen moeten doen in deze turbulente tijden. Goed dat deze professie zich ook bewust wordt van het bestaan van het internet.

Den Haag:

Nog wat gedaan op TOPdesk:

Vrijdagmiddag toen net op tijd terug om te bowlen:

Waarna de onvermijdelijke groepsfoto:

En het heerlijke eten in het Pakhuis:

Nog even langs Echte Boter geweest om te flyeren voor het feest van Liberdade en dan zaterdag vroeg op om de trein naar Utrecht te nemen voor de Batizado van Planeta Capoeira

Veel leuke capoeirafoto’s maar zoals altijd zijn de leukste momenten niet vastgelegd.

Zondag gelukkig de zondagsrust in acht genomen en heel heel weinig gedaan.