italian designers how (digitally) sociable are they?

gurus, radios,hammers, & observers...

Italian designers. How (digitally) sociable are they?

Gioia Guerzoni, Stefano Mirti, Remo Ricchetti, June 2012

thanks to:

Davide Agazzi / @davideagazziFrancesca Ballini Richards / @fbr0305Alessandro Mininno / @alekoneBertram Niessen / @bertramniessenAntonio Piccirilli / @_piccirilli

https://twitter.com/#%21/bertramniessen

outline

● research question (s)● who is a "sociable" designer● data gathering (who they are, how we selected them, being "in" / "out"● who is a designer?● what do they do?● how do they behave?● the three parameters (talking, listening, affecting)● talking / listening / affecting: three diagrams● overview (talking + listening + affecting)● maps ● zooming in● gurus, radios, hammers & observers...

research question (s)

If we acknowledge the role of formal and informal networks in the design world, it's fairly easy to see the changes brought about by social media. We suspect that these changes apply to the realm of networking too.

Social and digital media are transforming the way we communicate.

Can we map this transformation?Is it possible to make an atlas of "digitally sociable" designers?

Does design itself changes because of these new media?If so, which are these transformations and how do they work?

who is a "digitally sociable" designer?

By "digitally sociable" we mean a designer who accepts to communicate in a direct way with other people (known and unknown), using digital and social media.

Can I tweet you? Can I post a comment on your Facebook wall? Can I send a message via Linkedin or Instagram? Would you reply to me?If the answer is yes, then you are "digitally sociable".

Disclaimer: to be "digitally sociable" has nothing to do with being good at design, being "famous", or with economical success. In the previous world, we would have said "being nice".Now the world is changing and it's interesting to know how "being nice" translates into these new immaterial networks.

data gatheringwho are they, how we find them, being "in" / being "out"

We focused on designers who have several channels of digital communication (websites, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest, Foursquare, etc).

We worked in an empirical way. Starting from well-know designers, browsing paper magazines, their websites, web-zines, and blogs.Gradually, the traditional media became negligible and we noticed recurring names in Facebook pages and Twitter flows. So we started analyzing "friends" networks on Facebook and Instagram. Lists on Twitter and the like. Having to choose a metaphor, we worked on the domino system. One piece moves the next, in a process of complete re-definition of who is a designer.

If a given person uses more than four channels of digital communication, then he/she is in and we go for a more detailed observation. Otherwise we leave him/her out and we move to the next name on our growing list.

the 100's club

We finally decided to focus on the 100 most active people in the digital / social media world.

To select them we browsed approximately 300 names. Most of them were not taken into consideration because they are not active enough (they don't have enough channels).

In other cases, although very active, we didn't include them because they cannot be considered "designers" (see next slides).

But keep in mind: this document you are reading is a draft (i.e. the first step of a work-in-progress). Secondly, the analytics are static and not dynamic (they are not automatically updated).

For the time being, mistakes are likely to occurr.

who is a designer?

Traditionally (at least in Italy) a designer is someone who conceives and creates products, spaces, buildings, graphics.

Here we noticed that the fields of activities are changing in a significant way. We live in a world where writers open on-line schools for creative writing. Bloggers crow-fund their reporting missions around world, former journalists become entrepreneurs setting up new publishing-oriented ventures. A lot of people are breaking the boundaries between the creative activity and the commercial venture (they become entrepreneurs).In this case, to set up a new business is a design activity. To invent a new service or transforming an existing one, again is a design activity.

These are the people (and the activities) we are interested in.The "new" designer can move easily across digital and analog, and is particularly good at redefining the existing with new ideas, meanings, businesses.

Important!

In this first phase of our research, we decided to leave out the fashion field.

In Italy (especially in Milan), fashion works in a radically different way than other creative fields.

To include people who are active in fashion would have completely transformed our work, so we decided for the time being to focus on the rest of the design fields.

Moreover, though for different, mainly practical reasons, we chose not to take into consideration new forms of book publishing, literature, and making/producing cinema or contemporary art.

what do they do?

Out of our 100 designers, we have some working in publishing, others in architecture, design, or new media.

It is also very interesting to notice that almost 40% of them are active in multiple fields.

how they behave: facebook

generally speaking, they have a certain number of followers on facebook

how they behave: twitter

generally speaking, they have a certain number of followers on twitter

how they behave: instagram

generally speaking, they have a certain number of followers on instagram

how they behave: how many followers

generally speaking, they have a certain number of followers

the three parameters:talking, listening, affecting

Focusing on the main digital channels used by designers (being present and active on Klout, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin), we divided their activities in three fields.

A. BeingWhen they post, write, upload photographs. In real world the metaphor would be how much you talk.

B. ListeningWhen they listen and pay attention to what other people do. This is not about the users' activities: it is about paying attention to other people's activities.

C. AffectingThis is the influence they have on others, i.e. how much they are listened to.

parameters for digitally sociable people:talking

PRESENCE: measure of the activity on social networks(how active the user is)

parameters for digitally sociable people:listening

SOCIABILITY: measure of the attention given to social networks(how much the user listens to other people)

parameters for digitally sociable people:affecting

INFLUENCE: measure of the attention received on social networks(how much the user is followed by other people)

another important detail

In the previous slides (and in the following ones) you see some screenshots of our interactive diagrams.For the time being, we are not ready to share the whole diagrams (because of potential mistakes and imperfections).

Anyway, the names in the diagrams are only a fraction of the whole lists.Each interactive diagram has 100 names. Moving the arrow pointer we can see the individual results.

We will share the interactive slides in our next release. At present, we are interested in the tool and not in the results. Of course we need the names to test and check the system, but our real interest is not in the actual ranking of people.

parameters for digitally sociable people

Talking: measure of the activity on social networks(how active the user is)


Affecting: measure of the attention received on social networks(how the user is followed by other people)


Listening: measure of the attention given to social networks(how much the user listens)

data gathering

In the following slide, we have the three families of activities displayed together.

For each user we have a final value defined by how much he/she is present, how much he/she listens, and how much he/she is affecting other people.

maps

Obviously, the most interesting aspects start to emerge when we take each designer and start comparing the three parameters. Talking vs Listening. Listening vs Affecting. Affecting vs Talking.

You can talk very little but a lot of people listen to you (in this case you are some kind of guru). Vice versa,, you might talk a lot, but people don't seem to listen to you very much (in this case you work as a radio: constantly speaking, but without receiving much interest and engagement from your audience). Etcetera.

The following slides are the most promising (in terms of research), but at the same time are the ones requiring more work and refinement from our side.

map #1 talking vs affecting

The relationship between your activities and how much you affect your audience (in all these maps, the size of each sphere is proportional to how much the person listens, while the color refers to the field of activity).

map #2 talking vs listening

Is there a relation between how much you talk and how much you are listened to?

map #3: listening vs affecting

Is there a relation between how much you listen and how much you are listened to?

zooming in

Again, in this presentation our charts are not interactive.This means that in our original diagrams you can zoom in into each map to see the details.

As an example in the following slides you see what happens if we take one of our maps, and we start to zoom in until we see the finest detail of the groupings.

map #1 talking vs affecting

map #1 talking vs affecting: zooming in

PRESENCEvsINFLUENCE: how your activity affects your audience

map #1 talking vs affecting: zooming more


map #1 talking vs affecting: and more...



map #1 talking vs affecting: ...and more...


map #1 talking vs affecting: ...and more.

map #2 listening vs affecting

SOCIABILITYvsINFLUENCE: how your curiosity affects your audience

map #2 listening vs affecting: zooming in

SOCIABILITYvsINFLUENCE: how your curiosity affects your audience

map #3 talking vs listening

PRESENCEvsSOCIABILITY: how your activity is related to your curiosity

maps (cross-referenced parameters)

PRESENCEvsINFLUENCE: typical typologies and behaviours


PRESENCEvsINFLUENCE: typical typologies and behaviours (who is a guru in Publishing field?)


PRESENCEvsINFLUENCE: typical typologies and behaviours (who is a guru in NewMedia field?)


PRESENCEvsINFLUENCE: typical typologies and behaviours (who is a guru in Multilple field?)


PRESENCEvsINFLUENCE: typical typologies and behaviours (who is a guru in DESIGN field?)


PRESENCEvsINFLUENCE: typical typologies and behaviours (who is a guru in Architecture field?)


PRESENCEvsSOCIABILITY: typical typologies and behaviours


PRESENCEvsSOCIABILITY: Proactive in Publishing Field


PRESENCEvsSOCIABILITY: Proactive in NewMedia Field


PRESENCEvsSOCIABILITY: Proactive in Multiple Field


PRESENCEvsSOCIABILITY: Proactive in Design Field


PRESENCEvsSOCIABILITY: Proactive in Architecture Field


SOCIABILITYvsINFLUENCE: typical typologies and behaviours


SOCIABILITYvsINFLUENCE: Enthusiasts in Publishing Field


SOCIABILITYvsINFLUENCE: Enthusiasts in NewMedia Field


SOCIABILITYvsINFLUENCE: Enthusiasts in Multiple Field


SOCIABILITYvsINFLUENCE: Enthusiasts in Design Field


SOCIABILITYvsINFLUENCE: Enthusiasts in Architecture Field

gurus, hammers, radios, observers

As an example, in the following slide we show one of these possible maps. The relationship between how much you are present and how much you are affecting and influencing other people.

As previously mentioned, we used four labels to define our four fields: gurus (people who do little but are very influential), radios (people who do a lot but without much results in terms of influence), hammers (people who do a lot and have a lot of influence), observers (people who do little and have little influence).

Also in this map, the size of the various spheres is a linear function of how much a given person is listening, while the color refers to the field of activity (see earlier slides).

gurus, hammers, radios & observer...

Gioia GuerzoniFreelance literary translator. She is quite at ease in the world of publishing and literature, subcontinental in particular, and occasionally writes for Italian and Indian mags. She enjoys editing stuff and she's working on short stories from Pakistan and Hong Kong.She is interested in coop projects and social media because it's a fascinating brave new world - while translating is eminently antisocial.Twitter/Instagram @GioiaGuerzoni

Stefano MirtiArchitect, designer, teacher, etcetcetc. He knows a lot (and ✍ a lot) about #design, #fashion #milan, #school, #designschool, #architecture. + lots of ♡♡♡ links related to his broad curiosities...@stefi_idlab on Twitter and Instagram

Remo RicchettiMechanical engineer. He has been involved in the design of scientific apparels, devices for physiotherapic and cognitive rehabilitation, wearable robotics, simulators and tactile actuators in national and european research programmes.He is currently exploring innovative technologies for rubber and plating industries, advanced rehabilitation tools, web2.0 and social networking. He teaches at NABA, Milano.Twitter @remo_ricchetti Instagram @hrundibahkshi

italian designershow (digitally) sociable are they?

Gioia Guerzoni, Stefano Mirti, Remo Ricchetti, June 2012

italian designers how (digitally) sociable are they?

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sociable designer data

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