Our next event will be held on Monday, May 29th at The Samsung Experience. The topic will be Everyware : The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing presented by the author, Adam Greenfield. Please forward this on to anyone who might be interested. I’d also like to extend an open call to other speakers who feel they can add value to the event’s theme. Please contact me at the RSVP email address below if you are interested. Looking forward to seeing everyone again.
- Dave Harper

Date/Time: Monday, May 29, 7pm - 9pm

Cost: Free

Topic: Everyware : The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing

Planned Agenda:

  • Quick welcome/intro
  • Speakers:
    • Adam Greenfield, Author
  • Open discussion/networking with refreshments and snacks (graciously provided by our host Samsung)

Venue:
Samsung Experience Center
Time Warner Center – Shops at Columbus Circle
10 Columbus Circle, 3rd floor

at the intersection of Broadway, Eighth Avenue, Central Park South and Central Park West.

Subways to Shops at Columbus Circle: A/C, 1/9, B/D to 59th Street/Columbus Circle
New York City, New York 10022

RSVP:
If you’re planning on attending, RSVP to David Harper (dharper AT wirelessink DOT com) with your name and number of guests. A better estimate of the number of attendees will help us make sure we can accomodate everyone.

Overview
I’ve known Adam for a number of years, enjoying many conversations over many a cup of coffee. “Everyware” is the culmination of his life experiences, thoughtful explorations, and beliefs. It’s my pleasure to have Adam join us at the next Mobile Monday event. Adam is an engaging speaker with an almost fanatical following — as such I suggest you consider this next event a must attend.

Last year, Adam Greenfield wrote an inspiring article titled, “All watched over by machines of loving grace: Some ethical guidelines for user experience in ubiquitous-computing settings”. (On the same topic.)

Adam provided some general principles for us to observe, as designers and developers for ubiquitous systems.

Principle 0, is, of course, first, do no harm.

Principle 1. Default to harmlessness. Ubiquitous systems must default to a mode that ensures their users’ (physical, psychic and financial) safety.

Principle 2. Be self-disclosing. Ubiquitous systems must contain provisions for immediate and transparent querying of their ownership, use, capabilities, etc., such that human beings encountering them are empowered to make informed decisions regarding exposure to same.

Principle 3. Be conservative of face. Ubiquitous systems are always already social systems, and must contain provisions such that wherever possible they not unnecessarily embarrass, humiliate, or shame their users.

Principle 4. Be conservative of time. Ubiquitous systems must not introduce undue complications into ordinary operations.

Principle 5. Be deniable. Ubiquitous systems must offer users the ability to opt out, always and at any point.

I, for one, have stuck close and watched Adam, considering his perspectives when designing mobile social networking software. You should, too. This is your chance to learn from and question Adam first hand. - David Harper

Book Description: Everyware : The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing
“From the RFID tags now embedded in everything from soda cans to the family pet, to smart buildings that subtly adapt to the changing flow of visitors, to gestural interfaces like the ones seen in Minority Report, computing no longer looks much like it used to. Increasingly invisible but present everywhere in our lives, it has moved off the desktop and out into everyday life–affecting almost every one of us, whether we’re entirely aware of it or not.

Author Adam Greenfield calls this ubiquitous computing “everyware.” In a uniquely engaging approach to this complex topic, Greenfield explains how such “information processing dissolving in behavior” is reshaping our lives; brief, aphoristic chapters explore the technologies, practices, and innovations that make everyware so powerful and seem so inevitable.

If you’ve ever sensed both the promise of the next computing, and the challenges it represents for all of us, this is the book for you. “Everyware” aims to gives its reader the tools to understand the next computing, and make the kind of wise decisions that will shape its emergence in ways that support the best that is in us.”

About Adam Greenfield
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)

Adam Greenfield is an American writer and information architect. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1968.

Greenfield attended New York University during the late 1980s, earning a degree in Cultural Studies. By the mid-1990s, he had enlisted in the United States Army’s reserve component Special Operations Command as a Psychological operations specialist, holding MOS 37F and eventually achieving the grade of Sergeant.

Greenfield took up work in the then-nascent field of information architecture for the World Wide Web, holding a succession of prominent positions culminating in employment at the Tokyo office of Razorfish, where he was head of the information architecture department. He is probably best known for having written an “open-source constitution for post-national states” called the Minimal Compact, as well as proposed ethical guidelines for developers of ubiquitous-computing environments. He is also credited with having coined the word “moblog” to describe the practice of publishing to the World Wide Web from mobile devices, and the word “everyware” as an umbrella term for ubiquitous and pervasive computing, ambient informatics and tangible media. He is the author of Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing (ISBN 0321384016) (2006).

He is generally considered to be a thought leader in the information architecture and user experience professions. Greenfield maintains a Web site devoted to discussions of “beauty, utility and balance across the meta-field of design.”