Navigating Space with Poor Signs (1 of 2)

It’s been a while since I passed through Meruya in West Jakarta until the other day when I found that the otherwise straight route now has two additional detours. The first detour enforces vehicles to turn left into a side street right into a housing area and before turning left again to reach the main street. The second detour enforces vehicles to turn left again, makes a U-turn before turning left again to reach the main street. Along with a previously existing detour, now when you passed through the main street, you would have to detour three times with a total distance of a kilometer or two.

I am not going to complain about the shortcut regulations again here. But as I was trying to ignore my growing anxiety of being lost in an unknown area so I wouldn’t lose my orientation towards the main street, it suddenly dawned on me why I dislike detours in Jakarta. It’s because most of them only have one sign pointing towards the direction of the detour, and then no other signs could be found to direct you back to where you want to go in the first place. It wouldn’t be a big deal if the streets are laid out in grid or if you have good sense of orientation. But otherwise, I’m sure you’d agree with me that it’s not easy to navigate ourselves in Jakarta in an unfamiliar area, and especially if there happen to be some detours in the area.

A phrase from Learning from Las Vegas makes perfect sense in relation to this:

“A driver 30 years ago could maintain a sense of orientation in space. At the simple crossroad a little sign with an arrow confirmed what was obvious. One knew where one was. When the crossroads becomes a cloverleaf, one must turn right to turn left, … [but] the driver has no time to ponder paradoxical subtleties within a dangerous, sinuous maze. He or she relies on signs for guidance – enormous signs in vast spaces at high speeds.” [1]

And where are those signs in Jakarta?


Note
[1] Venturi, Scott-Brown & Izenour, "Learning from Las Vegas", MIT Press, 1977:9.

Jakarta’s Flood: Monument to National Embarrassment

Over the past week, as I watch and read the news of Jakarta’s flood, I couldn’t help feeling helpless and hopeless for this country. First it’s the reactions of the victims, and second it’s the reactions of the governments.

Most of the victims, rather than getting very angry towards the government for not taking responsibility of the flood, are pasrah - accepting with a sense of helplessness and waiting for help to come. The second majority are the opportunists, who, rather than helping the victims, are taking advantage of the situation to get extra income. Within this opportunists group are those who help the victims in order to get media exposure for political or commercial. And the minorities (in comparison with the population) are those who try to help themselves and help others for humanity’s sake.

I’m hoping these are simply because the immensity of the disaster is such that delayed reactions could only be expected. Or perhaps the media coverage simply has focused on the more appealing part of the events.

Then it’s the reactions of the governments, who literally ‘blame it on the rain’ and/or on other departments, onto which they have no control over. Sure, who would want to risk losing their political seats when they can get away without doing so. By them my deepest despair is caused.

At least the central government now seems to have plans in the forms of offering transmigration and public housing for the poor. Despite the fact that transmigration and public housing have been highly criticized due the more problems they caused rather than solved, the plans show some kind of political will in solving the problem. But why they keep doing things that don’t work is beyond my understanding.

The complexity of the problem – ranging from management of land zoning and development, control of environmental issues, waste and drainage management, planning and building regulations – from regional to neighborhood scale, need long term and integrated planning that can’t be solved by simply moving people away from the city. If anything could be learned by the government from this disaster is that they should no longer take shortcuts in solving the problem.

Rate of Change

We all know that the world is changing. But have you ever thought about how fast is the rate of change? A presentation at “Creativity or Conformity? Creativity in Higher Education” Conference at University of Wales Institute Cardiff, by Rodney Hill, professor in Teaching Excellence at Texas A & M University, got me thinking:

By 2014, your iPod will hold the contents of the Library of Harvard University.
By 2017, your iPod will contain the US Library of Congress.
The twentieth century alone features more turning points in the history of mankind than the previous five centuries put together.
At the 2007 rate of change, the entire 20th Century would take place in 25 years.

Half of what students learn in their freshman year about the cutting edge of science and technology is obsolete, revised, or taken for granted by their senior year.
A third of the jobs that will be available in 2015 have essentially not been invented yet.
Two thirds of the jobs that will be available in the world by 2020 haven’t been invented yet!
In less than 20 years, the majority of college graduates will be working at jobs that
don’t even exist today!

“In just the space of a few years, we went from competing with firms down the street to competing with firms across the globe. Our core competence and focus is now on all those things that cannot be digitized.” (The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman)
Knowledge Creators are the only people whose jobs cannot be outsourced.

The person that cannot understand and accept the possibility that their discipline or domain might come to a sudden end will not fare well in the 21st century.

Maybe my questioning of architectural practice is justifiable after all :) For Rodney Hill’s full paper, click here.

Ownership of Ideas

For several months now, I have been contributing to The Jakarta Post with a colleague, friend, and boss of mine, Kayee Man. After a while we thought that maybe not many people read our articles, as we got very few responses from our readers. But some days ago, I checked my office email address, which is forwarded to my personal email, and found an email that was sent back in July 2006 and apparently got into my personal email’s ‘spam’ folder because it had no subject.

The email was both pleasantly surprising as well as rather shocking because the sender was none other than the author of “Creative Economy”, John Howkins, who read one of our articles “But … That was My Idea” and wrote a rather angry email saying that we were wrong in that ideas should not be owned. Apparently Howkins is also the president of Adelphi Chapter, which aims to “ensure that everyone has access to ideas and knowledge, and that intellectual laws do not become too restrictive.”

Baffled by the thought how our ‘neutral’ article could trigger such a strong response from author of a book we quoted, I responded to Howkins’ email asking him why according to him ideas should not be owned, because clearly authors (of books, articles, designs, ideas) would like to and should get credits for their intellectual brainchild. So where is the misalignment?

I explained to Howkins that in Indonesia, respect for authorship of ideas and due credits for authors could not be over emphasized. The international copyright law is highly abused in Indonesia because Howkins’ book, for example, costs more than a sixth of minimum salary in Indonesia – which makes his book and most imported books highly inaccessible for most members of this society. If the international copyright law isstrictly maintained in Indonesia, very few could have access to development of ideas and knowledge from other countries.

This ‘inadequacy’ and ‘casualness’ about copyright of books, however, in my opinion should not extend towards ‘inadequacy’ and ‘casualness’ about copyright of ideas. In Indonesia most people are rather casual about authorship of ideas that plagiarism can be found in many forms.

But it is difficult to blame it on anyone coming out of Indonesian conventional education to know that we are supposed to write down the name of the people we quote and the sources of our quotations. How could we when we are often asked by our teachers to write about a reading without having to differentiate whether what we write is our own thoughts and interpretations of the reading or simply rewording or even blatant copying from the book.

What I learned, though, is that most people – even the very famous ones – would gladly share their ideas, presentations, or even workshops if only we ask them politely and credit them properly in our adaptations. Giving people their due credits not only promote 'good work' but improve your own credibility as a person.

Similar to how my stance in this matter is originated and influenced by my own background and the society I’m living in, it seems that Howkins’ stance in this matter seems to likewise originated and influenced by his own background and environment.

Kayee (English-born Asian) noted that prominent English education leaders seem to have this inkling towards patenting their ideas. Examples of them being Edward deBono (famous for his Six Thinking Hats and Lateral Thinking) and Tony Buzan (famous for his Mind Map), who both attach their personal names to their expression of ideas, profit from trainings and have endorsed trainers to distribute their ideas.

Compare them for example with prominent American education leader like Howard Gardner(famous for his Multiple Intelligences) whom has website through which you can download some of his papers – for free. No wonder Howkins is so adamant about too restrictive ownership of ideas.

On Motivation and Excellence

On Monday, I met with my students from last semester and chatted a bit. Two issues came up.

The first one is their confession that they are unmotivated this term – to whom I would refer to “Incentive to Learn” posting, which may not change their motivations, but I hope would make them think twice and realize that education is a shared responsibility.

The second issue has to do with what I would refer to as the drive to excel. Because of lack in time they have for designing, they mentioned that many of them ended up doing it just for the sake of completing the assignment (and get it over with). One of them unconsciously ended up with similar detail, although her intention was different.

Both issues make me think about what makes people tick. What makes (some) people have the drive to excel? What makes (some) people try to push themselves further and better (when it is probably easier to repeat after their own or even after other people’s successes without anyone else ever find out) despite the fact that perhaps few people other than themselves would notice any difference or even progress? What makes (some) people try to be ethical and do 'good work'?

I thought the answer has to do with an article I co-wrote a while back: Drive to Excel. But perhaps there is more to this.