A Christmas Carol 3D

After being disappointed by the fireworks but still in the christmasy mood, we decided to go and see a Disneys Christmas Carol in 3D - wow!

As well as having a great story line the effects in this movie were amazing, much better than Toystory in 3D. It was so realistic and at some points you even forgot you were looking at a drawn character and not a real person.

The movie made me jump a few times when i thought the images were actually going to hit me in the face.

I definitely think 3D movies are the way forward, as when they are made right, it is an unforgettable experience.

Winter Light night

Last night i went to the christmas light night in the city centre and expected something quite amazing due to all the hype, however i was a little disappointed. When we arrived in the city centre it was all christmasy with the lights and cosy from the warmth coming from the stalls at the continental market and i couldn't wait for the fireworks to go off.

We decided to sit by the fountains at the Caird hall to wait for the fireworks to go off and once they began could only hear them . :( We walked further down towards Boots and saw that the fireworks were coming from behind the building but you could hardly see them.

I don't understand why the fireworks weren't put somewhere more visible, as no matter where you stood within the centre you struggled to see them. Fireworks are quite expensive so i would have thought more preparation would have gone in to organising where the best place to set them off would have been, because in my eyes it was a big waste of money!

Dragons den

Monday morning is the dreaded Dragons den presentations which i'm not looking forward to as i hate talking to big groups of people. Although personality has a lot to do with this i also think its down to lack of practice and experience.

Coming to uni is about the only time apart from (possibly 4)"talks" in English at school that i've been expected to present my work to a group of people, so i find it quite a challenge and a know a challenge is meant to be good for you but when you have deadlines to meet and other things to worry about you don't really need to add another stress to your list.

As much as i hated doing "talks" at school i think i would have appreciated it more now if we'd been expected to do it on a more regular basis, as now it wouldn't feel like such a task. I think it would be a good thing to learn in primary schools as if you get introduced to it a such a young age then it would just be the norm and monday would be a breeze.

Throwing sheep in the boredroom!

While reading through my book for the dreaded attempt at activity 3 i have realised that my research may have gone off on a bit of a tangent, leading me more on to social networking in the business rather than the relationships social networking creates in the business.

I wonder if this matters hmmm...

"you can use it as long as you don't break it"

I recently asked a friend to borrow something of hers and got a reply of "as long as you don't break it" this got me thinking about how annoying this saying is and how inappropriate it is, as

why would i break it?

Unless i was to physically throw it or stamp of it then its pretty much impossible to break a product when following the correct instructions on how to use it. Once somebody has said this to you it puts more pressure on you and you feel more nervous when using their product making you more likely to make a mistake and break it. There is also as much chance of them breaking it themselves as there is for me to break it so why bother saying it.

Flyers

Flyers about nights out appear on my desk, on the tables on the cantina and pretty much all around the university every week. This really irritates me because its such a waste of paper, i'm fed up of looking at them and they genrally end up doodled on, scrunched up or as litter on the floor .

In a university where were constantly made aware of sustainability and told to think about the effects our designs will have on the planet etc you would think students would have come up with a more eco friendly way of advertising such events.

Even a couple of larger posters would probably do the job as less would be needed and they wouldn't end up as litter on the streets like the flyers.

top websites

For activity 3 we were asked to state our top five websites for keeping up to date with the graphic design world, listed below are the websites which i think would be useful for this:

http://www.eyemagazine.com/home.php

a great online magazine showing and reviewing the works of graphic designers.

http://www.cmykmag.com

a website showing off the works of the newest talents allowing creative directors, agents etc to recruit, also keeps you up to date on any events which may be occurring.

http://www.graphicdesignblog.co.uk

Blog regularly updated with the latest news in graphic design includes some interesting and useful blogs.

http://www.designweek.co.uk

a website covering all topics of design, interesting to keep up to date with.

http://ilovetypography.com/

useful website for keeping up to date with typography.

We were also asked to list our top 5 websites for keeping up to date with the world in general, here are my top 5:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

This website is useful as it shows the latest news and is updated regularly so you'll never miss a thing.

http://twitter.com/

Twitter is great for keeping up to date with the interests of others and if you know the right people then you get to know the right stuff.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/

Lists information from all genres with the ease of just having to listen. There are also areas for you to leave opinions and comments which can be useful as you find out what other peoples thoughts are on similar matters.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Useful for keeping up to date on the latest headlines, and basically what is going on in the world around you.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/

another website to keep you up to date with the latest news, covers all areas including buisness travel and style which keeps you up to date with whats in and whats out in the design world.

Tweenagers

Tweenagers - the new generation of 8-12 year olds, who are in to the latest labels, make-up and are basically growing up too fast.

During todays lecture we watched a documentary from Panorama where we were shown the lives of three tweens and were told it would make us sick.

One of the children interviewed was a 12 year old boy called Izaak he labeled himself as a skater and described it as someone who likes to skate and has a very individual fashion sense. He stated that he wears what he thinks looks good and not something just because everyone else is wearing it, as that would make him a sheep. But when on a shopping trip he didn't like any item of clothing which wasn't considered "skater boy" therefore he is kind of being a sheep, as he is only wearing clothes skaters wear and is following "the" fashion. This little boy was full of attitude and confidence and got what ever he wanted because his mum said she felt guilt is she didn't give in.

We were also shown the life of a 9 year old girl called Adele she was obsessed with the latest labels and stated she wouldn't hang around with one of her friends as much if they didn't wear labels. When asked why this was she said that if you you don't wear labels you'll get bullied as you'll be known as a nicky no name and if you hang around with a nicky no name then you will get bullied for being friends with them. I find it quite shocking for a little girl to think this way and to be so obsessed by labels that you would stop being friends with someone.

Her wardrobe consisted of DKNY, Diesel and Ted Baker to name a few, when i was her age i wouldn't of even known what those labels were, i would have been too busy playing with my dolls or maybe even trading pokemon cards.

She also replied to a question with something like i don't do it because it reminds me of my childhood, hello your only 9 this is your childhood. What is the world coming to when a nine year old responds like this, she doesn't seem to want to be a child, but why not? it's like the best time ever, you have no responsibilities, no stresses and you just get to basically have fun.

The last tween was a 12 year old called Imogen she had a completely different view to Adele on labels she believed that if you wore clothing with a labels then you were basically showing that the shop owned you as you were branded by them. She bought clothes from charity shops and unlike the majority of tweens this didn't seem to bother her. She may have had a different view on this if she hadn't been home schooled as had been subject to peer pressure.

Her parents don't agree with advertising and therefore make her put the tv on mute when ever it gets to the adverts. Her parents believed that they should be the ones brain washing their children and not the adverts.

After watching this documentary i certainly was left feeling sick . I've always know advertising has a strong effect on people but never knew it had the power to make children no longer want to be children. Tweens don't want dolls, or toys or games for christmas anymore they want expensive clothes sounds a bit like me and i'm almost twice there age.

Activity 3

For this task we had to research a mixture of books, journals, and websites relating to our topic. My topic was relationships, in particular in the working and learning environments so i decided to look into social networking and how this has an affect on relationships within these environments. My research involved using cross search for the first time which proved to be fairly simple. I started by inserting words such as relationship, effective, business, social networking, brain etc into various different categories including psychology, humanities and social sciences. On first glance there seemed to be loads of relevant journals but after looking through my basket and reading through the journals there were less than expected. I then decided to try and find some books and requested a couple from the library but unfortunately they didn't come in time so i used the internet to read the blurbs of the requested books and a few others which i thought were of relevance and then found a couple of sites and stated all my findings within the bibliography below:

Bacon, T, R (2006) What people want: A managers guide to building relationships that work

United states: Davies-Black Publishing

This book explores relationships at work and the affect gender has on these relationships. Bacon reveals “What people want” from their relationships at work along with a number of tips and tricks and some real life examples to help managers build better relationships within the workplace.

Cook, K, S (2005) Networks, Norms, and Trust: The social Psychology of Social Capital 2004

Cook explores networks of trust relations and how they come about. He explores the conditions in which they occur and how the social capital can be affected by this .

Foulger, T, S, Kay, A, Ewbank, A, D, Popp, S, O, Carter, H, L (2009) Moral Spaces in Myspace: Presevice Teachers' Perspectives about Ethical issues in Social Networking

Is about how social networks are an innovative method of communicating but can lead to issues of privacy as there is no teacher conduct on the online world. Also states what advantages can come from it.

Fraser, M & Dutta, S (2008) Throwing sheep in the Boardroom: How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and world West sussex: John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Fraser & Dutta explore the rise of social networks and how this is altering the world around us, businesses in particular. It talks a lot about Enterprise 2.0, and how people mistake it for a new software and therefore goes on to explain all about it and what can be achieved from it. The book illustrates its points through the use of illustrations.

Heap, N (2001), Available:http://homepage.ntlworld.com/nick.heap/Effectiverelatwork.html 11/11/09

Heap has been interested in relationships for over 30 years, and expresses this by talking about relationships and how to build effective relationships at work. He also talks about what makes effective relationships and things which can get in the way. Although he states that he has attended a course where he had to look at behaviour it is hard to know whether what he states is reliable material.

Newman, M, E, J (2003) The structure and Function of Complex Networks

Newman looks at a variety of social networks and how they work. Including the developments of these systems, he presents his findings using graphs models, etc.

Phillips, S, D (1991) Meaning and Structure in Social Movements: Mapping the Network of National Canadian Women's Organizations

Phillips talks about social movements and how people within organizations form collective identities. His research focusses mainly on the networks of 33 national Canadian women's organisations. The results show that their ambitious nature creates a network which is bound by a collective identity of liberalized feminism. Showing the possibility's for this type of thing to happen within other group or organisations creating stronger knit groups and therefore better relationships.

Rheingold, H & Kimball, L (2000) Rheingold Associates,

Available:http://www.rheingold.com/Associates/onlinenetworks.html 11/11/09

Kimball & Rheingold talk about the advantages of social networks within the work place, and how it allows people of different time zones and slightly different professions to easily communicate with one an other at a time that suits them. It permits the the exchange of knowledge and experience between people within the company and they believe that it can enable an organisation to achieve many things. These include: “Provide an ongoing context for knowledge and exchange that can be far more effective than memoranda, Attune everyone in the organisation to each other's needs – more people will know who knows who, who know what, and will know it faster...Amplify innovation – when groups get turned on by what they can do online, they go beyond problem solving and start inventing together, create a community memory for group deliberation and brainstorming that stimulates the capture of idea and facilitates finding information when it is needed...Attract and retain the best employees by providing access to social capital that is only available within the organisation and many other things. Although this source seems to know its stuff on relationships within the work place and social network it doesn't state any solid facts only opinions and experience and therefore might not be fully reliables.

Scott, A, M (1977) The logic of International Interaction

This journal investigates how interaction is affected by the increase in international systems and how the system becomes complicated and more difficult at an increased capacity.

Uehara, E (1990) Dual Exchange Theory, Social Networks, and Informal Social Support

This journal looks into the relationships between social structure, interaction and perceptions of support in the event of crisis. Dual exchange theory in particular is focussed on within this journal and data is taken from ethnographic studies of social network mobilization among low income black women in the event of job loss. Although this doesn't hit specifically on relationships of all genders and race within the business the data collected for the ethnographic studies could be used to give an indication of how colleagues would act in the event of need or crisis from another colleague.

Public transport, what a joke!

Today i had to get the bus home, wasn't impressed as i'm not the greatest fan of buses and todays journey confirmed this view.

Firstly while waiting for my bus an old woman asked one of the conductors when her bus was going to arrive and he told her it had already left, she replied but my bus getting in here was late so why didn't it wait for me the conductor replied quite rudely we can only hold the buses for 15 mins and your bus was late. Fair enough they can only hold buses for 15 mins to prevent more delays but it wasn't the old ladies fault her bus was late and she didn't deserve to be spoken to in that manner, especially to be told the next bus to her destination wasn't' coming until the time she was expected at her destination. She then told the conductor that she was going to have to phone to let the people who were to collect her know that she was going to be late, then off she went to find a phone. The least the conductor could of done was to let her use the phones on the premises but no, that would have just been too much effort for him.

Once my bus had arrived my friend and i queued to get on. On boarding my friend said she heard the conductor say we were going to need a mechanic, instantly we thought the bus was broken but sat down anyway, thinking surely they wouldn't let us on if it wasn't going to go anywhere.

Ten minutes later we were still waiting to depart but thought it was just because the transfer bus hadn't arrived yet. 20 minutes later, transfer bus been and gone we were then told that the bus wasn't going anywhere as it was broken but there were four spaces left on the other bus, but we would just have to change at Broxden. We obviously wanted to be one of those four but also knew that everyone would want to be too. Suddenly two girls screamed we'll take them then two other people followed. AAAA! we had missed our chance.

6.40pm, meant to be home at 7 and we still hadn't left and there didn't seem to be any signs of us going anywhere soon ,was svery annoyed, eventually we were all told to move on to another bus. After getting on the other bus the driver asked if anyone was going to Kinross, my friend and i put are hands up and the driver grunted and groaned at us. The driver wanted to by pass Kinross and go straight to Edinburgh to cut out some time for the journey, which is quite reasonable to avoid further delays but what if someone was waiting to get on the bus at Kinross and we hadn't have been on it, then he wouldn't have gone through and they would have missed there bus also, shocking!

After this journey i am even more inclined not to use the bus service in the near future as it is so unreliable and a complete joke. Whenever you have any questions they talk to you with the least amount of manners possible and look at you as if to say, are you stupid, why are you wasting my time but to be honest its what there being paid for, to provide you with pleasant service and an enjoyable journey. I have yet to experience this though.

Cafe science "Is there more to home than the heart"

I have just arrived back from the "Is there more at home than the heart" lecture at sensations. I attended thinking that the lecture would be relevant to my seminar work, although this has proved not to be the case. Despite this it has raised the question where is home to me?

I would consider myself a "home bird" as although i like going to new places and on holiday etc i always miss the familiarities and comforts of my own home and especially my own bed, and therefore thought i would soon become homesick living away from home for the first time. Surprisingly after several weeks of living away from home i was still to feel homesick, this shocked me as i am no longer surrounded by the things i would consider most familiar to me, my family, the usual routines and of course my house,my room. If being away from these things doesn't result in being home sick, then it can't be these things that make a place feel like a home or is it?

My new room is surrounded by all the things from my old room, so maybe this prevents the new location feeling like a new location, as all the objects within it are familiar to me so it doesn't matter about the aesthetics of a room or place itself as long as its filled with your belongings.

The people within my flat are familiar to me although they don't compensate as my family they have began to follow similar routines and habits of my family members so maybe its the actions and routines followed that makes something familiar and homely and not the people themselves.

With all this in mind i guess home isn't just one place, it can be lots of places, any place as long as your surrounded by your belongings, familiar faces and routines.

How does design relate to the power of context pt 2 (the magic number 150)

After thinking and thinking and thinking my thoughts led me to the idea of creating a product which could increase social channel capacity, in the hope it would allow companies to run as successfully once a capacity of 150 had been reached.