The Refinement Club

There’s nothing cooler and more exciting than toys. Toymakers are quick at adopting new technologies and applying them in unexpected ways to make fun, engaging and addictive toys. So we thought it would be interesting to take a look at what the future of toys beholds.

There are some properties we think every fun and long lasting toy should have:

1. The toy should be versatile and work in many different ways and situations.
2. It should spark our imagination.
3. It should contribute to one’s development, or be educational, in some way or the other.

But most of all the toy should be fun to play with, both with friends and alone.

If we manage to come up with some ideas for new toys that nail more than one of these three points in addition to being fun, we think we have something exciting!

Join us and share your ideas on the Future of Toys at 657 Tuesday – May 21st, 18:00.

Join the Facebook event to share and get ideas, updates and inspiration.

Some inspiration:

• The 5 Best Toys of All Time
• Alice Taylor: Inventing the Future of Toys
• Tactile Digital Play, Part 1: Sifteo Cubes and Hasbro Zapped Toys
• A Future Of Toys And iPads
• The joy, wonder, and weirdness of Toy Fair 2013
• Top 12 New Toys at Toy Fair That Make You Want to Be a Kid Again 

Two weeks ago we held a MassRefinement about Urban Farming. We were a diverse group of people, some with extensive knowledge on the subject while some of us brought more enthusiasm than farming skills to the table … Which is a good thing! A mix of people generates the best ideas, we believe, and this bunch of people inspired some great conversations and ideas.

We set out with a challenge: ”How can we convince more people that urban farming is a good idea and help them discover the resources that are out there?” Read on to get the essence of what we talked about.

If any of these ideas inspire you to take action, contact us at post@therefinementclub.com and we’ll put you in touch with the right people.

We organized all the ideas in different actions; Inform, Recruit and Meet, let’s start by digging into the ideas on how to inform!

INFORM
First of all we need to inform people about urban farming and show the possibilities. Let people see the joy and fruits of farming at home. 

Reality show
A reality show we’d actually like to watch! The idea is that we can follow a family or several through a season. Every week they get new challenges to solve, like growing herbs inside, making a window farm, build a small green house on the balcony, make and maintain a vermicompost etc. In classic reality makeover style they get help from professionals to get started, and who evaluate their efforts. The point is that as they learn, we the viewers learn as well. People talk about the tv shows they watch, and hopefully a show like this would get people talking about urban farming. And it would make it seem easier to start growing your own food!

The reality show could of course be a big tv-show on national tv, but it could also work online where the families run their own blogs and share their experience through text, pictures and video. The viewers/readers could engage and help out with advice and tips, or ask for help themselves.

Show off
Get more urban farms into the face of people. Into the streets. Let people smell the roses. Several people are working to do this, but we feel it needs to be accompanied by more information. How about adding small signs which says something about the plant in question and gives some tips on how you can grow it at home? 

RECRUIT
Secondly we should recruit people. Make some gateway drugs that get people hooked on growing plants and craving more. 

Pass it on
What if everybody who plants and practice urban farming became ambassadors and shared their love and passion for plants? A quite easy and fun way to do it would be to pass on a plant. Just give a plant to a friend who you think would appreciate to take care of it. This will hopefully work like a charm and get your friend hooked on growing plants. Just pass it on.

This could easily be marketed through growing communities like Majobo and so on.

Starterkits for sale
Small and simple kits with a easy growing plant, like cucumber. The package should be accompanied by easy and simple guidance, both text and videos on YouTube that help you out with sowing and caring for your plants.

“Maternity groups”
It’s good to have someone to talk to about your plants, someone who’s in the same situation as you. So we came up with the idea of giving seed buyers access to a sort of maternity group. You buy a bag of seeds and on the bag there’s a unique number you register with on a web site. By doing that you automatically joined with a group of up to nine other people who have bought the same seeds. The web service is a mini social network for urban farmers, specified by type of seed, where they can share experiences, photos and get help and tips from each other.

MEET
When we’ve gotten people hooked on growing plants it’s time to leverage their passion and knowledge and to get them to help each other out.

We’d like a meeting point, both digital and physical place, where information on urban farming in Oslo is collected. A place where experts can give guidance and you can find related products, books and courses. A place where people who are interested can become part of a community, where they share knowledge and advice. A place for distribution, information and making connections.

It would be perfect if this also could be the place where Oslo Kooperativ set up their weekly deliveries.

Everyone in the group felt the need for this kind of meeting place, but Annikken went as far as to give it a name, and we love it; “Oslo Mikrodyrkeri” (it’s one of those nontranslateable things, but it’s a play on “microbrewery”)!

Pop-up restaurant
In connection to this meeting place there could be a pop-up restaurant where groups of people could bring their own produce and a professional cook would make them a meal with the ingredients they bring. In this way the cook could inspire people with new ways to use the results of their urban farming work.

Thank you to all of you who came, it was a great session! Do share your thoughts and new ideas on facebook.

Hope you can join us for MassRefinement #09: The Future of Toys on Tuesday May 21st.

The MassRefinement we had on Urban Farming went great! It was an awesome group of engaged people, and we came up with some excellent ideas on how to get more people into urban farming. We’re working on the summary, but in the meantime here are some resources that was recommended.

One of the participants was Ingvil who has vermicompost at home. She told us how amazing soil the worms make and shared this video of how to get started. Check it out!

Annikken is engaged in several urban farming projects, among other things she’s involved with Geitmyra and Geitmyra Hønselag (urban chickens!). She recommends that you also follow Herligheten, GrowlabOslo, Geitmyra matkultursenter for barn and ByBi on Facebook to stay posted on all the urban green stuff happening in Oslo.

Tarek works with MAJOBO, the organization that inspired us before our workshop. He left very inspired and that made us very happy. Tarek made us aware of that MAJOBO often arranges hands-on workshops, like beginners course for balcony gardeners, so follow them on Facebook for updates and tips!

Tim mentioned a kickstarter project to Johannes who was initially sceptic, but then he went home and bought one. Apparently so did everyone else so we have to wait until this amazing “Smart Herb Garden” is out on the market. Pretty neat!

Thanks to all of you who came and contributed with your ideas and resources! As mentioned we’re working on contextualizing all the ideas and we will post them next week organized by “Inform”, “Recruit” and “Meet”.

We were really lucky with our timing on this MassRefinement, because MAJOBO (an organisation that works to promote organic cultivation in the community) had put together an inspiration night the week before our workshop!

We went there to be inspired and informed, and of course so that we could share what we learned with you. We hope this will get you all geared up to share ideas on how to bring more urban farming to Oslo.

Is food grown in Oslo safe to eat?

Erik Joner, a scientist from Bioforsk, has run tests on food grown several different places in the center of Oslo. He concluded with that it is perfectly safe to eat urban grown vegetables with normal use. Very little of pollutants from the earth are taken up by the plants, and you can remove most of the pollutants from the air by rinsing the vegetables. In addition, by not using pesticides you can decrease the amount of toxins you eat.

Herligheten allotment gardens (The Glory)

Vibeke Hermanrud from Bjørvika Development talked about this years projects and activities in Herligheten allotment gardens in Bjørvika. There are plenty of exciting things happening in this construction area, and it’s really cool that the area can be used in this way in the meantime.

Check out the timelapse of the making of Herligheten here.

In addition to the garden, they have established a field of heritage grain. This year the Flatbread Society will start up Bakehouse Bjørvika: 

“Bakehouse Bjørvika will be a public baking facility housed within an experimental architectural structure in Bjørvika. A multi-functional oven will facilitate various types of bread baking, smoking and cooking. The heat from the ovens will heat seating.”

BYBI (City bee)

We’ve heard about BYBI before, since one of our regular AfterWorkShop’ers Mikkel is part of this project. Entrepreneurs and beekeepers Anne Dubrau and Ragna Ribe Jørgenen informed us about bees, beekeeping and their project.

Did you know that Norway most probably has the most healthy bees in the world? This is because of the Norwegian Beekeeper organisation’s breeding program. And that bees are bred to be nice and calm? Anne is actually allergic to bees and have several hives in her garden without problems.

BYBI is a great project, bees actually thrive in the city! Different pollen has different nutrients, and bees need the biological diversity of urban areas.

If you would like to join BYBI and keep bees they arrange beginner classes. If you just would like some honey without all the work, they also need gardens and roofs to place the hives. Domestic bees are one of the most important food producers we have, so let’s pitch in!

Coworking space gets roof garden

The community organisation MESH is making a collective roof garden, and Mads Pålsrud, the founder of GrowLAB Oslo, is helping them. They’ve had two workshops so far and we’re looking forward to the solutions they develop for a pitched roof garden!

This was some of what was talked about, and we highly recommend checking out MAJOBO and GrowLAB. They’re great resources! The conclusion for the research we’ve done is that there’s a lot of engaged and inspiring people in this city, working to get more urban farming to Oslo.

What we see is that the challenge we should focus on is how can we convince more people that urban farming is a good idea and help them discover the resources that are out there? 

Join us for MassRefinement 08 on Tuesday the 23rd, 18.00 at 657 to share your ideas. Here’s the Facebook event.

We had a poll on facebook on what topics people were interested in and one of the options was urban farming. As you can see it didn’t end up as the most popular one, but since we have been discussing it a lot lately and spring is upon us it seems like a perfect topic for the eight MassRefinement. We’ll do toys next time, promise.

Why do we want to invite you to a workshop about urban farming?

We’re very lucky in Norway and most people don’t need to grow their own food out of necessity. But we believe urban farming is important for several reasons.

• First of all the joy of growing your own food. Using homegrown herbs, tomatos, peppers and other vegetables in your cooking feels special.
• Secondly, it’s educational; if more city people understand the effort involved with producing food and get to appreciate the taste of good quality, they will see the real value of the produce they take for granted and be willing to pay more for it.
• In addition, we simply believe it’s good for us to bring more nature into city life.

What do you think? Join us for a Massrefinement on urban farming, and let’s find some ideas and solutions to how we can bring more urban farming to Oslo.

Join the event on Facebook.

Where: 657, Fredensborgveien 24D, 0177 Oslo

When: 18.00-22.00, Tuesday April 23rd

We’ve decided to stop having AfterWorkShops and go back to arranging MassRefinements. The reason is that there didn’t seem to be a need for spaces where people could meet and work on their own projects, people came for the discussions. Unfortunately, we don’t have the time to prepare and arrange proper workshops once a week, so we think it’s better to do so once a month.

There will be MassRefinements on the following dates before summer:

• April 23 (Urban farming)
• May 21 (tba)
• June 18 (tba)

The nice people at 657 will let us continue to use their space, so hope to see you there once a month at 18.00!

If you’d like to influence what topics we will discuss, vote here.

Follow us on Facebook for more information :)

We’ve been talking about transhumanism and the future of an enhanced body and mind. Since there’s been so much focus on Google Glass lately we ended up spending much of our time talking about ideas and wants for further use of it. While what we’ve seen from Glass is quite impressive it’s also quite basic functions at the moment, not anything you can’t do with your phone, so here’s some wants and thoughts for the future of Google Glass.

Contextual data

We want Glass to give us contextual data about our surroundings. Relevant information based on your current situation, for example, it could pick up on key phrases during conversations and meetings and give you more information when needed. Like when we started discussing how many people Socrates meant the ideal polis should consist of, the word “polis” and “Socrates” came up several times and would trigger Glass to get the relevant information without the conversation stalling and someone getting distracted on the interwebz …

It would also be very helpful during a workout – showing heart rate, hydration level, need for electrolytes or other key vitals. Or let you have a virtual competitor running by your side or in front of you.

With the inclusion of a thermographic camera Glass could help you out with cooking. By converting the information to show core temperature, and prompt you when the meat is rare enough and the vegetables just right and so on. And by recording everything you eat it would definitely help with dieting, e.g. calorie tracking using image recognition.

Looking out the window and into the sky would give you more information about the weather – like humidity, temperature, wind speed and other basic weather data including the forecast. Tips on what would be appropriate to wear could follow.

Then we have the learning possibilities! Imagine being in biology class, going out into the forest and really see how photosynthesis works!

And of course guided instruction would be a key feature. Both for professionals like engineers, surgeons, construction workers etc. but also for home projects. Wouldn’t it be appreciated to get guided help to setup our IKEA furniture or fix a leaking faucet?

When it comes to journalism and crowd sourced information, this would be a game changer. Imagine being able to switch view to another person on the other side of the world, giving you a whole new perspective?

And it seems like the virtual entertainment future that’s been predicted for ages is finally close. Your life can be turned into a game and enemies can be on every other corner. Video games and live roleplaying could totally merge. Now, where’s that haptic suit?

Google Glass has plenty of potential and we can’t wait to see what people will do with it once it’s out. If the speech recognition is good enough to make navigation natural.

Transhumanism is an exciting topic that we’ll definitely revisit, but what would you want to use Google Glass for?

On my vacation I got through 3 novels on the topic of transhumanism. I wouldn’t call it high quality literature, but they’re definitely entertaining and worth a read if you’re interested in the subject.

Most important though, they raise some thought-provoking questions. I’m very much intrigued by the thought of getting enhanced or amped, but the societal challenges are daunting.

I haven’t read “Nexus” yet, but I’m looking forward to it. Have you read any other novels on the subject you can recommend?

– Gro

“Amped” by Daniel H. Wilson

“Some people are implanted with upgrades that make them capable of superhuman feats. The powerful technology has profound consequences for society, and soon a set of laws is passed that restricts the abilities - and rights - of ‘amplified’ humans.” – Amazon

“Wired” and “Amped” (sequel) by Douglas E. Richards

“Kira Miller is a brilliant genetic engineer who discovers how to temporarily achieve savant-like capabilities in all areas of thought and creativity. But what if this transcendent level of intelligence brings with it a ruthless megalomania?” – Amazon

“Nexus” by Ramez Naam

“In the near future, the experimental nano-drug Nexus can link human together, mind to mind. There are some who want to improve it. There are some who want to eradicate it. And there are others who just want to exploit it.” – Amazon

As you might guess, the topic for our next AfterWorkShop is “Transhumanism” – join us if you’re in Oslo!

The topic of our last AfterWorkShop was how we could improve the way we consume news and current affairs. But we ended up with three ideas on how we could become more knowledgeable. Or more well rounded as we like to call it. Here’s last two ideas which are more related to learning new knowledge. 

Imagine you’re invited to a dinner at your friends’ place. She’s a scientist hooked on fantasy and science fiction. You don’t know anything about either advanced science nor fantasy or science fiction. You need to brush up on your knowledge and get some easy talking starters.

Okay, so when is the dinner? This weekend, sure, that means that we have four days to get you fit for fight. What do you already know about the topic? Not much it appears. Just a minute and we’re good to go.

When you have selected the topics you need to learn about, you’re presented with a quiz about the topic. The result of the quiz gives the system good indications of your knowledge level. Based on the quiz results and how much time you got, the system tailors a knowledge program. The more time you got, the more thorough, the less time you got, the more superficial. Now the learning is up to you.

Naturally this would be a mobile enabled system, which you can use when time is at your hand. Open the system and you’re presented with tailored pieces of useful knowledge and fun facts about the topic. As you progress, the knowledge program becomes more advanced. 

You can extend your knowledge program to make you into a more well rounded person with diversified knowledge, which again helps you out when you’re out socializing.

But what if you’re at a party and find yourself in the situation of not knowing anything about what the people around you are talking about? 

No problem. Just tap the “Shasam-like” function of the app and it analyses the conversation and presents a short explanation, as well as suggesting possible follow up questions or segways to get away from the dreadful conversation.

The topic of our last AfterWorkShop was how we could improve the way we consume news and current affairs. But we ended up with three ideas on how we could become more knowledgeable. Or more well rounded as we like to call it. Here’s the idea which was most related to news, the other two will follow.

Deep into the matter

Many of the news stories we read every day are linked together. For example the same historic conflict – like everything that happens in the Middle East. But understanding deep rooted conflicts and seeing how current events relate isn’t done in a quick read. We wish there was a service that would focus on helping us understand the news, not just letting us know it happened.

So here’s our wish list:

• A newsroom of talented editors who handpick the three most important news stories of the past week.
• Experts on different subjects are also included in the editorial staff
• Together with journalists and producers etc they put each news story into context. This job would be quite extensive in the beginning, but would naturally decrease as the historic foundation is laid.
• The material should be possible to consume in several different ways, and the best relevant imagery and listening options should be included.
• The main goal is to educate and inform, but we feel opening for crowd sourcing will add an interesting real time aspect.

This news service should give you the choice between different levels of engagement.

1. Bite size information
2. The “Cliffs Notes version”
3. Timeline

Sometimes you just have time for the headline avec, so you should get that. If you have more time and the story interests you (which it will because the copy will be awesome), then you can expand to the “Cliffs notes version”. Here you will get more information on the current event and how it relates to other recent events and history. With relevant imagery like infographics, photos, video and links to other sources. There’s also an audio option so you can listen to it on the go.

Lastly there’s the timeline view. This is the most in depth version of the news story. You start out with the current event and can scroll backwards through time, or let the audio guide you. As you listen the timeline will move and bring up other relevant articles, videos etc. that you can check out while listening (or put on hold if you wish).

As mentioned earlier we think crowdsourcing should included at some point. Users could link to related news stories and articles, comment on specific parts of the text, save notes, there could be a section for real time twitter updates from the area in question, a discussion area etc etc. All reviewed and moderated by the skilled editorial staff. The way this is included should be clutter free and optional. Kind of like Kindle notes.

In addition this service can be expanded by introducing different topics, so that you can get weekly in depth updates on the subjects you’d like to follow. Like politics, war/conflict, environment, science, technology, art, music …

What do you think? What do you think is missing from the news services of today?