May 2013
3 posts
7 tags
The Future of Toys – MassRefinement #09
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:
The toy should be versatile and work in...
17 tags
Ideas from MassRefinement #08 on Urban Farming
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...
3 tags
Post-MassRefinement Inspiration on Urban Farming
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...
April 2013
3 posts
4 tags
Inspiration for MassRefinement 08 "Urban Farming"
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...
6 tags
The topic of MassRefinement #08 is Urban Farming
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...
2 tags
No more AfterWorkShop
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...
March 2013
2 posts
5 tags
Some ideas for Google Glass
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...
3 tags
Transhumanism in Fiction
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...
February 2013
2 posts
4 tags
The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Any Social...
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...
6 tags
Our Dream News Service
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...
January 2013
4 posts
6 tags
Thoughts on GMOs
Last week (Jan. 22) at AfterWorkShop we talked about genetically modified crops. None of us have any expertise in this area, so all our background information is from articles we’ve found online. It all started with an article by Mark Lynas and we got thinking about why we were skeptical to GMOs. So this summary is about why we still are skeptical to GMOs after talking it through. Though the...
6 tags
Greenpeace at AfterWorkShop
At AfterWorkShop 15.01.13 we met up with Greenpeace and people from Startup Weekend Norway to warm up for Fundlab 2013 – Startup Greenpeace which will be held this weekend at 657 in Oslo. Mainly we talked about ideas around getting more members and volunteers, as well as different ways of getting funding and involving people in Greenpeace’s different causes and missions. It was a really...
9 tags
"Know thyself" – putting personal data into...
The topic of the first AfterWorkShop in 2013 was about how we can use the data we collect to make sense of our life and how we can make it better.
Everyday we create tons of data. All your emails, your web browsing, your runs, your food intake, your bank accounts, your search queries, your social interactions, your whereabout … Most of it useless and just data to us humans, but some of it might...
AfterWorkShop 2013
Tuesday, Jan 8th, AfterWorkShop is back up again!
We’ve had a little evaluation and we’re tweeking things a bit. First of all we noticed that more people want to discuss stuff than actually work on their projects, so we will focus more on that. So in a way we’re going back to the original Refinement Club set-up with a topic/challenge every time, except that now anyone can join!...
December 2012
1 post
Next week on AfterWorkShop
Since October 16th we’ve arranged AfterWorkShop every Tuesday at 657. We’re still working out what it’s should be, but our initial plan was to make an arena where people with dayjobs could bring their personal projects to work on with other engaged people. We’ve had a lot of different people come by and had some very interesting talks. We’re looking forward to what...
October 2012
1 post
6 tags
Join Us At AfterWorkShop
So now it’s on. We have started a collaboration with the co-working space 657 Oslo to host AfterWorkShop. Last week we held our first AfterWorkShop and we’re hosting it every Tuesday.
AfterWorkShop is a place for people with day jobs, who also have their own projects that they work on at night. A place where you can work on your project, find motivation and routine, meet interesting...
August 2012
1 post
4 tags
AfterWorkShop – An Update
AfterWorkShop has been on our minds for quite some time now, but now we feel and hope that we are getting closer to a launch date, hopefully around September. The process has been bumpy and we realized that we were complicating the whole project and decided to simplify it. We want to focus on the most important thing; getting together and work on cool projects, after clocking out at our day jobs.
...
April 2012
2 posts
7 tags
MassRefinement 07: The Future of Learning
Our last #MassRefinement was about The Future of Learning which became a very interesting workshop, and we could have talked about many different topics within this, but we decided to choose three different challenges to work with.
Challenge #1: How to solve distributed learning on a local scale?
Challenge #2: How to use global resources in local education?
Challenge #3: How do I document the...
MassRefinement 06: The Results 14.03.12
The MassRefinement on Social Currency was a great success, so check out the results here!
The last MassRefinement was hosted by Pop Up Hub Oslo, and since it was such a blast we will continue our collaboration. If you’d like to join us, sign up on the facebook event or send us an email to post@therefinementclub.com. Hope to see you there!
March 2012
1 post
6 tags
Some thoughts on the future of learning
Only the educated are free.
– Epictetus
In the ever evolving world we live in it seems like every field and every aspect of life are being disrupted by the emerging technologies and the internet. But is it really so? A recurring topic here at The Refinement Club is education and learning. How is technology and the internet changing how we share and obtain knowledge? The required knowledge to...
February 2012
3 posts
MassRefinement at Pop Up Hub Oslo about social...
Yesterday we met up with Brock LeMieux, who runs Pop Up Hub Oslo, and we decided to host our next MassRefinement at the upcoming Pop Up Hub, next Thursday.
The topic of this MassRefinement is Social Currency and how we can facilitate and make it easier for people to trade labor, time, thoughts, skills, or what not without money.
We hope to see you at MassRefinement v.06 at Pop Up Hub Oslo on...
MassRefinement 06: Social Currency
In a world where the economic situation is looking grimmer and grimmer every day, we think there may be room for an alternative currency. Even in financially safe Norway. In countries where the unemployment rates are rising and welfare and pensions are being reduced, social currency can offer an alternative in peoples’ daily life. An alternative that can create community and where...
Making educated consumer choices
So, we thought we should combine the two directions we discussed the last two times. It’s about combining crowd-sourced information with the information you get from your bank about where you use your money. All to help you make more educated choices about how and what you spend money on.
When shopping you use the crowd-sourced information to make your choices. But to judge if a purchase is...
January 2012
2 posts
Visualizing qualities of consumer goods
When you’re buying or looking to buy a new item, clothing, equipment, gadget or what not, you seldom know if you’re just paying for brand or quality, and as we talked about in our last post; how much impact the item you’re buying has on the environment and how fair the trade is. Most of us are uninformed shoppers basing our choices on advertising and other peoples poor choices....
Mechanics for changing habits
After Christmas, New Years and quite a few sick days, we’re back and it feels good!
Before Christmas we asked for ideas on how to make people more aware of how they consume, or on solutions that could help people consume less. In the time forward we will put these ideas in context and explore more around that topic.
A lot of you have probably checked out Slavery Footprint already, but...
December 2011
3 posts
The Giftholder
This idea is contributed by Q&A, an ongoing one year project about graphic design which explore the profession through asking questions and answering them visually. Follow them atwww.theqaproject.com and www.twitter.com/theqaproject
We wanted to address the issue of gift wrapping and the amount of paper wasted each Christmas. We worked out an alternative to the regular gift wrap; a reusable...
A few ideas off the top of Rudraigh's head
Rudhraigh McGrath is a Digital Copywriter, Imperial Officer, Fire Starter, Bad Loser, Right Hander, Beer Drinker, Jedi Master, Hyper Islander, Lord Assassinator, Ex Googler, Accurate Estimator, Queue Skipper, Nuclear Warrior, Net Whisperer, Curtain Twitcher, Death Killer, Jawa Hunter, Robot Commander, Dark Fearer, Alphabet Master, Ghost Buster, Wood Carver, Zombie Feeder, Gossip Starter, Shark...
Habits for Habitats
The first idea we received when we asked for ideas on mass-consumption, was from Michael Steeby and Helge Svendsen. It’s called “Habit for Habitats” - enjoy!
As we all know, mass consumption leads to massive amounts of garbage, which again can lead to global warming. So if we don’t recycle the garbage we throw out, we will continue to exhaust our natural resources and destroy...
November 2011
2 posts
MassRefinement 05: The Results
Two weeks ago we had a MassRefinement at Westerdals School of Communication. The topic was how to encourage the exchange of ideas, experience and knowledge across disciplines and our goal was to reach and involve students in this. If the mindset of professional life is to change, the change needs to start with people who haven’t started their careers yet.
But even though we reached out to...
Wanted: Ideas on Massconsumption
Soon it’s Christmas again and the mass consumption rate will probably once again reach an all time high in the western world.
Our original plan was to host an Advent calendar, but instead we’re planning to curate a collection of ideas on the topic of consumption. We invite you to share ideas and concepts that focus on how we can become more aware of our own consumption, and hopefully...
October 2011
1 post
MassRefinement 05: Some thoughts on...
The fifth MassRefinement is happening this Wednesday at Westerdals School of Communication. We will discuss and work on ideas on how we can encourage and facilitate the sharing of ideas, experience and knowledge across disciplines in society in general and in educational institutions in particular. Here are some thoughts and ideas to get you going:
“Creativity is the ability to see...
September 2011
2 posts
4 tags
The Future of Books - Mass-Refinement v.04
It took us some time, but here are the results from our Mass-Refinement v.04 on books, hosted by Katachi Magazine! It was a great session and we could have discussed for ages. So we hope you want to join the discussion so it doesn’t have to end. The possibilities are endless and we want to hear what you want from the future book!
Take a look at the presentation on Slideshare: THE FUTURE OF...
5 tags
Mass-Refinement 04: Ebooks
Last Wednesday we arranged our fourth Mass-Refinement, hosted by Katachi Magazine, about the future of books and refining the ebook. The whole event was a blast and all the guests shared tons of interesting thoughts and ideas and together we all came up with some interesting insights, ideas and concepts. We are currently working on structuring and elaborating it all into a presentation worthy of...
August 2011
1 post
5 tags
Mass-Refinement: it's happening Aug. 31st!
The Mass-Refinement that we had to postpone is happening on Wednesday, Aug. 31st at 18.00.
It’s still about the future of books and reading, and how digitalization is affecting how we consume the written word. Here are some thoughts we have on the subject to help you get in the mood!
Primetime vs. whitespace time - we save content to be read on e.g an iPad for primetime, and we consume...
June 2011
2 posts
3 tags
Connecting Generations
There were some stellar ideas at our last Mass-Refinement about how to connect generations and how to facilitate the exchange of experience, skills and thoughts across generations. We gathered all the thoughts and ideas in these slides. Feel free to dive in and join the conversation.
What do you think? How would you connect generations?
Also remember that our next Mass-Refinement about...
5 tags
(New date!) Mass-Refinement 04 - Ebooks
We now have a new date for this Mass-Refinement! Wednesday, August 31st!
We have been invited to arrange a Mass-Refinement (formerly known as Pitch Night) at Katachi Magazine.
The topic is ebooks. Katachi Magazine is in the process of releasing the first issue of their iPad magazine, but they’re already planning to start an ebook platform. We want to invite everyone who is interested, who...
May 2011
1 post
6 tags
Mass-Refinement
As you know, we are having our third Pitch Night next week. But, since there’s not really any pitching going on, we have decided to start calling those sessions for Mass-Refinements!
The Refinement Club arose from an urge to create and share all our ideas. It started out as a creative workout, but gradually evolved to be more and more about sharing concepts and working to create a community...
April 2011
3 posts
4 tags
The News Curator - How to become a well-rounded,...
We were so lucky as to have Anders Holm join us for our last refinement, and we talked about a subject we have discussed before: news. The three of us agree that even though we are good at keeping ourself updated on news that have to do with our work and interests, we are not so good at keeping up with what happens in the world outside of that realm. We want to, but it’s not always that...
4 tags
Update
Hi peeps! We’ve been talking a lot about the future of The Refinement Club lately..
We’ve decided that we want to focus more on involving more people in our idea sessions and we’re planning to arrange Pitch Nights and workshops more often. This takes time to prepare, and we won’t be able to keep up with our previous tempo with new concepts every week.
Instead we want to...
5 tags
Pitch Night v.03: The Brief
Hi guys, we’re preparing for our third Pitch Night which will be in May (date will follow soon). What we want to discuss this time is how we can include senior citizens more in our lives and learn from their experience and expertise. We’ve touched upon this before, in one of our first posts “Old People” and we believe there is potential here, so we want to work more with...
March 2011
2 posts
4 tags
The Idea Cultivator – Mating Ideas At Work
In the business of work there is a lack of time, ideas and thoughts are seldomly shared outside of your team or your closest co-workers. And the bigger the company gets, the less everybody knows about what’s going on, what’s been made and what people think about. This is poison for innovation. Innovation thrives on diversity and sharing. And that’s what we want to refine; how can...
2 tags
About Us
Hi peeps! Sorry we’ve been away, we’ve been swamped with work and moving etc etc.. A couple of weeks ago we presented The Refinement Club at Pecha Kucha vol. 17 in Oslo, and since then we have worked on a presentation in English that we can share with you guys. In this way we get to tell you about how we came to be, what we actually do and what we want to do in the future!
Connect...
February 2011
7 posts
4 tags
The Future of Online Dating (Pitch Night v.02 -...
Yes, there were some stellar results after last weeks Pitch Night / Mass Refinement and we have gathered most of the results and ideas in a keynote presented at Slideshare and embedded here. Feel free to dive in and experience the potential and possible the future of online dating.
View more presentations from TheRefinementClub
We just have to make a shout out to all the intelligent, creative...
4 tags
Pitch Night v.02: What comes after online dating?
On Tuesday we arranged our second Pitch Night and the theme was “What comes after online dating”. It was a lot of fun. We started out with getting some input from two guys who work for a Norwegian online dating service called Sukker.no, who talked about online dating in general and provided us with some facts and figures. Then we took some time to ask questions and discuss before we...
4 tags
The 80/20 School
Hi, as we mentioned last week we worked on the brief from No Right Brain Left Behind with Åsmund Gravem. What we came up with is something we call The 80/20 School, inspired by companies like Google.
NO RIGHT BRAIN LEFT BEHIND - THE 80/20 SCHOOL
View more presentations from TheRefinementClub.
The idea:
Leveraging the students’ own interests and allowing them to use the knowledge they obtain...
3 tags
No Right Brain Left Behind
Hi peeps! Today we’re working on an idea for No Right Brain Left Behind, and we’ll post the result when we submit (deadline is Feb. 14th). You should too!
Assignment brief
Our idea revolves around giving teachers and students tools that will help the students visualize the practical benefits of the different school subjects, that will help teachers make projects that encourage...
4 tags
My Bookshelf
This week we met up with Åsmund Gravem and talked about lots of stuff including ebooks. We ended up refining the ebook experience and how to add som social features and making it more up to date. We have also tried out a new way to present our ideas. We are pretty satisfied with the slides we have made, but if you have some comments or suggestions on how to present our concepts feel free to write...
3 tags
FF #3: Pitchroulette
For our third Feature Friday we introduce Helge Svendsen and his idea on how to facilitate cooperation and growth of ideas, regardless of physical proximity:
Great ideas are meant to be shared. That’s the only way they can grow and reach a level of complete awesomeness. But what do you do if you don’t have anyone around you at the moment to share your great idea with?
For instance, if you have a...
5 tags
Pitch Night v.02: What comes after online dating?
We’ve set a date for Pitch Night v.02! It’s Tuesday Feb.15th, and will, like last time, be at CYAN studio in Oslo. The topic is “What comes after online dating?” and we will be joined by people from Norwegian online dating service Sukker.no. They will start the discussion by talking about how they see the present and future of dating. If you’d like to join us, RSVP at...
January 2011
7 posts
4 tags
The Food Calendar
This Christmas Gro discovered she might be gluten intolerant. That of course presents some new problems, and problems need to be solved. Writing down everything one eats seems like a smart thing to do in a situation like that, but it gets tedious pretty fast. A friend of ours is having great success with his new eating habits (We’re just gonna mention the book “The 4 hr body” and...
