HK International Design and Innovation Forum

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:41:09 +0000

香港國際設計創意研討會 HK International Design and Innovation Forum 你都可以設計俾住好D，無印良品，LEGO You can design for GOD, MUJI and LEGO too!

Thank you for coming and making this a great event!

Please share your photos on Flickr tagged with “hkdesigninnovationforum” before Sunday night. Wacom is giving away 3 Bamboo Fun S drawing tablets and we will announce the winners here on Monday. And the winner is…..

So what was the process I used and what was I looking for? I looked through the photos with Flickr Slideshow on all photos tagged with “hkdesigninnovationforum”. What I was looking for was not just beautiful portraits of the speakers, but a sense of “users participation”. After all, this was a “User Generated” event - so it is about “the people”, and that’s what I looked for in the winning photo. So, congratulations to se_ea, you’ll be contacted through Flickr mail about the prize. Thanks to everyone who share photos on Flickr. It is the best platform to share information from a photo to the world. (Facebook is only good for sharing photos with your “friends”, so it is not ideal to pool together photos for public events.) Finally, I’ve just created a cuusoo.com 空想生活 Hong Kong Group for those of you interested in design, user innovation and user generated products to stay connected with Kohei and cuusoo.com in Japan! Any other suggestions?? Let me know! Date: May 2nd, 2009 Time: 2:00pm - 5:00pm (Discussions begin at 2:30pm) **Address:**Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre 30 pak tin street, shek kip mei kowloon, hong kong

HKDUG’s Nicholas Wang is proud to have the opportunity to gather two leading luminaries of Asian design to share their experiences with you. Kohei Nishiyama, founder of the Tokyo-based online design company cuusoo.com and Douglas Young, founder of Hong Kong design-based retailer G.O.D. Both Mr. Nishiyama and Mr. Young have been hard at work pushing the design and innovation envelope for over 10 years, you will be able to hear about their experiences and what drives them to success. HKDUG的Nicholas Wang有幸邀請到亞洲設計界兩位傑出權威者將其經歷與大家分享。第一位是日本東京網上設計公司cuusoo.com的創辦人, 西山浩平先生。第二位是香港本土生活品味店「住好D」的創辦人, 楊志超先生。兩位大師致力推動並革新創意設計的界限已有逾十年經驗, 大家將可諦聽兩位的歷程及成功心得。 RSVP here! Kohei Nishiyama

Since 1997, long before the Web 2.0 trend toward co-creation, Kohei Nishiyama has been running an innovative online product development community. The system, used by the design-centric Japanese retailer MUJI and soon to be rolled out globally by LEGO, has manufacturers working with consumers to design products - from inception to manufacturing. Started off as an ideal to make “people’s wishes come true”, cuusoo.com is now synonymous with crowdsourcing. Mr. Nishiyama will be sharing with us how massive online collaboration can create sophisticated design products. 西山浩平 遠於Web 2.0成為”共同創造”概念大趨勢前的1997年起, 西山浩平早已引入一個極具創意的網上產品發展社群平台。以設計為核心的日本零售店「無印良品」以及即將全球性推行採用此方式的LEGO集團, 讓製造商從始到末與消費者共同設計產品。由最初「想令每一個人也能實現所想」的理念, 至現今的cuusoo.com已成了「群眾外包」設計的俵俵者。西山先生將與大家分享如何透過網上協作創出精緻產品。 Douglas Young

Douglas Young launched the Hong Kong-based homeware and accessories company Goods of Desire (GOD) in 1996 with a mission to bring better homegrown design into people’s lives. G.O.D., the acronym which sounds like “to live better” in Cantonese, started out by capturing Hong Kong’s icons and turning them into art forms and retail objects to be appreciated as affordable art. Mr. Young’s designs are inspired by Hong Kong’s unique cultural identity, they’re often iconic but with a twist, so people of Hong Kong can immediately identify with them, while putting a smile on their faces. Mr. Young has the foresight to begin collecting items of cultural significance more than 20 years ago, their G.O.D. Street Culture Museum is now a database for current and future designers to draw inspirations on. When Mr. Young learned of this meaningful event, he graciously accepted the invite and lend us a venue to make this happen. 楊志超 楊志超先生於1996年創辦本土生活品味店「G..O.D」的宗旨是要將優質本土設計引進港人的生活。G..O.D, 廣東話俚語即「住好啲」, 意思就是要提升生活質素, 最初將一些香港代表物融入產品, 變為讓大眾可欣賞的廉價藝術品。楊先生的設計靈感源於香港獨特的文化身份, 往往以一些大家熟悉, 而加進了鬼馬元素的設計為材, 讓港人能即時發出會心微笑。早有遠見的楊先生在20多年前已開始蒐集具文化價值的物品, 住好啲石硤HEA街頭文化館現已成為各設計師攝取靈感的資料庫。身為本地設計界權威, 楊先生得悉此活動後, 慷慨地接受邀請並騰出場地以舉行是次項目。 Thomas Crampton

One of Asia’s most influential bloggers and a career correspondent at New York Times and International Herald Tribune. Now Asia-Pacific director of Digital Influence at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, Thomas draws deep experience from both the old and new media world. You can read his blog at http://www.thomascrampton.com. Thomas will lead Mr. Nishiyama and Mr. Young in panel discussion in the first half of the event. All attendees will be invited to join in on discussions in the second half. 亞洲其中一位最具影響力的網誌人兼國際先驅導報及紐約時報記者, 現任奧美公共關係國際集團360 Digital Influence的亞太總監。Thomas Crampton先生是新舊傳媒界的資深人士。大家可到www.thomascrampton.com細閱其網路日誌。Thomas Crampton先生將會於活動時間的首半節主持有西山先生及楊先生發表意見的專題討論, 然後於後半節邀請在場參加者一起投入討論。 Nicholas Wang

The organizer behind this event, Nick is an Internet and Social Media expert with experience at some of the largest Internet companies like Yahoo! and Microsoft MSN.com. Having spent half of his life living and working in the US, he envisions the loss of Hong Kong’s competitive edge if the people of Hong Kong continue to abandon long term investments in creative designs and I.T. expertise. Nick is now actively involved in the HKDUG - Hong Kong Drupal User Group, social media communities, and founded Sharingan Consulting as a mean to pursue his vision of a digital future of Hong Kong. 負責是次活動的節目統籌。Nicholas Wang是曾任職雅虎及微軟MSN.com等網絡鉅子的網絡科技與社會媒體專家。主要於美國生活的他預料香港人若繼續漠視創意設計和資訊科技這些長線投資便會失掉競爭優勢。Nicholas Wang現致力實現其對香港數碼未來的願景, 並活躍於香港Drupal User Group及其他社群媒體。 Facebook Event Page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=160525385437 Thomas Crampton’s Blog Entry: http://www.thomascrampton.com/hong-kong/meet-2-great-asian-designers-in-hong-kong/ Nick’s Blog Entry: http://cloneofsnake.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/hong-kong-international-design-and-innovation-forum

Twitter tag hkdesigninnovationforum

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Hong Kong only cares about money, lacks innovation

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:38:14 +0000

(Rant!) Generally speaking, that is. I’m sure there are some innovators in Hong Kong too, but from what I can see, Hong Kong people and businesses can be summarized in the following few points:

Most people either work in (or want to work in) banks, insurance, or sales
Most people only care finding a job that makes more money
People would spend that money in foreign brand name goods
Local goods are seen as “cheap” and therefore can only command a low price
Businesses are either small retail shops, textile manufacturing in Chna, or cell phone / mobile phone, laptop covers (they have covers for everything!) (Sarcasm)

It’s really quite sad. Today, I went to meet with a company’s owner whom I thought may be a good local partner for future web development and retail supply logistic. However, I was disappointed to learn that he really doesn’t have a direction for this company. His main concern seems to be to just hang on to their biggest client, and continue to support their intranet, which they developed.

I don’t know if it’s a Chinese thing, but I get the feeling that as a race, we really need to learn some basic economics - “Supply & Demand”… It seems like all Chinese people know to do is to “be cheap”! Sell shit as cheap as possible!! Anyway, here in Hong Kong, designers really have it tough! My wife was a talented accessories designer in New York. She commanded a salary of US$ 70+K / year and could singlehandedly design an entire line of handbags for each season, from start to finish, including flying to Hong Kong to work with the manufacturers. Now however, even though the company she worked for wants her to continue to work for them after she moved to Hong Kong permanently, they don’t want to pay her a US salary anymore! The fact is, American companies are used to hiring people in Hong Kong for less than HKD 15000 a month (roughly US$1900 a month, or $23K a year!!) That’s the typical salary for an experienced designer in Hong Kong! So, even though my wife will be doing the same thing as she did in New York, those companies will not pay her the same salary, simply because the market rate is low like dirt! Why does it have to be this way? Why are untalented designers in New York getting paid as much as $90K a year, while designers in Hong Kong, which often have to come up with designs themselves, plus fix the sketches from New York designers to make them work, then travel to factories in China to do some of the tougher designs hands on, work late and work on Saturdays… only to get paid 1/4 or 1/5 of their New York counterpart?! Before I leave Hong Kong, I hope to do something good for the locals. Hong Kong doesn’t have any big internet destination like the Amazon.com for shopping, or tripadvisor.com for travels… currently, I’m thinking of creating a good, Chinese / English bi-lingual travel & food community based on Drupal. (Drupal 6 possess that localization options, but the problem is most of the modules are not ready for D6 yet.) Chinese people are notorious for eating all sorts of shit, and personally, I am against people drinking Shark-fin soup. I hope to create a registry to take advantage of the current “environmentally conscious” market, to hopefully drive business to restaurants that complies to international conservation laws of efforts. Hopefully, I can create something meaningful and benefits our planet. That, to me, means so much more than just creating wealth for myself.

Comments

Angus Lau — 2008-05-09 23:08:32

Hi nice to meet you. Couldn’t agree more with your post, but there is a small group of web entrepreneurs here, so send me an email when you get a chance and lets hook up.

Environmentally Friendly, Sustainable food supplies - Crowdsourcing meets Food meets Travel | My Journey to Japan — 2008-05-29 00:36:52

[…] mentioned before, I am creating a product that Hong Kong people can be proud of - a community to help people make environmentally friendly choices on food. I have spoken with some business partners and friends and we are all very excited about the […]

Innovation on Nick Wang

HK International Design and Innovation Forum

Thank you for coming and making this a great event!

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Hong Kong only cares about money, lacks innovation

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