iRealize
Back in the office after a long weekend I reflect upon the few days at iRealize last week. In the front of my mind is the ”to die for” Kitchen in the apartment of Andrea Clemente from ToDo, wow! Also seeing the Spamghetto wallpaper by Giorgio Olivero of ToDo was great. I wish I had thought of that! Finally meeting Massimo Menichinelli from Open Peer-to-Peer Design after having knowing him only through twitter was great. I also got the chance to chat to Massimo Banzi about Arduino and caught up with Michal Piasecki.
By the way thanks to ToDo and Massimo for you hard work and hospitality!
As for the workshop and conference, it was held in a converted warehouse which has been turned into a film studio for shooting movies and commercials. It apparently cost Turin a few million Euro each year and doesn’t really get used. It was nice though 
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In the workshop we brainstormed some disruptive solutions to the present technological and social situation. Reading in the New York Times this morning it seems one idea coming out of my group seems to have been realized in part by the start-up founded in December, GoodGuide.
In the conference I particularly enjoyed Peter Savilles talk about becoming the creative director responsible for the brand Manchester, yes the brand Manchester. Many of the talks, which were mostly in Italian unfortunately, got to some extent lost in translation.
Of course owing to his mind that appears to works differently and perhaps more efficiently than most of ours, Bruce Sterling provided some interesting perspectives on the re-appropriation of spaces: The stuffed animals as he calls them.
Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG spoke of a good example of minor disruption (Disruption was the theme of the event). A friend of his told him that to get Americans out of their cars and into trains all that is needed is Wi-Fi in the trains.
