maria gil ulldemolins

I’m in the new issue of Revista Lecturas with an article on the relationship between chewing gum and twitter. It’s bad of me to say, but it’s a good one.

(pic by myself)

Just to avoid mixing the past post and this one,

Manu is a person.

Manu is alive and well.

Now,

Manu has great massive curly hair that is now Don-Drapered.

Manu always makes me laugh. Always.

Manu is über smart.

Manu is left-handed.

Manu regularly appears on TV and radio talking about African politics with rather epic music on the background (and weird hands-only shots).

Manu looks sexy even with socks on.

Manu loves boardgames.

Manu is the most generous person I know.

Manu is kind.

Manu is a rock, but not an island.

Manu reads awfully-boring looking reports before going to bed.

Manu is the best travel-partner you’ll ever have.

Manu is stubborn.

Manu and I became a couple exactly 8 years ago, in Cape Town.

Manu will become my husband in September, in Madrid.

Manu has makes me feel the luckiest person on earth.

Manu always makes me wonder if life will go by too quickly because we are having so much fun.

Manu makes me feel like writing teen-like posts such as this one.

I ♥ Manu!

Sibu or Susu or Sibussissu (his actual name) was the biggest cat on earth. I think this might be literal. He was way bigger than you can see in the pic above.

Sibu was barely able to move. He looked like a Roman emperor eating whilst lying down,dragging the food bowl towards himself with his paw.

Sibu liked, and I mean loved, being combed. He wasn’t able to take care of his fur himself and you could see it in his face (boy, was he handsome) that when you did it for him he was in heaven.

He was vivacious even if he was almost immobile. His favorite game was catch-the-shoe. If you removed your shoes whilst seating he’d find a way to catch it and rub himself silly against it.

He left a huge void in our lives this morning. He is now in the sky, with diamonds, listening to The Beatles (he’d do that for us, I don’t think he ever appreciated them as he should), catching infinitely soft slippers and being combed by stars, without end. I can imagine him laying down on massive cushy clouds, being fed the best cat foods ever.

Be in peace, dear, dear Sibu. May you run and run and run and then some more, for all that you couldn’t do down here. And thanks for all the love you ever gave us.

…even though they only love us for our (potential) money, all these reflections on Generation Y are exciting…

Post on the MIT experiment for ¿Y por qué no?

(image via)

(Madrid’s Olympic logo, after and before, via)

Design thinking and co-creation are becoming really fashionable in Spain. I know, there have been people out there saying these are dead for a while, but it’s kind of hot in here. Although it means a lot of very different things: in the course by Liz Sanders I attended there was an ongoing discussion about what co-creation was. And, apparently, most examples are found in the area of marketing: a brand launches a new product and creates a campaign that calls out of a naming competition on twitter, for instance. Or a company makes a new product up and tests it out with potential users by making them invent other objects and then “directing” them towards the pre-fabricated prototype.

There are thousands of examples one could name here. I personally feel that we don’t have enough names for all that is being done in this field. But a lot of it is, in my opinion, slightly immoral. To me co-creation is very, very democratic. And that has its downsides. But they are intrinsically part of the process. If you fear what a bunch of “normal” citizens are going to come up with, then don’t use any of these methods. Apple is well known for refusing to do them because they take it upon themselves to know better. I think that’s fair. It’s just not for everyone.

When I lived in the UK there was a small scandal because Jamie Oliver, the cook, asked his fans to check how his products were displayed in supermarkets. People decided that was working for free and the campaign reversed against him.

Abusing people or manipulating them into an idea does not generate any value. And this might all sound very crass, but it’s a young enough field so that certain basic limits have not been defined yet. All brands and agencies seem to be jumping unto the co-creation wagon and they are bargaining with pretty serious stuff (let’s not hire a designer and instead call out for a competition to re-design our packaging and then we give them a month-supply of whatever we make - kind of initiative). The olimpic logo for Madrid’s candidature is an example. And it was outrageous.

There is something called the Bechdel test to check how women are treated in a movie. We should have a similar thing to check if a co-creation exercise is people-centered. We could ask:

-Does it add value in any way to the participants’ lives?

-Does it significantly effect the design of the product?

-Is the result in any way unexpected?

If we answer yes to the three questions, then it’s likely this will be a valid workshop. How do you see this?

This weeks contribution to ¿Y Por Qué No? (image from banner made by Josué and myself - borrowed from Belén Montilla)

Last week’s post for ¿Y por qué no?

Blogpost for ¿Y Por Qué No? on the Earth Hour initiative in Madrid here.

(Pic by EFE/Javier Lizón)

I think the Universe is trying to get me to play. In one week, I’ve encountered Lego Serious Play at Liz Sander’s workshop (AMAZING! More please!);

then they produced these ad series (beyond brilliant, it had been a really long time since I had been that impressed by a campaign. This is how you do iconic… iconically. By agency Jung von Matt),

and then my friend Edu passed these to me. And yes, the possibilities are endless, but the message is even more amazing: share, build, grow, think, combine, experience…

The Free Universal Construction Kit from Adapterz on Vimeo.

Ok, got the hint. It’s Spring (even if it’s a grumpy, cloudy Spring in Madrid at the mo). Let’s get out and play (together)!