Yesterday
I found myself in downtown Toronto a half hour before my business
appointment, so I decided, as research for yesterday's
article on paying attention, to
spend that time really observing -- looking for confusion, barriers,
wear patterns, user torture and duct-tape and string workarounds, and
also for ideas and opportunities that might have application more
broadly or elsewhere. In just 30 minutes I came up with the following
observations, surprising myself at how quickly, after just five minutes
of practice, I started noticing things and identifying ideas based on
those observations.
- Pets and children
welcome: There was a small library on the block where I was making
observations, and on the gate to it there was a sign with a picture of
a dog with a loose leash, and below it a picture of a child holding an
adult's hand. Both pictographs were surrounded by a green circle,
instead of the usual red circle with a slash. I have never seen a sign welcoming
well-behaved pets and supervised children before. Why not? When I went
to my appointment, the president of the company introduced me to her
dog at the door to her office. Children and pets are humanizing
influences in everything we do, so why do we so thoughtlessly shut them
out of so many places? If we were to print up and give away 'pets and
children welcome' signs, could we simply transform our cities into
warmer, friendlier places? Could we, just by doing so, make everyone
more aware of the need to accommodate not only the needs of children
and pets (so much of our urban environment is overtly hostile to both)
but diversity in general, and make us all a little more open-minded,
more tolerant, more aware of the needs of others?
- Where's the nearest
parking spot?: I watched cars circle a dozen times or more looking for
scarce parking spots on the street or in the tiny lots off the main
drag. We have cell phones that can talk to vending machines and pay for
merchandise electronically. Why not have parking meters, and parking
lots, that, when there are spots available, send out a beacon that the
small computers in today's cars could 'read'? This is not rocket
science, and could save an enormous amount of wasted time and fuel. If
my car can tell me the best route to take from A to B, why can't it
also tell me where the closest parking spot to B is?
- Zoom, zoom: I noticed
both pedestrians and drivers straining to read signs and street numbers
and other information that was just too small to read from a distance.
I saw one pedestrian with a digital camera use his zoom lens to hone in
on some flowers on a balcony on the other side of the street (I think
-- either that or he was a Peeping Tom). Why don't we have a zoom lens
for everyday use? Could we fit such a lens into sunglasses, or
cellphones, or MP3 players? And could it double as a magnifier for
small print (on maps and CD booklets, for example)? Could such
technology actually extend our vision, and increase our powers of
observation?
- Wheels on shoes: Two
people passed by in wheelchairs, navigating the whole block without
difficulty or assistance. The world has become much more
wheelchair-accessible, I've noticed, but in North America at least it
remains largely roller-blade and bicycle hostile. It occurred to me
that you can now go almost anywhere on wheels (physically, if not
legally). I remember a recent fad for kids of sneakers with retractable
wheels (or were they rollers)? What happened to that? Why hasn't this
caught on for adults, when wheels are just a more efficient way to move
around (most of the time) than our high-friction feet? Surely
technology can solve the safety and speed issues that such wheels might
pose, and exploit the ubiquitousness of surfaces already designed
specifically for people who live their lives on wheels?
- Language as art: The
name of the aforementioned library was in Inuktitut, the phonetic
alphabet (see complete alphabet above) adopted by the Aleut peoples of Canada's North (and also, I am
told, by the Cree). So Mahsinahhekahnikahmik
looks like:
 .
These letters have such flow, such expression compared to our harsh,
angular letters. And because, like Arabic letters, a single 'letter'
stands for a consonant and its following vowel, it's also economical.
Is there an opportunity to do this for English? And can letters, even
those that are phonetic rather than ideographic, actually become art,
enhancing rather than diminishing the urban landscape? - The joy of umbrellas:
In this part of Toronto there are still balconies everywhere, and
restaurants use decks and rooftops as their al fresco dining areas (and
last-ditch smoking areas). These spaces are covered with a profusion of
brightly-coloured table umbrellas, a veritable riot of colour, and they
are delightful, inviting, chaotic. These umbrellas are presumably
furnished by the beverage companies that bear their names at little or
no cost to the restaurant. Why can't we all buy them, and why aren't
they to be found brightening up other places than just restaurants? The
outside (or even inside!) areas of school and company lunchrooms. Over
park picnic tables. Anywhere where people wait or gather outdoors.
- Using flat roofs: And while we're on the subject of rooftop restaurant patios, why are so many flat rooftops in the city used for nothing?
They could be made into meeting-places for apartment dwellers, thinking
places with astonishing and inspiring views for workers in office
buildings. Yeah, I know, the lawyers won't let the rooftops be used in
case someone falls off (or gets pushed, or jumps). But surely there's a
way to solve that problem. It seems like such a waste of wonderful
space. In Stockholm people have gardens on their downtown roofs. What's
the matter with us?
- Fonts as history:
The part of Toronto I was observing is old, and recently there has been
a nostalgic rediscovery of the beauty of old things. I noticed that
many of the new signs in the area use old fonts -- flowery scripts, big
clunky block letters and other extravagant and anachronistic typefaces.
These have unique and extraordinary personalities, and imbue the places
where they are found with a genuine flavour for the culture and
lifestyle of these forgotten times. I looked through all the fonts on
my computer and discovered that this rich and varied history and
profusion of different type styles has been jettisoned in favour of
clear, simple, utilitarian styles. This is a kind of voluntary poverty
of expression.
If I could come up with these in just a half hour of consciously paying
attention, think of what we all could do if we practiced doing this
regularly, and if there were some mechanism for taking this torrent of
observations, anecdotes and ideas, qualifying them, and implementing
them as true innovations. Perhaps we all need to get out more, with no
destination or purpose other than just relearning to pay attention and
think about what it all means, and what we could do, simply, inexpensively, creatively, to make everyone's life better.
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
