10 | Pretty Smart Jewelry

Dating back to the 1970s when the calculator watch was introduced to the market, to the wearable computer in the 80s, to wrist mobile phones in early 2000s, and now with Google Glasses, Apple Iwatch, and fitness tracker products. Modern technology is getting smaller and smaller in size, but smarter its capacity and functionality.

Jewelry used to have no connection with technology, but not anymore. Jewelry is now used as the host material for the mini size smart system. At this time we might imagine that bulky plastic fitness bracelet that used to be popular. They are all out of trend and replaced with the beautifully designed multi-function tech jewelry, especially when it's incorporated with fashion brands. Alerting coming notification from the contacts on phone without holding the phone, health-tracking functions, usb phone charger, alerting a security team when there has been a violent crime are some of the functions that current tech jewelry products can do which is very smart.

Despite of its smartness, I do feel some of fashionable tech jewelry are overwhelmingly advertised without the proper functionality. I watched a CUFF jewelry advertisement of a pretty and young professional women who saw an alert on her wrist for incoming call from the smartphone, which is located in her bag. I think people are already learned to survive lives on busy day that is bombarding with phone calls, why bother the notification alert on tech jewelry when it is quite easy to do it manually. In other words, the function like this would defintely make people lazier in the future.

However, there are some tech jewelry (and accessory) designs, which are fashionable and stunningly beautiful, that I would love to own. The list is below.


1. MICA, a smart bracelet collaborating project by Opening Ceremony and Intel. Unlike other tech jewelry, MICA has nothing to do with smartphone and bluetooth. Its function is alerting of text, calendar, and mail which are synced with Google account.

2. CUFF is used as phone alerting system via Bluetooth technology

3. Tory Burch for Fitbit, a smart jewelry collection collaborating project by Tory Burch and Fitbit. The product is functioned for fitness and activity tracking, such as steps, distance, calories burned and sleep.

4. KOTUR’s #GetSmartBag is a smart clutch that we don’t need to open the clutch to answer or to selfie with friend in the party.

5. Ringly is a connected smart ring. Its function is to alerting the incoming calls, texts, emails and other updates through vibrations and light

6. This is a collaboration tech jewelry project between Rebecca Minkoff and Case-Mate.


As a fan of this fashionable wearable tech trend, I found the design that contains a separating tiny rechargeable and replaceable system unit very interesting, like CUFF (# 2, on the list) and Tory Burch for Fitbit (#3). Because of this separation, we can create our own customized tech jewelry design at ease by using CAD and 3D printing system.

CITATION

http://bionicly.com/10-examples-of-where-jewelry-meets-wearable-tech/>

"Coolest tech accessories + phone cases: Editors best of 2014." 2014. 4 May. 2015 <http://coolmomtech.com/2014/12/coolest-tech-accessories-stylish-gadget-cases-editors-best-tech-of-2014/>

"Cuff - Smart Jewelry." 2014. 4 May. 2015 <https://cuff.io/>

"Jewelers Enter the Wearable Technology Market - NYTimes ..." 2014. 4 May. 2015 <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/style/international/jewelers-enter-the-wearable-technology-market.html

"Tory Burch for FitBit — Tech Test Lab Review | Apartment ..." 2014. 4 May. 2015 <http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/tory-burch-for-fitbit-tech-test-lab-review-206465>

9 | Twitter and My Research Hunting Session

Actually I had Twitter account from years ago, but I have not been interested in using it until a week ago for Digital Literacies class. During my first hours of exploring the Twitter site, I tried multiple times to create a list for the first time, which I found confusing because I have never created one before. Once I compiled my final lists--‘Eco Interest’, ‘Designers and Icons’, ‘Fashion Mag’ , and ‘My Misc--I began following their relevant users.

I found the structure of the Twitter feed interesting, and its content was simple, brief, and direct. This allows me to identify helpful information on the feed faster. Additionally, some posts provide external links, which I can use to expand my hunt for more information. It is quite useful as a research tool.

The list ‘Eco Interest’ is related to my topic of interest for my research project. The pages I followed are filtered to compile information about creativity and sustainability in fashion and fashion-related industries. At this time I have 20 people and pages on my list.

Below is pages and people I followed on ‘Eco Interest’ list

✭Edit Csanak DLA @editaQray

✭Sass Brown @EcoFashionTalk

✭SustainAbility @SustAbility

✭Livia Firth @liviafirth

✭Sustainable Business @GuardianSustBiz

✭Eco Fashion Week @EcoFashionWeek

✭Ecouterre @Ecouterre

✭Eco Design Fair @EcoDesignFair

✭Sustainable Brands @SustainBrands

✭CSF @sustfash

✭Alex and Ani @alexandani

✭Made @MadeUK

✭AliceWilby @AliceWilby

✭Fairtrade Label SA @FairtradeSA

✭Sustainable Angle @Sustainable_Ang

✭i-D @i_D

✭W magazine @wmag

✭1.618 Paris @1618Paris

✭NOT JUST A LABEL @NOTJUSTALABEL

✭Luxury Society @LuxurySociety

credit : Twitter

Reflecting on Roxane Gay’s ‘When Twitter Does What Journalism Can’t’ and Rhiengold’s ’Twitter Literacy’, I recently realized that proper ‘feeding and tuning’ can significantly benefit my research about ethical fashion jewelry businesses in many aspects. One is receiving the most recently updated news and happenings in this industry. For instance, I was introduced to Vancouver’s Eco Fashion Week due to its hashtag appearing on one of the pages that I followed. Secondly, various points of view from multiple channels on my feed helps in broadening my research perspective about ways to make fashion products and businesses more sustainable. The other benefit I experienced from using Twitter is being able to see and compile interesting info-graphics and videos from the feed. They are excellent auxiliary visual materials for my research, which I have difficulty finding when utilizing keywords that have been tailored to my research in search engines.

Citation
"When Twitter does what journalism can't - Salon.com." 2013. 20 Apr. 2015 <http://www.salon.com/2013/06/26/when_twitter_does_what_journalism_cant/>

"Twitter Literacy (I refuse to make up a Twittery name for it ..." 2011. 20 Apr. 2015 <http://blog.sfgate.com/rheingold/2009/05/11/twitter-literacy-i-refuse-to-make-up-a-twittery-name-for-it/>

8 | Digital Curation

In general, curation is the selection of information that is most relevant to a specific topic. The information can come from a wide variety of sources, such as texts, pictures, videos, voice recordings, etc. The selected media can be used as contexts to guide the target audience with understanding the topic.

Digital curation is ubiquitous in our modern world. It is used in so many industries from government, to technology and science, to art and design, to music and film. The digital curators are persons with excellent observational and analytical skills, which allow them to identify the most relevant data from credible online sources and utilize them to add value to their curated content.

Reflecting on Rheingold’s book, “Net Smart,” and his interviewing session with Robert Scoble, a blogger and technical evangelist, the point I found most interesting about online curation was how he explains his filtering process (aka Rheingold’s ‘crap detection’). For example, when faced with the overwhelming amount of information on his Twitter feed, he pinpointed which Chinese Twitter users to observe and confirm his prediction about earthquake.  The other point I also like is his philosophy about selecting topics in order to increase digital interaction in social media.For example, he identified the advantage of discussing the president’s pet as opposed to a complex political situation. The first one seems to be a niche topic which is less likely to be covered by the powerful news firms whose status in the digital sphere is difficult to challenge. When he chose the niche topic, he was able to gain more followers and catalyze online discussion.

One industry in which digital curation has become highly advantageous is education. Digitally exploring educational content is part of the online learning experience which also help users gain skills in information filtering. This may lead them to be better equipped to become curators. So far in my design studying, I mainly use Pinterest as an online curation tool. It is very useful in collecting and analyzing information for design and visual projects. In my research for Digital Literacies final project, I use Pinterest to collect photos supporting my topic by re-pinning content-related images within the site.

After reading Paul Mihailidis’ article, “Exploring Curation as a Core Competency in Digital and Media Literacy Education”, I became more aware of online curating tools, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Emaze, Prezi, Storiful, Amplify, Scoop, and Storify. These websites are free to use and allow one to access content around the world. Some are particularly useful tools for digital curation since they compile online information from a wide variety of sources into one site. 

Moving from the topic of digital curation to fashion fair use practice discussed in Johanna Blakely’s Ted Talk, “Lessons from Fashion’s Free Culture.” I think one of the benefits of the fashion copying culture is that it provides a driving force for designers to create differences in fashion products. I admire that some designers are motivated from this situation to challenge their creativity and make advancements in their design process so that their products are more difficult to copy, such as Stuart Weitzman’s titanium Bowden-wedge heel.

Citations

Rheingold, Howard. Net Smart: How to Thrive Online. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2012. Print.

"Exploring Curation as a Core Competency in Digital and ..." 2013. 12 Apr. 2015 <http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/case-studies/91950726/exploring-curation-as-core-competency-digital-media-literacy-education>

"Robert Scoble On Online Curation - YouTube." 2011. 12 Apr. 2015 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMn-cJHzF8A>

"Johanna Blakley: Lessons from fashion's free culture | Talk ..." 2014. 12 Apr. 2015 <http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture/trans

7| "Ethical Costume Jewelry Business Model" research project overview

I am interested in industrial design of fashion accessories, such as jewelry, bags, and shoes. I also find a challenge of mass produced fashion products combined with sustainability very interesting because it requires both the aesthetics of the object as well as protecting nature. My experience as a recycled material product design volunteer in Thailand really motivates me  to explore the sustainable direction that best suits the fashion jewelry business that I would like to end up with in the future. Therefore, I have chosen ‘Modern Ethical Fashion Jewelry Business’ as my final project topic for digital literacy class.

Apart from the international controversies of dirty gold and blood diamonds in the fine jewelry industry, critical problems in the environment and humanity are also found in the costume jewelry industry. The problems vary from potentially harmful toxic metal found in costume jewelry pieces manufactured in China, to many costume jewelry businesses and manufacturers shutting down in Rhode Island, as well as low pay wages in manufacturing countries, such as China, Mexico, Thailand, and Taiwan. 

http://www.peopleandtheplanet.com

So far, the ethical movement in the jewelry business has been growing. It helps not only to positively market the designed product, improve the quality of artisans’ communities, promote traditions, and minimize waste from manufacturing, but also encourages entrepreneurs to be better-rounded about sustainability concerns in their total process —including design, production, and collaboration aspects. The topic I have chosen resonates with my dream about establishing my own business selling costume and fine-fashion jewelry that collaborates with hill tribe communities in Thailand, known for their stunningly beautiful embroidery and tribal jewelry. My business goal will primarily be sustaining ethnic Thai artisans’ quality of life while maintaining my passion in jewelry design and development.

     

http://www.bareo-isyss.com

      

Vogue Thailand February 2013

My research consisted of 4 parts —history overview of the ethical movement in the costume jewelry industry, comparing typical jewelry business models to those who employ sustainable practices, analyzing case studies, and my adaptation for my own conceptual business. My online information hunting session  for  research began with finding a definition in Google of sustainability in fashion and the jewelry business. On academia.edu, I found the scholarly research related to the ethical fashion movement in history. Next for the case study portion, I used both FIT library database and google to randomly click on the links and select the potential examples by throwing specific keywords inside the parentheses symbol (“ ”), in order to filter only necessary content. I also searched some keywords, such as design activism, business and brands.

ECO-FRIENDLY CONCEPTS AND ETHICAL MOVEMENTS IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY by Edit Csanak (2004)Academia © 2015

Alex and Ani Jewelry

 

http://window874.com

6 | Memo for the creative output owner

"Art requires imagination. It requires Creativity. Creativity requires experience and experience comes from your life. And your life is expressed in your art."
-Bruce Lee

Creativity is either tangible or intangible. Expression of creativity  leads the imagination to go beyond the abstract state. From centuries up to this moment, outputs of creativity are countless in number and derivation, including the original works, the remixed originals, and the other combinations of remixed originals.

I watched Kirby Ferguson’s series documentary titled ‘Everything is a Remix’, and I found the point of view of this filmmaker towards creativity very interesting.  I like what he mentions about the basic elements of creativity and several comparisons of film works in his 2nd part serie, the ‘Remix Inc.,’ which he shows the relation among works of creators in all generations . He said that people perceive stories that have been told, retold, transformed, and subverted, and the reason of producing remixed work possibly varies from appreciation of rich resources of the existing materials to budgeting the production (Ferguson).

As a design student and designer, I think the idea of remixing and collaborating on work enhances communication skills as well as allows collaborators to step out of their comfort zones. Because of reference, we learn to create difference based upon the similarity of what we know. However, it is a common ethical belief that those references should be credited. Good examples of remix that I found related to digital literacies are cover songs on Youtube and Wikipedia.

The music and video industries take copyright violations seriously, especially when covers of originals are used commercially. According to Youtube’s website, though they do not mediate copyright ownership disagreements, within their FAQ about derivative work it is clearly written:

You need the copyright owner’s permission to create new works based on their original content. Derivative works may include sequels, translations, spin-offs, adaptations, etc. You’ll probably want to get legal advice from an expert before uploading videos that are based on the characters, storylines, and other elements of copyright-protected material. (Youtube)

(screen shot of removed video on youtube website due to copyright violation.)

Another example is Wikipedia, the editable encyclopedia. I have read information which helps to illuminate issues of copyright that pertain to this aspect of digital literacies and the article titled,'Copyright in a Collaborative Age." Authors Charman and Holloway conduct a survey of copyrights issues in many collaborative outputs, including Wikipedia. They identify an interesting point: “In most cases, Wiki users do not wish to assert copyright and are not interested in financial gain, but when wikis are set up to provide a source of information for reuse, copyright licensing becomes an issue” (Charman and Holloway).

There are millions of people with creative talents around the world, but I believe that there are many who do not realize the importance of protecting ownership rights--both theirs and those whose works may be referenced. Carelessness with or consciously improper use of others’ intellectual property is considered a civil violation, and the penalty for copyright infringement under the United States copyright law ranges from $200-150,000 per work that is infringed.(Remedies for infringement: Damages and profits, 17 U.S.C. § 504)

 

In order to be prevent legal issues, these intellectual property rights should be taken seriously before publication. At the present, there are many ways to manage one’s property rights. Not only is there the ability to protect creative outputs with copyright, one can limit the usage of copyrighted works with ‘Fair Use’, and legally transfer ownership to the public with ‘Creative Commons’ licenses, which allow the rights to be easily modified from all rights to partial rights reserved.

Works cited:

"Frequently Asked Questions - YouTube Help - Google Help." 2014. 23 Mar. 2015 <https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797449?hl=en>

"Everything is a Remix." 2010. 23 Mar. 2015 <http://everythingisaremix.info/>

"M/C Journal: "Copyright in a Collaborative Age"." 2006. 23 Mar. 2015 <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0605/02-charmanholloway.php>

"Copyright Infringement and Remedies - US Copyright Office." 2006. 23 Mar. 2015 <http://copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html>

"Copyright Infringement Penalties - Purdue University Libraries." 2009. 23 Mar. 2015 <https://www.lib.purdue.edu/uco/CopyrightBasics/penalties.html>

"A Guide to Copyright and Creative Commons | When I Have ..." 2011. 23 Mar. 2015

5 | Final Project and Online Resource Hunting!

In this digital age, an ability to do online research is a must for college students, especially a design student like me. Even off campus, I feel that people who are really good at online research will get the most recent and more neccessary information than people who lack this skill. News, journal, thesis, archives from libraries and museums, those resources are out there in the cloud, we just have to know the right way to get them. The ability to do smart online research will help us bring out most necessary data by optimizing the right tools. A good article titled "Edupunks’ Guide: How to do research online" is very useful for digital information hunters. There, I found many different sites throughout my research hours and the most helpful research sites for my project are: Google, Google Scholar, Wikipedia, and Prezi. Website which is not listed but I found it second most helful, with great academic research documents and archived articles, was www.academia.edu. In the website, research documents in any area of interest can be put as tags to show up on my homepage after signing up. 

My topic started with a broad scope in my head about sustainability and fashion jewelry. Being the most filtered search engine, Google is really useful for exploring my topic because of its randomness of information. I was able to find a broad perspective of  information and an overview of some related case studies by googling keywords I saw from the previous search. From scrolling and reading through several sites, I got the final topic that I want to do then I googled new set of keywords again with special symbols to specify my search.

Google Doc is also one of google products that I like in its citation help. Whenever I found article that contain good information for my research, I pasted on the Doc and attached its citation by clicking at ‘Cite’ in the research tool bar, in order to keep all records before I forgot to do it.

I used Google Scholar as a search engine to find supporting materials. Some of the articles I found useful for the business topic of  my project. There were a lot of solid supporting details including numeric data diagram, charts, and stats in document as the site mainly contains scholar literatures and journals from academic publisher and universities’ libraries database and peer reviewed articles. Very helpful

Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia which allows collaborative modification or deletion of its content and structure,  is a website which I generally use to initially search for definitions. For my final project research, wiki is also used to.did ok job in providing me an overview of costume jewelry history timeline. However, I ensure my information by checking with other resources

Having briefly mentioned above, Academia.edu is basically a social networking website for academics. The platform can be used to share papers, monitor their impact, and follow the research in a particular field. I like this website and feel it is a powerful tool for research and great thing from this site is that the research documents are available to download in pdf format.

Sites I found a little information were Prezi and Youtube (this surprised me). I found a nice presentation about sustainable fashion business model on Prezi, which was quite good one. Youtube is next, Videos that appeared after my keywords were jewelry making, to jewelry product presentation with sustainable concepts, which were not the thing I was searching.

And Sites I found none from keyword I put were Europeana, OpenCulture and ,surprisingly,The Internet Archive (At first I though I would find something here, but no. ) 


Citation:

"The Edupunks' Guide: How to Do Research Online." 16 Mar. 2015 <http://magazine.good.is/articles/edupunks-guide-excerpt-how-to-do-research-online>

4 | Defining Digital Literacy

Digital literacy’s definition is an ability to  practically use digital application to understand visuals and information, to utilize it for discipline application, and to create innovation. The definition of digital literacy in Belshaw’s thesis shares the same idea, but varies in concepts based on contexts that the literacy exists. The context composed of 8 essential elements that will help in developing and recognizing literacy with proper use of digital media.

People from different disciplines may have different purposes when they apply the digital literacy to their approach. I found a few examples that show how people from different professional fields define this terminology.

"That digital literacy is the amount of potential unlocked by the industrial revolution is dwarfed in information terms by what you can do with computers. Digital literacy is about learning to use the most powerful tools we’ve ever built"   

Ari Geshner, the senior software engineer at Palantir 

First example is  digital literacy definition through initiative of The Digital Literacy Project or DLP, founded by Harvard computer-science major students. The project has mission to help communities develop technical literacy with coding and programming. DLP developed their own digital tool for entrepreneurship to increase awareness in crowdsourcing and marketing efforts by using technology, provided new modes of communication for deaf student in Nicaragua, and remote educational program for low-income students in Hong Kong. 

Second is the concept of 'eHealth Literacy' by Norman and Skinner's. They mentioned that social media can potentially improve capacity to obtain, process, and understand health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.”(US Department of Health and Human Services, 2000) In my opinion, social media is a great ways for physicians to stay connected with patients, such as www.breastcanceranswer.com. the website is operated by physicians to exchange information with the patients. Twitter can be a very helpful medium to connect among physicians as their educational resources because post on twitter can be linked to blog with active discussion. 

May last example is Globaloria Learning Platform has a very cool approach that they teach students and young adults to develop “STEM” learning while developing digital literacy, science, technology, engineering, and math and global citizenship skills through game design. I like the idea of game designing with a goal of civic engagement literacy because this will help people learn to make game for just fun, but also stimulate them to navigate digital network from there.

In conclusion, I see that digital literacy has been applied to a lot professional fields, from computer, science, medical, architecture, to design. Not only because it is a trend to learn about coding, but I also think that it is an educational essential that people should learn to elevate literacy and skills and optimize their capacity with use of digital tools.

(true.)

Sources:

http://www.wired.com/2014/09/digital-literacy-key-future-still-dont-know-means/ 

http://www.bcmj.org/mds-be/physician-tweet-thyself-guide-integrating-social-media-medical-practice

http://ecaalyx.org/tmp/KamelBoulosChapter_social-media-for-health-literacy_WHO_THE-SOLID-FACTS_2012.pdf

http://worldwideworkshop.org/programs/globaloria/globaloria-in-action

http://www.literacy20.com/2011/07/game-design-plays-into-digital-literacy/

http://www.knightfoundation.org/blogs/knightblog/2012/1/30/teaching-digital-literacy-through-game-design/