[Sigia-l] Edge design

[Olly Wright]

I think I'm missing the deep insight here? To me this seems more like  
restating an effect we see in a series of already well-identified  
cultural / technology / professional trends. Namely that when you put  
two different things next to each other you notice more about them,  
including patterns. Please correct me if you think I'm missing the  
point...

- Mixed discipline teams ('fertile' intersections)

- Mashups

- Product lifecycle: innovators > early adopter > early majority >  
late majority etc ("innovator culture" is the reef in this case,  
ideas / trends are the output)

- Getting inspiration from unusual sources (which this thread falls  
into :)

- Jazz funk

- Learning from how people really use your tools, rather than from  
how you hoped they use them (eg: SMS)

I guess in a more abstract way it seems like you're talking about  
'what happens when folksonomies meet'? This kind of 'fertile  
intersections thing' going on on more of a meta-level. The other day  
I got hung up on whether you could use the mathematics of physical  
explosions to model cultural explosions. When I get thoughts like  
that I usually go for a beer and talk about the weather :)

Olly Wright


On 14 Mar 2007, at 17:27, Andrew Boyd wrote:

> One of the principles of Permaculture is that biological systems are
> richer along edges - where the nutrient rich current hits the reef, or
> the land meets the sea.
>
> Is there any application of this to design? Can we create "artificial
> reefs" for information to grow upon? Is the flood of tagging into a
> rigidly hierarchical taxonomy a real example?