An overview of the French digital ecosystem

A four hour slot was dedicated to the working group’s session. First part featured invited speakers from the French local ecosystem, from 10:00 to 12:30 am.air castle slides

Benoît Drouillat, president of Designers Interactifs, the main professional organisation for interaction design in France, introduced the current state of the art in France : trends within the profession, the level of recognition by institutional partners, design education players and main figures. He outlined the multiplicity of terms and definitions and the effective lack of recognition of interaction design as a proper field of design practice, despite a quite healthy and active mix of well trained professional designers, innovative companies and studios, and valuable design courses. But as we’re in France, everything should be more complicated… Read the content of the presentation on Designers Interactifs website.

Virginia Cruz and Nicolas Gaudron from the design consultancy fim IDSL made a concise but complete overview of the process of innovation they engage with their clients (with a perfect fluent english, thanks Virginia). They drew the line quite efficiently between problem solving for applied innovative solutions to a broader social approach. Unfortunately we are not able to present their works for non disclosure matters, but there is a comprehensive portfolio of their projects on the IDSL website.

Some feedback from the Cumulus members : an “open mic” session

The second part in the afternoon was stuck with four presentations from various Cumulus members, with very little time for discussion unfortunately.inflatable roller ball

Dominique Sciamma, head of Strate Collège Designers, introduced the “Interactive Systems & Objects” programme.

Martin Zimper, head of the CAST programme at Zürich (Switzerland) ZHDK, made a nice introduction to this new department dedicated to new audiovisual formats & experiments for online and mobile media.

Niels Hendriks, a young researcher from KHLim Media and Design Academy in Genk (Belgium), shared with us the questions raised by the “Social Spaces” research group.

Finally, last but not least, Ulrich Schendzielorz from Schwäbisch Gmünd HfG (Germany) made a very efficient presentation of the Interaction Design BFA program in SG.

Next Cumulus Digital Culture is planned during the Cumulus fall conference in Denver, September 29th 2011. Fred Murell from RMCAD will introduce us to the fascinating IxD community in Colorado. Programme will be announced on this blog as soon as possible. Participation is open to Cumulus members, please send me a mail !

Frédéric Degouzon
Head of Strategy, L’École de design Nantes Atlantique
f.degouzon@lecolededesign.com
Follow @fdegouzon

A vision of the Chinese digital market by design practitionners

The first part of the session was focused on a vision of the Chinese use of digital technology through two complementary speeches.
First presentation was made by Itamar Medeiros, User Experience Manager at Autodesk Shanghaï and coordinator for the Shanghaï group of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) . He brought us a documented vision of the actual digital market in China, with numerous facts and figures. Itamar posted the presentation and an excellent post about the session on his own blog.

Here is the presentation on Slide Share : Digital Culture in China: OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTERACTION DESIGN

Second presentation was made by Lynnette Chan, former Lead of Creative Studio at Asentio and industrial designer at IDEO, now freelancer at Rénnovate . She introduced the results of a huge survey and ethnographic study conducted in several urban areas of China about the actual use of digital vs printed magazines. It was a well-illustrated grassroots approach to daily life, a good addendum to Itamar’s “Big picture” approach.

Opening up to Cumulus members

What is the state of Digital Culture in Shanghaï 2010 ? We need inner feedback from players in the local market. What are the trends, opportunities and threats in the vastest area in Asia concerning digital services, applications and media ? With the introduction of case studies (success stories, failures and errors also), explanation and analysis of creative processes & key factors in this specific context will be brought. Invited speakers Itamar Medeiros and Lynette Chan will be provide us with their vision for the future, and maybe tell us a bit about expectations and wishes for the evolution of design education in the field of interaction design, service design, digital media Inflatable Water Game.

Session will be divided in two parts :

- Digital Culture in Shanghaï 2010 : case studies

Invited speakers :

Itamar Medeiros
Itamar Medeiros, from Brazil, currently lives in Shanghai, where he works as User Experience Manager of Utilities Design Solutions at Autodesk ®, and helps promote Interaction Design as a local coordinator for the Interaction Design Association (IxDA). Working in the Information Technology industry since 1998, Itamar Medeiros has developed <>  several websites and interactive media campaigns, both as art director and, later, as creative director. As an Information Design specialist , served as board member of the Brazilian Society of Information Design , and held a lecturing position as Assistant Program Director of the Visual Communication Department of Raffles Design Institute at DongHua University, China.

Lynnette Chan
Human centered industrial designer at rénnovate
Former Lead of Creative Studio at Asentio and industrial designer at IDEO Shanghaï.
Lynnette Chan, born and raised in Singapore, currently curiously observing daily living surprises in Shanghai. Prior to setting up rénnovate, she was an industrial designer with IDEO and Creative Studio Lead at Asentio Design. Her project portfolio includes wide range of products, from Chinese youth media behaviors, health care, oral care, home electronics, future handheld computing to cooking stove for rural China. During the design process, she collaborates very closely across multi-disciplines (human factor specialists, mechanical engineers, and interaction designers).

- State of the art and relaunch of the DC activity : who’s in, who shall be in, what for ?

About Cumulus Digital Culture

Cumulus Digital Culture is a working group bringing together members of the CUMULUS Association dedicated to new media and interaction design.

For a while now, digital technologies and services have appeared all around us on a worldwide scale. Art, design and media higher education institutions have taken into account this emerging and challenging trend pervading our societies.
Many courses, curriculums, degrees and research projects have come to life over the past ten or fifteen years: “new media, “interaction design”, “multimedia/hypermedia” etc…
Depending on each institution’s own history, on the personal interests of the pioneering founders as well as on national and local contexts, many different options have been explored. It’s now time to identify and to gather the various players in our institutions interested in what can be called a “digital culture” in a broader sense.
This working group is meant to be both a platform for discussion and exchanges about existing experiences and a framework for future collaboration, including the quite contemporary issue of research.

• A web platform where you can define and edit your personal profile and your points of interest,
• A mobile service, enabling you to get appropriate information about upcoming events within the area you’re located in, wherever it is, in relation to your own profile and personal interestsoutdoor inflatable entrance tunnel.