Rediscovery of Hurtigruten: beautiful journey along Norway's coast

Thanks to nrkbeta, youtube and creative commons.

Hurtigruten 5 days TV marathon June 2011

SOME FACTS: 8040 minutes of sea and arctic nature - on TV channel nrk2 and the Internet (creative commons).

BACKGROUND. Hurtigruten, the Norwegian Express Line, has for well over 100 years been the backbone of coastal Norway, bringing people and goods up and down the weatherbeaten west coast towards the north of Norway. It has struggled to survive and be prosperous in a mixed economy of private and public support and investments.

COASTAL CULTURE. More than a pure enterprise it is no doubt about a broad interaction and transportation of people and things, in fact, even dead bodies. Hurtigruten thus encompasses both daily and extraordinary transportations, as well as people experiencing nature and how to cope with it in the living coastal cultures. This TV, realworld and social media event uncovers through creative use of multimedia the encounters and experienced beauty of a number of scattered places, regions, inhabitants and families, locals and visitors to Norway's coast.

FLEET. Currently, a fleet of 11 ships service 34 ports from Bergen to Kirkenes, covering a distance comparable to the distance Oslo – Tunisia. Daily, and all year round.

WHY. Why this TV marathon from a coastal sea cruise, although among the most beautiful ones? Why are they - over in nrkbeta - doing this? It has been prepared for some months (*cf. e.g., invitation to an open-source ideation in January 2011, maybe more info to be checked here later). The idea emerged after the minute by minute 7 hours realtime show on TV, nrk2, of the railway experience from Bergen to Oslo, which achieved a lot of media attention and many viewers. But why doing more of this?According to nrkbeta's website, an article by ANDERS HOFSETH, dated 16. June, 2011:

"Primarily because we’re a publicly funded Public Service Broadcaster with a responsibility towards Norwegian culture; a responsibility for covering things important to the inhabitants of a small country, a country that in spite of, or perhaps because of our significant oil wealth has a vulnerable culture. And programmes like this aren’t economically feasible for a commercial channel; to a large amount of the public it probably seems completely useless, but to some of our viewers it can have a very high value, be something they wouldn’t get in any other way, and in twenty or two hundred years, it will be a strange document of life at the edge of civilisation from a different time."

Also, there’s the NRKbeta Doctrine, stating: "The only way to control your content is to be the best provider of it."

EXPERIENCES SO FAR. Indeed, ample evidence suggests that nrkbeta and cocreators have done it again. Provided many with a triggering enduring experience. Because this is not merely about clock-time, it is about enduring time minute by minute. It encompasses both the subjective and intersubjective experiencing of something both locals and spectators may easily relate to, like hurtigruten.

Despite nrkbeta's relatively modest reasoning about it above, #hurtigruten in realtime and on TV, cell phone and twitter etc. has become a huge event and a success already in many ways including gaining hundreds of waving families and engaged or disengaged citizens along the coast and thousands (or sometimes millions) of participating viewers. In many ways, the current journey has become an umbrella and magnet for many kinds of encounters and performances. People are active with their experiencing including often their second screens whether it is a normal mobile, smart phone, iPad or lap top, camera etc. Several twitter reports have pinpointed that even shares in hurtigruten's shipping companies have gone up as well.

Just a wild thought: Maybe some of the key share owners could perhaps consider to give something back, for instance, to the further creative work in some ways?

CONTINUED ACCESS. The live stream is available at nrk.no/hurtigruten from Thursday June 16th 2011 until the ship lands in Kirkenes Wednesday June 22nd. Info on how to download etc. can be found there as well. You can reuse but need to acknowledge the cocreators and rights.
Content licensed under Creative Commons Source: NRKbeta.no http://nrkbeta.no/2011/06/16/hurtigruten-eng/ Norsk versjon av artikkel [...]

http://nrkbeta.no/2011/06/16/hurtigruten/

MOCA! New York Museum of Chinese in America

Museum of Chinese in America's new home at 215 Centre Street in New York's Chinatown. Photo credit: Pentagram.

I like the new identity program of New York Museum of Chinese in America: MOCA.
It is designed by Pentagram with this Project Team: Michael Bierut, partner-in-charge and designer; Yve Ludwig, designer (identity and signage); Rion Byrd-Gumus, designer (signage).

NEW MUSEUM BUILDING. During the past year, MOCA celebrated its first anniversary in its new home designed by the architect Maya Lin. She's done remarkable things from sculpture to architecture to landscape design. This post however is about Pentagram's identity work, though we may need some background about the museum itself.

WHAT IS MOCA. I quote from Pentagram's web pres:
- Founded in 1980 as a project to commemorate the history of New York’s Chinatown, the museum has grown over the years and is now recognized as an important national institution. In 2009 the museum relocated to a space at 215 Centre Street, a 12,000 square-foot former industrial machine repair shop on the border of Chinatown and Soho. After many years at 70 Mulberry Street, a location it shared with other community groups (and where it still maintains a Collections and Research Center), the move to the new space marked the institution’s growing confidence and optimism.

NEW IDENTITY. Here is how the identity program is presented:
- Pentagram’s Michael Bierut and Yve Ludwig designed an elegant new identity for MOCA that takes its cues from Lin’s architecture. The square logos—one the museum’s full name, the other the acronym—work in combination with their typical “chop” in Chinese characters, which the designers also modified. The word “Chinese” (or, in the acronym version, the letter C) is marked with a color shift to emphasize the museum’s focus. The same square motif recurs in other layout elements and the signage. Like the space itself, the identity and graphics avoid any overt references to the clichés of Chinese or Asian culture. Instead, the identity is meant to be a neutral frame, with the subject matter of the museum’s collections and exhibitions providing the specific and authentic content. The font Verlag is used throughout.

http://pentagram.com/en/new/2011/02/new-work-museum-of-chinese-in.php

Living without money - See it on TV and you tube

Trailer. Credit filmmaker and YOU TUBE.

Here is more info about the creators and links.

THE FILM TEAM:
Line Halvorsen, director
Jan Dalchow, producer
Paolo Pallavidino, producer

FILM SCREENINGS:
info@livingwithoutmoney.org
FESTIVAL DISTRIBUTION:
The Norwegian Film Institute
int@nfi.no
WORLD SALES:
info@livingwithoutmoney.org

HEIDEMARIE SCHWERMER:
ivory@free.de
www.heidemarieschwermer.com

I have not yet seen the film but looking forward to see it hopefully soon. If you're impatient there is an option to see on tv.
See it on TV

SV faculty of University in Bergen 40 y 2010

Here is a film in Norwegian grounded in interviews with some key figures.

https://www.uib.no/svf/artikler/2010/10/jubileumsfilmen

Design in Practice/"Design i praksis" new book

"Design i praksis: designledelse og innovasjon" (in Norw.), exhibited in Norli bookstore, Oslo, October 2010. Photo: Birgit Helene Jevnaker.

31.10.2010
This autumn, we, Per Farstad and myself, have finished our new book with Universitetsforlaget.

APPROACHES FOR DESIGN AND INNOVATION. The book is dealing with creative challenges and opportunities for designing and innovating in projects with others in realworld situations. Ten transdisciplinary work approaches are introduced for projects of many kinds - in service or product development, concept development, innovation and design. We suggest the work approaches are potentially relevant across several design disciplines and other making and planning disciplines including management, and especially in the current situation where both design and management fields seem to be under scrutiny and transformation.

PERSPECTIVES ON CREATING SOMETHING. No doubt, there are currently many new or latent problems surfacing in and across projects and organizations. From many years of work practice, studies and teaching, we have learned how students as well as scholars and practitioners are often striving with both innovation and developmental work including the conception of something new and different. Or how to actually renew and strenghten something already proven to sustain its actual or potential values? These are among the questions we explore throughout the book, drawing on research and experiential insights from realworld examples.

DESIGN ISSUES AND COLLABORATIONS. The book builds on the premises that platforms and collaborations for good designing are something that is constructed and unfold in practice. It thus delineates and discusses a number of design and developmental issues and seeks to provide new or synthetized perspectives, work methods/tools, and knowledge that we suggest can help something new or existing to become attractive as well as viable in practice. This is however a continuous and often complex challenge but one that we as humans can work on - with and for others.
Any experience, comment and suggestion that can help us to improve this, is welcome. birgit.h.jevnaker@bi.no

See more on Universitetsforlaget

Ibsenmaskin / ball rolls out in the audience

Ibsenmaskin: A new play based on 12 of Ibsen's contemporary plays and written for the 20th year celebration of the Ibsenfestival at the Nationaltheatret, Oslo. Direction Sebastian Hartmann, Leipzig.

Kjersti Botn Sandal tries the Zorb-ball for the first time! Music: Steve Binetti.


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COURTESY, dybwadsplass1's channel and YouTube.

Ibsenmaskin, Oslo Ibsenfestival 2010

Magic moments during Sebastian Hartmann's Ibsenmaskin, premiere 26 Aug 2010, on Nationaltheatret, Oslo.
It is a thematic journey into several of Ibsen's late plays, such as Ghosts, Lady from the Sea, The Masterbuilder, Hedda Gabler.

I'd like to share with you the Love song by young actress Kjersti Botn Sandal who plays Osvald *from Ghosts.
Since I happen to know Kjersti from many summer hiking tours when she was a child, it is especially moving to listen to her song.

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Glow by Madcon and mob dancing in MGP interval

In the Eurovision Song Contest 29 May 2010, "Glow" with Madcon and many people dancing in the interval were great fun! Here is some background from how the mob flashdance was orchestrated. Meet Karene Lyngholm and others, from training ground in Dusseldorf.

Relevance: Will Diaspora need to SCALE to "hundreds of millions"?

Today I posted this comment following up Jonathan Higgins comment regarding Diaspora (see a recent post for intro):

Will Diaspora or other alternative distributed friendsfeeds solutions need to SCALE to "hundreds of millions" to be relevant? Good Q Jonathan!

On the one hand, I guess perhaps not (though I do not know the technical details).

Because I guess socially, Friendsfeeds can still become very relevant IF it can attract many cliques of friends and thus gain some critical mass also among smaller networks of friends. If it becomes popular, the new practices can then become endemic spreading further.

On the other hand, "users" have actually got new habits through FB and its huge scaling. Some might enjoy to continue friendsfeeding and group connecting through the possibilities of a huge mass social medium. While others may rather wish to move on to more free and "true" friendfeed networks. Thus it might differ among us where and how we may wish to continue. This is only some preliminary thoughts... wish to learn more!

Posted on the website ReadWriteStart by: Birgit | May 16, 2010 3:13 AM

Visuelt business award 2010 to Halvors

Næringslivsprisen 2010

"Design gir gjennomslagskraft for Tradisjonsfisk" (Design helps achieve breakthrough for Trad Fish, my transl.) Courtesy for photos: Fotografene Kristin&Vibeke.)

Visuelt Business Award 2010 was given to Halvors Tradisjonsfisk, a small entrepreneurial firm located in Tromsø and it is preparing, packaging and distributing Norwegian fish to restaurants and some groceries and supermarkets. Halvors is a newcomer, established in 2000, but deals with traditional clipfish, "tørrfisk" (dried fish) from Lofoten, lutefisk etc. Clip fish is fish for baccalao and other uses, see some suggestions of recipes here.

This case shows how a skilled graphic design approach (from Tank design, Tromsø) can actually contribute to building an attractive and relevant identity, a good and differentiated packaging, a meaningful presentation and so forth in close collaboration together with entrepreneurs.
- You need to respect other kinds of expertise, said Halvor Hansen, one of the cofounders to me just after receiving the Næringslivsprisen (Business award) during the Visuelt award ceremony.

LEARNING LESSONS. Although not yet fully researched in academic ways, we may learn many things from this Halvors case. Here are three suggestions:

1. Working on a skilled design approach with designers and business entrepreneurs can help even a small trad business recreate and project itself - for example, as Halvors Tradisjonsfisk. Design can help create a distinct and attractive character and elegant, differentiated packaging. A skilled designing can also form the online material on the web so as to show and tell in sensuous ways the benefits of the offerings.

(In turn, this may signal and significantly help communication with actual and potential customers, dealers, own salespeople and workers, and other interests).

2. Exploring design work with a holistic take even when starting small. Think beyond - rather than just one separate design/business issue at the time.

(Fish enterprise is also designing the fish and sharing food recipes and possible dish designs).

3. Collaborating closely throughout the design/business process may include many relevant concerns and engage entrepreneurial managers and other specialists.

(Halvors Tradisjonsfisk for example has a key person who also is a cook employed and Halvor Hansen, the cofounder has worked in fisheries for years and traveled much, he told me).

Given the awarded design but also knowing about some of the challenges of continued quality delivery and distribution for small food producers, it will be interesting to see how Halvors Tradisjonsfisk is sustaining their design/business creative efforts in the future.

Hope to learn more from Halvors!

***

Jury statement and some background info in Norwegian:
Næringslivsprisen 2010 ble delt ut under Visueltdagene på Christiania Teater i Oslo 7. mai 2010. Prisen går til en bedrift eller organisasjon som har utviklet en ny visuell identitet som et strategisk virkemiddel for å skape en konsistent og helhetlig presentasjon av bedrift og/eller produkt. Det var mange sterke kandidater til Næringslivsprisen 2010 og HALVORS var i år klar vinner av denne prestisjetunge prisen.

JURYENS BEGRUNNELSE

Halvors Tradisjonsfisk har vist godt entreprenørskap ved å benytte design på en gjennomført måte, og har gjennom de gode resultatene de har oppnådd vist at design er en viktig bidragsyter for å øke omsetning, distribusjon og merkestyrke. Designet skaper oppmerksomhet gjennom sitt nøkterne og kvalitetsbevisste uttrykk, og har en moderne tilnærming til opprinnelse og tradisjon. Halvors Tradisjonsfisk har spesialisert seg på klippfisk og tørrfisk, og gikk fra å være restaurantleverandør til å entre dagligvarehandelen med det nye designet som hovedvirkemiddel. Gjennom sitt nye design har Halvors fått stor gjennomslagskraft, noe som var en klar målsetting for prosessen. Det prisvinnende designet er utviklet av Tank Design i samarbeid med Halvors, og juryen berømmer dem for et solid designarbeid med gode resultater.

Oslo, 08.05.2010

Kilder: egen deltakende observasjon som jurymedlem i Næringslivsprisen samt linker til Halvors tradisjonsfisk og til Visuelt vinner i denne kategori 2010.
Sources: Own participation as member of the jury of the Visuelt Business award, see also links to Grafill Visuelt and to Halvors Tradisjonsfisk above.

Centralized or distributed friendsfeeds? Notice Diaspora

The Diaspora team maxwell daniel raphael ilya

(Courtesy for photo: joindiaspora.com)

SOCIAL MEDIA EXPLOITATION. Currently, much of the attention and discussions in mass media and among companies are focused on how to enter, use and exploit rapidly growing social media such as Facebook (about half of the population of Norway is apparently already having an account on FB).
However, many issues of reuse, commercialization and privacy seem yet unsolved. Would Facebook administrators for example share our FB information and emergent behaviours with corporate others such as publishing houses or magazine sellers?

While some corporations and publishing houses are debating the new media possibilities of reaching potential customers in new ways through Facebook, some users and developers are already looking for alternative and what they see as less centralized ways of sharing news and other content with friends.

THE BIG QUESTION is how to actually combine sharing content with (many or selective) others with some privacy intact or at least a degree of self-governance of your "own" information, pics, news feeds, variety of connections and other activities including both social and purchasing behaviour.

DIASPORA. Notice the alternative project Diaspora by a dedicated "boy-band" it seems, of young developers and students (from NYU). At least when you see four of them on You Tube, seems to be a devoted group of young men, check out the link below where they introduce their dedication to working on this current project. (Need to check out more on their backgrounds and interests later!)

See some introduction first here:

Is Your Startup Too Geeky? Written by Audrey Watters / May 15, 2010 http://bit.ly/cc42Vr

TEAM EXPLAINING. The current Diaspora Team is: Maxwell, Daniel, Raphael and Ilya. Hear the guys self-explaining their project here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqxQgfQD24M&feature=player_embedded

NAME BACKGROUND. Diaspora, what does it mean? A diaspora (in Greek, διασπορά – "a scattering [of seeds]")

- and according to Wikipedia it is "any movement of a population sharing common national and/or ethnic identity. While refugees may or may not ultimately settle in a new geographic location, the term diaspora refers to a permanently displaced and relocated collective."

(It is a name with a long history of meanings connected to for example exciles of people which is beyond this post).

- according to the current Diaspora project (link) is specifically "the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network."

I guess we might also associate this with the possible future alternatives, complementaries, and/or excile from FB?

Ron Callary over at Inventorspot says:

- The central premise is to replicate the Facebook user experience that’s proven popular (until recent date), but to allow the Diaspora social network to be available on users’ own personal Web servers -- called “seeds.” This differs from Facebook's centralized user interface that claims ownership of users’ content and marketable data while running roughshod over their privacy data. At the rate at which Diaspora is growing and gaining funding, if it continues at its current pace, it might be the Facebook alternative many ex-FBers are looking for.

If anyone has more info on the further work of this free and possibly antifacebook project, please share with us.

UPDATES AND COMMENTS:

Jonathan Higgins comments on Diaspora on 16 May 2010 on the ReadWriteWeb:

- Will that scale ? Time will tell.

Does Diaspora need to scale to hundreds of millions of "users" to be relevant ?

Now that's a question that's worth thinking about.

(SEE my comment in separate new post 16 May).

Visuelt days in Oslo 6-7 May 2010

For two days, a bunch of graphic designers and illustrators and other interested people met in Oslo for the annual Visuelt event offered by Grafill (association for graphic designers and illustrators in Norway). The seminar was arranged in Vika Cinema and included welcome speeches, several visual screenings and a range of interesting presenters, many from international agencies and collectives. On Friday evening, it was time for the annual Visuelt Award Ceremony in Christiania Theatre. A number of awards (so many subcategories!) and much praise was shared with an enthusiastic audience as also the after-awards party time got closer.

You can see more here: ............(links to come)

http://bit.ly/9qfRoD

New Tannhäuser in Bjørvika, Oslo

(courtesy for photos Den Norske Opera og Ballett)

Brilliant way of recreating Wagner's grand opera placing it in a Salvation army context. This is actualizing the opera from the old themes of whore and madonna, pleasure and sin, to also questions of being seduced and staged - even by the heavenly forces.. Salvation army leaders and followers - singing for the good for others - become seduced by own fundamentalism, rituals, and double morality. Doubt about what is the right way remains a recurrent theme throughout this opera. The intricate play of seduction is helped by comedian elements.
Stefan Herheim and his team give us highly scenic and fun qualities showing glimpses of opera history in the opening scenes and of heavenly forces in the final ones.

Brief interview with Stefan Herheim, the director here:

http://www.nrk.no/nett-tv/indeks/203381/

Key info (in Norwegian):

Opera av Richard Wagner, premiere Den Norske Opera og Ballett 6. mars.

Regi: Stefan Herheim,

scenografi/kostymedesign: Heike Scheele,

dramaturgi Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach

Roller premiere: Tannhäuser: Gary Lehman, Elisabeth: Elisabet Strid, Venus: Judit Németh, Hermann, landgreve av Thüringen: Magne Fremmerlid , Wolfram von Eschenbach: Geert Smits

***

I want to add that I really enjoyed the eminent Swedish singer Elisabet Strid as Elisabet!

Marimekko exhibition in Oslo 14.2-9.5.2010

Courtesy for Photo Marianne Siebke and nrk.

This colourful exhibition recently (14.2) opened at Kunstindustrimuseet - Museum of Decorative Arts and Design - in Oslo (see National museum of art, architecture and design).

This is the retrospective travelling exhibition of Marimekko (first exhibited in 2003, so finally now in Oslo).
More info from the museum here: http://www.nationalmuseum.no/index.php/content/view/full/6955

And here you can find an article with more photos by Marianne Siebke, for nrk: http://nrk.no/nyheter/kultur/1.6967878

Siebke has interviewed Anne Kjellberg, senior curator of the Kunstindustri museum. We get to know an interesting anecdote about the woman designer Maija Isola who later designed one of the most well-known Marimekko patterns, the interlocking poppies (valmuer in Norwegian). Maija Isola had lived in Oslo, where she worked at the restaurant Gamle Raadhus (old townhall). She also visited the Kunstindustri museum and was inspired by old jugs to draw the pattern "Amfora".

In Norwegian (excerpts from Siebke's article for nrk):

Kvinnen bak valmuemønsteret

Allerede i 1949 engasjerte de designeren Maija Isola (1927-2001). Isola hadde bodd i Oslo, der hun jobbet på restauranten Gamle Raadhus. Hun vanket på Kunstidustrimuseet, og der inspirerte gamle krukker henne til å tegne mønsteret «Amfora».

Later her famous patterns for Marimekko were used on a variety of objects such as raincoates.

Prinsesse Märtha Louise i Unikko-regnfrakk.

Foto: Lars Harald J. Kristiansen /Scanpix

Marimekko is not only an example of Finnish joyful design. It has been a huge marketing success but also experienced troubled water economically speaking as a company. For some elaboration on this, based on empirical design and management research on Marimekko, see a good chapter by Antti Ainamo (1998) in the research anthology book Management of Design Alliances (Bruce and Jevnaker, eds, published on John Wiley & Sons, UK. You will probably get it via a library).

Norwegian Form's Jacob prize 2009: Egil Haraldsen

Credit images/photos:
to the left - Roberto Di Trani, Norsk Form
in the middle and right - Egil Haraldsen, Norsk Form

Do you have a Dag Solstad book or another "October" book near you? Then it probably is Egil Haraldsen and Ellen Lindeberg in Exil design who designed its bookcover.

JACOB PRIZE. This week graphic designer Egil Haraldsen (b. 1952) received Norway's highest award for design and architecture, the Jacob prize, for his long achievements in visual design fields. Haraldsen has created and cocreated numerous book covers and cinema posters and served many clients well through creative collaboration over decades. He has also contributed to expressions beyond the brief and conventions.

EXAMPLE. Working recurrently with Solstad, a distinguished, contemporary writer, Egil Haraldsen is given considerable freedom, he tells Oslo's newspaper Aftenposten after the prize ceremony. It is worth noticing that Haraldsen for instance came up with the idea himself to put 'Dag Solstad', the author's name in parenthesis on the book cover, an interesting angle to Solstad's excellent and self-reflective authorship. See book cover above, from Eleventh novel, book eighteen.

Excerpt from interview with Norsk Form (in Norwegian):
- Hva er et godt bokomslag?
- Det må ville noe. Ikke være et forventet tapet, et gjesp. Det må skille seg ut, ha en idé, tanke, innfallsvinkel.

Det er ikke alltid lett. Haraldsen forteller at på slutten av 80-tallet ble designet temmet. Da begynte markedsavdelingene og forfatterne å ta mer kontroll.

- Forfattere er blitt opphøyd til guder. Noen ganger kan de komme med bilde og fonttype.
- Det er deprimerende at yrket designer ikke nyter mer respekt. Folk finner aldri på å krangle med en rørlegger eller skomaker. Men de krangler med en designer.
See full interview text in Norsk Form's website (see link below) by Katharina Dale Håkonsen.

JURY STATEMENT. Here is the jury statement (in NORWEGIAN):
Egil Haraldsen debuterte i 1983 etter utdannelse fra Grafisk avdeling/SHKS, og han har i et kvart århundre vært en av de virkelig toneangivende innen norsk bokdesign. Han driver eget
designstudio i Oslo – Exil design – og arbeider med grafisk design for kulturfeltet, hovedsaklig med bøker, filmplakater og tidsskrifter.
De fleste hjem har et utvalg av hans arbeider. Haraldsen har designet omslag for forfattere som
Dag Solstad, Kjell Askildsen, Tove Nielsen, Knut Faldbakken og Edvard Hoem. Han har definert
den visuelle profilen til forlaget Oktober og har også arbeidet med bokdesign og omslag for en
rekke andre forlag som Pax, Gyldendal, Cappelen, Aschehoug, Tiden, Kolon og Humanist.
Egil Haraldsens solide produksjon representerer en konvensjonell typografisk tradisjon og
presisjon. Samtidig søker han det ukonvensjonelle ved sin eksperimentering og reflekterte relasjon til samtid og subkultur. Hans repertoar er fra det sublime og rent typografiske til det fotografisk- illustrative og koloristisk eksessive. Egil representerer selvsikkerhet og distinkt egenart kombinert med respekt for det unike i tekst og kontekst for hvert prosjekt. Bøkene for Oktober og filmplakatene til Arthaus er utmerkede eksempler på organiske visuelle identiteter som vokser fram på grunn av langvarig, nært og respektfullt forhold mellom designer og oppdragsgiver. Kulturprodukter trenger ikke merkevarestrategi, men kvalitetsbevisst, kløktig og variert innholdsformidling som trigger sanser og nysgjerrighet.
Haraldsen er faglig fundamentalist, en vakthund for typografihåndverket, for viktigheten av
bokstavenes billedlegging av språket og en streng kritiker av faglig slapphet og selvtilfredshet. I hans debatterende og kverulerende ærlighet og satiriske humor ligger det en blod-alvorlig insistering på faglig kvalitet, kompetanse, meningsfylde, ærlighet og arbeidsmoral.
Egil Haraldsen øker tilgjengeligheten og livskvaliteten for et lesende, seende og tenkende
publikum, inspirerer kunder og samarbeidspartnere og er et utfordrende forbilde for grafiske
designere i alle aldre.

«Design oder nicht sein!»

(Source: via Norsk Form 19.11.2009. http://www.norskform.no/

See also a good interview in Aftenposten, by Thorleif Andreassen,
http://www.aftenposten.no/kul_und/article3382354.ece
Accessed 21.11.2009

Cocreator of Central Park's Gates passed away

Jeanne-Claude, creator of the "The Gates," the 2005 art installation in Central Park, has passed away. http://tr.im/FiLq

Jeanne-Claude, with Christo and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg February, 2005
Courtesy for photo: Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

According to the New York Times, 19. November 2009:
- The artist Jeanne-Claude has died. She was 74. The Associated Press is reporting that the artist, who, with her husband, Christo, created “The Gates,” the 2005 art installation in Central Park, among many other works, died Wednesday night at a New York hospital from complications of a brain aneurysm.

Comment: I did not see The Gates, but my very good friend Louise Birkeland, Bergen, did. And she was thrilled by actually walking through the Gates in Central Park. Here is a part of an appraisal by Michael Kippelman.

AN APPRAISAL
In a Saffron Ribbon, a Billowy Gift to the City

By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN

Published: February 13, 2005

It is a long, billowy saffron ribbon meandering through Central Park -- not a neat bow, but something that's very much a gift package to New York City. "The Gates," by Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude, was officially unveiled yesterday.

Thousands of swaths of pleated nylon were unfurled to bob and billow in the breeze. In the winter light, the bright fabric seemed to warm the fields, flickering like a flame against the barren trees. Even at first blush, it was clear that "The Gates" is a work of pure joy, a vast populist spectacle of good will and simple eloquence, the first great public art event of the 21st century. It remains on view for just 16 days. Consider yourself forewarned. Time is fleeting.

Leadership in Action 10 years in action

10 years
This autumn is the tenth year for arranging the Leadership in Action program, a final special leadership and organization program in the Bachelor of Management executive education of BI Norwegian School of Management. On 18 august 2009, most of the teachers and administrative supporters involved were meeting up for a FAGSEMINAR at BI. Kari-Mette Mørdre made the very good WHITE LADY cake herself. I think the photos suggest lots of good spirit in LiA.

BRIEF BACKGROUND. It originates in an initiative Spring 1998, when a program proposal was developed by two associate professors, Agneta Karlsson and myself with encouraging support from a few BI administrators (incl. Dag Aadne Sandbakken).
Back then, Agneta and I were both newly recruited to BI. A suggestion from our head of Dep Rolv P. Amdam put the two of us together on the task.
Accidently, it turned out that we had ideas, backgrounds and hope for approaches, which were not difficult to tune. Complimentary competences and many a good laugh together probably also helped make the proposal real quickly, we were both eager to start something new & somewhat different from conventional, mainly one-way classroom teaching, although we kept, and tried to strengthen, the theoretical inquiry - by good scholars as well as students themselves.

In brief, we wanted the student to go on an active learning journey with other adult learners - from the initial grounding when formulating own challenges, to learning to find own literature to respond to own themes of interest, and grounding this in both theoretical reflections and own good examples and experiences. Leadership in Action allows to explore all this further in own term paper project - doing small studies in own organizations. The latter is not unique for this course, but some other ingredients were perhaps more unique such as finding your own literature, writing a synopsis and engaging further via a special synopsis exam. Or doing ARL tasks and reflective dialogues as part of the learning trying to weave the various aspects together in an experience. Of course everything was not so clear by then, but these aspects emerged soon in our development and experimental work with the course.
We also tried to respond to the adult and diverse learner by having a blend of good ingredients and ways of learning in each learning module - theory lectures preferably with some research frontier critical reflections, student group exercises in the form of action reflection learning, insights from selfreflective practitioners as guest lectures and lots of dialogues. In the process, when becoming the first teachers of the course, we learned to really appreciate the many spontaneous and emergent possibilities for learning among experienced adults from many parts of business and the society.

The program became approved already in 1998, yet it turned out that it was too late to launch it that same year. So first course realization was Autumn 1999, that is, ten years ago. It started with one class offered by BI's Net studies, teachers were both Agneta and myself, as said, and Kjersti Hatlevold and Boas became excellent adm supporters. We had great fun doing this together!

Later on, another class started in Oslo and one in Bergen and eventually 6 classes were up and running, i.e., from 2007/2008 (And some time before that, Agneta had stepped down and also moved back to Åland, but even before that, or later on, many other good persons were recruited as local responsible teachers such as Stein Lavik, Roald Nomme, Tonje Haalien, Randi Skare, Elisabeth Seim, Ragnhild Wiik, Frode Solberg, Leif-Runar Forsth, Jennifer Teague and Benedicte Brøgger and also several administrators became key and have contributed recurrently to the program).
This autumn it is 8 classes: 1 Net studies, 2 in Oslo, 1 Bergen, 1 Stavanger, 1 Drammen (new) and 1-2 Stavanger coarranging with and for Kristiansand.

This brief story is summarized after memory for this blog and is only one initial personal part of the background, of course. It is way much more to say about the further development of content, and the students' manifold practice backgrounds, searching abilities and course activities. What we have encountered and what we try to bring about in this course, may be another posting.
Just like to add that the name Leadership in Action, (or sometimes called just LiA) came later (an idea/initiative from me, to help signify its identity and orientation with a short name).

Industrial designer investing in Saab

Today it was announced that the designer Bård Eker via his 100 % owned company Eker Group is actually investing in the Swedish car-maker SAAB together with some other investors. Saab is owned by GM and is not making any money, rather it has been in big debts (today "akkord" solution was agreed upon).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPDwncq36GU

On garbage fleet into Venice

great idea!

- The Brooklyn artist Swoon and her merry band of anarchists from deepest Bushwick are invading the Venice Biennale this week—on boats built from garbage. New York City garbage.
By Vanessa Grigoriadis Published Jun 7, 2009

http://nymag.com/arts/art/features/57181/