Less, but better There must be millions less of things, less words, less gestures, less of everything. But every word and every gesture will become more valuable. If we can put it all into perspective we will need less things as a result. Sophie Lovell & Dieter Rams, Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible Omit needless wordsTo be truly simple makingrestraintproductionwasteminimalism
From consumption to production I see no other solution (political, economic) to the problems of mankind than the formation of small responsible communities involved in permaculture and appropriate technology. I believe that the days of centralised power are numbered, and that a re-tribalisation of society is an inevitable, if sometimes painful, process. The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. Bill Mollison, Introduction to Permaculture societyconsumptionproduction
All-use environments Until the nineteenth century, virtually all cities were “all use” environments. Craft-scale production was typically carried out in a workshop below the home of the craftsperson, which often also served as the site of exchange. Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan Small economies productionwork
Biggering I meant no harm. I most truly did not. But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got. I biggered my factory. I biggered my roads. I biggered my wagons. I biggered the loads of the Thneed’s I shipped out. I was shipping them forth to the South! To the East! To the West! To the North! I went right on biggering...selling more Thneed’s. And I biggered my money, which everyone needs. Dr. Seuss, The Lorax capitalismproduction
This thing is a Thneed "Look, Lorax," I said. "There's no cause for alarm. I chopped just one tree. I am doing no harm. I'm being quite useful. This thing is a Thneed. A Thneed's a Fine-Something-That-All-People-Need! It’s a shirt. It's a sock. It's a glove. It's a hat. But it has other uses. Yes, far beyond that. You can use it for carpets. For pillows! For sheets! Or curtains! Or covers for bicycle seats!" The Lorax said, "Sir! You are crazy with greed. There is no one on earth who would buy that fool Thneed!" Dr. Seuss, The Lorax production
The life-giving continuum In System A, creation and production are organic in character, and are governed by human judgments that emanate from the underlying wholeness of situations, conditions, and surroundings. In System B, the production process is thought of as mechanical. What matters are regulations, procedures, categories, money, efficiency, and profit: all the machinery designed to make society run smoothly, as if society was working as a great machine. The production process is rarely context-sensitive. Wholeness is left out. Identifying these two categories helps us sharpen and clarify the range of differences among ways of creating the environment that exist in different societies. And the two categories serve to identify a dimension of great importance: the dimension that runs from more life-giving to less life-giving. Christopher Alexander, The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth lifeproduction
Muda, Muri, Mura An Article mag.toyota.co.uk Eliminating waste is the key to efficiency – in the Toyota Production System, this is termed as: Muda (waste), Muri (overburden), and Mura (irregularity). productionwastemanagementefficiency
Rediscovering the Small Web An Article by Parimal Satyal neustadt.fr The vast open seasThe gatekeeperIt can also be art The small web is beautiful www
The vast open seas We didn't have Google in the early days. Other search engines like Lycos, Excite and Northern Lights did exist but were nowhere near as efficient as modern search engines. Finding something you were interested in was not as simple as typing a few words and getting to that information in one click. No, the web was much more of an adventure. It was a place that you wandered to discover new areas, like exploring the vast open seas. A new virtual space that lead to all kinds of strange, interesting, exciting places. This is what the web was like, at least, in our collective imagination. explorationwww
The gatekeeper Google has become the de facto gatekeeper of the web, an arbiter of what is useful and what should get visibility. Except, most websites that appear on the first page, the links that you are most likely to click on—less than 1% of searchers click on something in the second page—are designed to be there by optimising for Google's algorithms. One consequence of this is that most of the websites that people get to "organically" are created by professionals and marketers who "position" themselves on those keywords. This means that the smaller, amateur web gets hidden in the shadows of web professionals who design around specific keywords and audiences.
It can also be art It is worth remembering a website does not have to be a product; it can also be art. The web is also a creative and cultural space that need not confine itself to the conventions defined by commercial product design and marketing. wwwartux