Re*Move

iPad - The best things come to those who wait

Two weeks ago a man called Mark Nitzberg did a lovely thing - he sent me an iPad from California. Mark's a board member at the Akvo Foundation, where I spend much of my time right now. He wants to know what I think about it - how it changes the way we use computers, whether it's any good, and whether you can read a book all day on it. So I've been giving it a whirl. I'll write more about the actual device, and what the big deal is over the coming days. But the thing is, I can't really describe the iPad to you until I do a bit of a recap - a few snippets of my perspective on the evolution of personal computers. So here goes.

In 1993, I got a job at Apple Computer. It wasn't in Cupertino, or even (as you might expect as a Brit) in Stockley Park, near Heathrow. It was in Warsaw, Poland.

Set on Jana Sobieskiego, a particularly bleak stretch of road out in the Warsaw suburb of Mokotóv, Apple Poland HQ was above a hat factory (filled with scary old ladies), and an Amway franchise (filled with scary Americans).

I was there for about a year, and learned a lot. Apple, "in between Jobs", so to speak, was struggling. Although its state of limbo was one of those things that I only really understood with hindsight. I was surrounded by technology. I shared an office with two guys. Marcin and I would throw paper at eachother all day while doing "marketing". Andrjez, a wonderful kindly man, would sit at a Mac Quadra 950, carefully designing Polish fonts to be used in Mac System 7. Because his computer had a 33MHz Motorola 68040 processor, it was actually categorised as a super-computer, requiring a special import license into this fragile new democracy, just four years beyond the collapse of communism.

I had a Powerbook 170. With an active matrix black and white screen, it was the absolute business - a dark grey wonder that was full of original ideas. It had the keyboard set back close to the screen, and a "track ball" - a dead-ringer for a pool ball - set on a ledge at the front of the computer. It had folders dotted around the desktop, and I could write wherever I was because it was genuinely portable, with little feet that twisted around at the back. I could connect it via "Appletalk" to other computers. I think we even had staff electronic mail running.

It's difficult now to describe just how dull most computers were back in the early '90s - after an '80s childhood of BBCs and Spectrums, Killer Gorilla and Donkey Kong, the personal computer future had fizzled into a way to run a digitized version of the 1970s office. I could type my own memos, print things off myself, decide where to save things and what to call them. I could even now take my computer with me to other places and use it there as well. While I was there, I could make things bold - or even italic. I could do all the things people could do in the 1970s, without needing support staff.

One day what looked like a pizza box arrived with a monitor on top, that had speakers. It was a Mac Centris 660AV, the first computer to be imported into Poland, as far as we knew, that could show video snippets and play music clips. It had a fancy innovation called a DSP, which stood for Digital Signal Processor. That meant it actually had another computer processor inside, which handled most of the video and sound. The clips were pretty tiny on screen - and the sound was okay but we all had CDs, which seemed much more useful, because they connected quickly to your hifi. So most people would say, "well what can you do with that?" And to be honest none of us had a good answer. It also had something called "GeoPort", which meant you could use a modem, so the computer could connect through telephone lines. But we didn't really use that.

One of the guys was also toting an Apple Quicktake 100 digital camera. Most people couldn't understand the point of that, either. I think it cost about $400 (to put this in context my Polish salary then was $200 per month, and that was above average). It could hold 8 photographs at 640x480 resolution. Which you couldn't do much with. Even bleak early '90s Mokotóv was blossoming with colourful Fuji and Kodak and Agfa signs above shops, where you could take your film camera and get prints developed, sometimes while you waited. So people would say, "Why would you want a digital camera when a film camera is really cheap and more useful?"

In early 1994, I was given an Apple Newton Messagepad. It was tiny - well actually it wasn't. It was an alien size - quite long and bulky. But it just had a screen - and no keyboard. Well actually, it had a stylus, a plastic thing that you knew you'd lose. And you would attempt to write on the screen and watch it convert each character into words. I took it out to a dinner with American and Irish friends that night and passed it around the table. Everyone thought it was fun, but noone could really make it work properly. And by the time it got back around to me, the batteries were dead. It was a digital notepad, for which there was no need.

Late that year I went back to London and worked for Apple, then Compaq, then Dell then HP, later in the '90s.

Apple and all the others spent a long time playing around with technologies that weren't yet really ready. But all this stuff is ready now. When I first got hold of an iPad two weeks ago, it felt like an alien size, but as an iPhone user it's all so familiar to use. But it is really different to any other computer.

The point of the iPad is that people can actually watch and read material off the internet. They can do it for ten hours. They can do it without sitting poised like a typist. That first Apple Powerbook 170 I had was bold enough to put a trackball at the front of the portable computer, and let the keyboard sit behind it. Apple's now been bold enough, and clever enough, to remove the keyboard altogether. A year ago this would have been premature. But now the internet is easy to use by just clicking around most of the time.

Microsoft's tablet computers, sold half-heartedly by PC makers, were insufficiently developed and timed too early. In computers, as in most things, timing is everything. Apple's timing is impeccable.

People who say the iPad isn't any good are the people that think the world is worse now than it was in 1955, or 1965, or '75, '85, '95 or 2005.

It isn't. It's a better world. The iPad is great - a product absolutely in tune with its time, not too far ahead or in any way behind. And it'll make the next ten years much more interesting. Just watch – or read, or follow.

Mark Charmer is founder of The Movement Design Bureau.

Photo: the Sign / Movement Design Bureau kit museum in Bermondsey includes a Powerbook 160, a close relative of that PB170 I mentioned earlier. London, 5 May 2010.

Post consumerism? A crisis in design, a crisis of ethics: a time for change

I just got married. Hence have been away for a while, and why the lack of posts. It's not unknown for such activities to cause people to reassess their priorities, and begin to question stuff they previously took for granted. So, this could just be me. Yet I sense something is in the air. Something feels different...

Take the election in the uk right now. The media-spun forgone conclusion we began the campaign with has been thrown open by a number of things, including a TV debate which shook-up the status quo. Every day, social media channels are exposing the bias and vested interests of traditional publications and big business. The entire event feel not only more open, but exciting, and 'different this time'. As Gordon Brown discovered yesterday, you are never 'off record' anymore. And in all of this, among the optimists such as your author, there's a sense that we - the people - can make a difference. Our say somehow feels like it 'matters more' this time.

Then take the auto show in Beijing last week. The western auto companies unveiled products that whispered of a sense of relief. The crisis is over, and now China's growing auto market will allow them to simply continue as they were, thanks very much. Ford, at least, showed a city car. Yet I haven't found many people who are impressed with Mercedes' vulgar - and dubiously dubbed - 'shooting brake concept'. Or anyone who actually needs, or cares about the BMW Gran Coupe concept. And while many were still busy laughing at Chinese 'copies' of western models, those who stood back saw a set of Chinese car designs that had a level of genuine credibility that was unthinkable just two years ago. Some even noticed the Chinese Government initiatives, and the impacts they are having on development of Chinese electric cars, which could have some interesting consequences for the old guard. Better Place gained a foothold in the world's largest country - despite being increasingly poo-pooed by some in the developed world, but Chinese firms are developing similar charging infrastructure plans of their own...

There's a sense that the more switched on people are looking, scrutinising, and questioning the status quo more than ever before. It's apparent in design and design criticism as much as anywhere else. Ultimately, the very role of the designer is being questioned. While this may be somewhat frightening, it at least means we may be moving to the next stage of the debate, beyond dubious tick-box, shiny apple-green sustainability. Rather than become all preachy, the main point of this piece therefore, is to draw your attention to a series of important articles and events reflective of this new, deeper line of questioning. If you're a designer, or design student, I'd argue they're required reading...

The underlying contention they all make, is that many designers are - far from making things in the world better - complicit in simply encouraging people to consume at an ever growing rate - messing up peoples' heads, and screwing the planet in the process. So what role for the designer?

Core 77's Allan Chochinov perhaps framed this most eloquently some time ago, in his 1000 word manifesto for sustainability in design. Now a couple of years old, it nonetheless still resonates and provides a useful starting point. More recently, Munich professor Peter Naumann's "Restarting car design" looks set to become a seminal piece, and is one all students of transport design need to read. Judging by the shock-waves it has generated, and the response to it from those I've spoken to in the auto, design and education sectors, he has hit the nail on the head. Because increasingly, it isn't just industry that's in the firing line, but design education institutions that are being questioned. For its part, the Royal College of Art is currently hosting the "Vehicle Design Sessions". There have been two so far, and both have touched on the areas I'm discussing. As Drew Smith's write-up chronicles, the panelists at the first - sustainability focused - debate, were unanimous in their view that vehicle design students should now look outside of the established industry if they were truly intent on using their design skills to have real impact in the world. Perhaps not what you'd expect from an event held at one of the world's leading vehicle design courses.

For those students of design interested in more than just the design of the next sports car, all of this raises a dilemma. How do you balance the necessity to find employment and money, without simply tramping up a well-trodden path, or falling into big-industry - pandering to whims and being emasculated from affecting meaningful change?

I doubt many will find that quandary any simpler after reading Carl Acampado's piece, but it's a necessary read nonetheless. Entitled  "The product designer's dilemma", it is bound to strike a chord with many of its readers. Acampado touches on the conflicts that the average designer - and indeed typical consumer - today faces in balancing personal desires, ambition and personal success, with the best way not to fuck up the planet. It's an impassioned piece, and just like your author here, Acampado has no real silver bullet solution to many of these problems. Yet his "dog for life/do it with love" message resonates loudly, and without wanting to sound all soppy, could be an interesting mantra to apply both as a consumer and in whatever area of design you practice. Please read the piece to see for yourself what I mean, if you haven't already. It echoes the voice of many of those I have mentioned above, and contrasts starkly with the PR-spun froth that consumers are (hopefully) growing increasingly sick off, yet which nonethelesss still dominates media 'opinion' that we are bombarded with every day. Stuff that I might add, is now the domain of much online green media, not just the likes of auto.

A final point. "Drive less. Save more" proclaims the title of the most recent email to land in my inbox, which is from the Energy Saving Trust - a UK Government sustainability body. In terms of missing the point completely, yet perfectly representing a very particular 'old way' of thinking that I'm taking issue with, I can't help thinking that it sums things up rather neatly. New approaches are needed. Thoughts on a postcard please... or alternately in the comments box below.

Image credit: "Consumption reflected" - Zohar Manor-Abel on flickr

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 29th April 2009. Full disclosure: Joseph Simpson is a visiting lecturer in Vehicle Design at The Royal College of Art. The thoughts expressed here are his own, and in no way necessarily reflect the views of the Vehicle Design Department or the wider College.

Mitch Altman on The Magic of Open Design

We've said before and we'll say again, open, networked forms of design and collaboration are going to change how we solve many problems. They'll also shape the future of our cities, towns and villages, how we work in them, the ways we move and interact in them, the vehicles we design and the way they fit together.

Some of this is about cost - build something once, openly and others can improve it. But much of it is about the culture of open source designers and problem solvers.

Here I talk with San Francisco-based virtual reality and hacker god Mitch Altman, inventor of, amongst other things TV-B-Gone, and Vinay Gupta, open source hardware guru and inventor of the Hexayurt open source refugee shelter.

I ask whether these new networks of designers – often in the form of hackers or open source communities - spend too much time focused on arguing about the need to break down existing structures. Is there more happening beyond that? What can those networks be doing now – to create real value? Do hackers and open source networks have an identity and meaning that can defined by what they are, rather than what they aren't?

I also ask whether the hacker scene has started to build its own financial infrastructure yet?

Design Museum, Butler's Wharf, London. 9 July 2009.

Posted by Mark Charmer.

Reinventing the dashboard: Ford's Smartgauge

Speak to most people, and they'll tell you that the real revolutionary area of car design in the next ten-to-fifteen years will be the interior - and more specifically, the interface. J Mays went to great lengths last month to emphasize how important the HMI would be in future, and just how quickly it's changing.

Ford wants to be a leader in this area - and the Lincoln C concept, with its all singing, all dancing future-format of Sync, complete with apps, avatars and assistants, is the company's statement of intent to this end. Ultimately though, digital convergence in vehicles has the potential to be problematic. As Jean Jennings suggested in our recent interview with her "I always say, 'if it doesn't make you drive better, make it go away'". This gives designers and engineers a potential conflict when it comes to a future pointing towards future hybrids, EVs and so forth.

Put simply, three main factors determine how efficient and economical a car will be. Its configuration (size, weight, drivetrain type). The conditions (traffic and meteorological) within which it is being driven. And the difficult one for designers - the person behind the wheel. How the driver physically inputs on the car's controls (accelerator, brake, steering) massively impacts upon its economy - which is why we often see huge disparity in fuel economy figures on a given car. Clubfoots Charmer and Simpson managed a rather pitiful combined figure of 38mpg from our week in a Honda Insight. But Honda have been running a hypermiling challenge which has seen people get up to 80mpg.

It was this issue that a Ford team set out to solve with their Smartgauge system - the instrument panel on the new Ford Fusion Hybrid. The question at hand, in its most basic format, was how to help people get the best possible economy from the vehicle, without distracting or annoying them - and without frightening away those new to hybrids. Jeff Greenberg, project leader on the Smartgauge programme, explained to us how the team developed two guiding principals based on this. The first was the notion of a journey - allowing a driver to progress, learn and develop their driving by growing with the system over time. The second was the idea of a coach - a positive encouragement to help drivers get the most out of their vehicle, as opposed to being lectured and bossed into how to drive more economically. Over to Jeff...

Ultimately, the key breakthrough Ford have made with Smartgauge feels similar to Apple with the iPhone. They have created something simple to look at, which by using just screens (rather than physical knobs, buttons or gauges) can display different information, which is (potentially) infinitely configurable and changeable via software updates. Using two, 5.5' TFT screens either side of the central speedometer, Jeff and his team were able to arrive at four different 'levels' of operation by which a driver could use Smartgauge and interact with the Fusion hybrid. All of which sounds a little daunting before you see it - so the car is set up to be quite simple, and welcoming upon your first acquaintance with it, as demonstrated to us in this video...

While other hybrids tend to feature either a basic setup to indicate how the drivetrain is working (Ford's own Escape Hybrid), or a complex set of show-off graphs and complex diagrams (Toyota Prius), the Smartgauge is designed to make the Fusion Hybrid appeal to all-comers - from those buying their first hybrid, to those who are committed hypermilers who've clocked 100,000 miles in their Prius(es). The driver can choose from four different levels of display, which, as they progress from one to the next, gradually adds extra layers of information to help inform on what the car is doing, and to help the driver extract the best economy. The levels are known as Inform (most basic), Enlighten, Engage and Empower (most advanced)...

But what's it actually like on the road? Having had Jeff walk us through the system at a standstill, we went out on the roads of Dearborn to experience it for ourselves...

What's impresses about the display is its clarity and functionality, regardless of which level you are in. It could clearly appeal to multiple different types of driver. Newbies won't be scared off, while those who enjoy showing off their Prius's fuel economy graphs will love the most advanced levels where you can do things like see how much power drain the vehicle's accessories are creating. Crucially, as it's on the dashboard and in the driver's line of site, Smartgauge really makes it easy to coax the car along in EV mode for long periods (therefore achieving better fuel economy) without taking your eyes off the road. The bright green glowing EV symbol that lights up in the more advanced modes is a great 'corner of the eye' tell-tale to this effect.

The project illustrates the clear benefits that come from new ways of thinking, and greater openness and collaboration in the auto industry. The Smartgauge team worked closely not only with designers and engineers within Ford, but with the most famous user-design/research guys of them all - IDEO, and conducted extensive, ethnographic research - not only with hybrid drivers, but with those who drove hummers, bicycles, and even professional athletes and their trainers. Ultimately, this advanced and comprehensive approach to research, coupled with a simple, but subtle, rethink of how to utilise TFT screens to make most appropriate use of available software - as opposed to hardware - results in a highly impressive, engaging vehicle.

That the car itself is really impressive, needing no excuses for being a hybrid, helps. However, this display is the car's piece-de-resistence, one that will not only help drivers to achieve greater fuel economy than they might on their own, but keep them engaged, surprised and delighted by the car in a way that many vehicles don't once that new car sheen has worn off. Not only does the system make the car more fun to drive, it makes those behind the wheel better drivers. In our view, that means the team behind it deserve the upmost praise and respect.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 18th June 2009

Disclosure: Ford is sponsoring The Movement Design Bureau's design and research work throughout 2009. We have an independent brief - and want to hear from you if it doesn't seem that way.

Riversimple: launching a new kind of car (part I - overview)

Today, on the terrace behind London's Somerset House, Riversimple launched the culmination of nine years research and development - their new open source, hydrogen powered city car. Like Local-Motors in the US (more on whom soon), Riversimple are utilising open source principals to design and develop a new car. But that's only half the story. Riversimple have, in effect, today launched a blueprint for how the car industry could reinvent itself - with wholesale changes to the way vehicles are designed, how they're fueled, where and how they're built, and how they're sold.

We captured a heap of footage at this morning's launch event and we'll get much of it online over the next day or so. Like us, you might be sceptical about the potential of hydrogen fuel cells, or the application of open-source principals in a hardware, rather than software setting. In this first video, Hugo Spowers - CEO of Riversimple, explain some of the principals behind, and answer some of the pressing questions about the car and the company behind it. It makes for interesting watching...

Full photoset by Mark, from today's event (click on photos to go to the flickr page):

Note: All of The Movement Design Bureau's published content - including our videos and photos you see, is creative commons 3.0 licensed. That means you can use it, republish it or mash it up on your own site - just include a link back to this page.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 16th June 2009

Drew Smith on the car industry's failure to "do digital"

We spent a fine afternoon at the Angel pub in Rotherhithe, London on Friday, talking with one of our favourite design commentators - Drew Smith, aka @drewpasmith on Twitter, who edits the DownsideUpDesign blog. The conversation was, in several ways, atomic.

While in the 1950s and 60s cars stayed in tune with their age - the space rocket you could afford to buy - Drew argues that the auto industry has failed to connect with the digital age.

We talk too about the role that notions of ownership play, and how, as a result of social networking, they are perhaps starting to dissolve. Will digital networks and services fundamentally change how a new generation views cars? Can anyone harness this?

Mark Charmer talks with Drew Smith and Joseph Simpson. Angel at Rotherhithe, London, 29 May 2009.

Daimler invests in Tesla - two looking to future strategic co-operation

On stage at Daimler's museum, right now, Daimler and Tesla are announcing a strategic alliance. Daimler plans to invest in Tesla - quoting it paid "a double digit million-dollar sum for around a ten percent stake" in the silicon valley company. The two will go forward to co-operate, perhaps - we speculate - even on future models.

Talking about how the two combine the best of 'future' and 'historical' auto industry, what we found most interesting about what is being said, is that Daimler - one of the most vehement pushers of Hydrogen technology to date -  has suddenly decided it needs to get on board the EV train.

Secondly, that Daimler says an alliance with Tesla allows an electric-mobility future to be got to market much faster, because of the small, flexible, quick-responding nature of a small company like Tesla. Daimler further announced that by 2012 it would begin mass production of Smart EVs - and make them available to regular customers (at present, Daimler and Tesla are co-operating on a limited test fleet of Smarts). Mercedes will also help Tesla with future vehicle development, and even supply components in the future, the company said.

More soon... 

[This piece first appeared on BritsOnGreen - The Movement Design Bureau's new dedicated strand for green news and insight]

Honda Insight: photographic design review

Honda's Insight left the official Movement Design Bureau parking space (alright, the road outside the office) just over a week ago now, so having produced this light-hearted video review towards the end of its time with us, we've now had the chance to think about the car a little longer. Our lasting impression? A total bag of contradictions.

The Insight is at once both deeply impressive and yet slightly disappointing. Why? In short, because Honda has managed to wrap apparently smart, up-to-the-minute technology in a package that's both easy to live with, fine to drive and affordable for the average c-segment (think Golf, Focus) car buyer. Yet at the same time, that technology failed to deliver real world results in our hands, and out of a town environment, the Insight feels out of its depth - leaving us questioning the point of that slippery, low-drag 'kamm-tail' shape and the packaging compromises it has created elsewhere in the car.

We're going to explore some of the innovative thinking behind the Insight, and Honda's overall future strategy in a forthcoming blog, which will feature the interview we did with Honda UK's head of environment and government affairs - John Kingston - while we had the Insight.

But for now, we felt it worth delving a little bit more into the design and detail of the Insight - because this is an area which has raised much interest among others. Or to put it more bluntly, the fact that people think it looks like a Prius has raised plenty of eyebrows. So here are some key thoughts, details and features of the Insight in full on, close up technicolour...

Pretty? Not really, but hardly repulsive either. That high, chopped-off tail, and steeply sloping rear roofline combine to create what's known as a 'kamm-tail'. Invented (discovered?) by German design-engineer, Wunibald Kamm, it reduces the air turbulence thrown off the back of the car at speeds - which in turn reduces aerodynamic drag.  

The key contributing factor to people saying that the Insight looks like a Prius is the silhouette and side profile of the glass house. This becomes particularly evident when you see the upper part of the car in isolation, as in the picture above, but some of the detail resolution... 

J Mays: Ford's Global Design Chief on why 'the computer is today's hotrod'

Roland Barthes suggested that cars were the modern day equivalent of Gothic Cathedrals, “the Supreme creation of an era. Conceived with passion by unknown artists”. That's still true to this day. While fashion designers and architects have become household names and outright superstars, car designers are little known, often lost in the cloak of their brand’s identity. Of all the names that the average non-car nerd may have heard of, three are most likely to stand out: Patrick le Quement, Chris Bangle, and J Mays. So with le Quement retiring after 22 years as head of Renault design, and Bangle recently leaving BMW under unclear circumstances, this leaves Mays as arguably the most publicly recognisable car designer in the world right now.

Calm and unassuming in person, you’d never know that Mays was responsible for the design direction of (and for the hundreds of designers behind) Ford’s various brands and nameplates. Up until recently of course, this not only included Ford, Lincoln and Mercury - but Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin too. This led Mays to describe his job as being “about a mile wide and an inch deep.” But with PAG disbanded, and Volvo about to follow Jag, LR and Aston out of the Ford stable door, Mays seems pleased that his job is becoming “an inch wide and a mile deep.”

Clearly, he’s got more time to focus on making Ford’s core products stellar once again (recent cars such as the Flex and Taurus suggest this is already happening), along with giving under-nourished Lincoln and Mercury some love too. It’s the Lincoln C concept – unveiled at Detroit’s NAIAS in January 2009 - that we were primarily in town to talk to him about. Yet while that car is well worth a closer look, it’s the bigger issues facing the car industry and the world of car design that we really wanted his views on.

The Lincoln C Concept in Ford's product development studio

So here, Mays - the man behind VW's famous Concept One and Audi's influential Avus – who now also acts as Ford’s Chief Creative Officer, gives his views on a whole host of design subjects. From why the computer is today’s hotrod, to how he believes Ford is leading the way in user research, and why the skill-set of tomorrow’s car designer might need to be quite different to that of today’s.

As Ford moves forwards with its ‘One Ford’ strategy, it’s likely that many of the things you see from the brand will have been touched by the hand of Mays. So watch the video at the top of the article, to get an insight into how the future of the blue oval might look…

Full transcript follows, link to full unedited interview at bottom of the transcript>>

Could Scott Monty's one percent goal change Ford?

Joe and I had a drink with Scott Monty, Ford's head of social media, on Monday night. Arriving in a splendid old-fashioned bow-tie, Scott's at the heart of some of the big change going on at Ford, to communicate the company's story more openly.

Scott - aka @scottmonty on Twitter - is building quite a name for himself. @amydoesdesign, a design student at the University of Cincinnati cut to the point this weekend:

"Oh my god, you meeting Scott Monty is way more interesting than meeting J Mays [Ford's design boss]."

We talked about the challenge of getting 200,000 employees comfortable sharing more about what they do, and bringing to life what the organisation is about and how it's changing.

Scott's confident he can drive a change in how Ford communicates online. "Even if we get only one percent of our employee population doing this, that's 2,000 people - on Twitter, blogs, Facebook, discussion forums. We'll have an army of influencers from inside the company that will be able to share their own perspective on Ford. And put a human face on the company at the same time."

You can see a video of part of our chat below (in the super-low-light Dearborn Inn bar).

We talked about the tendency of young talent to be forced to leave behind the dynamic communication and collaboration tools of their college and personal lives when they arrive at a big corporation. Scott was adamant that these people shouldn't have to compromise how they communicate, just because they work at Ford.

"We're not necessarily competing with GM or Toyota for talent. We're competing with Google, with Oracle, with some of the best technology companies in the world. This has become a standard of working conditions. People want access to their Facebook pages, their favourite YouTube videos, their AIM accounts that allow them to communicate and stay connected."

If we don't do that from an enterprise structure, whether it's creating our own internally or allowing them to access it externally, it's going to be a huge problem.

He also stressed "it's not just a young person's game". And then Caroline arrived with our food. We'll pick up on that point next time we see him.

Ford's overall change theme is "Drive One". Somehow I can't help think that getting one percent of staff quickly onto Twitter would deliver radical change. Today, when we meet a Ford engineer or designer we walk away without a business card. The PR person is the funnel for communication. If Scott gets his way, maybe that will change.

Related reading:

Scott Monty on Ford's approach to social media

Posted by Mark Charmer. Mark is founder of The Movement Design Bureau, a global think tank. Video filmed in the Golden Eagle Lounge. Dearborn Inn, Michigan. 20 April 2009.