Making the Connections - Assignment 2.

(I have added more information to this assignment) :)

Part 2a - Brain storm....

I thought that this part of the assignment was fun, entertaining and most effective and i would definetley use this method again in future assignments.

I did my brain storm with 5 other girls and we thought it went very well. We all shouted out things, not concerning if it was good or bad which actually proved most effective as everyone was not shy to contribute, so we all had an important part to play. We had all looked at different chapters for assignment 1 so it made it easier to brainstorm as other people had more knowledge of the chapters that other people didnt understand that well. Once we got started the ideas just kept coming, quicker and quicker with the wall space filling up fast! One Idea lead to another and then to several others until we actually had to stop as we could have carried on all night with the same chapter! We started to brain storm the first chapter in the Tipping Point which is Epidemics.In this chapter, the first thing that came to mind was the Hush Puppies! This then lead us on the trail of trend setting and things like, Uggs, poppers, baggy jeans, skinny jeans etc. We also looked at gadgets like game consoles i.e Nintendo, Saga, Playstation, and the one i came up with which i was most proud of remembering, was the TAMAGOTCHI!!! i absoloutly loved my tamagotchi, and everyone had one! A very successful epidemic! Other things included, Friends the t.v show, the Spice Girls, Take That and so on. We could have went on all night with that chapter.

With doing the brain storm, it was amazing what i had learned. For example, relating issues to each subject which i didnt know how to connect in the first place.

Next we looked at the Law of the Few, investigating Maven, Salesmen and Connectors. We first looked at each section individually, finding things to relate to them specifically. We looked at Connectors first. A connector is very important as they know alot of people which is important in connecting wit new and different people. We came up with things like social networking, i.e Bebo, FaceBook, Twitter. Also others ways of connecting is through things as simple as the telephone, fax machines, email, text messages, pagers etc. A good way of finding new and old friends. Next we looked at Mavens, which are people with a good source of knowledge and understanding. We came up with things like, librarys, the Discovery Channel, teletext, newspapers, encyclopedias etc. We then did the same for Salesman, a salesman is someone who sells products,advertising etc. Things like, Amazon, Ebay, catalouges, online shopping stores, price drop t.v etc.

The Stickiness Factor came next. This was the chapter that i looked at in assignment 1 so i found it alot easier to come up with ideas. This is also the chapter i got my inspiration from for my poster design. We first looked at advertising and the most stickiest adverts out there i.e coco-cola - bright red to attract consumers and who can forget the christmas edition with santa and the christmas coco-cola song. Cadbury is another sticky advert as it uses the colous from the product, purple, and uses quirky story lines like the gorilla playing the drums to a Phill Collins song. This advert was actually copied by various company's like Wonder-Bra but non of them were as successful as Cadbury's. We also looked at slogans, products i.e the IPOD which is what i looked at for my design to make it more sticky. Other sticky things included, Heinz, Soaps ( My favorites Eastenders, Coronation Street and Hollyoaks, but i shouldn't really be admitting this!) also things like smoking, gambling and porn.

The last chapter we looked at is The Power of Context. I found this chapter the most difficult to brainstorm. I didnt really understand the chapter all that well but being in a group and disscusing it together was a big help in helping me understand the content of the chapter. After we had a quick summary of the chapter together, we then got the ball rolling and the first thing we looked at was Crime and violence and things like the 'broken window theory'. We also looked at prison, influences and what drives people to crime, poverty, violence etc. Drugs, terrorism, war and racism are other factors we looked at. I think we all particuarly were  interested in the racism factor as this is the part we talked about for the longest. Racism was once the biggest issue connecting to a whole load of problems like poverty and poor education. People of differents races were treated differently and definetley unfairly. I think that in some cases this problem caused many people to react in an angry manner and hense the crime trend. We also talked about how it has changed today like the fact that recently America elected the first ever African/American President. This is a big development from a time not so long ago.

The next part of the assingment was the disscussion process where we had to look at the brain storm and figure out design issues that could be resolved, changed, made better etc. We thought of things like, making maps better with a better fabric instead of paper, developing new technology catalouges, making t.v programmes more sticky by being able to decide your own ending on a favourite soap or adding real life scripts ino them and so on.

For my design issue to 'make more sticky', i chose to think about the IPOD. As this is pretty much the stickiest gadget on the market at present, i had to think of a way to make it even more sticky. I came up with the idea of being able to use new technology (that infact is under going resarch) to use brain waves to send information to the IPOD to download songs without touching a single button. My poster explains this in more detail and references products in the making of using brain controlled technology at present.