New site. New ideas.

http://secretengineer.com

I have been upgrading my site over the past few days. I will be transitioning away from this site as I create content for over there now.

Please feel free to check it out.

Adjusting Ping.fm to post some things. Basically spending the afternoon cooking my social network stew. Facebook is whining about it too.

Cultural Engineering. What the hell is that?

I am a Cultural Engineer. What, exactly does that mean?

Well, a Google search produces minimal results, one being that Dave Stewart, the other half of the Eurythmics, is a “cultural engineer.” That’s a good start. Additionally, I was able to find the following definition, if you will, that was quoted from a now non-existing website (http://culturalengineering.com) , which is domain-parked… grrr.) :

“Cultural engineering is a conceptual approach to cultural development planning and management that takes into account the changing concepts of culture and the design of practical strategies for dealing with issues and problems raised by culture and development in diverse contexts…. In other words, cultural engineering is about systems, processes, alternatives and the formulation of creative solutions to challenges in the development of cultural institutions and the promotion of people’s participation in cultural life.“

This definition is almost close, but has already become extremely dated due to its generality. I believe, since this definition was invented, we have come much, much further in cultural engineering as a viable way of creating a new genre of cultural thought that has solid design and engineering principles as a basis of making seemingly complex ideas readily attainable. For one thing, we, as a global population, are connected now in ways the original definition never assumed. That is just the beginning.

I arrived at my own definition of cultural engineering after twenty years of experience in design and art had given me an ability to look at our society’s cultural and aesthetic objectives and apply real, working solutions to areas where these objectives could be improved or were flat-out not working.

Problems in economic viability, sustainability, technology and the overall aesthetic desirability of our modern culture now demand a comprehensive set of skills that combine and manage many diverse fields that make up a well-designed project. Call it synergy, mechatronics, cognitive or system engineering, interface design, or whatever; it all means the same thing: something works.

My background in engineering, design, and project management are key to my understanding of how to look at these problems in a way that takes the underlying complexity of a project and makes it look and feel good to the user.

Producing ideas that people want and need has gone way beyond manufacturing for the bottom line. To create a successful design and product launch or installation, many factors come into play and these are not always the most obvious and tangible processes. Deeper understanding of the consumer and cultural experience are key to making exceptional things.

I specialize in producing research, objective feedback, engineering data, construction documents, design presentations and proposals, recommendations, and the ability to get complex designs actually to the place where you can touch them.

I have lots of ideas. My personal directive – as a Cultural Engineer – is to make the environments that surround us, that we live in, look good and be smarter.

Best of all, I absolutely love the fact that I have a job title that begs the question, “What the hell is that?”

today’s cool application: YT Podcaster

Just a quick link to YT Podcaster – a nice little application that allows (Is, “allows” really the correct word here? Who knows…) you to download videos from YouTube and covert them into mp3 podcasts for play on your whatever.

Think about this: Have you ever wanted the song from the video on YouTube?  The beauty of this application is that it will take an entire channel as an input and produce the MP3 output from that channel as a podcast feed.  For example, check out emi records uk.

What this means is that you are no longer tethered to a connection to the web and you can watch and listen to your favorite videos whenever and wherever you choose.

Creative Inspiration.

Recent experiments in “Martini Engineering” have proven fruitful.   In this particular instance, I have added a red cherry pepper.  Taste testing verifies and confirms the data : It is good.

I believe that the best “innovation” begins with the best “celebration.”

Happy Friday.

The Designer as Solution Finder.

As designers, we are now becoming part of what I call a new genre of “cultural engineers.” Our role now becomes critically important as we look at the issues of design that re-purpose and re-frame problems in our environment. We should no longer be thinking of ourselves as “problem solvers” but rather, we need to become, “solution finders.”

In looking at fixing our culture and economic society right now, designers must adopt a position equal and opposite to what media’s role has been in establishing the problem. The work we as a design profession now need to address is re-contextualizing (also known as re-branding) our media and directly confronting, then deconstructing the notion that our society has, in some way, crumbled around our feet.

It is obviously human nature to respond to outside information that is considered valid and relevant. If we designers really are doing what we claim in our marketing song, shouldn’t we be able to formulate a design proposal to change the status quo of information right now? Some of us are, after all, directly involved with creating the architecture of this information already.

To effect change and to create a smarter world, designers must be thinking ahead of what the media may be planning. Or, even better, what the media is waiting to consume.

A thing of beauty.

End-of-the-day bliss. Dry. Shaken. Not stirred.

Sent from an iPhone. Expect creative spelling.

Posted by email from Utility + Utopia (posterous)

The Return of Classic Muscle.

Total old-school modding. Pure gas-chugging, bad-ass street machine madness is going to become a lost art.

The price for wet-noodle homogeneity?

Notice on this book under the g of “Rodding”: the price in 1972: $2.00.  That was a cheap price to pay for being “the fastest guy in town.”

Sent from an iPhone. Expect creative spelling.

Posted by email from Utility + Utopia (posterous)

From the secret library:

What other than passing interest has the average Joe the Plumber for lock-picking and raw steel bullets?

First, it is a cult just to get information, a philosophy that there is nothing about anyone or any topic you can not learn if you truly wish to do so; no place you can not enter, nothing forbidden to those willing to pay the fare in terms of work and risk.

Second, and most importantly, information confers power; power bestows freedom.

Sent from an iPhone. Expect creative spelling.

Posted by email from Utility + Utopia (posterous)

Playing with Maltego

Posted by email from Utility + Utopia (posterous)

Maltego is a unique platform developed to deliver a clear threat picture to the environment that an organization owns and operates. Maltego’s unique advantage is to demonstrate the complexity and severity of single points of failure as well as trust relationships that exist currently within the scope of your infrastructure.