As part of the core subject of my uni course each semester each student undertakes a self-directed project.  The projects can be of varying shapes and sizes, ranging from more theoretical (such as my report on design thinking and sustainability) to the more practical.

This semester I’m undertaking something in between — part research, part practical — centred around this semester’s “theme” of sustainable food production.

The “FlavourCrusader” concept (then called “What’s for dinner”) was selected as one of the projects to be explored at the Australian Social Innovation eXchange (ASIX) Social Innovation Camp held in March 2010.

The long-term vision for the project is to:

• connect urban food-lovers (“foodies”) with the origins of their food
• increase consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables (with improved health outcomes)
• strengthen local economies threatened by supermarket chains

It hopes to achieve this by using social technologies, such as mobile phone applications and Twitter to either promote in-season, fresh, locally-grown, and sometimes organic produce.

In the short-term — and as a first step — the project is seeking to develop a local in-season food guide with a mobile application form-factor.

Such a system has the potential to make purchasing in-season, local produce more convenient, with multiple flow-on benefits:

• Provide additional marketing/selling opportunities for local producers
• Reduce food miles
• Create direct connections between the urban community and local growers, with social, economic and sustainability education benefits

The emphasis of the service, from the end-user perspective, is convenience and good, quality food, rather than the sustainability outcomes.  In this sense it differs from some existing products/services that are out there.

In keeping with my philosophy of human-centred design, I believe the service’s success is dependent on an understanding of motivations, barriers, needs and context of use for producers, local markets and customers.

My project this semester is designed to provide some additional insight into each of these participant groups, including exploration of:

• What are the key drivers for existing customers (e.g. those that attend farmers markets) taking advantage of farmers markets
• What are the barriers to existing customers buying local produce (e.g. of those motivated participants, what stops them from buying more regularly)
• What level of interest exists in such a service among the existing customer base
• What is the current level of use of social and mobile technologies with customers, producers and markets (e.g. @PrahranMarket on Twitter)
• Similarly, what drivers/barriers/interest exist for such a service for potential customers — e.g. those that are interested, but for whatever reasons aren’t as active as they would like
• What are the needs of producers (including local markets)
• What level of interest/capacity is there to utilise such a service
• How, if at all, would such a service link with other digital platforms such as FoodConnect

I’m posting all this as I could use some assistance.  Firstly, if you have any resources/pointers/contacts etc. that you think would be useful for the project, I’d love to hear about them.

Secondly, I’m looking for participants for some interviews related to purchasing locally produced food — either people that shop at farmers markets etc. and buy locally, or those that would like to, but for whatever reason aren’t able to do it as regularly as they’d like.  I’m also interested in folks that are using social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, blogs etc.) that fit this profile.

The interviews would be about an hour long (at most) and could be done via phone or in person, at a time that suits the participant.  I’m happy to pay for a meal if the interview happens around lunch or dinner

If you are someone, or know someone, that might be interested, please leave a comment or email me on gyoung AT pobox DOT com.

This is a fantastic video – via Digital for Good:

In a previous post I outlined the costs of recording an independent EP, and hinted that with Fuzu‘s second EP we were trying to significantly reduce our costs.

Some friends who read the post found it useful, and I’ve also participated in some further discussions on a related post over at new music strategies.

As we’ve just completed mixing and mastering (i.e. we’re close to finished the project) I thought it might be worthwhile looking at the costs so far…

(more…)

Given how quiet I’ve been around these parts of late, I thought I might post a quick “what’s been happening” post.

• Fuzu have finished recording and mixing our second EP – tentatively titled “The Point”. We’ll be mastering later this month, and hopefully completing the artwork shortly after. I’ll hopefully have a follow-up to my budget post soon reflecting the actual budget.
• I’ve been working solidly on two big projects (one for Inspire Foundation, another for UNSW. This has taken up a big chunk of my time (as one might expect) – but I hope to be a little less frantic come February.
• Thanks mostly to Timo Rissanen, further work has been done on refining the pattern’s for Arketype’s first range, which will be launched for Winter 2010 now, instead of Summer 09/10 (I’ve been a bit too busy with the ‘day job’ and have missed some deadlines). We Buy Your Kids are working on the graphic designs for the range – I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with given the logo treatment Sonny and Biddy, the duo behind WBYK, came up with (more on that front soon).
• Holidays – I’ve taken 3 weeks off work to visit family in Queensland – which was a wonderful break (that’s not quite over yet…).

Recent reading

I’ve also been doing a lot of reading of more “popular science” accounts of network theory, prompted in part by an ABC doco on the topic, and also economics and the history of money. This was in part prompted when a friend of mine sent me this video on money.

After reading Peter Bernstein’s A Primer on Money, Banking, and Gold it seems that many of the claims in the video are reasonably accurate.

I also recently finished Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody which looks at some of the societal changes being spurred on by networks. Especially interesting to me is the notion of “reduced transaction cost” for organising collective action.

George Soros’ The New Paradigm for Financial Markets was also an interesting read, albeit a bit repetitive. What’s most interesting is that an über-capitalist such as Soros would have such disdain for the models and assumptions underpinning the industry that he profited so well from.

Critical Mass by Philip Ball is a great overview of what he describes as an emerging “physics of society”. The book covers network and game theory, and emphasises the extent to which power laws and “phase transitions” apply to social phenomena. It also weaves into its narrative the ideas of many economic and social thinkers in history – which was fascinating to me as someone who’s not overly familiar with many of their contributions (at least not directly/explicitly).

Continuing the theme I’m currently reading Duncan Watts’ Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age. It delves much deeper into “small world” networks (popularised by the “Kevin Bacon” game) which are covered more lightly in Critical Mass.

Mark Day Blog – The Australian – ranting about how the only model for journalism is:

1. Private sector business
2. Advertising supported

"By definition this is a job for private enterprise because governments cannot reliably scrutinise themselves. Journalism that reveals information that some people do not want you to know is time-consuming and costly to sustain. Therefore it can be supported only by a profitable business."

"There is only one model I know, or can see, that can do this, and that is the traditional advertiser-supported model that has sustained newspapers for more than a century."

Well here’s a quick drive-by rant of my own: (And FTR: no, I don’t consider my blog “journalism”)

I supposed I don’t need to point out the conflict of interest here? A professional journalist protecting the status quo (and keeping the bosses happy). And the delicious irony, after a bunch of blog bashing, is that Mark published it on his blog. But even putting those aside…

Seems Mark’s got blinkers on – there are other models, and some bright folks are exploring them. Not all of them will work or survive – but one thing’s sure, advertising supported journalism (esp. in traditional print form) is not one of them. Yes, we need to work out other models. Yes, blogging is not the (only) answer – though it certainly has a valuable role to play.

Has he not been watching/listening to Jeff Jarvis, or Jay Rosen, or Seth Godin? There are a bunch of ideas out there for those willing to listen and try them. The problem is the risk involved – either personally (for journalists stepping out on their own) or organisations (who are gunshy to invest in something that might not work).

As an aside, it strikes me that the more money involved, the less good journalism is performed, because entertainment apparently sells better. That’s why I no longer get most of my news through mainstream sources, relying primarily on my social networks (Twitter, blogs and Delicious) to keep perspective on what’s happening in the world. Every time I watch what passes as news on TV, or even read the headlines on news.com.au (SMH is slightly better), I cringe.

This is not an ideological argument, btw – i.e. not a “left vs. right” argument. Good journalism IMO transcends that. It’s not the sway or bias that’s the issue, it’s the fact the content itself is not up to par. Until that changes, payment for the skill of journalism will continue to suffer.

I just spotted this group on Facebook – people committing to change their Facebook status to “is Sorry” on 13 Feb. Just thought I’d pass it along (I think it’s a great action – but also a great cause).

Treehugger was recently bought, and today I noticed graphic, animated advertisements in their RSS feed. Not. Happy. Jan! The animation is incredibly annoying, especially because it’s animated, and it’s the same ad in a number of posts.

I hope they come to their senses and give me my clean, ad-free RSS reader back. I post links to Treehugger and visit the site all the time – they can get their eyeballs there, not in my RSS reader.

Update: Seems the ads have disappeared again. Perhaps just a glitch in Feedburner or something?

Update 2:Nup – they’re back. V. annoying… And to make it worse, the same ad appears over and over and over again and are completely irrelevant to the content. Meh…

Damian recently launched Sydney Cyclist – a place where those of us who ride and Sydney can get together and chat. I’ve joined (though not been as active as I’d like due to work and life commitments this week). But I’ll hopefully get some time to play on the weekend…

(For the techies: it’s built using Ning and Damian seems to be enjoying the process so far.)

Marc has an interesting take on Microsoft’s investment in Facebook.

A friend of mine one a local karaoke comp last night, and at the end of the night the son of one of the contestants clocked him one, sending him to the emergency room to be mended.

So what’s a man to do? Start a Facebook group of course: Karaoke the new contact sport!!!!. A place to share pictures and stories of karaoke misadventure…