Journal articles on the topic 'Technology-Push/Needs-Pull'

Technological advancements and market needs are some of the significant forces fuelling the introduction of products and services in a wide range of business sectors. Many product and service providers have utilized the so-called technology-push and market-pull, the simple linear views of innovation which prescribe the use of technological discoveries and the involvement of the market respectively to produce goods and services. Others have gone further to adopt models of innovation which recognize the interaction of the different functional units of a firm and the combination of the technology-push and market-pull views with feedback from the external environment. Malawi has witnessed the introduction of a complete array of technology-based products and services catering for different business sectors. This paper investigates how Malawian firms manage the process of innovation in the development or introduction of Information Technology (IT) products and services and proposes suitable models which firms can adopt in managing and strategizing around technological innovation in the Malawian environment. The results suggest that while firms must adhere to specific models of innovation, it is generally useful to take full advantage of the linear market-pull model and the conceptual framework of innovation.

Technology-based innovation can comes either from market needs (market pull) then obtained the discovery of new innovation technology to help meet the needs of the community or from new invention which was later adapted by the community (technology push) that become useful new needs. The purpose of this paper is to determine the implications that what works better between technology push or market pull in technological innovation carried out by researchers in creating new technologies. In this paper, the study used the example of one of the universities in Indonesia, the ITB because it has a research institute that more active than any other university in Indonesia. Sample taken from the new product invention that have been successfully commercialized or not. To know whether successfully commercialized inventions are more likely depart from the market pull or technology push. We got the result of this research from technology innovation product that has been patented, from dept interviews by the researchers in ITB, and from focus group discussion among the junior researchers. The result of technology innovation product that only has been patented and the technology innovation product that already is commercialized and used by many people will be different. We will see the beginning of the idea appearance and the commercialization of their product innovation in the market from the researchers.

Fall armyworm (FAW) Spodoptera frugiperda invaded Africa, with the first detections being reported in Central and Western Africa in early 2016, and now affects at least 40 countries in Africa, causing up to total crop loss amounting to over $6.2 billion p.a. FAW is an invasive polyphagous pest that causes damage to economically important crops and has recently been reported in the Indian sub-continent. Effective control of FAW through use of synthetic chemical pesticides and genetically modified crops such as Bt maize faces challenges including improper use, unaffordability by smallholder farmers and development of resistance by the pest. Additionally, dispersal of FAW larvae into the lower maize plant canopy keeps them out of reach of topical insecticide applications. Integrated pest management (IPM) packages like the push-pull technology which eliminate pesticide use, and deploy natural processes are more suitable and cost-effective. Push-pull is a farming system intensification approach that involves attracting insect pests with trap plants (pull) such as Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum) or Brachiaria grass, while driving them away from the main crop using a repellent intercrop (push), Desmodium spp., commonly known as desmodium, and attracting natural parasitoids and predators to the field. In the rhizosphere, chemicals secreted by desmodium roots inhibit attachment of germinated striga to maize or sorghum roots and abort germination of striga seeds which are rapidly depleted in the soil. Moreover, it improves soil fertility by fixing nitrogen, improving carbon sequestration, organic matter, moisture retention, and soil biota, and prevents further degradation of soil. The climate-adapted push-pull technology significantly reduces plant damage by FAW and is the first IPM management tool for the pest in Africa, and is well suited to agro-ecosystem intensification needs of smallholder mixed farming systems in Africa and beyond. Both the African and the Asian continents provide favourable climatic conditions for sustained reproduction of the FAW, which is expected to result in severe damage to crops; and being a new pest in both continents, it might have few natural enemies. Conventional control methods have limited effectiveness, as explained above. Therefore, an IPM approach that is compatible with mixed cropping farming systems of small and medium scale farmers is necessary. The climate adapted push-pull is the first demonstrated IPM management tool for the FAW in Africa. The technology combines this with other concomitant benefits including control of stemborers and the parasitic striga weeds, improvement of soil health through factors such as nitrogen fixation by desmodium, natural mulching, moisture retention and improvement of soil organic matter and soil biota. The combined benefits, including control of FAW, result in ecologically sustainable higher crop yields, and well suited to agro-ecosystem intensification needs of smallholder mixed farming systems in Africa and beyond.

In today's rapidly changing competitive environment, Information Technology (IT) within an organization is continuously improved, driven by the external push of technological advances and internal pull of increasing organizational needs. In order to achieve the greatest return on IT investment, the diffusion process of IT within the organization should be examined carefully. This study aims to explore the effects of organizational, social, individual, and technological characteristics on the diffusion of different information technologies within organizations, and to discover the relationship between the diffusion of these technologies and the effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity of managerial decision-making processes. Based on a thorough review of theoretical background and prior empirical studies in the area, an integrated research framework concerning the IT diffusion context has been developed and tested via a survey applied on individuals from different organizations. Findings suggest that the antecedents of the diffusion and infusion patterns vary for two major categories of information technologies.

This paper aims to identify and analyze recent trajectories followed by two engine assembly plants set up in Brazil (one mature company and one newcomer), regarding operations and technology strategies undertaken by them. In short, the mature company has made efforts to increase quality and flexibility, while the newcomer has prioritized cost reduction and quality enhancements, besides taken action to increase its product nationalization. The main findings indicate that (1) competitive priorities seem to "pull" the trajectories, translating market needs into specific tasks that must be fulfilled by each strategy, while the advances made in each step may "push" the trajectories, setting the basis for new strategies and making them capable of moving further; (2) although advances along trajectories are intended and planned, they cannot be foreseen and alternate decisions may be necessary and (3) secondary factors like the degree of autonomy assigned to firms and accumulated knowledge also influence trajectories.

Over the past decade, it has been argued that technology-enhanced learning (TEL) could respond to the needs of the new knowledge society and transform learning. However, despite isolated achievements, TEL has not succeeded in revolutionizing education and learning processes. Most current TEL initiatives still take a centralized technology-push approach in which learning content is pushed to a predefined group of learners in closed environments. A fundamental shift toward a more open and learner-pull model for learning is needed. Recently, the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) concept has emerged to open new doors for more effective learning and overcome many of the limitations of traditional TEL models. In this paper, the authors present theoretical, design, implementation, and evaluation details of PLEF, a framework for mashup personal learning environments. The primary aim of PLEF is to help learners create custom learning mashups using a wide variety of digital media and data.

AbstractObjectivesThis article retrospectively examines the evolution of rapid assessments (RAs) produced by the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Program at the Institute of Health Economics over its 25-year relationship with a single requester, the Alberta Health Ministry (AHM).MethodsThe number, types, and methodological attributes of RAs produced over the past 25 years were reviewed. The reasons for developmental changes in RA processes and products over time were charted to document the push–pull tension between AHM needs and the HTA Program's drive to meet those needs while responding to changing methodological benchmarks.ResultsThe review demonstrated the dynamic relationship required for HTA researchers to meet requester needs while adhering to good HTA practice. The longstanding symbiotic relationship between the HTA Program and the AHM initially led to increased diversity in RA types, followed by controlled extinction of the less fit (useful) “transition species.” Adaptations in RA methodology were mainly driven by changes in best practice standards, requester needs, the healthcare environment, and staff expertise and technology.ConclusionsRAs are a useful component of HTA programs. To remain relevant and useful, RAs need to evolve according to need within the constraints of HTA best practice.

Abstract The present paper is devoted to analyze the appropriate recommendations to increase the effectiveness of technology transfer centers from Romanian National Network for Innovation and Technology Transfer - ReNITT, hosted by universities. The study is focused on the definition of a conceptual frame to develop specific business models, by the specialized compartments from technology/knowledge transfer entities, and using the specific instruments of business modeling process. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of the 8 steps scheduling of pairing the building blocks of the Business Models Canvas, corresponding to the specific technology transfer models, and taking into account the elements of the value chain of technology transfer and making connections with technology readiness level, allows a clarification of this relative “fuzzy” and complicated modeling process of university’s Technology Transfer Offices activities, gathering in a concentrated format all necessary information. According to their mission, objectives and strategies, universities decide upon a certain business model for the Technology Transfer Offices, adaptable to client segment and value proposition to attain, by the offered services portfolio. In conclusion, during their activities, Technology Transfer Offices identify, validate and exploit the opportunities originated from applicative research results, by “technology push” methods. Also, there are necessary specific competences (human and material) to develop externally aware business models starting from real needs of the clients, by “market pull” techniques, that would contribute to enhance the endogenous innovation potential of firms.

Rapid research progress in science and technology (S&T) and continuously shifting workforce needs exert pressure on each other and on the educational and training systems that link them. Higher education institutions aim to equip new generations of students with skills and expertise relevant to workforce participation for decades to come, but their offerings sometimes misalign with commercial needs and new techniques forged at the frontiers of research. Here, we analyze and visualize the dynamic skill (mis-)alignment between academic push, industry pull, and educational offerings, paying special attention to the rapidly emerging areas of data science and data engineering (DS/DE). The visualizations and computational models presented here can help key decision makers understand the evolving structure of skills so that they can craft educational programs that serve workforce needs. Our study uses millions of publications, course syllabi, and job advertisements published between 2010 and 2016. We show how courses mediate between research and jobs. We also discover responsiveness in the academic, educational, and industrial system in how skill demands from industry are as likely to drive skill attention in research as the converse. Finally, we reveal the increasing importance of uniquely human skills, such as communication, negotiation, and persuasion. These skills are currently underexamined in research and undersupplied through education for the labor market. In an increasingly data-driven economy, the demand for “soft” social skills, like teamwork and communication, increase with greater demand for “hard” technical skills and tools.

Introduction:The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Program at the Institute of Health Economics (IHE) has conducted rapid assessments (RAs) for 25 years. The presentation draws on this experience to chart the evolution of RAs over a 25-year relationship between a policy maker and an arms-length HTA agency to quantify the effects of this partnership on the RAs produced.Methods:The number, types, and methodological attributes of RAs produced over a 25-year partnership with a single requestor were reviewed. The reasons for developmental changes in RA products over time were charted to document the push-pull tension between requestor needs and HTA best practice. The elements contributing to the relevance and impact, or not, of the RAs were also identified.Results:Results demonstrated the dynamic relationship required for HTA researchers to meet best practice and requestor needs. As literature search spans lengthened and data analyses became more complex, limitations were imposed on RAs to fulfill the requirements of timeliness, utility, and best practice. Adaptations were driven by requestor, researcher, and the external policy environment. Facilitators of RA utility for HTA requestors include: asking focused, well-articulated questions; specifying the request's purpose; providing detailed information about local context and other relevant issues; and understanding the risk of bias associated with RAs. Considerations for HTA doers include: assembling a team using a triage process; involving requestors throughout RA development; negotiating deliverables and timelines using a HTA product matrix; transparently reporting methods; narratively describing methodological issues; and internally reviewing the draft RAs.Conclusions:RAs are a useful component of HTA programs. To keep these products relevant and useful, HTA agencies must allow RAs to evolve according to need, but with grounding in good practice. Negotiating the line between rigor and relevance is a key skill for HTA agencies. Having the right team is helpful.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the financial and material flows in cash-based responses (CBRs) and their implications for humanitarian operations. This research proposes to view cash as a commodity used by humanitarian actors in emergency operations and therefore aims to explore how CBRs impact on humanitarian logistics and ultimately, affect beneficiaries. Design/methodology/approach The methodological approach of grounded theory was chosen for this inquiry because it allowed the researchers to generate a general explanation for the process of CBRs in emergency situations based on the views of participants interviewed. Interviews were conducted with senior managers, supply chain managements and logistics officers from international humanitarian organisations (HOs), United Nations agencies and commercial organisations involved in humanitarian operations. Examples of topics covered during the field work included, procedures and policy; knowledge and information management; systems and technology; actors and agents. Findings The impact of CBRs on humanitarian operations can though not be understated. They alter supply chain design, the very role of beneficiaries as well as HOs, and change the strategy of aid delivery from push to pull. Perhaps, the most important factor is the elimination of many logistical activities that needed to be performed by HOs. Delivering cash diminishes the needs for lengthy procurement and assessment processes, pre-positioning, transportation and distribution. This bears the potential of significant reductions in costs for delivering humanitarian aid at the same time as it is an important move from aid to trade. Practical implications The challenge for humanitarian agencies in the coming years is to overcome their fears surrounding CBRs, and to implement cash programmes where they are judged to be the most appropriate response. This will require not only a change in donor policies, but also a fundamental change in the skill set of humanitarian logisticians, who are used to identifying needs and providing commodities and thus to maintaining control over the provision of assistance. Originality/value The contribution of this research is twofold: this is the first examination of cash-based interventions in humanitarian operations through the prism of supply chain management. Second, the research is field based and grounded in empirical observations thus adding to the literature and offering insights to practice.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the roles of deals in innovations processes, based on the definition of a deal as the interaction of social-material value-creating processes with money-handing processes. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a study of the historical emergence of transaortic valve implantation (TAVI) as an innovative new technology in the area of thoracic surgery in a global setting. The study is based on a combination of interviews and secondary data analysis. Findings The authors found that deals play important roles in innovation processes as critical junctions that mark entries to different phases and generate major shifts in location as well as combination of resources, activities and actors. These shifts include radical changes in control, where actors in possession of resources necessary to bring the project through the next phase, move in to take control – thereby expanding their businesses to new growth niches. Based on the analysis of seven deals, the authors argue that the innovation process is a combined push and pull process where later stage entrepreneurial interests play very significant roles. Deals may also represent radical turning points and moves of the projects that set the project off in a different direction, usually also associated with shifting ownership control rights through the innovation and scaling process. The authors also argue that inventions in the periphery will tend to move to the areas with the most competent relevant business networks capable of adopting and expanding the innovation to a global business operation. The innovation process is not primarily about creating new resources and activities, but about recombining existing resources, competencies and activities. Supplier networks play particularly important roles in these processes. Research limitations/implications The authors suggest that the study indicates that IMP researchers should turn more attention to studying business deals and financial flows and influences – in particular in studies of innovations and innovation processes – to investigate the mechanisms by which new innovations interact with and transform existing business networks. Social implications This work highlights why and how an innovation that may initiate anywhere in the periphery, will tend to move to the most competent and capable networks around the globe, that are the most relevant to the needs of the innovation project. Hence, the more powerful business networks and eco-systems will tend to pull interesting inventions in from their periphery, and grow them effectively. Originality/value The paper expands the efforts in IMP theorizing to include financial/monetary interactions more explicitly into business network theory. It also aims at clarifying core IMP arguments toward entrepreneurship research, in particular research on international new ventures.

Purpose While the use of long-endurance remotely piloted aircraft systems (LE-RPAS) is frequently associated with military operations, their core capabilities of long-range, low-cost and high-quality optics and communications systems have considerable potential benefit in supporting the work of humanitarian logisticians. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to demonstrate how LE-RPAS could be used to improve the logistic response to a rapid onset disaster. Design/methodology/approach Using the response to the Cyclone Pam that struck Vanuatu in March 2015 as an example, this paper provides an overview of how LE-RPAS could be used to support the post-disaster needs assessment and subsequent response processes. In addition, it provides a high-level route map to develop the people, process and technology requirements that would support the operational deployment of the LE-RPAS capabilities. Findings On the basis of the analysis of the published literature and the resultant assessment of the benefits of LE-RPAS to support humanitarian logistic (HL) operations, it is concluded that a formal “proof of concept” trial should be undertaken, and the results be made available to the humanitarian community. Research limitations/implications This paper is conceptual in nature, but has been developed through an analysis of the literature relating to remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) and HLs. A route map through which the paper’s conclusions can be validated is also offered. Practical implications LE-RPAS have great potential to provide a swifter understanding of the impact of a disaster, particularly those where the location is remote from the main centres of population. This would allow the affected country’s National Disaster Management Organisation, together with those of supporting countries, to react more efficiently and effectively. In particular, it would allow a swifter transition from a “guess-based” push approach to one that more accurately reflects the disaster’s impact – i.e. a pull-based logistic response. Social implications Given the military genesis of RPAS, it will be important to ensure that those engaged in their operation are sensitive to the implications of this. In particular, it will be essential to ensure that any humanitarian operations involving RPAS are undertaken in an ethical way that respects, for example, the privacy and safety of the affected population. Originality/value While there is some emerging discussion on the humanitarian-related use of RPAS in the literature, this generally reflects the operation of small aircraft with limited range and payload capabilities. Useful though such RPAS unquestionably are, this paper expands the discussion of how such systems can support the humanitarian logistician by considering the benefits and challenges of operating long-endurance aircraft.

Knowledge-driven companies are facing financial and competitive pressures that make them increasingly difficult to allocate the kinds of financial resources to research as they have in the past. For this reason, corporate scientists, research managers and business managers must understand both the financial and knowledge returns associated with the research they conduct so that they can best direct and allocate resources to research that provides both financial returns and establishes the knowledge basis for future discovery and innovation. We present a model for assessing research opportunities both from the standpoint of responding to market needs and pushing forward new knowledge development. We illustrate the use of this analytic model in both market pull and research push examples. We argue that both business and research managers in corporations can use this analytical discipline to better join the needs of business and the research divisions that support them.

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to understand the knowledge sharing in projects based on knowledge flow patterns. The impact of attrition, thereby leading to a loss of tacit knowledge, inability to capture and reuse knowledge and inability to understand the knowledge flow patterns, which leads to lack of structured workspace collaboration, are frequently faced challenges in organizations. The change in knowledge sourcing behaviors by the current generation workforce has a high reaching impact in driving collaboration among employees. Design/methodology/approach – This paper attempts to study this impact and identify means to improve the effectiveness of collective knowledge sharing via social computing platforms. As part of this study, customized solutions are devised based on knowledge flow patterns prevalent in teams. Knowledge network analysis (KNA), a socio-metric analysis, is performed to understand knowledge flow patterns among employees in a team which helps understand the relationships between team members with respect to knowledge sharing. KNA helps in understanding ties and interactions between human and system resources. Findings – Significant changes were observed in knowledge sourcing and sharing behaviors. Capture of the tacit knowledge of employees further resulted in reducing the impact of knowledge attrition. For instance, targeted communities of practice (CoPs) based on the presence of cliques within teams enabled teams to complete projects effectively and efficiently. Practical implications – The results are used to identify push and pull networks to enable effective knowledge management (KM). Results of this study reveal that analyzing knowledge flow patterns in a team and deploying a customized social computing platform that is tailored to address the needs of specific knowledge flow patterns within that team, significantly enhances collaborative sharing as opposed to a standardized “one-size-fits-all” platform. Originality/value – This paper is an original creation after research by the authors for a continuous assessment of KM within the organization.

Purpose Over recent decades, talent agglomeration has emerged as a critical topic for scholars, businesses and government officers. Innovative ability is a core competition for high-tech talents. In China, low innovation is the bottleneck, as the high-tech industry usually cannot provide sufficient support for the continuous needs of innovative talents. To enhance the continuous support of talents, it is important to obtain the mechanisms of talent evaluation and flow in high-tech industry. Exploring the incentive factors influencing the scientific and technological personnel, adjust the layout of talents and promote the rational agglomeration. It’s significant to realize the regional economic development. Design/methodology/approach This study proposes an assessment model using the multi-criteria decision-making method of analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to determine the weights of incentive factors and a nonlinear programing model, from micro, meso and macro perspectives of individual, organizational and social incentives by adopting Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, Kurt Lewin’s field theory and Lee’s push-pull theory. After the literature review and interviews with 14 experts, this study produced a research framework and a pairwise comparison questionnaire. In addition, the relative quantitative weights of 3 main categories and 15 indicators are identified and ranked based on the AHP method. Findings The results demonstrate that the most important dimension is the individual, and the top three highest weighted factors are job satisfaction, sense of working accomplishment and interpersonal relationships. The discussion in this study showed that the proposed model is rational and acceptable to motivate high-tech innovation talent (HTIT) agglomeration for high-tech enterprises, universities, government and start-ups. Research limitations/implications The pairwise comparison using the AHP method is limited to expert opinions, which are considered comparatively subjective. The number of incentive factors should be increased, as some indicators may have been omitted from the AHP model. Practical implications According to the results, some suggestions can be recommended to corporate executives, HR managers and government officers to attract and retain high-tech talents and further to improve industrial clusters and economic development. Originality/value This paper derives a relative ranking of importance based on the opinions of experienced HR specialists, high-tech talent, scholars and government official, and assesses the consistency of results. The ordering represents the importance of indicators and sub-indicators of two levels from respondents’ perspectives in an industry cluster background. The study, focusing on the high-tech industry in China (which is a developing country), offers a unique view, as earlier studies mainly collect data from developed countries.

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is considered a key mitigation technology in most 1.5–2.0°C compatible climate change mitigation scenarios. Nonetheless, examples of BECCS deployment are lacking internationally. It is widely acknowledged that widespread implementation of this technology requires strong policy enablers, and that such enablers are currently non-existent. However, the literature lacks a more structured assessment of the “incentive gap” between scenarios with substantive BECCS deployment and existing policy enablers to effectuate BECCS deployment. Sweden, a country with progressive climate policies and particularly good preconditions for BECCS, constitutes a relevant locus for such examinations. The paper asks to what extent and how existing UN, EU, and Swedish climate policy instruments incentivize BECCS research, development, demonstration, and deployment in Sweden. The analysis is followed by a tentative discussion of needs for policy reform to improve the effectiveness of climate policy in delivering BECCS. Drawing on a tripartite typology of policy instruments (economic, regulatory, and informational) and the ability of these instruments to create supply-push or demand-pull, the article finds that: (1) no instruments create a demand-pull to cover operational expenditure; (2) economic instruments provide partial support for research and the capital expenditure associated with demonstration, and; (3) regulatory instruments provide partial clarity on environmental safeguards and responsibilities. A few regulatory barriers also continue to counteract deployment. The article concludes that the existing policy mix requires considerable reform if BECCS is to contribute substantially to the Swedish target for net-zero emissions. Continued effort to dismantle regulatory barriers must be complemented with a strong demand-pull instrument that complements the current focus on supply-push incentives. If unreformed, the existing policy mix will most likely lead to substantial public expenditure on BECCS research, development, and demonstration without leading to any substantial deployment and diffusion.

AbstractGoing from a small scale laboratory invention or discovery to a large scale application is not a trivial task and incorporating them into a product for a viable business is even more difficult. As technologies approach final products and applications, the number of criteria it must meet increases exponentially. Economics of the manufacturing process, environmental issues, intellectual property management, etc. needs to be assessed and monitored carefully. Bridging the gap from research to business not only needs multi-disciplinary understanding of the various aspects of the technology, but also how and what it could potentially enable or replace in current technologies and how to go about it through partnerships with global business entities. Especially with new materials, such as nano-scale materials, technology push needs to be rigorous and often the end results are uncertain. One needs to start from a large number of end user applications and narrow down to 1-2 high value-add or high volume opportunities. This process also requires constant development of the existing products to meet the exact needs for the high opportunity end markets. Timing for such efforts is crucial and the resources needed for such activities are often under-estimated by small start-up firms. Even for materials with well understood end products and established markets, significant market pull requires huge investments in product reliability demonstrations, cost of manufacturing, etc. Innovation, flexibility, change, educated risk, adaptability, focus and excellence are all key drivers and necessary ingredients for a successful and sustainable start-up venture. While scientific and engineering innovations are absolutely necessary, the metric for success for any business is revenue generation. Finding the right mechanisms for closing this gap (so-called the valley of death) is where the innovations of entrepreneurs lies. In this paper, I will share some of my personal learning experiences through the start-up company Applied Nanoworks Inc., (now Auterra Inc.).

The digital revolution has been characterized by the overlapping of different media technologies and platforms which reshaped both traditional forms of audiovisual consumption and older conceptions of place and space. John Agnew claims that, traditionally, the notion of place has been associated with two different meanings: ‘the first is a geometric conception of place as a mere part of space and the second is a phenomenological understanding of a place as a distinctive coming together in space’ (317). Both of the dominant meanings have been challenged by the idea that the world itself is increasingly “placeless” as space-spanning connections and flows of information, things, and people undermine the rootedness of a wide range of processes anywhere in particular (Friedman). On the one hand, by obliterating physical distance, new technologies such as the Internet and the cell phone are making places obsolete, on the other hand, the proliferation of media representations favoured by these technologies are making places more relevant than ever. These increasing mediatisation processes, in fact, generate what Urry and Larsen call ‘imaginative geographies’, namely the conflation of representational spaces and physical spaces that substitute and enhance each other in contingent ways (116). The smartphone as a new hybrid media platform that combines different technological features such as digital screens, complex software applications, cameras, tools for online communication and GPS devices, has played a crucial role in the construction of new notions of place. This article examines a specific type of phone applications: mobile, digital mapping tools that allow users to identify film-locations. In doing so it will assess how new media platforms can potentially reconfigure notions of both media consumption, and (physical and imagined) mobility. Furthermore, the analysis of digital movie maps and their mediation of film locations will shed light on the way in which contemporary leisure activities reshape the cultural, social and geographic meaning of place. Digital, Mobile Movie MapsDigital movie maps can be defined as software applications, conceived for smart phones or other mobile devices, which enable users to identify the geographical position of film locations. These applications rely on geotagging which is the process of adding geospatial metadata (usually latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates) to texts or images. From this point of view these phone apps belong to a broader category of media that Tristan Thielmann calls geomedia: converging applications of interactive, digital, mapping tools and mobile and networked media technologies. According to Hjorth, recent studies on mobile media practices show a trend toward “re-enacting the importance of place and home as both a geo-imaginary and socio-cultural precept” (Hjorth 371). In 2008 Google announced that Google Maps and Google Earth will become the basic platform for any information search. Similarly, in 2010 Flickr started georeferencing their complete image stock (Thielmann 8). Based on these current developments media scholars such as Thielmann claim that geomedia will emerge in the future as one of the most pervasive forms of digital technology (8).In my research I identified 44 phone geomedia apps that offered content variously related to film locations. In every case the main functionality of the apps consisted in matching geographic data concerning the locations with visual and written information about the corresponding film production. ‘Scene Seekers’, the first app able to match the title of a film with the GPS map of its locations, was released in 2009. Gradually, subsequent film-location apps incorporated a number of other functions including:Trivia and background information about films and locationsSubmission forms which allow users to share information about their favourite film locatiosLocation photosLinks to film downloadFilm-themed itinerariesAudio guidesOnline discussion groupsCamera/video function which allow users to take photos of the locations and share them on social mediaFilm stills and film clipsAfter identifying the movie map apps, I focused on the examination of the secondary functions they offered and categorized the applications based on both their main purpose and their main target users (as explicitly described in the app store). Four different categories of smart phone applications emerged. Apps conceived for:Business (for location scouts and producers)Entertainment (for trivia and quiz buffs)Education (for students and film history lovers)Travel (for tourists)‘Screen New South Wales Film Location Scout’, an app designed for location scouts requiring location contact information across the state of New South Wales, is an example of the first category. The app provides lists, maps and images of locations used in films shot in the region as well as contact details for local government offices. Most of these types of apps are available for free download and are commissioned by local authorities in the hope of attracting major film productions, which in turn might bring social and economic benefits to the region.A small number of the apps examined target movie fans and quiz buffs. ‘James Bond and Friends’, for example, focuses on real life locations where spy/thriller movies have been shot in London. Interactive maps and photos of the locations show their geographical position. The app also offers a wealth of trivia on spy/thriller movies and tests users’ knowledge of James Bond films with quizzes about the locations. While some of these apps provide information on how to reach particular film locations, the emphasis is on trivia and quizzes rather than travel itself.Some of the apps are explicitly conceived for educational purposes and target film students, film scholars and users interested in the history of film more broadly. The Italian Ministry for Cultural Affairs, for example, developed a number of smartphone apps designed to promote knowledge about Italian Cinema. Each application focuses on one Italian city, and was designed for users wishing to acquire more information about the movie industry in that urban area. The ‘Cinema Roma’ app, for example, contains a selection of geo-referenced film sets from a number of famous films shot in Rome. The film spots are presented via a rich collection of historical images and texts from the Italian National Photographic Archive.Finally, the majority of the apps analysed (around 60%) explicitly targets tourists. One of the most popular film-tourist applications is the ‘British Film Locations’ app with over 100,000 downloads since its launch in 2011. ‘British Film Locations’ was commissioned by VisitBritain, the British tourism agency. Visit Britain has attempted to capitalize on tourists’ enthusiasm around film blockbusters since the early 2000s as their research indicated that 40% of potential visitors would be very likely to visit the place they had seen in films or on TV (VisitBritain). British Film Locations enables users to discover and photograph the most iconic British film locations in cinematic history. Film tourists can search by film title, each film is accompanied by a detailed synopsis and list of locations so users can plan an entire British film tour. The app also allows users to take photos of the location and automatically share them on social networks such as Facebook or Twitter.Movie Maps and Film-TourismAs already mentioned, the majority of the film-location phone apps are designed for travel purposes and include functionalities that cater for the needs of the so called ‘post-tourists’. Maxine Feifer employed this term to describe the new type of tourist arising out of the shift from mass to post-Fordist consumption. The post-tourist crosses physical and virtual boundaries and shifts between experiences of everyday life, either through the actual or the simulated mobility allowed by the omnipresence of signs and electronic images in the contemporary age (Leotta). According to Campbell the post-tourist constructs his or her own tourist experience and destination, combining these into a package of overlapping and disjunctive elements: the imagined (dreams and screen cultures), the real (actual travels and guides) and the virtual (myths and internet) (203). More recently a number of scholars (Guttentag, Huang et al., Neuhofer et al.) have engaged with the application and implications of virtual reality on the planning, management and marketing of post-tourist experiences. Film-induced tourism is an expression of post-tourism. Since the mid-1990s a growing number of scholars (Riley and Van Doren, Tooke and Baker, Hudson and Ritchie, Leotta) have engaged with the study of this phenomenon, which Sue Beeton defined as “visitation to sites where movies and TV programmes have been filmed as well as to tours to production studios, including film-related theme parks” (11). Tourists’ fascination with film sets and locations is a perfect example of Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality. Such places are simulacra which embody the blurred boundaries between reality and representation in a world in which unmediated access to reality is impossible (Baudrillard).Some scholars have focused on the role of mediated discourse in preparing both the site and the traveller for the process of tourist consumption (Friedberg, Crouch et al.). In particular, John Urry highlights the interdependence between tourism and the media with the concept of the ‘tourist gaze’. Urry argues that the gaze dominates tourism, which is primarily concerned with the commodification of images and visual consumption. According to Urry, movies and television play a crucial role in shaping the tourist gaze as the tourist compares what is gazed at with the familiar image of the object of the gaze. The tourist tries to reproduce his or her own expectations, which have been “constructed and sustained through a variety of non-tourist practices, such as film, TV, literature, records, and videos” (Urry 3). The inclusion of the camera functionality in digital movie maps such as ‘British Film Locations’ fulfils the need to actually reproduce the film images that the tourist has seen at home.Film and MapsThe convergence between film and (virtual) travel is also apparent in the prominent role that cartography plays in movies. Films often allude to maps in their opening sequences to situate their stories in time and space. In turn, the presence of detailed geographical descriptions of space at the narrative level often contributes to establish a stronger connection between film and viewers (Conley). Tom Conley notes that a number of British novels and their cinematic adaptations including Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) and Stevenson’s Treasure Island belong to the so called ‘cartographic fiction’ genre. In these stories, maps are deployed to undo the narrative thread and inspire alternative itineraries to the extent of legitimising an interactive relation between text and reader or viewer (Conley 225).The popularity of LOTR locations as film-tourist destinations within New Zealand may be, in part, explained by the prominence of maps as both aesthetic and narrative devices (Leotta). The authenticity of the LOTR geography (both the novel and the film trilogy) is reinforced, in fact, by the reoccurring presence of the map. Tolkien designed very detailed maps of Middle Earth that were usually published in the first pages of the books. These maps play a crucial role in the immersion into the imaginary geography of Middle Earth, which represents one of the most important pleasures of reading LOTR (Simmons). The map also features extensively in the cinematic versions of both LOTR and The Hobbit. The Fellowship of the Ring opens with several shots of a map of Middle Earth, anticipating the narrative of displacement that characterizes LOTR. Throughout the trilogy the physical dimensions of the protagonists’ journey are emphasized by the foregrounding of the landscape as a map.The prominence of maps and geographical exploration as a narrative trope in ‘cartographic fiction’ such as LOTR may be responsible for activating the ‘tourist imagination’ of film viewers (Crouch et al.). The ‘tourist imagination’ is a construct that explains the sense of global mobility engendered by the daily consumption of the media, as well as actual travel. As Crouch, Jackson and Thompson put it, “the activity of tourism itself makes sense only as an imaginative process which involves a certain comprehension of the world and enthuses a distinctive emotional engagement with it” (Crouch et al. 1).The use of movie maps, the quest for film locations in real life may reproduce some of the cognitive and emotional pleasures that were activated while watching the movie, particularly if maps, travel and geographic exploration are prominent narrative elements. Several scholars (Couldry, Hills, Beeton) consider film-induced tourism as a contemporary form of pilgrimage and movie maps are becoming an inextricable part of this media ritual. Hudson and Ritchie note that maps produced by local stakeholders to promote the locations of films such as Sideways and LOTR proved to be extremely popular among tourists (391-392). In their study about the impact of paper movie maps on tourist behaviour in the UK, O’Connor and Pratt found that movie maps are an essential component in the marketing mix of a film location. For example, the map of Pride and Prejudice Country developed by the Derbyshire and Lincolnshire tourist boards significantly helped converting potential visitors into tourists as almost two in five visitors stated it ‘definitely’ turned a possible visit into a certainty (O’Connor and Pratt).Media Consumption and PlaceDigital movie maps have the potential to further reconfigure traditional understandings of media consumption and place. According to Nana Verhoeff digital mapping tools encourage a performative cartographic practice in the sense that the dynamic map emerges and changes during the users’ journey. The various functionalities of digital movie maps favour the hybridization between film reception and space navigation as by clicking on the movie map the user could potentially watch a clip of the film, read about both the film and the location, produce his/her own images and comments of the location and share it with other fans online.Furthermore, digital movie maps facilitate and enhance what Nick Couldry, drawing upon Claude Levi Strauss, calls “parcelling out”: the marking out as significant of differences in ritual space (83). According to Couldry, media pilgrimages, the visitation of TV or film locations are rituals that are based from the outset on an act of comparison between the cinematic depiction of place and its physical counterpart. Digital movie maps have the potential to facilitate this comparison by immediately retrieving images of the location as portrayed in the film. Media locations are rife with the marking of differences between the media world and the real locations as according to Couldry some film tourists seek precisely these differences (83).The development of smart phone movie maps, may also contribute to redefine the notion of audiovisual consumption. According to Nanna Verhoeff, mobile screens of navigation fundamentally revise the spatial coordinates of previously dominant, fixed and distancing cinematic screens. One of the main differences between mobile digital screens and larger, cinematic screens is that rather than being surfaces of projection or transmission, they are interfaces of software applications that combine different technological properties of the hybrid screen device: a camera, an interface for online communication, a GPS device (Verhoeff). Because of these characteristics of hybridity and intimate closeness, mobile screens involve practices of mobile and haptic engagement that turn the classical screen as distanced window on the world, into an interactive, hybrid navigation device that repositions the viewer as central within the media world (Verhoeff).In their discussion of the relocation of cinema into the iPhone, Francesco Casetti and Sara Sampietro reached similar conclusions as they define the iPhone as both a visual device and an interactive interface that mobilizes the eye as well as the hand (Casetti and Sampietro 23). The iPhone constructs an ‘existential bubble’ in which the spectator can find refuge while remaining exposed to the surrounding environment. When the surrounding environment is the real life film location, the consumption or re-consumption of the film text allowed by the digital movie map is informed by multi-sensorial and cognitive stimuli that are drastically different from traditional viewing experiences.The increasing popularity of digital movie maps is a phenomenon that could be read in conjunction with the emergence of innovative locative media such as the Google glasses and other applications of Augmented Reality (A.R.). Current smart phones available in the market are already capable to support A.R. applications and it appears likely that this will become a standard feature of movie apps within the next few years (Sakr). Augmented reality refers to the use of data overlays on real-time camera view of a location which make possible to show virtual objects within their spatial context. The camera eye on the device registers physical objects on location, and transmits these images in real time on the screen. On-screen this image is combined with different layers of data: still image, text and moving image.In a film-tourism application of augmented reality tourists would be able to point their phone camera at the location. As the camera identifies the location images from the film will overlay the image of the ‘real location’. The user, therefore, will be able to simultaneously see and walk in both the real location and the virtual film set. The notion of A.R. is related to the haptic aspect of engagement which in turn brings together the doing, the seeing and the feeling (Verhoeff). In film theory the idea of the haptic has come to stand for an engaged look that involves, and is aware of, the body – primarily that of the viewer (Marx, Sobchack). The future convergence between cinematic and mobile technologies is likely to redefine both perspectives on haptic perception of cinema and theories of film spectatorship.The application of A.R. to digital, mobile maps of film-locations will, in part, fulfill the prophecies of René Barjavel. In 1944, before Bazin’s seminal essay on the myth of total cinema, French critic Barjavel, asserted in his book Le Cinema Total that the technological evolution of the cinematic apparatus will eventually result in the total enveloppement (envelopment or immersion) of the film-viewer. This enveloppement will be characterised by the multi-sensorial experience and the full interactivity of the spectator within the movie itself. More recently, Thielmann has claimed that geomedia such as movie maps constitute a first step toward the vision that one day it might be possible to establish 3-D spaces as a medial interface (Thielmann).Film-Tourism, Augmented Reality and digital movie maps will produce a complex immersive and inter-textual media system which is at odds with Walter Benjamin’s famous thesis on the loss of ‘aura’ in the age of mechanical reproduction (Benjamin), as one of the pleasures of film-tourism is precisely the interaction with the auratic place, the actual film location or movie set. According to Nick Couldry, film tourists are interested in the aura of the place and filming itself. The notion of aura is associated here with both the material history of the location and the authentic experience of it (104).Film locations, as mediated by digital movie maps, are places in which people have a complex sensorial, emotional, cognitive and imaginative involvement. The intricate process of remediation of the film-locations can be understood as a symptom of what Lash and Urry have called the ‘re-subjectification of space’ in which ‘locality’ is re-weighted with a more subjective and affective charge of place (56). According to Lash and Urry the aesthetic-expressive dimensions of the experience of place have become as important as the cognitive ones. By providing new layers of cultural meaning and alternative modes of affective engagement, digital movie maps will contribute to redefine both the notion of tourist destination and the construction of place identity. These processes can potentially be highly problematic as within this context the identity and meanings of place are shaped and controlled by the capital forces that finance and distribute the digital movie maps. Future critical investigations of digital cartography will need to address the way in which issues of power and control are deeply enmeshed within new tourist practices. ReferencesAgnew, John, “Space and Place.” Handbook of Geographical Knowledge. Eds. John Agnew and David Livingstone. London: Sage, 2011. 316-330Barjavel, René. Cinema Total. Paris: Denoel, 1944.Baudrillard, Jean. Simulations. Trans. Paul Foss et al. New York: Semiotext(e), 1983.Beeton, Sue. Film Induced Tourism. Buffalo: Channel View Publications, 2005.Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. Translated by Harry Zohn. Glasgow: Fontana, 1979.Campbell, Nick. “Producing America.” The Media and the Tourist Imagination. Eds. David Crouch et al. London: Routledge, 2005. 198-214.Casetti, Francesco, and Sara Sampietro. “With Eyes, with Hands: The Relocation of Cinema into the iPhone.” Moving Data: The iPhone and the Future of Media. Eds. Pelle Snickars and Patrick Vonderau. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. 19-30.Claudell, Tom, and David Mizell. “Augmented Reality: An Application of Heads-Up Display Technology to Manual Manufacturing Processes.” Proceedings of 1992 IEEE Hawaii International Conference, 1992.Conley, Tom. “The Lord of the Rings and The Fellowship of the Map.” From Hobbits to Hollywood. Ed. Ernst Mathijs and Matthew Pomerance. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006. 215–30.Couldry, Nick. “The View from inside the 'Simulacrum‘: Visitors’ Tales from the Set of Coronation Street.” Leisure Studies 17.2 (1998): 94-107.Couldry, Nick. Media Rituals: A Critical Approach. London: Routledge, 2003. 75-94.Crouch, David, Rhona Jackson, and Felix Thompson. The Media and the Tourist Imagination. London: Routledge, 2005Feifer, Maxine. Going Places: The Ways of the Tourist from Imperial Rome to the Present Day. London: Macmillan, 1985.Friedberg, Anne. Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.Friedman, Thomas. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2005.Guttentag, Daniel. “Virtual Reality: Applications and Implications for Tourism.” Tourism Management 31.5 (2010): 637-651.Hill, Matt. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge. 2002.Huang, Yu Chih, et al. “Exploring User Acceptance of 3D Virtual Worlds in Tourism Marketing”. Tourism Management 36 (2013): 490-501.Hjorth, Larissa. “The Game of Being Mobile. One Media History of Gaming and Mobile Technologies in Asia-Pacific.” Convergence 13.4 (2007): 369–381.Hudson, Simon, and Brent Ritchie. “Film Tourism and Destination Marketing: The Case of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.” Journal of Vacation Marketing 12.3 (2006): 256–268.Jackson, Rhona. “Converging Cultures; Converging Gazes; Contextualizing Perspectives.” The Media and the Tourist Imagination. Eds. David Crouch et al. London: Routledge, 2005. 183-197.Kim, Hyounggon, and Sarah Richardson. “Motion Pictures Impacts on Destination Images.” Annals of Tourism Research 25.2 (2005): 216–327.Lash, Scott, and John Urry. Economies of Signs and Space. London: Sage, 1994.Leotta, Alfio. Touring the Screen: Tourism and New Zealand Film Geographies. London: Intellect Books, 2011.Marks, Laura. “Haptic Visuality: Touching with the Eyes.” Framework the Finnish Art Review 2 (2004): 78-82.Neuhofer, Barbara, Dimitrios Buhalis, and Adele Ladkin. ”A Typology of Technology-Enhanced Tourism Experiences.” International Journal of Tourism Research 16.4 (2014): 340-350.O’Connor, Noelle, and Stephen Pratt. Using Movie Maps to Leverage a Tourism Destination – Pride and Prejudice (2005). Paper presented at the 4th Tourism & Hospitality Research Conference – Reflection: Irish Tourism & Hospitality. Tralee Institute of Technology Conference, Tralee, Co. Kerry, Ireland. 2008.Riley, Roger, and Carlton Van Doren. “Films as Tourism Promotion: A “Pull” Factor in a “Push” Location.” Tourism Management 13.3 (1992): 267-274.Sakr, Sharif. “Augmented Reality App Concept Conjures Movie Scenes Shot in Your Location”. Engadget 2011. 1 Feb. 2016 <http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/22/augmented-reality-app-concept-conjures-movie-scenes-shot-in-your/>.Simmons, Laurence. “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.” The Cinema of Australia and New Zealand. Eds. Geoff Mayer and Keith Beattie. London: Wallflower, 2007. 223–32.Sobchack, Vivian. Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture. Berkeley: University of California. 2004.Thielmann, Tristan. “Locative Media and Mediated Localities: An Introduction to Media Geography.” Aether 5a Special Issue on Locative Media (Spring 2010): 1-17.Tooke, Nichola, and Michael Baker. “Seeing Is Believing: The Effect of Film on Visitor Numbers to Screened Location.” Tourism Management 17.2 (1996): 87-94.Tzanelli, Rodanthi. The Cinematic Tourist. New York: Routledge, 2007.Urry, John. The Tourist Gaze. London: Sage, 2002.Urry, John, and Jonas Larsen. The Tourist Gaze 3.0. London: Sage, 2011.Verhoeff, Nana. Mobile Screens: The Visual Regime of Navigation. Amsterdam University Press, 2012.VisitBritain. “Films Continue to Draw Tourists to Britain.” 2010. 20 Oct. 2012 <http://www.visitbritain.org/mediaroom/archive/2011/filmtourism.aspx>.

IntroductionThis essay considers three design projects as microprotests. Reflecting on the ways design practice can generate spaces, sites and methods of protest, we use the concept of microprotest to consider how we, as designers ourselves, can protest by scaling down, focussing, slowing down and paying attention to the edges of our practice. Design microprotest is a form of design activism that is always collaborative, takes place within a community, and involves careful translation of a political conversation. While microprotest can manifest in any design discipline, in this essay we focus on visual communication design. In particular we consider the deep, reflexive practice of listening as the foundation of microprotests in visual communication design.While small in scale and fleeting in duration, these projects express rich and deep political engagements through conversations that create and maintain safe spaces. While many design theorists (Julier; Fuad-Luke; Clarke; Irwin et al.) have done important work to contextualise activist design as a broad movement with overlapping branches (social design, community design, eco-design, participatory design, critical design, and transition design etc.), the scope of our study takes ‘micro’ as a starting point. We focus on the kind of activism that takes shape in moments of careful design; these are moments when designers move politically, rather than necessarily within political movements. These microprotests respond to community needs through design more than they articulate a broad activist design movement. As such, the impacts of these microprotests often go unnoticed outside of the communities within which they take place. We propose, and test in this essay, a mode of analysis for design microprotests that takes design activism as a starting point but pays more attention to community and translation than designers and their global reach.In his analysis of design activism, Julier proposes “four possible conceptual tactics for the activist designer that are also to be found in particular qualities in the mainstream design culture and economy” (Julier, Introduction 149). We use two of these tactics to begin exploring a selection of attributes common to design microprotests: temporality – which describes the way that speed, slowness, progress and incompletion are dealt with; and territorialisation – which describes the scale at which responsibility and impact is conceived (227). In each of three projects to which we apply these tactics, one of us had a role as a visual communicator. As such, the research is framed by the knowledge creating paradigm described by Jonas as “research through design”.We also draw on other conceptualisations of design activism, and the rich design literature that has emerged in recent times to challenge the colonial legacies of design studies (Schultz; Tristan et al.; Escobar). Some analyses of design activism already focus on the micro or the minor. For example, in their design of social change within organisations as an experimental and iterative process, Lensjkold, Olander and Hasse refer to Deleuze and Guattari’s minoritarian: “minor design activism is ‘a position in co-design engagements that strives to continuously maintain experimentation” (67). Like minor activism, design microprotests are linked to the continuous mobilisation of actors and networks in processes of collective experimentation. However microprotests do not necessarily focus on organisational change. Rather, they create new (and often tiny) spaces of protest within which new voices can be heard and different kinds of listening can be done.In the first of our three cases, we discuss a representation of transdisciplinary listening. This piece of visual communication is a design microprotest in itself. This section helps to frame what we mean by a safe space by paying attention to the listening mode of communication. In the next sections we explore temporality and territorialisation through the design microprotests Just Spaces which documents the collective imagining of safe places for LBPQ (Lesbian, Bisexual, Pansexual, and Queer) women and non-binary identities through a series of graphic objects and Conversation Piece, a book written, designed and published over three days as a proposition for a collective future. A Representation of Transdisciplinary ListeningThe design artefact we present in this section is a representation of listening and can be understood as a microprotest emerging from a collective experiment that materialises firstly as a visual document asking questions of the visual communication discipline and its role in a research collaboration and also as a mirror for the interdisciplinary team to reflexively develop transdisciplinary perspectives on the risks associated with the release of environmental flows in the upper reaches of Hawkesbury Nepean River in NSW, Australia. This research project was funded through a Challenge Grant Scheme to encourage transdisciplinarity within the University. The project team worked with the Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment Management Authority in response to the question: What are the risks to maximising the benefits expected from increased environmental flows? Listening and visual communication design practice are inescapably linked. Renown American graphic designer and activist Sheila de Bretteville describes a consciousness and a commitment to listening as an openness, rather than antagonism and argument. Fiumara describes listening as nascent or an emerging skill and points to listening as the antithesis of the Western culture of saying and expression.For a visual communication designer there is a very specific listening that can be described as visual hearing. This practice materialises the act of hearing through a visualisation of the information or knowledge that is shared. This act of visual hearing is a performative process tracing the actors’ perspectives. This tracing is used as content, which is then translated into a transcultural representation constituted by the designerly act of perceiving multiple perspectives. The interpretation contributes to a shared project of transdisciplinary understanding.This transrepresentation (Fig. 1) is a manifestation of a small interaction among a research team comprised of a water engineer, sustainable governance researcher, water resource management researcher, environmental economist and a designer. This visualisation is a materialisation of a structured conversation in response to the question What are the risks to maximising the benefits expected from increased environmental flows? It represents a small contribution that provides an opportunity for reflexivity and documents a moment in time in response to a significant challenge. In this translation of a conversation as a visual representation, a design microprotest is made against reduction, simplification, antagonism and argument. This may seem intangible, but as a protest through design, “it involves the development of artifacts that exist in real time and space, it is situated within everyday contexts and processes of social and economic life” (Julier 226). This representation locates conversation in a visual order that responds to particular categorisations of the political, the institutional, the socio-economic and the physical in a transdisciplinary process that focusses on multiple perspectives.Figure 1: Transrepresentation of responses by an interdisciplinary research team to the question: What are the risks to maximising the benefits expected from increased environmental flows in the Upper Hawkesbury Nepean River? (2006) Just Spaces: Translating Safe SpacesListening is the foundation of design microprotest. Just Spaces emerged out of a collaborative listening project It’s OK! An Anthology of LBPQ (Lesbian, Bisexual, Pansexual and Queer) Women’s and Non-Binary Identities’ Stories and Advice. By visually communicating the way a community practices supportive listening (both in a physical form as a book and as an online resource), It’s OK! opens conversations about how LBPQ women and non-binary identities can imagine and help facilitate safe spaces. These conversations led to thinking about the effects of breaches of safe spaces on young LBPQ women and non-binary identities. In her book The Cultural Politics of Emotion, Sara Ahmed presents Queer Feelings as a new way of thinking about Queer bodies and the way they use and impress upon space. She makes an argument for creating and imagining new ways of creating and navigating public and private spaces. As a design microprotest, Just Spaces opens up Queer ways of navigating space through a process Ahmed describes as “the ‘non-fitting’ or discomfort .... an opening up which can be difficult and exciting” (Ahmed 154). Just Spaces is a series of workshops, translated into a graphic design object, and presented at an exhibition in the stairwell of the library at the University of Technology Sydney. It protests the requirement of navigating heteronormative environments by suggesting ‘Queer’ ways of being in and designing in space. The work offers solutions, suggestions, and new ways of doing and making by offering design methods as tools of microprotest to its participants. For instance, Just Spaces provides a framework for sensitive translation, through the introduction of a structure that helps build personas based on the game Dungeons and Dragons (a game popular among certain LGBTQIA+ communities in Sydney). Figure 2: Exhibition: Just Spaces, held at UTS Library from 5 to 27 April 2018. By focussing the design process on deep listening and rendering voices into visual translations, these workshops responded to Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s idea of the “outsider within”, articulating the way research should be navigated in vulnerable groups that have a history of being exploited as part of research. Through reciprocity and generosity, trust was generated in the design process which included a shared dinner; opening up participant-controlled safe spaces.To open up and explore ideas of discomfort and safety, two workshops were designed to provide safe and sensitive spaces for the group of seven LBPQ participants and collaborators. Design methods such as drawing, group imagining and futuring using a central prototype as a prompt drew out discussions of safe spaces. The prototype itself was a small folded house (representative of shelter) printed with a number of questions, such as:Our spaces are often unsafe. We take that as a given. But where do these breaches of safety take place? How was your safe space breached in those spaces?The workshops resulted in tangible objects, made by the participants, but these could not be made public because of privacy implications. So the next step was to use visual communication design to create sensitive and honest visual translations of the conversations. The translations trace images from the participants’ words, sketches and notes. For example, handwritten notes are transcribed and reproduced with a font chosen by the designer based on the tone of the comment and by considering how design can retain the essence of person as well as their anonymity. The translations focus on the micro: the micro breaches of safety; the interactions that take place between participants and their environment; and the everyday denigrating experiences that LBPQ women and non-binary identities go through on an ongoing basis. This translation process requires precise skills, sensitivity, care and deep knowledge of context. These skills operate at the smallest of scales through minute observation and detailed work. This micro-ness translates to the potential for truthfulness and care within the community, as it establishes a precedent through the translations for others to use and adapt for their own communities.The production of the work for exhibition also occurred on a micro level, using a Risograph, a screenprinting photocopier often found in schools, community groups and activist spaces. The machine (ME9350) used for this project is collectively owned by a co-op of Sydney creatives called Rizzeria. Each translation was printed only five times on butter paper. Butter paper is a sensitive surface but difficult to work with making the process slow and painstaking and with a lot of care.All aspects of this process and project are small: the pieced-together translations made by assembling segments of conversations; zines that can be kept in a pocket and read intimately; the group of participants; and the workshop and exhibition spaces. These small spaces of safety and their translations make possible conversations but also enable other safe spaces that move and intervene as design microprotests. Figure 3: Piecing the translations together. Figure 4: Pulling the translation off the drum; this was done every print making the process slow and requiring gentleness. This project was and is about slowing down, listening and visually translating in order to generate and imagine safe spaces. In this slowness, as Julier describes “...the activist is working in a more open-ended way that goes beyond the materialization of the design” (229). It creates methods for listening and collaboratively generating ways to navigate spaces that are fraught with micro conflict. As an act of territorialisation, it created tiny and important spaces as a design microprotest. Conversation Piece: A Fast and Slow BookConversation Piece is an experiment in collective self-publishing. It was made over three days by Frontyard, an activist space in Marrickville, NSW, involved in community “futuring”. Futuring for Frontyard is intended to empower people with tools to imagine and enact preferred futures, in contrast to what design theorist Tony Fry describes as “defuturing”, the systematic destruction of possible futures by design. Materialised as a book, Conversation Piece is also an act of collective futuring. It is a carefully designed process for producing dialogues between unlikely parties using an image archive as a starting point. Conversation Piece was designed with the book sprint format as a starting point. Founded by software designer Adam Hyde, book sprints are a method of collectively generating a book in just a few days then publishing it. Book sprints are related to the programming sprints common in agile software development or Scrum, which are often used to make FLOSS (Free and Open Source Software) manuals. Frontyard had used these techniques in a previous project to develop the Non Cash Arts Asset Platform.Conversation Piece was also modeled on two participatory books made during sprints that focussed on articulating alternative futures. Collaborative Futures was made during Transmediale in 2009, and Futurish: Thinking Out Loud about Futures (2015).The design for Conversation Piece began when Frontyard was invited to participate in the Hobiennale in 2017, a free festival emerging from the “national climate of uncertainty within the arts, influenced by changes to the structure of major arts organisations and diminishing funding opportunities.” The Hobiennale was the first Biennale held in Hobart, Tasmania, but rather than producing a standard large art survey, it focussed on artist-run spaces and initiatives, emergant practices, and marginalised voices in the arts. Frontyard is not an artist collective and does not work for commissions. Rather, the response to the invitation was based on how much energy there was in the group to contribute to Hobiennale. At Frontyard one of the ways collective and individual energy is accounted for is using spoon theory, a disability metaphor used to describe the planning that many people have to do to conserve and ration energy reserves in their daily lives (Miserandino). As outlined in the glossary of Conversation Piece, spoon theory is:A way of accounting for our emotional or physical energy and therefore our ability to participate in activities. Spoon theory can be used to collaborate with care and avoid guilt and burn out. Usually spoon theory is applied at an individual level, but it can also be used by organisations. For example, Hobiennale had enough spoons to participate in the Hobiennale so we decided to give it a go. (180)To make to book, Frontyard invited visitors to Hobiennale to participate in a series of open conversations that began with the photographic archive of the organisation over the two years of its existence. During a prototyping session, Frontyard designed nine diagrams that propositioned ways to begin conversations by combining images in different ways. Figure 5: Diagram 9. Conversation Piece: p.32-33One of the purposes of the diagrams, and the book itself, was to bring attention to the micro dynamics of conversation over time, and to create a safe space to explore the implications of these. While the production process and the book itself is micro (ten copies were printed and immediately given away), the decisions made in regards to licensing (a creative commons license is used), distribution (via the Internet Archive) and content generation (through participatory design processes) the project’s commitment to open design processes (Van Abel, Evers, Klaassen and Troxler) mean its impact is unpredictable. Counter-logical to the conventional copyright of books, open design borrows its definition - and at times its technologies and here its methods - from open source software design, to advocate the production of design objects based on fluid and shared circulation of design information. The tension between the abundance produced by an open approach to making, and the attention to the detail of relationships produced by slowing down and scaling down communication processes is made apparent in Conversation Piece:We challenge ourselves at Frontyard to keep bureaucratic processes as minimal an open as possible. We don’t have an application or acquittal process: we prefer to meet people over a cup of tea. A conversation is a way to work through questions. (7)As well as focussing on the micro dynamics of conversations, this projects protests the authority of archives. It works to dismantle the hierarchies of art and publishing through the design of an open, transparent, participatory publishing process. It offers a range of propositions about alternative economies, the agency of people working together at small scales, and the many possible futures in the collective imaginaries of people rethinking time, outcomes, results and progress.The contributors to the book are those in conversation – a complex networks of actors that are relationally configured and themselves in constant change, so as Julier explains “the object is subject to constant transformations, either literally or in its meaning. The designer is working within this instability.” (230) This is true of all design, but in this design microprotest, Frontyard works within this instability in order to redirect it. The book functions as a series of propositions about temporality and territorialisation, and focussing on micro interventions rather than radical political movements. In one section, two Frontyard residents offer a story of migration that also serves as a recipe for purslane soup, a traditional Portuguese dish (Rodriguez and Brison). Another lifts all the images of hand gestures from the Frontyard digital image archive and represents them in a photo essay. Figure 6: Talking to Rocks. Conversation Piece: p.143ConclusionThis article is an invitation to momentarily suspend the framing of design activism as a global movement in order to slow down the analysis of design protests and start paying attention to the brief moments and small spaces of protest that energise social change in design practice. We offered three examples of design microprotests, opening with a representation of transdisciplinary listening in order to frame design as a way if interpreting and listening as well as generating and producing. The two following projects we describe are collective acts of translation: small, momentary conversations designed into graphic forms that can be shared, reproduced, analysed, and remixed. Such protests have their limitations. Beyond the artefacts, the outcomes generated by design microprotests are difficult to identify. While they push and pull at the temporality and territorialisation of design, they operate at a small scale. How design microprotests connect to global networks of protest is an important question yet to be explored. The design practices of transdisciplinary listening, Queer Feelings and translations, and collaborative book sprinting, identified in these design microprotests change the thoughts and feelings of those who participate in ways that are impossible to measure in real time, and sometimes cannot be measured at all. Yet these practices are important now, as they shift the way designers design, and the way others understand what is designed. By identifying the common attributes of design microprotests, we can begin to understand the way necessary political conversations emerge in design practice, for instance about safe spaces, transdisciplinarity, and archives. Taking a research through design approach these can be understood over time, rather than just in the moment, and in specific territories that belong to community. They can be reconfigured into different conversations that change our world for the better. References Ahmed, Sara. “Queer Feelings.” The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2004. 143-167.Clarke, Alison J. "'Actions Speak Louder': Victor Papanek and the Legacy of Design Activism." Design and Culture 5.2 (2013): 151-168.De Bretteville, Sheila L. Design beyond Design: Critical Reflection and the Practice of Visual Communication. Ed. Jan van Toorn. Maastricht: Jan van Eyck Akademie Editions, 1998. 115-127.Evers, L., et al. Open Design Now: Why Design Cannot Remain Exclusive. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers, 2011.Escobar, Arturo. Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Duke UP, 2018.Fiumara, G.C. The Other Side of Language: A Philosophy of Listening. London: Routledge, 1995.Fuad-Luke, Alastair. Design Activism: Beautiful Strangeness for a Sustainable World. London: Routledge, 2013.Frontyard Projects. 2018. Conversation Piece. Marrickville: Frontyard Projects. Fry, Tony. A New Design Philosophy: An Introduction to Defuturing. Sydney: UNSW P, 1999.Hanna, Julian, Alkan Chipperfield, Peter von Stackelberg, Trevor Haldenby, Nik Gaffney, Maja Kuzmanovic, Tim Boykett, Tina Auer, Marta Peirano, and Istvan Szakats. Futurish: Thinking Out Loud about Futures. Linz: Times Up, 2014. Irwin, Terry, Gideon Kossoff, and Cameron Tonkinwise. "Transition Design Provocation." Design Philosophy Papers 13.1 (2015): 3-11.Julier, Guy. "From Design Culture to Design Activism." Design and Culture 5.2 (2013): 215-236.Julier, Guy. "Introduction: Material Preference and Design Activism." Design and Culture 5.2 (2013): 145-150.Jonas, W. “Exploring the Swampy Ground.” Mapping Design Research. Eds. S. Grand and W. Jonas. Basel: Birkhauser, 2012. 11-41.Kagan, S. Art and Sustainability. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2011.Lenskjold, Tau Ulv, Sissel Olander, and Joachim Halse. “Minor Design Activism: Prompting Change from Within.” Design Issues 31.4 (2015): 67–78. doi:10.1162/DESI_a_00352.Max-Neef, M.A. "Foundations of Transdisciplinarity." Ecological Economics 53.53 (2005): 5-16.Miserandino, C. "The Spoon Theory." <http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com>.Nicolescu, B. "Methodology of Transdisciplinarity – Levels of Reality, Logic of the Included Middle and Complexity." Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering and Science 1.1 (2010): 19-38.Palmer, C., J. Gothe, C. Mitchell, K. Sweetapple, S. McLaughlin, G. Hose, M. Lowe, H. Goodall, T. Green, D. Sharma, S. Fane, K. Brew, and P. Jones. “Finding Integration Pathways: Developing a Transdisciplinary (TD) Approach for the Upper Nepean Catchment.” Proceedings of the 5th Australian Stream Management Conference: Australian Rivers: Making a Difference. Thurgoona, NSW: Charles Sturt University, 2008.Rodriguez and Brison. "Purslane Soup." Conversation Piece. Eds. Frontyard Projects. Marrickville: Frontyard Projects, 2018. 34-41.Schultz, Tristan, et al. "What Is at Stake with Decolonizing Design? A Roundtable." Design and Culture 10.1 (2018): 81-101.Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. New York: ZED Books, 1998. Van Abel, Bas, et al. Open Design Now: Why Design Cannot Remain Exclusive. Bis Publishers, 2014.Wing Sue, Derald. Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation. London: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. XV-XX.