My Bill...Your Bill... Our billl

So it is starting...Christophe Tallec and I will be launching our service design platform, My Bill...Your Bill...Our Bill, within the next week. In order to test the concept in an online public sphere and create scenarios for the Institute of the Futures, online platform Superstruct.

Where it began...
A one week design workshop held at ENSCI in Paris (2007), with Jennie Winhall and Chris Vanstone, which focused on service design research and prototyping tools, through the practical implementation within a project.

Our brief was to look at energy use within public space and design a service to reduce energy consumption or produce energy in public spaces.

We started by developing this initial diagram (below) which tried to define key differences between peoples awareness/control over energy within private and public space.






The results… My bill... Your bill... Our Bill

A service design proposal that explores public energy use and awareness. Part of the proposal was for the creation of a collaborative user platform that encourages people to explore the use of energy in public space. This could give a renewed awareness and power to people to affect business practice, as businesses would be offered incentives and rewards, or given penalties points and notifications, in relation to public reviews.

So more information on this will be available soon.

To find out more about the launch or the project you can contact us at mybill.yourbill.ourbill@gmail.com

To be continued....

Superstruct... trying to take stock

I have recently been introduced to the online game Superstruct, launched by the Institute for the future in September. It was shown to me by a guy I completed a short service design project with when studying at ENSCI in Paris. He has written a little about the concept of "ARG - Alternative reality gaming" on his blog; Service Design by Christophe Tallec. and we plan to discuss the project we completed this afternoon to see if we can modify it and place it into this online game.

So what is Superstruct?
That is a good question... one that I have been trying to answer for the last hour, while trying to understand the concept and how to take part in it. Below, is a short video introduction which gives a sense of what they are trying to do.

The game is forecasting scenarios for the world in 2019, in particular the changes that will be made in the way we live our lives, due to the four problems areas; Ravenous, Power Struggle, Quarantine, Generation Exile, Outlaw Planet. However, the aim of the game is not just to forecast, but also discuss and make proposals as to how we can deal with these impending problems, what changes could be made, what systems, organisations, life changes...could help in the battle to change the world forecast. What is interesting, is when you sign up, it states that you should try to predict based on your current life status and culture...It is not meant to be pure fantasy. In fact, perhaps that is why it is more interesting and convincing. As pure fantasy is something that can be dismissed as exactly that. Yet ,although a future forecast...a prediction will always have an element of the unknown fantasy...the way that some of these issues are discussed makes them seem very real.

so far it has 5994 players and a current survival horizon of the earth predicted as being 2049!

Interesting stuff huh? I think so...I still have to read more, but here are a few links to what I have looked at so far;

Institute of the future post on superstruct
Wikja game tips for playing
there is also a face book group with tons of information