Essay 2 - instruction

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Back when the course started, in the beginning of September, I wrote:

"You have to write an individual essay twice during the course; one in the beginning and one more right when the course ends. Writing these essays are compulsory."

The time to write the concluding second essay has now come. This essay replaces other forms of course evaluations. Do note that it is compulsory to write this essay and you will not get your course credits registered if you haven't written both essays (for those who for some reasons did not write the first essay, see further instructions below).

/Daniel

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Please download and use the template that is available in Bilda ("Documents/FoM essay 2") when you write your text. Use your family name when you name your file ("Pargman essay 2") and upload it to the "drop box" that has been created exclusively for this purpose in Bilda ("Contents/Essay 2"). Do note that you can only upload the file formats .doc, .docx (MS Word) or .pdf to the drop box.

The deadline for handing in the essay is Monday December 29 (17.00), i.e. twelve days after the final presentation. Do note that English or Swedish is ok. If you miss the deadline, there is a new deadline on Saturday Jan 19 at 17.00 (officially last day of the autumn semester). The task below is neither very comprehensive nor time-consuming, but please do set some time off to sit down and reflect upon the course when you write the essay!

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The essay consists of three parts:

1A. "Instead of a course evaluation".

- What were in your opinion the two (or three) best things about the course?

- What were in your opinion the two (or three) worst things about the course?

- What are your (perhaps two or three) suggestions for how to change/improve the course?

- What is the most important advice you can give to the students who will take the course next year?

You are of course allowed to posit more than three suggestions (etc.), but plese don't answer each question with just a few words or a sentence each. State your opinions and then exemplify, explain and back them up. We will not specify a set length, but do not just enumerate stuff without also including (at least a brief) explanation of each.

1B. "The project"

Taking into account that this is a project course, we are interested in creating structures for the project phase (Oct-Dec) that help project groups work with limited resources (primarily time) and still deliver high-quality results. Here are some questions to help you think about these issues (use the list below for inspiration, not as a checklist):
- How would you evaluate your project group's work effort? Are you happy with it?
- Was the work effort in the group more or less well distributed among group members or did some group members work a lot more or a lot less than others?
- Did you reach the quality you aimed/wished for in the allotted time and with the resources available? Why/why not?
- Did group members have similar priorities, or did you have different opinions about some (important) things? How did you resolve them?
- How much (or little) have you enjoyed working with your project group?
- Knowing what you know now, what could/should you or the teachers have done differently during the project phase of the course?

NOTE: we ask this question because 1) we only have limited insights into the work processes of individual project groups during the last few months and 2) we want to learn more so as to be able to improve instructions and advice for project groups next year. Your comments might thus refer to "mistakes" or unfortunate decisions you made in your group as well as aspects of the course that could be improved in order to clarify and support the work of the project groups better.

1C. "Closing the circle"

Go back and re-read the essay you handed in at the beginning of the term (if you absolutely can't locate it, send a mail to Daniel Pargman who will find it and return it to you).

In that first essay (the instructions are here) you wrote about A) your "expectations and apprehensions" regarding the course and B) about your "relationship to the digital commons and the sharing economy". What has changed and what hasn't since you wrote that first essay? Did the course live up to your expectations or did you apprehensions come true? Has your relationship to the digital commons and the sharing economy changed since then or are they still the same?

Please write no less than 400 words (1 page) and no more than 1000 words (2.5 pages) on topic 1B and 1C together.


For those (few) who did not hand in essay 1 or for some other reason have to do an extra assignment:
I will anonymize and distribute eight different essays to you (making sure that none of them comes from any members of your own project group). Instead/on top of 1C above, you will summarize these essays and furthermore see if you can find patterns that several students agree on (or important stuff people disagree on). I will send further instructions together with the essays. You you will not be able to complete this task before Dec 29 since your classmates have to submit their second essays before I can give you this extra assignment. You will thus have to aim for the January 19 deadline instead of the December 29 deadline.

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Final presentation jury members

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We have four members in the jury for the final presentation. Since we have little time for each group, there might not be time for all members of the jury to express their opinions about each group's presentation. In fact, my guess is that perhaps two members or a maximum three members of the jury will be able to comment each group's presentation (they will have to take turns throughout the afternoon). I also strongly suspect that the comments might for the most part be feedback and opinions/reviews rather than open-ended or "deep" questions (there is unfortunately not enough time for that).

The members of the jury are:

- Milad Hossainzadeh
- Airi Lampinen
- Mario Romero
- Daniel Wentz

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Milad Hossainzadeh is a young architect and entrepreneur who was born in Iran. He grew up in Sweden and partly in London where he received his Masters from UCL The Bartlett School of Architecture. He is currently based in Stockholm, working at the leading Scandinavian architectural firm White. He shares his time as a member of Urban Land Institute and working strategically with international relations within the field s architecture, urban design, business development and start-ups. As an architect, he has an interest in optimizing the power of cultural innovation and systematic root thinking.

Airi Lampinen works as a postdoctoral researcher at Mobile Life Centre, Stockholm University. Previously, she has been a researcher at Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT, a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's School of Information and a research intern at Microsoft Research New England. Her research is focused on interpersonal boundary regulation in networked settings, such as the sharing economy and social network services. Her qualifications include a PhD in social psychology from University of Helsinki and a BSc (Eng.) from Aalto University's interdisciplinary Information Networks degree programme.

Dr. Mario Romero is Associate Professor in Human-Computer Interaction in the Department of High-Performance Computing and Visualization (HPCViz) at KTH. He is a Fulbright Scholar from Ecuador and a graduate of Georgia Tech (PhD Computer Science, 2009), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Master Computer Science, 2001), and Universidad San Francisco de Quito (B.S. Industrial Engineering and B.S. Construction Engineering, 1996). Dr. Romero is also a technical co-founder of BrailleTech, developer and distributor of BrailleTouch. Dr. Romero's research centers in Human-Computer Interaction, Visualization, and Ubiquitous and Accessible Computing.

Daniel Wentz is Vice president for Strategy & Digital Transformation at Schibsted Media Group. He studied at KTH during the vintage years of 1998 - 2003, at the time when KTH Graphic Arts (Grafisk Teknik) was trying to understand what the Internet was and how it could be useful. After having finished his studies at KTH, Daniel ventured into entrepreneurship and Management Consulting (focusing on European Telecom and Media sectors) before joining Schibsted Media Group in 2011.

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Masters Theses opportunities

Hello.

I don't know if the place to publish this is in this or the companion blog. I guess here is better or it will disappear in the volume of traffic due to your weekly updates on the companion blog...

The message below comes from one of our guest lecturers in the course - Airi Lampinen

/Daniel

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Dear Future of Media Students,

we are looking for students who would like to write their Master's thesis at Mobile Life (mobilelifecentre.org) on topics related to our Homes & Cities project where we collaborate with IKEA, Ericsson, and Stockholm city. Based on your mid-term presentations, I think some of you might be interested in the topics we are working on -- and I'm convinced you'd make for great collaborators for Mobile Life!

In Homes and Cities, we are rethinking the smart city (& home) with on liminal spaces, that is, spaces that are at the boundary of home and city, the private and the public. These could include playgrounds, courtyards, tvättstugas, and more. We are interested in (a) exploring how people use such spaces and adapt them to fit their needs and (b) designing for these spaces by bringing personal and city infrastructure and data together.

At this point, we are primarily looking for students to work on these two topics:

1. Novel ways of food sharing (and/or growing) in local urban neighborhoods: urban farming, guerilla gardening, eating together with strangers, sharing left-over food to reduce food waste... The domain is broad and can be shaped to fit the student's interests. The thesis could be a combination of inquiry into current practices and design work on what kind of (mobile) technologies could enable/facilitate the interactions related to food sharing.

2. Windows as displays: a more design-oriented project of approaching apartment/building windows as a design space at the boundary of home and city. Next to the (during this season) common christmas star, what else would people be willing to display in their window? How could this be a way to interact with neighbors or people in the street? Could it also be a way to more actively manage what others can see about the tenants & their home (even in some ways akin to a social media profile page)?

Beyond these lines of work, you are also welcome to be in touch about your own idea if you'd like to pursue it in collaboration with Mobile Life researchers. In particular, further topics related to homes, cities, and the sharing economy are of interest to us.

If you are interested, please be in touch with Airi Lampinen (airi<at>mobilelifecentre.org) for more information. You can also come and chat with me on Dec 17 at the final presentations event.

Offload trends to the book introduction

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It will be boring if each groups start their respective chapter by writing a page or two about different trends they assume will happen during the next 10-20 years if several other group assume the same trends will happen (identity, anonymity, libraries, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, filter bubbles, shorter attention span, smartphones, future Internet archtecture etc.). 

You can thus "offload" these trends and this work to Daniel and Malin who will write the introduction to the book. See this blog post with info about trends that were picked up in the introductory chapter in last year's course ("The Future of News / News of the Future").

We have created a Google form where you can suggest trends that you assume will happen and that you would like Daniel and Malin to write about - instead of taking valuable space in your own chapter to write about these things.

The form for offloading trends is available here. 

Do note that there are also group- or project-specific trends that you should hold on to and write about in your text - what we are talking about here is more general "background" societal/economic/technological trends that you have reason to suspect that also other groups will assume in their scenarios.

We have a tight schedule for writing the texts for the book, so you will unfortunately only have until Friday Nov. 28 at 19.00 to submit your suggestions. Daniel and Malin will review them and will get back with information about which trends we will "pick up" for the introductory chapter at the coordination meeting with the project group leaders on Tuesday Dec 2. That will hopefully make it possible for you to write good "transitions" between the book intro and your own chapter and please do remember that the deadline for submitting your book chapters is on Thursday Dec 4. 

Do note:

- For the sake of simplicity, we recommend you designate one person who is responsible for your group's text. 

- This is the person who should have the final say in all matters relation to your text. This person should probably not be the person who is already your project leader.
- This is also the person who should come to the "work seminar"/"writer's workshop" (send (at least) one representative per group) on Friday Dec 5 from 13.00 in room 1537. 

- For the sake of simplicity, please have this person be the only person from your group who uses the form to suggest topics to offload (so there will not be mix-ups and confusions).

Good luck with your texts!

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Mid-crit feedback

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Dear all,

Thank you for the presentations at the mid-crit last Friday. We hope you enjoyed hearing what other groups are working on and that you all felt that the critique was both inspirational and useful for your continued work.

Here are some general thoughts and comments, brought up during the day and hopefully useful for many or even for all groups:

- Remember the human aspects of the sociotechnical loop. This year's theme is sharing, but please also remember the human aspects of sharing as well - try not to disappear too deeply into the technical solutions and loosing track of the people who will live in the future and use these systems. A set of technological developments is not a story in itself, or, at least it isn't a very engaging story. You have to imagine a future scenario that is underpinned by - but that in itself is more than - those technical developments.
- The projects should include a fair amount of media technology in any of its manifold and different forms. There should be a media (technology) angle for every project even if the emphasis is on this year's theme and your theme.
- An interesting aspect to include in your projects is "the history of the future" - what happened that lead up to the scenario of the future that you are describing? What can explain how that future came about, e.g. what about the years 2015-2030 (all projects are supposed to aim for 10-20 years into the future)?

Good luck with your projects!

Best,
Daniel & Malin

Future of Media as Design Fiction

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I learned about the term "design fiction" last year and instantly realised that we have been working with "design fiction" in the Future of Media for more than 10 years without know it... :-)

It might be that design fiction will be used more explicitly as a framework for the course next year. It might also be the case that it could be useful/helpful for you to read up (a little) on design fiction since that might help to frame what your are doing in your project and what we are doing in this course. It might also be the case that me and Malin will explicitly refer to design fiction in the introduction to the book we will produce in the course.

I have put together a few easy-to-read resources about design fiction that I suggest you read:
1) Read the introduction to the workshop that was held on design fiction at this year's huge conference on human-computer interaction.

Read these two position papers that were submitted to the workshop:
2) Product Boxes and Worst Nightmares: User-generated Design Fiction (pdf file)
3) Digital Spirits: Report of an Imaginary Workshop on Technologies to Support Religious and Spiritual Experience (pdf file)

4) Then read my reflections about design fiction and about the workshop in this (long) blog post.

5) Finally have a look at this scientific article that uses design fiction to think about the future, "ICT4S 2029: What will be the systems that supporting sustainability in 15 years" (link to pdf file)
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Mid-crit schedule

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- The mid-crit will be held in lecture hall V1 between 08.45-16.30. We will have three outside guest critics - please impress them by being on time!

- Each group has 25 minutes for their presentation + questions and discussion. Please use no more than 10 minutes for your presentation so that there is plenty of time left for discussions.

- You should attend all the presentations in your block. Feel free to ask for clarifications or questions

We have put together a schedule for the mid-crit presentation as follows:

Block 1

• 08.45-09.00 - Mini-lectures (5-10 minutes) by Gnospelius ("Future of finance") & Schön ("Share or die")
• 09.00-09.25 Future of learning
• 09.25-09.50 Future of crowdwork
• 09.50-10.15 Future of work
• 10.15-10.30 BREAK
• 10.30-10.45 Mini-lectures (5-10 minutes) by Ahlsén & Friberg ("Future of libraries")
• 10.45-11.10 End of big business
• 11.10-11.35 3D society 
• 11.35-12.00 Future of piracy
• 12.00-12.05 Wrap-up/concluding words (Daniel)

• 12.05-13.15 LUNCH BREAK

Block 2

• 13.15-13.30 Mini-lectures (5-10 minutes) by Vishnyakova ("Future of discrimination") & Zhulyabina ("Sharing and size")
• 13.30-13.55 Future of shared food
• 13.55-14.20 Bottom-up revolution (share your life)
• 14.20-14.45 Future of trust
• 14.45-15.00 BREAK
• 15.00-15.10 Mini-lecture (5-10 minutes) by Lundh Heinstedt ("Future of direct democracy")
• 15.10-15.35 Sharing motivations
• 15.35-16.00 Trust and reputation systems
• 16.00-16.25 Sustainable sharing economy
• 16.25-16.30 Wrap-up/concluding words (Daniel)

If you have any questions about the schedule or other practical aspects around the Friday mid-crit event, please have your project leader bring them to the coordination meeting this coming Wednesday (12-13 in seminar room 1537).

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Instructions for the weekly status report

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Each group should post a weekly status report on the course companion blog. Every course participant has gotten an invitation to post/contribute to the blog.

Here are the instructions for the weekly status report.

Deadline: Please submit your weekly status report every Friday at noon with the exception of Fri Nov 7 (mid-crit presentations). The noon deadline allows us to have the chance to provide you with feedback the same day/before the weekend. 

Content of each weekly report:

• Group name. 
• What we have done. What you (your group) have done during the previous week (since the previous weekly report)
• What we will do. What you will do next (next step(s) in your project)
• Challenges encountered. Either challenges within the group or in relation to you plans and "external" entities. 
• Changes in the project. "Evolution"/change of direction of your project (optional). If you have altered or changed the direction of your project (compared to the project plan or to previous status report) - please tell us what and why.
• Resources. We encourage you to also append other materials, for example a photo of your work process, a drawing/diagram you have created or a link to some excellent resource you have encountered (a text or a video for example). 
• Other. Whatever you feel is important or necessary to add to the status report. 

Comment: As stated before, not just the final results, but also the process is important in the course. Please see the weekly status reports not only as us (teachers) examining you (students), but as your opportunity to tell us (and impress us with) what you have done lately in your project group, as well as a backchannel to point out obstacles and problems you have encountered.

If you encounter problems that hinder you to progress in your work as a group, do not hesitate to get in touch with Daniel and Malin as soon as possible so that we can set up a meeting.

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Mid-crit information

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The mid-crit will be held two weeks from now. Here is some important information.

The lecture hall V1 is booked for the whole day on Friday Nov 7. A detailed schedule will follow.

As has been mentioned before, we require your personal individual presence for half the day at this event. 

We will divide the 12 project groups into two blocks with 6 groups each and you should listen to all the presentation in your block. For further information, see the detailed schedule that will follow this blog post.

If you take another course which collides with this event, it is my firm belief that you should prioritize this course over the other course on this one occasion. Do note that Nov 7 is the one and only occasion between Oct 17 and Dec when you are required to be someplace special at sometime special in this course.

As to the event itself, each group will have around 10 minutes to pitch their basic ideas and also to brag about all the work you have done this far (read literature, interviewed experts or ordinary people, done focus groups, surveys, drawn sketches, built mock-ups or prototypes, brainstormed a storyboard for a movie etc.). Each group will, after their presentation, have another 20 minutes reserved for feedback and discussions about their work.

At the mid-crit, you should thus concentrate on presenting:

- Your group's fundamental ideas, concepts, logic, business models, scenarios, vision etc.

- Describe work you have done in the group to support your ideas, concepts, vision (etc.) in terms of reading literature, collecting materials etc.

- Please also say a few worlds about your ideas for a "design representation" that demos/visualizes your concept and that you will use during the final presentation (see further the course PM) 

Do note that the emphasis is on the soundness of your concept and your ideas. A successful presentation and a benign reception can be seen as a go-ahead to continue your work on the path you have (already) taken. Another alternative is of course that you get feedback that encourages you to veer some from the direction you are heading in (ranging from timid suggestions and fun ideas to forceful "recommendations" that you most certainly should take into account after the mid-crit).

We have invited three external guests ("guest critics") for this event - see below. They will listen to each group's presentation/pitch and then ask questions and discuss your work. Students from other groups are of course also welcome to chip in to comment or ask questions!

Do note that this is the premier occasion for you to get an idea about what other groups are doing in the course. Perhaps you will realize that there is a need to coordinate your work with the work of another group (for example if you overlap, or if there is a "natural" progression or fit (or contradiction) between your topic and that of the other group). This might also have implications for the order in which we will schedule groups to present their projects at the final presentation in December.

Our three external guest critics for this occasion are Airi Lampinen, Milad Hossainzadeh and Åke Walldius:

About: Airi works as a postdoctoral researcher at Mobile Life Centre, Stockholm University. Previously, she has been a researcher at Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT, a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's School of Information and a research intern at Microsoft Research New England. Her research is focused on interpersonal boundary regulation in networked settings, such as the sharing economy and social network services. Her qualifications include a PhD in social psychology from University of Helsinki and a BSc (Eng.) from Aalto University's interdisciplinary Information Networks degree programme.

About: Milad Hossainzadeh is a young architect and entrepreneur who was born in Iran. He grew up in Sweden and partly in London where he received his Masters from UCL The Bartlett School of Architecture. He is currently based in Stockholm, working at the leading Scandinavian architectural firm White. He shares his time as a member of Urban Land Institute and working strategically with international relations within the field s architecture, urban design, business development and start-ups. As an architect, he has an interest in optimizing the power of cultural innovation and systematic root thinking. 

About: Åke Walldius is a researcher in Human Computer Interaction at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). He earned his Ph.D. in Cinema Studies at Stockholm University after having worked for 20 years in video production and information visualization. He is team leader for the Socio-technical Practices team at the Media technology an Interaction design Group and is an appointed expert in standardization. His main interests are socio-technical visualization, genre analysis and design pattern composition and use. Åke has been responsible (2008) and co-responsible (2007, 2009, 2011) for the course Future of Media at the Media technology programme at KTH.

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Protocol from coordination meetings

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We will have regular meetings with the coordination group (around every second week). The notes from these meetings are available to see for everyone with this link. You can even comment on things in that document. Do note that we will use the same document the whole term/for all meetings.
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Date for the final presentation

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To decide which date we will choose for the final presentation, the executive group has created a Google form where you can fill out which courses you take during the second half of the autumn.

Please fill out this form so we can find the best possible date for the final presentation!
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Lecture 18 - Fri Oct 31 (09-12) Hossainzadeh

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The lecture below was supposed to have been held earlier (on Oct 9), but had to be postponed. We still think Milad's message is both relevant and very important to you in the project phase of the course. I have discussed the contents of the lecture with Milad and we have reshaped it so that it will better fit where you are in your projects at this point in time - one week before the mid-crit presentation. The new lecture will therefore become a mix of a lecture and a seminar where you will get the opportunity to directly work the ideas that Milad presents to you. Do also note that Milad will be one of the external guests who will attend the mid-crit event on Nov 7 and give you feedback on your project concepts.

/Daniel


Time & Place: Friday October 31 at 09-12 in Q2.

Guest: Milad Hossainzadeh, Dip.MArch 

Title: Exception = Exceptional - alternative futures through big picture thinking in a creative process 

Talk: What happens to an idea when approached from different angles and different views at the same time?  How can systematic "root thinking" allow you to ask the first questions about a specific problem? Is there a limit of how far you can take an idea?  What then are the social, cultural, economical, political, technical and ecological consequences? This lecture will explore how lateral and root-thinking can highlight an exception and a specific event in time which expands our perception of what is possible to bring onboard into a concept for a future. In order to push forward, we will expose the consequences of the exception and create temporary realities where we allow for a critical discussion to take place. The lecture aims to involve debate and discussion as well as spontaneous questions, so please feel free to jump in!

About: Milad Hossainzadeh is a young architect who was born in Iran, grew up in Sweden and partly in London where he received his Masters from UCL The Bartlett School of Architecture. He is currently based in Stockholm, working at the leading Scandinavian architectural firm White where he works on national and international projects with parallel design processes. His current focus is on large scale urban planning projects with social sustainability. His design approach often starts with an idea on communication and systems thinking, meaning he always looks for a theme and a bigger picture that includes the long term effect on people and cities. He is involved in several affiliations and events in the Stockholm area and shares his time as a board member of the Urban Land Institute for young leaders in Sweden.

Literature: Please take a look at:
- Kim, S (1990), "Interdisciplinary cooperation" (available in Bilda).

"Sharing is...?" - Pub today

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Our guest from yesterday, Mattias Jägerskog, suggested (some of) you could join the Facebook "Oui Share" group.

If somebody is interested, there will be a informal meeting in a hotel bar tonight around the topic "Sharing is...?". The invitation (from the Oui Share Facebook group) more specifically says:

"We meet to discuss, think and clarify the current confusion around terms but also questions such as 'is there good and bad sharing?' As well as other questions you want to discuss."

Time: Today from 19.00
Place: "Lilla Hotellbaren", Södermalm, Stockholm (Scandic Hotel Malmen, Folkungagatan 47)

Tonight's enablers are:

Emma Öhrwall 0737 022313
Therese Johansson 0738171588


Please post a short at the companion course blog if you go to the pub!
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Attendance requirements in practice

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It seems there will be all-in-all 23 lectures and seminars in the start-up phase of the Future of Media course (including Milad who hurt his back but who will come visit us on Fri Oct 30 between 9-12 - more info to follow).

The attendance requirements are 75%, i.e. you should have attended at least 17 occasions out of the 23. People who attend less 14 or more occasions (e.g. 65% attendance) will get an extra assignment (more info to follow).

In the Google document with your attendance:
- white color means that things look good (but please don't lapse)
- yellow means you will get an extra assignment and that you should take care not to not miss any (or too many) of the remaining lectures
- green is a special case
- red means you will fail to meet the attendance requirements

Please have a look at the document to make sure we have correct information about your attendance!
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Project plan review meetings (Wed Oct 22 and Thu Oct 23)

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Me and Malin will meet each group for 30 minutes on Wednesday and Thursday next week. All meetings will be held in the seminar room 1625 (house E, top floor).

You should spend the time until then discussing and elaborating your project plan. Please download and use the template in Bilda ("141022 Project plan template").

You can choose to send your project plan to us (Daniel and Malin) by mail in advance or to bring two printed copies of your project plan to the meeting. Here is the schedule:


Wednesday Oct 22:
- 10.00 3D-printing
- 10.30 Future of motivation
- 11.00 Future of piracy
- 11.30 Future of work
- 13.00 Bottom-up revolution
- 13.30 Shared food
- 14.00 Future of learning
- 14.30
- 15.00 Trust and reputation
- 15.30 Future of trust

Thursday Oct 23:
- 08.00
- 08.30 Sustainability
- 09.00 The end of big biz
- 09.30 Future of crowdwork

Lecture 17 - Fri Oct 17 (8-10) - Swartling

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Time and place: Friday Oct 17, 8-10 in lecture hall E3.

Title: "Project TEAM work"

Guest: Anna Swartling, Usability architect at Scania CV AB

Talk: Successful projects depend on a well functioning project teams. But what does that mean in practice? At this lecture, we will examine and discuss these issues together. We will primarily focus on team work, leadership and communication issues and conflict management.

Comment (from Daniel): This is a lecture that has nothing to do with this year’s theme, but all the more to do with creating successful project groups (and thereby successful projects) during the project phase. This is a lecture where everyone should listen up and pay close attention to what Anna says. You fail to do so at your own risk as this might increase the chance that your project group won't work out the way you want - and with detrimental effects on your satisfaction about your project, about the course, and perhaps also about your grade. Do remember that everyone in a project groups gets the same grade - so being able to handle problems in the project group can be vital both to your wellbeing and to your resulting grade from the course. Furthermore do note that KTH uses the whole spectrum of the available grade scale - you are in no way "guaranteed" to receive A's or B's or indeed even C's or D's just because you manage to hand in something (rather than nothing) at the end of the term.

About: Anna Swartling is currently working at Scania, one of the premier truck and bus companies in the world. She has a Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction from KTH. She has long experience of team work and leadership from a variety of different positions and businesses, including KTH school projects, team manager, project manager for computer systems development projects as well as being an actor and a director in theater productions, chairman of several boards and research projects.

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Literature: Read Scott Kim's text "Interdisciplinary cooperation" which is accessible in Bilda. Although the text treats the difficulties of computer scientists and graphic designers cooperating, the lessons from that article are applicable far beyond this specific case.

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Lecture 16 - Thu Oct 16 (9-11) Bradley

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Time & Place: Thursday October 16 at 9-11 in D3.

Guest: Karin Bradley, Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Studies at KTH 

Title: The interplay between urban commons and digital commons 

Talk: In contemporary architecture and urbanism, there is marked interest in creating and safeguarding the "urban commons". In this talk I will discuss practices of creating urban commons, using open-source tactics, in what can be called ‘open-source urbanism’.

About: Karin Bradley is Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Studies at KTH. Her research deals with socioenvironmental movements, the commons, and  'the sharing economy' in relation to urban development. Her most recent work is Green Utopianism: Perspectives, politics and micro-practices (co-edited with Johan Hedrén, Routledge, 2014).

Literature: Please take a look at this article (available in Bilda):
- Bradley, K. (forthcoming) "Open-source urbanism: Creating, multiplying and managing urban commons" in Footprint Delft Architecture Theory Journal, Issue 16, Vol. 9, No 1 (Spring 2015)
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Lecture 15 - Wed Oct 15 (10-12) - Jägerskog

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Time & Place: Wednesday October 15 at 10-12 in D3.

Guest: Mattias Jägerskog, founder of Skjutsgruppen and #RidesharingDay, OuiShare connector Sweden 

Title: The return of the Collaborative Economy 

Talk: All over Europe and the world people are sharing, borrowing and gifting. This lecture will give an overview of what's happening right now and why movement is an essential part of the return of the return of the Collaborative Economy.

About: Mattias Jägerskog is what the collaborative movement calls an "enabler". He helps out with spreading the Collaborative Economy through both practical action, philosophy and ideology.
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Milad hurt - lecture cancelled today!

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Today's guest lecturer, Milad Hosseinzadeh, just called me. He hurt his back while doing some sport yesterday evening and he is physically unable get out of his bed and thus can not come to KTH. 

I don't know if we can get him to come back later (next week) but I will try since his lecture is a great source of inspiration for your project work.

/Daniel
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Shortlist for project topics!

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Below are the topics you can choose to form project groups around. There are 22 topics in the list below and 63 students taking the course (excluding the five members of the executive group). I expect around 12 groups to come out of this process (with 4 or 5 or at times perhaps even 6 members in each group). GO HERE to specify what your 1st, 2nd and 3rd hand choice for project topics is!

DO NOTE: The deadline for specifying your preferences is Friday October 10 at 17.00. I will work on putting the project groups together over the weekend and you will get to know the results at seminar 4 (Monday Oct 13 at 10-12). If you do not specify you preferences, I will assume that you are equally interested in all topics and equally happy to work with whichever topic in whichever group you end up in!

DO NOTE: It is possible to form two project groups around the same topic if there is overwhelming interest in a specific topic. These two groups would initially have to work together to carve out two different and separate directions in which to take your respective projects. It's ok to overlap - but not too much!

I wrote a blog post about the Future of Media group formation process on my personal academic blog (I have previously linked to the same text): "How should student project groups be put together?". Scroll to the last part of the blog post if you just want the basic facts.

By all means also have a look at a second blog post I have written about students' ambition, grades and the work load in this course; "Student project groups - ambitions and grades". 

Do also note that the topics below are only to be seen as starting points - the project groups can develop, change and bend (almost to the point of "kidnapping") the descriptions below in any direction you think is interesting.

/Daniel & Malin


Possible project group ideas:

1. Trust and reputation systems. For sharing to be able to work, there has to be (justified) trust between strangers. So who should you trust? How do state-of-the-art reputation systems encourage and ensure the creation of “social capital” and mutual trust today (and punish free riders and cheaters)? How could such systems be further developed to support the digital commons and the sharing economy of tomorrow?
2. 3D society. 3D-printers (and makerspaces and Fab labs etc.) will change society forever. Explore and explain how by finding, talking and participating with the Stockholm “scene”. Choose to explore the positive effects (Rifkin) and/or possible negative effects (printing guns and drugs, who has control over the printers or of the equivalent of the “ink”).
3. The future of learning. What is the future of learning and the future of universities in an age of free Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on the Internet? What are the pros and cons of MOOCs compared to the alternatives?
4. A sustainable sharing economy. What is the relationship between sustainability and the sharing economy? How can a future sharing economy be shaped to be maximally sustainable?
5. The future of the intellectual/creative commons (CC). What is the future of copyrights vs the future of sharing and of the commons? The electric car company Tesla released all their patents only this summer (search for “tesla patents release”) to grow the pie rather than to protect their own share of a much smaller pie. Is this an anomaly or a harbinger of things to be?
6. Sharing motivations. Why do people share? For the noble good, for making some extra cash for myself, from dire need or for some other reason (or combination of reasons)? What does this imply for the future of sharing?
7. The end of big business. The sharing economy will undermine and topple some (or many?) of the giants of the 20th century industrial economy. Explore and explain how. Will collaborative consumption ruin old business structures and create a new economic system?
8. Share or die. Decreased affluence will be the big driver behind the sharing economy. Use countries in southern Europe that has fallen on hard times as a template and invent ways of leveraging the digital commons and the sharing economy to improve the lives of formerly-affluent Europeans. Perhaps we urgently need to build trust and learn to cooperate to increase our resilience against present or future economic hardship?
9. The future of discrimination. How will the sharing economy create a worse society for those who belong to minorities of different kinds - including ethnic minorities and those who are too poor to consume (or even to connect online)?
10. A future sharing society. If today’s services are only precursors to a future sharing society, envision what that society looks like? If the sharing economy reaches a tipping point/critical mass, how could that “change everything”?
11. The future of crowdwork. Crowdwork is a powerful idea. Some work is done by voluneers for free (Wikipedia, Foldit), other work is done for profit (Amazon Mechanical Turk). What is the future of crowdwork? For for-profit crowdwork, how can such ideas be leveraged to be beneficial for employers and service providers (e.g. Amazon) as well as for employees?
12. The future of piracy. What is the connection (if any) between piracy and the commons? Do pirates perceive themselves to be “commoners”? Are pirates “liberating” things that should be in the common or are they criminals who should be stopped? Hunt down your very own pirates (and anti-pirates) and find the answers to how these things go together.
13. Sharing and size. With smaller size comes trust and intimacy, but increased usefulness comes from scaling up. Are there (social/sociological) limits to the commons and to sharing? Can these be overcome by technology (or legal frameworks)? How?
14. The future of trust. Trust might very well be *the* issue that determines the future of the digital commons and the sharing economy. How do companies (and non-profits) work with issues of trust today? What are the possibilities and what are the challenges?
15. The bottom-up revolution. Instead of installing expensive meteorological weather stations, why not let (many) ordinary users report the temperature and the shape of the clouds through an app (e.g. Shareweather)? And why not build bottom-up maps of pollution or congestion or where the nearest sushi bar or free wi-fi is? What are the implications of creating new commons through this bottom-up “revolution”?
16. Sharing against resource scarcity. Roope (Oct 1) mentioned that commodities (raw materials) are increasing in price. Is sharing (making smarter use of natural resources) not an optional, but a necessary strategy to maintain current standards? If so, what are the implications for the future?
17. The future of financing. Can we share money (loans) better? We need to find funding also for all the great digital commons/sharing economy ideas and startups, so how can money and financing (loans) be shared through p2p lending (kickstarter, zopa, fundedbyme, toborrow etc.)?
18. The future of shared food. Can food production (locally cultivated organic food in gardens) and preparation/consumption (shared dinners etc.) be brought to the cities and mediated by ICT?
19. The future of direct democracy. How will ICT change politics and decision-making. What are the alternatives to elections every fourth year? Collaborative decision making, direct democracy, polls - what has been done and what could be done? How can politics go from being “a profession” to involving many (again).
20. All in. If a country would fully commit to a sharing economy in, say, a 20-year perspective, what could that society look like? Would everyday tasks be more efficient? Would people enjoy life more? How would culture have changed? Would trust be used as currency (how)?
21. The future of work. What will happen to work (good jobs, bad jobs, no jobs) if the sharing economy expands? Will sharing create a better society for all or will it undermine safety and security in the job market, e.g. taxi drivers starting to work for Uber but with lower salaries)? What are the effects of the current sharing economy on job creation and the job market?
22. The future of libraries. Libraries have been around for a long time and are part of the industrial-era state-supported commons. What is the future of libraries in a digital world?

Lecture 14 - Fri Oct 10 (8-10) Ljungstig & Tyrland

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Time & Place: Friday October 10 at 8-10 in E3.

Guest: Daniel Ljungstig and Anders Tyrland from 3DVerkstan 

Title: 3D Printing: Hype or a truly disruptive technology for the future? Our kids might have the answer! 

Talk: There has been intense media coverage on 3D Printing over the past two years - but the technology has however existed for more than 30 years. Why is this? We will present the current state of 3D Printing and the intense developments going on all over the world at this very moment. We will showcase examples and have an open discussion about the future. Daniel and Anders will also demonstrate creating an item on a desktop 3D Printer. It is possible to apply for borrowing a 3D Printer for experimenting in the course if a project group is formed around this subject.

About: Daniel is a KTH MSc CS alumni who after 17 years as an IT Project Management Consultant has shifted and started to work with 3D Printing. Anders has worked 13 years in the Media industry as a producer and editor of films, TV shows and commercials. Together they now work with knowledge and new technologies related to 3D Printing and have founded two companies in that business. They are also heavily involved in the Maker Movement, being co-founders of Stockholm Makerspace and they enjoy participating in MakerFairs and related events all over the world.

Literature: Please take a look at:
- On the 3D Printing Industry - 3DPIs Free Beginners Guide to 3D Printing. Comment: This is a great free guide to the technology and industry. We will cover some related content in the talk itself.
- Hod Lipson & Melba Kurman: Fabricated - The New World of 3D Printing. This is a visionary book on 3D Printing. We recommend to those students who wants to be inspired further it as it discusses not only the current state of 3D Printing, but also what is possible in the future. From the Amazon link you can at least read the first dozen pages or so for free to get a feel for the contents.

One more change in the schedule!

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The lecture on Wednesday Oct 8 (13-15) is cancelled/moved.

The lecture on Thursday Oct 16 will instead be extended by one hour; instead of 10-12 we will have two guests and the lecture will be held between 9-12.

That ought to be the last change in the schedule - sorry for any inconvenience that this causes you.
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Seminar 3 instructions (Wed Oct 8)

Our next seminar will be held Wednesday Oct 8 (8-10). We will meet in B22 and divide ourselves into groups (it will be crowded) - but we also have access to B23. Here are the instructions for how to prepare for that seminar:

1) Read through all the 23 future-related topics in the previous blog post. We have harvested these topics from your texts, from our guest lectures and from literature. Some topics are very brief, other topics are slightly more elaborated.

2) "VOTE" HERE for your three favorite topics. These are the topics you could imagine yourself working with during the project phase, or, that you at least would like another group to work with during the project phase. Your vote is a vote on interesting topics - not a pledge of yours as to what you want/will work on during the project phase. NOTE: perhaps we were better at formulating certain topics than others - but your task is to see through and beyond the short descriptions and imagine what these topics could be developed into!

That's it. Your only preparations for seminar 3 is to read through the topics and vote!

3) NOTE: We all meet in the seminar room B22 for initial information. Please be on time as we will divide you into seminar groups as quickly as possible after we start! Late arrivals will have fewer options!

Seminar 3 topics

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Please read the instructions (separate blog post)

1. The open source commons. Open source is a commons that works, right!? How does it work? Why does it work? Can lessons from the open source world be leveraged to other areas or is there something with software that makes it a special case? What is the future of open source software?
2. The future of crowdfunding. The digital commons needs its own model of financing all the great ideas that are out there. Is the future of the digital commons to be found in crowdfunding? How does crowdfunding work? Why does it work? (Specuation:) Why does crowdfunding work terrifically together with the digital commons and/or the sharing economy?
3. The future of piracy. What is the connection (if any) between piracy and the commons? Do pirates perceive themselves to be “commoners”? Are pirates “liberating” things that should be in the common or are they criminals who should be stopped? Hunt down your very own pirates (and anti-pirates) and find the answers to how these things go together.
4. Sharing as a religion. Can the sharing and copying be seen and established as a religion? Some people are actually trying… Check out the (Swedish-language) Church of Kopimi [“Copy me”] and figure out what the implications could be… This topic is a high-risk, high-yield topic for the right group!  http://kopimistsamfundet.se
5. Sharing and size. With smaller size comes trust and intimacy, but increased usefulness comes from scaling up. Are there (social/sociological) limits to the commons and to sharing? Can these be overcome by technology (or legal frameworks)? How?
6. The future of trust. Trust might very well be *the* issue that determines the future of the digital commons and the sharing economy. How do companies (and non-profits) work with issues of trust today? What are the possibilities and what are the challenges?
7. The bottom-up revolution. Instead of installing expensive meteorological weather stations, why not let (many) ordinary users report the temperature and the shape of the clouds through an app (e.g. Shareweather)? And why not build bottom-up maps of pollution or congestion or where the nearest sushi bar or free wi-fi is? What are the implications of creating new commons through this bottom-up “revolution”?
8. Sharing against resource scarcity. Roope (Oct 1) mentioned that commodities (raw materials) are increasing in price. Is sharing (making smarter use of natural resources) not an optional, but a necessary strategy to maintain current standards? If so, what are the implications for the future?
9. The future of financing. Can we share money (loans) better? We need to find funding also for all the great digital commons/sharing economy ideas and startups, so how can money and financing (loans) be shared through p2p lending (kickstarter, zopa, fundedbyme, toborrow etc.)?
10. The future of money. Can decentralized cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin etc.) be seen as a commons? How about local currencies or “time banks”? What is the future of (shared, algorithmic?) money? How do we understand local/digital/algorithmic money as a social, political and technological phenomenon and as a commons? What are the advantages and disadvantages compared to the present system (including taxation)? See “From Barter to Bitcoin”.
11. Reputational capital. Botsman suggests that it’s only a matter of time before we have “reputational capital” and/or “reputational currencies” that integrates data about your behavior from many different sources. How could such a currency (or “currency”) work? What would the advantages and disadvantages be?
12. The future of (online) identity. Trust must be grounded in stable identities - but identities can easily be fluid online. What is the future of identity (and trust) online? Can (will) there be a war between trying to authenticate online identities vs trying to “game” the systems with the help of “identity” or “persona management software” (yet - it exists) etc.?
13. The future of patents. On the one hand we have the electric car maker Tesla giving away all their patents earlier this year as well as (Teigland’s example) Quirky. On the other hand we have huge companies like Apple and Samsung suing each other and buying up companies to get hold of their patent portfolio and “patent trolls” who sue companies that “infringe” on their patents. What is the future of patents vs releasing information and knowledge into the commons?
14. The future of shared food. Can food production (locally cultivated organic food in gardens) and preparation/consumption (shared dinners etc.) be brought to the cities and mediated by ICT?
15. The future of direct democracy. How will ICT change politics and decision-making. What are the alternatives to elections every fourth year? Collaborative decision making, direct democracy, polls - what has been done and what could be done? How can politics go from being “a profession” to involving many (again).
16. All in. If a country would fully commit to a sharing economy in, say, a 20-year perspective, what could that society look like? Would everyday tasks be more efficient? Would people enjoy life more? How would culture have changed? Would trust be used as currency (how)?
17. The sharing generation. Generation Y (millennials) is said to be the sharing generation. Why? What can we understand about the future of sharing by looking more closely at the sharing generation? Go out and explore! 5
18. The future of work. What will happen to work (good jobs, bad jobs, no jobs) if the sharing economy expands? Will sharing create a better society for all or will it undermine safety and security in the job market, e.g. taxi drivers starting to work for Uber but with lower salaries)? What are the effects of the current sharing economy on job creation and the job market? 12
19. Digital commons infrastructure. What are the nuts and bolts in terms of technical systems that provide us with access to the commons? Delve into the internet, specialized tools and new services that underpins the digital commons 4
20. The future of libraries. Libraries have been around for a long time and are part of the industrial-era state-supported commons. What is the future of libraries in a digital world? 4
21. The future of (shared) transportation. What sharing solutions, companies and services are “out there” for sharing transportation (sharing cars, sharing bicycles, making public transportation better)? How can sharing transportation be improved in the future? 10
22. The future of (shared) stuff. What sharing solutions, companies and services are “out there” for sharing stuff (drills, surf boards, kayaks or motor boats, supercomputers). How can sharing stuff be improved in the future? 6
23. The future of (shared) time. What sharing solutions, companies and services are “out there” for sharing time (time banks, delivery services, babysitting, neighborhood help)? How can the sharing of time be improved in the future? 4.