The following post is the third part of an ongoing conversation between guest authors Rick Bennett and Andy Polaine, friends and partners in Omnium – a research group of academics, designers, artists, programmers and writers who work collaboratively (and from different countries) to explore the potential the Internet allows for what they term – online collaborative creativity (OCC). We asked Rick and Andy to explore the topic of online collaboration through a collaborative online conversation. Stay tuned over the next few weeks (or months?) as this unique meeting of minds unfolds:

ANDY: Rick, your thoughts about design education and its relevance (or lack of) to the contemporary world of design practice is spot on, though I feel this isn’t limited to design, but to the whole notion of what we consider successful higher education institutions. This is an issue that goes right back to schooling and I feel there’s a real resonance here in the way we think about the social, cultural and environmental issues that face us. Read the rest of this entry »

The following post is the second part of an ongoing conversation between guest authors Rick Bennett and Andy Polaine, friends and partners in Omnium – a research group of academics, designers, artists, programmers and writers who work collaboratively (and from different countries) to explore the potential the Internet allows for what they term – online collaborative creativity (OCC). We asked Rick and Andy to explore the topic of online collaboration through a collaborative online conversation. Stay tuned over the next few weeks (or months?) as this unique meeting of minds unfolds:

ANDY: Rick, I hope my mocking hasn’t wounded you too deeply! I think you probably underestimate how au fait you are with new technologies and I think this brings us onto a couple of points that refer back to what you asked me about in your final questions. Read the rest of this entry »

The following post is the first part of an ongoing conversation between guest authors Rick Bennett and Andy Polaine, friends and partners in Omnium – a research group of academics, designers, artists, programmers and writers who work collaboratively (and from different countries) to explore the potential the Internet allows for what they term – online collaborative creativity (OCC). We asked Rick and Andy to explore the topic of online collaboration through a collaborative online conversation. Stay tuned over the next few weeks (or months?) as this unique meeting of minds unfolds:

In 1998, on a grey autumn afternoon in London’s Soho, Omnium’s founder, Rick Bennett, came to visit me at Antirom’s studios to tell me about a project he was developing called Omnium – The Virtual Design Studio. Antirom was a new media collective that I co-founded along with several other designers, developers and artists and was based on the collaborative, non-hierarchical structure used by the über-creative collective Tomato, our friends and landlords. Read the rest of this entry »