Karim Rashid kills nostalgia on Friday.
Dan Formosa brings back nostalgia on Saturday, 1700 B to the C stylee.
His brief history lesson on Zero included how it was invented by the Babylonians in 1700 BC but was never fully accepted until Fibinacci introduced it back again in 1200. Those lonely years without zero was because it was never accepted, Pythagoras tried but I think Dan said he got murdered or something, over math. So anyway, this is all related to design if you think about it. (I'm still thinking about it)

So then he makes this mind blowing statement: technology evolved but industrial design didn't. He used the example above which shows the pocket Regency Radio from 1954 and the iPod in 2005. hmmmmm suspicious in form eh? Dont' worry, it still comes in your favorite flavors:

Which lead to his point he was driving home: that people must be the central focus, not technology. He gave an example of recent history of design starting from the industrial revolution.
It used to be that:
Companies focused on making -> some thing to sell to -> people
Then in the eighties it became:
Companies focused on developing -> technology to sell to-> people
But now that technology is so advanced, and as he puts it "you can only fit so many pixels per inch" before it doesn't matter any more, so if you remove the technology it becomes:
Companies must focus on -> people

It's someting like this:
1930's -> things
1980's -> technology
2005's -> people

For companies to succeed, he says that they can no longer compete on technology or rely on brand. The product itself is what must shine with a focus on people, and his example was the ipod where it is branded by both Apple and HP.

The way Dan's company, Smart Design, did it was through a happy to anger scale used in their research. How happy are you with the product? He says that products need that personal meaning, technology doesn't matter. Happiness is more important than more buttons and features.


In conclusion my understanding is that the Babylonian Gilgamesh is 2/3 God which mean's he is 0.66666666 god, but those 6's go on forever, that means infinite, and infinite and zero are concepts designed by human beings to communicate, Dan has a Ph.D and we do not. Thank you.