FringeHog Friday Five: Humanization of Dogs

We’re kicking off something new on FringeHog called FringeHog Friday Five. The FringeHog Friday Five is a quick dip, (5 links) into a trend or idea we’re watching on our VERGE blog or through FringeHog Tags the World. Our inaugural FringeHog Friday Five is on the Humanization of Dogs/Pets. The links we’ve selected will give you some interesting examples of how we are humanizing our pets.

The humanization of our dogs and other pets has been gaining momentum for years. It is so ingrained in our culture that it takes an over-the-top example like Leona Helmsley leaving $12 million to her dog and nothing to two of her four grandchildren to get our attention. We think nothing of giving our furry friends human names. I stand guilty as charged, having three Pembroke Welsh Corgi rescues named Molly, Niles and Martin. We also assign human responses, traits and characteristics to our dogs. To some, pets are their babies. The humanization trend is peaking. I see hints that we’re moving on from the humanization to the objectification of dogs and pets. Think Paris Hilton and her pup Tinkerbell. Tink was Paris’ number one accessory for a while; used to complete an ensemble or simply embellish Paris’ persona.

With every trend there is a counter-trend and the one I find most interesting is the trend towards treating canines how they need to be treated, which isn’t like humans. Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer has built an empire out of teaching people not to humanize their dogs; and to instead to treat them like the canines they are. He has a devoted following and copycats are springing up. This is a counter-trend to watch.

FringeHog Friday Five: Humanization of Dogs/Pets
Pet Fashion Week took place in New York City on August 18^th and 19^th. Canine and human models hit the runway sporting couture garments designed just for the event. This might sound a bit over the top to some, but when you consider that the Pet Industry is a $40 + billion industry beating both the toy and the candy industries, you realize it should come as no surprise. Pet Fashion Week videos

Neuticles will salvage your neutered dog’s flagging self-esteem. They area patented testicular implant for your neutered dog.

Pet-tainment
A DVD to keep your pets entertained when you’re not around.

Cesar Millan, teaches people to treat dogs like dogs and in doing so you are giving them what they need.

American Pet Products Manufacturer’s Association
Great source for industry statistics and information

Just in case you didn’t know, South by Southwest Interactive just launched its interactive panel picker for SXSW 2008. The panel picker is a cool way for you to shape the programming for SXSW Interactive 08. There are over 600 panel proposals to peruse and you can vote for all of the panel proposals that you want to attend, pique your curiosity, or are proposed by folks you know. All you have to do to cast your vote is register for a *free* SXSW voting account.

Why all the info about registering and voting?

We submitted two different panel proposals:

Content 2.0: Social Media Evolved

Panelist: Sandra Burchsted, Michele Bowman, Jerry Paffendorf, and Jon Lebkowsky

Description:

Web 2.0 is transforming into Content 2.0. Learn about three social media projects that illustrate this rapidly evolving landscape; FringeHog Tags the World, an open source foresight project that’s building a visual database of trends; the Metaverse Road Map Project which explores multiple pathways to the 3D enhanced web and WorldChanging.com a network of communities that’s both virtual and physical.
Futurists’ Sandbox: Scenarios for Social Technologies in 2025

Panelist: Michele Bowman, Sandra Burchsted and Jamais Casio

Description:

What futures emerge when everything is “hyperlocal” and the boundaries between what is real and virtual disappear Take a futurists’ tour of emerging social technologies and tap into the collective genius of fellow SXSWer. In this *interactive* session, we’ll explore four scenarios about the future of social technologies in 2025.

If you find our panels interesting or if you just want to give us a five star shout out because we’re friends, we’d greatly appreciate your vote. Below you’ll find links to some of our friends who have submitted panel proposals to SXSW. Check out the 600+ proposals and take the time to give your online friends and your favorite bloggers a five star shout out. Remember, you can vote for as many as you’d like.

Thanks,

sandra

Panels proposed by our friends:

The Future is You

The Whole World is Watching

Michele and I gave a presentation on Virtual Worlds at the World Future Society Conference last week. The audience was great and we had a super time. We maintain a play list of videos that pertain to virtual worlds because we find they are one of the best tools in our arsenal to help clients understand virtual worlds. We thought we’d share the FringeHog Virtual Worlds YouTube Playlist with you. If you have a favorite video about virtual worlds share it with us.

We can build a better list with your participation.

sandra

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of participating in a panel with three fellow members of the Association of Professional Futurists: Michele Bowman, Adam Gordon of the Futures Studio, and Wayne Pethrick, Senior Design Strategist for Pitney Bowes on “What’s Happening at the Intersection of Foresight, Innovation and Design. Each of us gave our take on what happens when these three disciplines collide at the World Future Society conference.

Here’s some of what I talked about during our panel discussion.

We are moving into a new era of design, Designers R US. Which embodies four core values: collaborative, generative, open-source, and DIY. This is my view of how this new era is changing how we innovate and design.

Currently boundaries between customers and corporations are dissolving. The means of creation is transforming from one size fits all to custom fit. And people who were once seen as customers are now seen as collaborators. Now that information is an engine of commerce, it’s caused a shift in power from top down structures to flat structures. Collaboration is emerging as an engine of growth and innovation. The end result is that a new model for innovation and design is emerging. I call it Designers R Us. Let’s see how companies and individuals are capitalizing on these values to innovate and design.
Value 1 Collaborative
Here’s the story….Within weeks of Lego Mindstorms original debut a Harvard Grad and lego maniac reverse engineered the brain of the Mindstorm and posted all of his findings online including details on the brick’s underlying firmware. Others followed suit and began designing their own mindstorms tools including an open-source operating system. Lego’s first response was to attack the threat. But they didn’t. They waited a few months and decided that limiting creativity was contrary to their mission of encouraging exploration and ingenuity.

That was in 1998.

In 2004, Lego decided to try a different model . They enlisted a small cadre of passionate users, (lego maniacs) to collaborate with the Mindstorms team to design a better next gen Mindstorms product line. They e-mailed five Mindstorms fans across the United States, four responded. The Mindstorms Users Panel, Or MuPERS, spent 10 months advising Lego. And they did this work for FREE, well sort of they were paid in Legos! One of the MUPERS said of this method of payment; “They’re going to talk to us about Legos, and they’re going to pay us with Legos?”, “They actually want our opinion?’ It doesn’t get much better than that.”

Mindstorms is a huge hit. And the director of Mindstorms says, inviting customers to collaborate is a critical asset for products like Mindstorms that rely on word-of-mouth evangelism. He added that Legos Mindstorms would be a lesser product without the MUPERS.

Value 2 Generative

Limor Fried wants hardware to be free. She started her own business called Adafruit Industries based on this belief. Adafruit Industries is a small company that sell kits and parts for original electronics projects. You can go to Adafruit and purchase a make your own iPod battery-pack and recharger called the MintyBoost. Or if you don’t want to buy the kit, not a problem because Limor publishes all the schematics for all of her products so you can still make the product or use it as a platform to generate a new product of your own you can. Her most famous generative product is the the x0xb0x synthesizer. The Roland 303 Synthesizer was expensive and was about to be discontinued. So Limor got a hold of one, reverse engineered it and started selling kits. She didn’t think she’d sell but one or two kits but she was wrong. Her xOxbox took off and she still can’t keep up with the demand. Musicians have taken this open-source hardware synthesizer and used it as a platform to generate functionalities that suit their specific needs. She proposes that this is a promising model for “open source physical objects” - extending the permitted hackability of software to hardware.

Value 3 Open-Source

I Robot introduced the Roomba the round, ladybugish looking vacuuming robot in 2002 and not long after that users started hacking their vacs. In the beginning it wasn’t easy to hack into a Roomba and the I Robot folk weren’t all that thrilled about it either. However, since the release of the Roomba, I Robot has warmed to the idea of open-source by making it easier and easier for people to hack their vacs.

In Jan. of 07 I Robot finally embraced the the value of open-source and released iRobot Create kit giving hackers a better platform to work with. Not only that, they’re sponsoring the The iRobot Create Challenge. Which is a robot building contest using the I create platform. Contestants are encouraged to generate innovative robots that are functional, helpful, entertaining, whimsical or simply amazing. The top prize is $5,000

Value 4 DIY

DIY is not new, we’ve been DIYing for years, what is new is our ability to share our DIY projects with the world for altruistic reasons, for profit and just for fun. ETSY is a web-based platform for buying and selling handmade items. Think of it as an online arts and crafts fair where you can buy all things handmade from earrings, to furniture, to baby booties.

Instructables is a website and DIY platform. There you can share your projects, show people how to do them and learn from and collaborate with others.

The Universal Nut Sheller is an example of DIY altruism.

Did you know that around billion people in the world today rely on peanuts as a primary source of proteinThey are called ground nuts and are small, sun dried and very hard to shell. The job of shelling the ground nuts falls to the women in these countries and it is very hard on their hands. An inexpensive small, durable nut sheller has long been considered the holy grail of sustainable agriculture. Jock Brandis has invented just such a machine. He was asked by a group of women in Mali to invent a nut shelling machine. He went home and did just that.

A new design paradigm is emerging, Designers R US. It embodies four core values: generative, collaborative, open-source and DIY. Simply put… the future belongs to those who connect and collaborate.

Ezio Manzini, professor of industrial design, said, “Design is inseparable from its age. But its role may also be to break away from the spirit of the age and herald a new era”.

What might this mean to your organization?