The Refinement Club

New website

You can now find us at Therefinementclub.com.

MassRefinement 05 is Wednesday Nov. 2nd and you can read more about it here.

Hope to see you there!

Gro & Johannes

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 BOOKS View more presentations from The Refinement Club

What do you think? What do YOU wish for the future of the book?

We are currently working on the next Mass-Refinement and are pretty psyched about it, so stay tuned for more info about that. 

Get in touch on Facebook or Twitter.

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 all the stellar thoughts conceived during the Mass-Refinement.

Meanwhile you can read the opening speech based on the Brief for Mass-Refinement - 04 Ebooks.

Somethings to think about:

1. Connecting readers to authors

Last week Amazon launched the interesting Kindle feature @Author which lets you ask authors questions directly from your Kindle. A pretty neat feature. Browsing the questions we stumbled upon this question:

Question @Steven Johnson:

“Steven, you’ve often written about the ways in which a city’s density enables great ideas to flourish. You’ve applied the same metaphor to the web as a engine of creativity and innovation. What about book-reading? Do see our natural inclinations towards socialization spreading to e-books as innovative tech enables us to engage texts more collaboratively?”

2. Reading the question above confirmed something we have been thinking about for a while; how can we connect thoughts and ideas related to individual books and its passages? Make notes in books public and let people share their ideas and thoughts related to their readings.

3. Contextual connections; connecting books and passages with other books and passages (hyperlinks for books?)

4. Rethink notetaking in ebooks.

5. When reading paper based books your constantly getting tangible feedback everytime you turn to the next page, as you feel the one side of the book gets thinner and thinner while the other side gets thicker and thicker. Digital books lacks this feature.

6. The bookshelf. Books are trophies and badges showing off how well read you are.

7. Bookstores provide expertise, social interaction and lucky discoveries. The same thing goes for libraries.

8. Typography in ebooks sucks.

9. There is a confusing amount of different ebook platforms and solutions that are available.

10. Primetime vs. whitespace time - we are constantly consuming content, but are using different devices at different times.

11. Money - how will the authors earn money in the world of tomorrow?

12. Tomorrows books and ereaders will be free, ad supported, connected both contextually and socially, and independently published.

13. A book is worth more than a thousand words. 

This kicked of the event and hopefully it sparked of some interesting ideas. Stay tuned to read more about the future of the book.

Head over to our Facebook page to take part in the conversation and look at pictures from the event. Also you can follow us on Twitter to stay up to date. 

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 content on our mobiles when we have nothing better to do (like waiting for the bus). 
• The lack of constant tangible feedback from ebooks, that the good old book provides. 
• The bookshelf: Books as trophies. To show who you are. As social recognition. The advantage of growing up surrounded by a certain type of literature/ authors. Inheriting books. 
• Bookstores provide expertise, social interaction and lucky discoveries. The same thing goes for libraries. 
• The poor quality of the typography in ebooks compared to regular books. 
• Lending regular books has it’s pros and cons, it’s limitless but you risk never getting your book back! What about trading books? 
• The confusing amount of different ebook platforms and solutions that are available. Accessibility for the less tech savvy is limited.

We hope some of this got you thinking and that you will join us at this Mass-Refinement and let your ideas meet and mate. 

Mass-Refinement: Ebooks

Time : Wednesday, August 31 · 6:00pm - 9:30pm
Location: Katachi Mag, Schweigaards gate 79, Oslo, Norway

Attend the event at Facebook

If you’re not on Facebook, send us an email: post@therefinementclub.com

Vis større kart

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 ebooks is happening next week at Katachi Magazine. Feel free to drop by and share your thoughts and ideas. Read the brief and sign up for the event at Facebook.

Get in touch on Facebook or Twitter.

(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 love to read and/or write, work within publishing or design etc. to join us. We want you to come and think broad, and to think about how we can expand and enrich the reading experience.

How can we bring the best from two worlds together, the analogue and the digital?

How can we keep the art of the book when we leave paper behind?

What is wrong with ebooks today, and how can we fix it?

The issue of ebooks can be closely related to the debate of the future of libraries, which has gotten some attention in Norway lately in regard to the new library that will be built in the Opera area. And of course the recently released ebook platform “Bokskya” which haven’t received all that much praise.

We have talked about ebooks at The Refinement Club several times and we’ve got a couple of posts that we think are relevant:

• My Bookshelf
• Hans Gerhard Meiers: Diglitt
• The News Game is about news, but it’s basically about how to get people to read.

People talk about the future of the book and there are some nice concepts and ideas floating around. Take a look and think about how it could become better, and how we can utilize some of these thoughts in the pursuit of keeping the art of the book.

• In this video IDEO envisions the future of the book
• Who reads books? Unfortantly, not that many it seems
• Why Tyler Cowen’s new book will be on Kindles, not bookstore shelves
• How has the technology of reading evolved from papyrus to the iPad?
• Seth Godin’s The Domino Project
• Is Mobile Affecting When We Read?
• Gore, Ex-Apple Engineers Team Up to Blow Up the Book
• TEDBooks
• Unbound - Books are now in your hand

So there’s some input.

We would love to meet you all for a new Mass-Refinement with sausages, beer and idea sharing, and talk about how we can enhance the reading experience through ebooks, and about how we can evolve the artform of books and make even more people publish books and read books!

Welcome to The Refinement Club’s Mass-Refinement 04 at Katachi Magazine - sign up here!

Ps. if you’re not on Facebook you can send us a mail to: post@refinementclub.com to sign up!

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 of ideas. We believe that when you share, collaborate and embrace opportunities, you will find new and unexpected ways. Our vision is that the concepts that are created within The Refinement Club will lead to new ideas and enrich existing concepts, and in turn give us all new and inspiring thoughts. Share an idea or more today and let your thoughts flow freely.

We believe in Creative Commons, and that anyone can use an idea and do something about it. However, we believe good Refinement Club practice is to inform and give credit to those who have inspired the concept in a suitable manner.

This is the agenda for the upcoming Mass-Refinement:

1. The evening starts at 18.00 with beer, wine and sausages
2. Introduction of The Refinement Club’s philosophy and concept
3. Presentation of the brief and discussion in plenum
4. Group work followed by mixing, with cross pollination of ideas
5. Presentation of ideas with discussion
6. Everyone picks the idea they like the best, out of all the ideas, and describe it in writing
7. The idea forms are collected around 21.00 and we chat, drink beer and eat more sausages 

Check out the brief and the Facebook event, and join us at CYAN on Tuesday, May 24th!

The News Curator - How to become a well-rounded, well-informed person

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 easy, and we actually think we have to limit our choice in the matter to be able to do so.

So we want a solution that will make us more well-informed on current affairs, and make us be up to date on news that we’re not too good on keeping ourselves updated about.

So we’re thinking it’s a news curator, that handpicks news for you based on who you are and what you know/ are interested in, and makes sure you become a well-rounded, well-informed person instead of just an expert in certain areas.

In the old days you got your news-fix by tuning into your preferred channel on radio or television and listening/watching the news. There wasn’t much choice regarding topics, you were served the news that the channel found most interesting and breaking. Even today you can get your news-fix this way, but what we want is to personalize this experience with a service that knows your interests, your areas of knowledge, and most importantly what and where you lack interest and knowledge in. We’ve all been to a party with total strangers, everybody works in a different field, they watch other movies, listen to crap music, wear strange clothes, reads the wrong books.. You are totally different and you have nothing to talk about. The news curator have prepared you for this disaster by giving you insights and knowledge within a huge range of current affairs, different topics and curiosa.

Okay, so how does it work? It should be dead simple, and available where you want it, web, mobile/tablet application.. Add your social network accounts so the news curator can learn more about your interests by analyzing what you share on Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader or what not. Let it access your current location and it will include local news as well. Or add favorite locations if you like. Then you are good to go.

How much spare time do you have at this moment? 2 min, 5 min, 10 min, 15 min or 30 min? So choose the timeframe you have available and be informed. Whether it’s while you’re preparing and eating breakfast, or on your way to work, you will get your news by audio alone, or accompanied by articles, photos and/or video. You can always give your news curator feedback by marking each news story with a tag, e.g “I knew that already”, “Interesting”, “Informative” etc.so that it can learn to feed you with more relevant content. Your news curator will nudge you if you’re behind on your current affairs and even give you push notifications when breaking news stories are available.

What do you think, we’d love to hear your thoughts!

Don’t forget that you can always submit your ideas and be featured in Feature Friday.

Next Pitch Night is Tuesday, May 24th - join us!

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 expand The Refinement Club, to involve more people and more ideas, but of course keep on sharing. When we do get a bright new idea, you will be first to know, and we hope you will share your concepts with our community as well.

Take a look at the brief for our next Pitch Night and share your thoughts on the subject!

Have a great day!

Johannes & Gro

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 this and want you to join us!

Potential:

• Young people don’t know how to do a lot of things that older people take for granted, and old people have problems keeping up with the development of technology and emerging trends.
• A lack of mentors. Why don’t we take advantage of older people’s life experience? To learn from other people’s mistakes is valuable. Younger people would greatly benefit from contact with older individuals that have been where they want to go.

The big question:
How can we facilitate this exchange of experience, skills and thoughts between elder and younger and make an easy-to-use system for both cohorts?

We hope you can join us in Oslo in May 24th, but we’d love it if you would share your thoughts starting now! You can submit it, write a comment here, share on our Facebook page or write us at trc.pitch@gmail.com. What’s important is that we want to hear what you think!

Take a look at the results from Pitch Night v.01 and Pitch Night v.02.