In response to my article, Interference CEO Sam Travis Ewen is Mishandling an Opportunity, Mr. Bob Jacobson comments, “What’s so hip about violating the public space, Chris, what little is still unlittered with commercial advertising, just to sell a late night TV show that’s dying on the vine? (It’s a pretty stupid piece of work.)” …
… “Thanks for giving Interference and its cronies permission — no, encouragement! — to screw with our urban commons again. We need you to do that, I guess, the rest of us, ’cause we’re too lame, unedgy, and unhip: we like to keep our streets free of billboards and other crap more than we get off on marketing plays.”
My response, “Well, until they’re urban privates, they’re still public commons. Public is public. This is actually more reflective of the current American state of fear and public anxiety.
At the end of the day, don’t you think that it is sort of funny and charming and amusing? Right?”
Bob Jacobson visits us from Total Experience on Corante.
“Bob Jacobson consults on the intersection of design and experience. An environmental designer with a lifelong fascination for technology, he studies how different design modalities can interplay to create outstanding experiences for individuals and audiences. Among Bob’s professional credentials, earned a Ph.D. in Urban Planning & Design from UCLA; co-founded the Human Interface Technology Lab (HIT Lab); founded Worldesign Inc. and ModViz, Inc., pioneering visualization companies; and has made 22 visits to Disneyland. As a Fulbright Scholar, he studied the early impact of cellular telephony on transnational communities in the Nordic Arctic Circle. Bob edited the best-selling Information Design (MIT Press, 2000) and is now authoring a book that examines the emerging theory and practice of experience design.”
