Earlier this year, Laurent Haug, Nicolas Nova and I co-founded Lift lab, an independent research agency that helps companies and institutions understand, foresee and prepare for changes triggered by technological and social evolutions. Since then, we have been very active developing our areas of actions from exploratory field studies to foresight research, applications prototyping and event-building in the domains of Web and Internet, video games, mobile and location-based services, urban informatics and robotics/networked objects. Our freshly launched web site exemplifies our services with case studies:

UNDERSTAND: We explore how people behave and interact with technologies in their environment, and use these insights to design better experiences. We rely on field research methodologies that enable clients to better understand their users. Case studies: McKinsey and ENSCI.

ASSESS: We assess innovation through product audits, reviews and testing and field as well as desk research. We then develop a detailed assessment of the project at hand based on our expertise and targeted needs. We finally suggest improvements and alternative solutions. Case studies: Swisscom and BitCarrier.

SHARE: Acquiring the right knowledge is the first step towards change, followed by spreading the word. We give lectures and run workshops on technology, innovation, design and social change. We also use our conference experience to organize private and public events for our clients. Case studies: TechnoArk and Alp ICT.

FORESEE: We map possible future changes to highlight new opportunities and prepare for them. We use futures research and tools to map emerging social and technological shifts and prepare for them. Case studies: Phoenix Studio, UBS and the French Ministry of the Industry.

CREATE: We create instantiations of possible near future applications. Based on prototyping methods, we make product ideas or insights coming from field studies materialize. Case studies: Swisscom and BitCarrier.

Designer Maja Denzer did a perfect job in conceptualizing and designing the site. It combines our own photos, focusing on details of integration of technological instruments and people in intriguing situations, with short sentences on “today and the future”, causing surprise, concerns or curiosity.

Our friends from Bread and Butter designed the logo with the great Akkurat typeface

Lift lab’s partners Laurent Haug and Nicolas Nova have launched the new website of the upcoming Lift 2010 edition in Geneva. The event will revisit the myths about connected people:

“Lift10 will explore the most overlooked aspect of innovation: people. Known in the techno-parlance as users, consumers, clients, participants, prosumers, citizens or activists, people ultimately define the success of all technological and entrepreneurial projects. They adopt or refute, promote or demote; embrace, reject, or re-purpose. Their approaches are unique, influenced by cultural and generational diversity. A decade after the rebirth of user-centered design and innovation, it’s time to explore the myths and uncover the reality behind the “connected people”.“

Also check the current speakers roster and the program format/sessions:

“Generations and technologies
How to go beyond the usual clichés on generations, with Seniors unable to benefit from technology and Millenials ruining their future careers on social networks?

The redefinition of Privacy
What is privacy in the 21st Century? Is personal security threatened by the massive collection of personal data?

Communities
Since 2006 Web 2.0 has celebrated the so-called “amateur revolution”. What did we learn in the past 5 years? Are we reaching the limits of Web 2.0?

Politics
Beyond the much talked-about political campaigns on Facebook, how to turn users into engaged citizens in public action?

The old new media
Newspapers are struggling, TV is not sure of what the future holds. What is at stake nowadays when informing, reaching and involving people?“

For this edition, the good friends from Bread and Butter did a great job to instantiate our theme in a proper and original graphic identity. As they explained on their weblog:

“We tried to find a new way to represent the fragile balance between connected groups of people. We are all sometimes influencers, sometimes pirates and sometimes just an audience. Therefore the concept of a “mobile” seemed just the right transcription. Without saying that it also fits the Conference’s spirit and is easy to apply on all applications from website to stickers and from Marseille themes to korean’s alphabet.“

The different steps from their generative metaphor:

In a current project in New York, I focus on the analysis of several types of digital footprints to understand the evolution of presence and movements of visitors in lower Manhattan. The study particularly targets the impact of the New York Waterfalls exhibit in that area. I use these digital footprints to reveal the variations in spatial presence and abnormal patterns of temporal presence over the course of a 2 years period. In addition to these quantitative analysis, I use qualitative observations on site to gain insights on the behaviors that lead to the generation of the footprints.

Dan Hill takes a very similar mixed (quantiative+qualitative) approach at Arup to exploit behavioral information to better inform the urban design decisions. City Information Models fed with significant data on actual use can help perform new types of “Post-Occupancy Evaluations” often overlooked in the practice of urban design. He exemplifies this use of multiple perspectives in analyzing the spatial usage patterns in a post-occupancy evaluations of public wi-fi. The objective of this methodology is not only to perform subsequent adaptations on the design object (classic approach in software design) but also to reuse the lessons learned as input of other projects.

Relation to my thesis: The recent availability of digital footprint creates an opportunity to perform new types of Post-Occupancy Evaluations. These quantitative data help reveal the emerging and abnormal behaviors, confirming assumptions and raise questions. The use a qualitative angle then can help explain phenomenon revealed by the quantitative analysis. Beyond my thesis, I expect to apply this type of mixed approach in the future. Strangely enough, I have not seen many works going in that direction to the exception (to some extends) of Cityware (see Mapping, sensing and visualising the digital arena) linked to the Space Syntax approach.

Autodesk officially launched their Digital Cities initiative with a first pilot in Salzburg. Their approach relies on a shared 3D collaboration and visualization environment for data from architectural models, utility networks, transportation networks. The aim is to foster a holistic approach to city management from engineering-level models to visualize, analyze, and simulate the real world. In an interview on the initiative, Doug Eberhard, Autodesk’s senior director for digital cities highlights the importance of this approach to communicate early in project:

The current process has been called the DAD method (decide, announce, defend), but that’s changing. By communicating early and often, you eliminate a lot of backlash. Digital cities allow you to share projects with the public in a robust and meaningful way.

Snapshots of the Digital Cities Metropolis demos

Update: Doug Eberhard “Digital Cities” presentation at Where 2.0.

Relation to my thesis: A corporate vision on the management of hybrid cities (see also Arup’s Future of Connected and Sustainable Cities). I wonder if the move from 2D to 3D and 4D provides better perspectives to collaborate and take decisions. From my experience, novel urban visualization based on more social data than the ones handled by Autodesk have a real added-value for local authorities to communicate and reveal some invisible aspect of a city (such as in Florence). However, the fluctuating quality in the data often still not taken into consideration in the visualization often prevent from decisions to be taken. Bad or missing data also come from the current unsustainable digital practices in cities. I have noticed several time that agencies don’t share information or we share it in unsustainable ways.

7.5th Floor now takes part of the newly created LIFT lab’s “/think” publication platform. The idea launched by Laurent Haug is to join the forces of people writing, reporting and thinking on technology and society and put them under the LIFT lab umbrella. LIFT lab is a network-based company that provides among other things, the LIFT series of events, consulting services and publications. Other blogs are gathered under this umbrella with Nicolas’ Pasta &Vinegar as flagship.

7.5th Floor will remain dedicated to reporting my readings, thoughts and milestones as part of my PhD thesis on the socio-technical gap in ubiquitous location-aware computing.

Many thanks to Luc (to whom I owe several diners in his favourite Zürich restaurants) for hosting this bazar from the beginning.

The current model of my research in which I integrate the user-generated location information and a split between a split between the physical, measured, virtual and social spaces (inspired by Managing Multiples Spaces) theoretically influencing the emergence of uncertainty. The social space still needs further development.