Explore every episode of the podcast Design Tomorrow
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phones Never Die. They're Eaten By Birds | 09 Sep 2019 | 00:33:38 | |
Can we really call it progress when it creates so much waste? What if your phone — the one you’re using right now — was your last phone? Take a good look at it and imagine using it for the rest of your life. Could it even last that long? Could you? Probably not. Today I want to think about what that means. What happens to a planet and its people when technological progress is measured in product cycles. And what happens when there's no balance sheet to account for the other side of that — when every new product leaves billions of products and accessories and packaging behind… Show Notes
Music All music used in this episode was independently produced by r beny and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| You Don't Have to Be an Entrepreneur, Part 2 | 26 Aug 2019 | 00:23:07 | |
Every discussion of entrepreneurship is really a discussion about values. Today, we'll follow up on last week's episode, where we began a discussion of entrepreneurship by resetting that idea — by challenging the story of entrepreneurship. We contrasted the protagonist — the hero CEO — with the reality of who we are. And we contrasted the plot — the capitalistic, meritocratic variant of the hero's journey — with the meandering serendipity of our lives' paths. But dismantling one story doesn't write ours for us. And so that's where we'll pick up today — with how we begin — by identifying, examining, and ordering our values so that they may serve as a foundation for the creative and productive lives we build upon them… Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The Last Thing We Need Are Smartphones | 08 Apr 2019 | 00:22:22 | |
When so many problems of existence remain unsolved, we haven't earned the luxury of smartphones. So this is an intervention. A challenge to the status quo of waste and distraction and triviality and short-term pile-on that is our way of life here in 2019... Links
Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Behind Every Robot | 25 Mar 2019 | 00:34:24 | |
What is it about robots that compels us to create them? And what does it say about a culture that makes machine surrogates despite not having reached a consensus about why to make them in the first place? In this episode, we'll explore the robots taking over our world, and the agenda behind them... Links
Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The Real Value of Ideas | 11 Mar 2019 | 00:19:54 | |
What are our ideas worth? Are they as valuable as we think they are? And what might change about how we act on our ideas once we start thinking differently about how we value them and how unique they really are? In this episode, we'll explore how simultaneous ideas and discoveries throughout history show that ideas and minds probably work differently than we think... Links
Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| How to Make Good Things | 26 Feb 2019 | 00:16:26 | |
They say that practice makes perfect. I'll settle for "practice makes good," thank you very much! In this episode of Design Tomorrow, we'll explore what it means to practice - what there is in repetition that can help us to get better. Not just at what we do, but also at who we are. Links
Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co.Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Computer World | 11 Feb 2019 | 00:23:33 | |
There are very few people left on Earth for whom the world isn't shaped by computers or seen through their screens. But does it have to be this way? In this episode, we'll explore how screens — and the images they reveal — are just as much a manifestation of the world from which they come as they are the raw materials of a story about the next one: the future... Links
Music With the exception of a brief sample from a live performance of Kraftwerk in 1978, all music used in this episode was independently produced and shared with Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use by Able Parris of kamuter.
Some of My Favorite Independent Media
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| This Creation of Our Genius | 28 Jan 2019 | 00:26:02 | |
As long as we've been self-aware, we've desired companionship. And yet, we are not enough for one another; we hunger for something more - something that folklore, imaginary friends, and now technology have attempted to satisfy. Today, we stand at a crossroads beyond which is a future full of artificial lives. What kinds of minds will we create for ourselves? And what kind of future will those minds make for us? Links
Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| How to Get Your Time Back | 14 Jan 2019 | 00:25:14 | |
The more time passes, the faster it feels it's moving. It's an illusion, of course, but does that really matter? If you feel like it's moving faster, it might as well be. The shrinkiness of time is part of the human condition. But the secret you may not know is that you can slow it down. You can get your time back. Here are eight ways... Links
Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Ticking Progress Bombs | 01 Jan 2019 | 00:15:43 | |
Progress is something we all try to work toward, but how do we really know if we're making any? And if progress isn’t permanent, is it progress at all? In this episode, we'll explore progress and the ways that certain forms of it actually trap us in the past... Links
Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The Voice Interface | 20 Nov 2018 | 00:21:23 | |
We're all using voice interfaces now — a thing of science fiction now very much in our reality. But it turns out that feelings — things like fear, loneliness, trust, and desire — play just as much of a role in the way these machines work than do databases and code... Links
Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The Power of Perspective | 01 Nov 2018 | 00:16:59 | |
In a world as crowded with technological tools for measuring our progress as ours is, sometimes the best way to see how far we've come is, literally, in our own hands and on our own faces. In this episode, we'll discuss a simple exercise you can do to test your perspective and how well it accounts for other people, not just you. Links A 30-second test to determine whether your boss is a gem or a jerk Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. After-Credits Links
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| You Don't Have to Be an Entrepreneur | 19 Aug 2019 | 00:24:06 | |
Entrepreneurship doesn’t have to mean what you think it means. Over the course of the next two episodes, I'd like to share with you how my own perspective on “entrepreneurship” has evolved, and offer a critique of the sameness of the popular model of the entrepreneur. I'll also give you eight little nuggets of wisdom that have been helpful to me on my journey so far, and only grow in their value to me as it continues… Show Notes
Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| What is real? | 16 Oct 2018 | 00:22:00 | |
It may sound like a rhetorical question, but asking "what is real?" is becoming more and more a practical inquiry into the nature of our everyday experience. In this episode of Design Tomorrow, we'll imagine a future — not too far off — where the lines between real and something else will be so blurry that we'll probably need a whole new category of technology to help us bring them back into focus... Links Music Cathedral Redwoods, by r beny Hallon, by Christian Bjoerklund Novation Peak Ambient, by r beny Oella, by r beny Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw, visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, or email Chris directly at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. After-Credits Links
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Design is Art with Rules | 02 Oct 2018 | 00:15:42 | |
There is no good definition of design. In this episode, Chris talks about what distinguishes design from art, and how accountability plays a unique role in making the distinction clear. Links 4'33", by John Cage The scene sampled at the end of the episode is from "A Matter of Perspective," Season 3, Episode 14 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. You can view the clip here. Music Wilt, by r beny Mercurial Vision, by Blue Dot Sessions ektar, by r beny Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw, visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, or email Chris directly at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. After-Credits Links An Open Letter to Managers of Women Victorians Wanted to Contact Aliens Using Giant Mirrors Study Finds That People’s Brains Show a Neural Spike When a Friend’s Brain is Stimulated 3,000 year old intact ostrich egg Principles of Two-Dimensional Design, by Wucius Wong Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| How to Think About the Future | 18 Sep 2018 | 00:20:32 | |
We all think about the future. Probably more than we're even aware. But, is thinking about the future useful? Does thinking about the future actually help us make one that's better? In this episode of Design Tomorrow, we'll talk about the future. Not a specific future, but the possibility of one. And what it means to envision the future — practically — in a way that both shapes our present and ensures progress... Links Traction, by Gino Wickman Music Winter Tracks, by r beny Refraction, by Podington Bear Hallon, by Christian Bjoerklund Vernal Bloom, by r beny Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw, visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, or email Chris directly at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. After-Credits Links
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Active Erasure | 04 Sep 2018 | 00:16:14 | |
In this episode, Chris tells a story about a drawing professor who taught him about not just identifying the negative space in our thoughts and actions, but something he called active erasure, and how being intentional about the act of taking things out can not only improve the work we do, but change its very nature... Links How to Grow an Idea, by Jenny Odell Music Raro Bueno, by Chuzausen Veins of Silver, by Blue Dot Sessions Bathyscaphe, by r beny Credits You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw, just leave all the vowels out. That's @ D S G N T M R R W. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. After-Credits Links
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Getting Out of Our Own Way | 23 Aug 2018 | 00:17:50 | |
In this episode, Chris talks about what it means for designers to get out of their own way, and he shares a couple of ways he's made that not only more possible in his life, but more natural to his day to day. Things Mentioned in the Show “I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I am doing." Said by John Cage. The full quote is, "I am trying to check my habits of seeing, to counter them for the sake of greater freshness. I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I am doing." I'm honestly not sure what the original source of this quote is; it's been quoted in thousands of secondary sources, though. 4'33", by John Cage Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw, visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, or email Chris directly at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. After-Credits Links
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The Magic of Ordinary Objects | 23 Aug 2018 | 00:19:52 | |
In this episode, Chris talks about appreciating the design of everyday objects, minimalism, and how some objects can reflect a life well lived. Links I mentioned a bunch of objects I own that I especially value. Only some can be found online, so this is a partial list:
If you don't know the Spin Doctors song I referenced, congratulations. If you can't handle not knowing it, you can listen to it here. Ubik is a book by Philip K. Dick. You should read it. Bruce Sterling coined the term "Spime" in his book, Shaping Things. You should read that, too. Music All music featured in this episode (except for the tiny bit of Two Princes) is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw, just leave all the vowels out. That's @ D S G N T M R R W. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. After Credits Links
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The Future vs. The Future | 05 Aug 2019 | 00:32:40 | |
Every vision of the future is a better index of the present from which it came than whatever time it imagines. So today, let's look back at some of the things we believed would serve as landmarks of the future. Not to point out how quaint they are or to dunk on the blind spots of the past. But so that we can better understand why — no matter what shiny new objects we make and use — we never quite feel like we've gotten to the future. Why it's so difficult to recognize how far we've come… Show Notes
Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Words Matter | 22 Jul 2019 | 00:17:05 | |
Too often we think of the word "design" as a shorthand for an ecosystem of mostly visual phenomena. But words play an enormous, though often unseen, role in the creation of everything. Today, I want to tell you a story about how my life was changed by a few words said quickly, but words which I will never forget... Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| A.I. Ain't that I. | 17 Jun 2019 | 00:19:05 | |
The majority of our clicking and tapping is a repetitive act of information management. Isn't A.I. supposed to help us with this? Don't hold your breath... Today, on Design Tomorrow, in the tradition of the rantiest of rants, I'd like to, well, rant about a few things. About AI and us, about wasted time and wasting of the land, and about the lowing and highing of design... Links
Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The Glove, the Display, and the Possible Future | 03 Jun 2019 | 00:22:36 | |
Is technology a means to an end — the ladder we climb to a future we want to inhabit because it's better for us than the present — or is it as far as we let our minds and hearts go? In this episode of Design Tomorrow, we'll connect a few stories about technology that didn't make it in order to better understand the technological path our culture is on... Links
Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Ugh. Advertising. | 20 May 2019 | 00:37:36 | |
Does advertising still make sense in our world today? How does a form of media always known as an associated form — as something that sips from the attention river flowing to and from other things — function when the complexity of those waterways has exponentially increased? Links
Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| The Interface and Me | 06 May 2019 | 00:34:13 | |
Are interfaces good? Or are they a distraction — for us the makers, and for the users we believe we are helping? How can we think better about both how we interface with digital experiences, personally, and how others do it? Today, we'll think deeply about the nature of the interface — what it is, and what it says about us, the people who made it — and explore the need for new rules for better interface-making... Links
Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||
| Useful Fictions | 22 Apr 2019 | 00:23:08 | |
We live in a time of illusions. Simulations that reflect back upon us more than just the passage of time, but something important about who we are. Something unique is going on right now — with the tools and technology we have — that is giving us the ability to stop, stretch, bend, and replay time. In this episode, we'll explore what that offers us, we for whom at some point, time will end... Links
Music All music used in this episode is independently produced and licensed by Design Tomorrow for non-commercial use.
Credits Design Tomorrow is produced by Chris Butler at the Tomorrow office in Durham, NC. You can follow the show on Twitter @dsgntmrrw. You can visit the show's website at designtomorrow.co, and you can email me at chris @ designtomorrow.co. Thanks for listening, and remember, what we do and think today can create a better tomorrow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | |||