European Commission: the Migrants in Europe design competition
The deadline for submitting artwork is 21 June 2013.
"The multimedia Competition 'Migrants in Europe' aims to give young artists and communicators an opportunity to reflect on the contribution of migrants to the European society today. The Competition should also serve as a first step towards more debate, information and opinion exchange.
The Competition is aimed at students who are over 18 years old and enrolled in art, graphic and communication schools in all EU countries and Croatia. The schools are to present the works in three categories – Poster, Photography and Video. Each school can present one or several works in one or several categories. The works will be judged at the national level and the best works will be forwarded to a European jury that will decide on European winners. A public internet vote will also take place on this website. The authors of the 30 European finalist works will travel to Brussels to attend a prize-giving ceremony with expected participation by Cecilia Malmström, European Commissioner for Home Affairs. The schools whose students win first prizes in the three categories and the first prize in the public vote will receive an award of €10,000 each."
(European Commission)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
High Street music retailer HMV to appoint administrator
"Music and DVD chain HMV, which employs about 4,350 staff, has confirmed it will appoint an administrator, making it the latest High Street casualty. Deloitte will run the 239-store chain while it assesses prospects for the business and seeks potential buyers. Trading in HMV shares on the London Stock Exchange are being suspended, the company said in a statement. ... [Neil Saunders, the managing director of retail analyst firm Conlumin] said that although the HMV brand 'certainly has some value' for potential buyers, the current business model was dead. "The bottom line is that there is no real future for physical retail in the music sector," he said."
(BBC News, 14 January 2013)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Generation 1992 Creative Competition
"1992 - 20 years ago: all countries belonging to the European Union decided to create a single market. This meant removing the obstacles blocking the free movement of goods, people, services and capital among them.
20 years on, we can travel across Europe without having to show our passports, work and live in another country without any difficulty, and find the best deals across Europe when shopping online. But we all agree that more work needs to be done in order to have a fully functioning European single market.
If you are 20 years old, we want to hear from you: your experiences, stories, complaints and proposals to make Europe a better place to live and work."
(Generation 1992)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Cooperation and collaboration: problem solving and problem finding
"The economists Richard Lester and Michael Piore have studied the firms that sought to create the switching technology, finding that cooperation and collaboration within certain companies allowed them to make headway on the switching technology problem, whereas internal competition at other corporations diminished engineers’ efforts to improve the quality of the switches. Motorola, a success story, developed what it called a 'technology shelf,' created by a small group of engineers, on which were placed possible technical solutions that other teams might use in the future; rather than trying to solve the problem outright, it developed tools whose immediate value was not clear. Nokia grappled with the problem in another collaborative way, creating an open-ended conversation among its engineers in which salespeople and designers were often included. The boundaries among business units in Nokia were deliberately ambiguous, because more than technical information was needed to get a feeling for the problem; lateral thinking was required. Lester and Piore describe the process of communication this entailed as 'fluid, context-dependent, undetermined.'[20]
By contrast, companies like Ericsson proceeded with more seeming clarity and discipline, dividing the problem into its parts. The birth of the new switch was intended to occur through 'the exchange of information' among offices 'rather than the cultivation of an interpretative community.'[21] Rigidly organized, Ericsson fell away. It did eventually solve the switching technology problem, but with greater difficulty; different offices protected their turf. In any organization, individuals or teams that compete and are rewarded for doing better than others will hoard information. In technology firms, hoarding information particularly disables good work.
The corporations that succeeded through cooperation shared with the Linux community that experimental mark of technological craftsmanship, the intimate, fluid join between problem solving and problem finding. Within the framework of competition, by contrast, clear standards of achievement and closure are needed to measure performance and to dole out rewards.
[20] Richard K. Lester and Michael J. Piore, Innovation, the Missing Dimension (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), 98.
[21] Ibid., 104."
(Richard Sennett, 2008, pp.32-33)
1). Sennett, R. (2008). "The Craftsman". New Haven & London, Yale University Press.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Butcher's Hook: three students repurpose an old London butcher's shop to establish their design studio
"Butcher's Hook is (or perhaps that should be will be) a three-member design studio and gallery based in an old butcher's shop in London's Portobello. The studio has been formed by Benio Urbanowicz, James Coltman, Josh Blanchett and Dan Jones, students from Kingston and LLC, all of whom graduate this summer. ...
In order to introduce themselves to the local populace, Butcher's Hook set up a digital display using an old Nintendo Wii remote, custom made Infa-Red yellow pencils, a wireless doorbell, a printer and a few extra ingredients.
'We gave away free art made by the user themselves, with the option to receive a digital copy sent to them,' they say. 'We had a great weekend, where over 150 people got involved, through their own choice... and every single one went home to find our business cards printed on the back of their own masterpiece.'
As well as launching their studio, Butcher's Hook has also entered the project into the D&AD Student Awards in response to the brief Make Your Mark."
Posted by Creative Review, 4 April 2012, 16:13
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
