In the early afternoon we all pile into the auditorium for a Karim webcast via the Midwest Conference in Urbana-Champaign. This is already blogged by Ko, but since it is Mr. Rashid speaking I can't help but add in my 2 cents in here...

In attempting to succinctly convey the subject matter of Karim's talk, the thing that comes to mind is that I have no idea what the hell he was talking about. Although, the one thing that is apparent is that I do know he was not talking about enduring design.

In trying to structure a blog on this talk and make some sense of his story, I take notes. But just as he says he is going to talk about/explain one thing he jumps to a completely tangential topic. He seemed to begin many thoughts, and then not finish them. His talk was scattered, to say the least. And nothing he said was in any way insightful or novel.

He begun with a failed attempt to define design, went on to discuss consumption (unsuccessfully), said he would come back to consumption, and never did as far as I could tell.

Here's some stuff i took from the talk:

inspiration.
what inspires him in terms of the world in which we live?
- "materials"
- "digital tools that allow new forms of decoration"
- "the way we produce goods"

design of the time.
If he were to live in the future he would want to know what 2005 was really like? "What denotes the time in which we live?" "Not Plaid" - he says. It was clear that he does NOT think plaid defines our time - I think he is right about this one.

globalization is happening.
He thinks that our world is shrinking... "What will differentiate what gets produced in one country from another?"

we need differentiation.
"How will we differentiate ourselves?" within the global marketplace.

the casual age.
He thinks we are living in "the casual age". (perhaps he is living in the casual age, as he makes $10,000 for an hour long talk that sucks. I think if this were true for me, I'd be living in the casual age too). "It is important to me (him). It is now here. What is it? A world that is more relaxed and seemless. A world where you have more time to think and participate in culture." (I am skeptical that he knows what culture means.)

customization is happening.
"Mass production and non-serialization - the digital craft"
Instead of creating the same object - how can we create 'craft' (one-offs) with mass production techniques? "We can begin to create very, very diverse things."

some other good quotes:
"designocracy movement."
"the one language we have globally is the binary language ...a language of 0's and 1's."
"I would like to live in a life with less and less obstacles."
"... the technology is very seamless... this is what I desire."
"He believes that design is about shaping the contemporary world that we live in."

In commenting on his relevance to enduring design... Eames had a good quote last night that stated Charles Eames philosophy on design: "The degree to which one has a style, is the degree to which one has NOT solved the design problem." I would enjoy hearing Karim's response to this comment.

I think Karim should stick to his blobjects, and leave philosophical blather to better-read, more-articulate members of the design community.

[Editor: Watch the streamed webcast here.]