I'm going to be in China for until February. I will be working at Harman International in Shenzhen.

I'm not allowed to talk about what I do within the confines of the office, but I'll be glad to share photos of China the splendid and Hong Kong.

It's been almost three weeks since I've released the IKSU Mobile app for Android. I'm already releasing an update.
Of course there will be more to come. For now, this is a small update pushing the functionality and usefulness of the app.I must say that I am also quite pleased with the installation numbers I have so far.

Version 1.1 adds a few things:

• Filter out activities you don't want to see.
• German translation
• App2SD for Android 2.2+
• Interface tweaks

I've spoken to a few users about what they think about the app and taken a few pointers. The booking feature is in high demand as it seems.

I'm still working hard on being able to book and unbook. I'm about 30% there so hang tight and it should come before the summer does.

I recently wrote a paper which was submitted and accepted for the SIDeR conference in Copenhagen. It is about how Interaction Designers should pay more attention to the tools they use when making software and hardware sketches.

Here it is if you so care to read it.

So we've started the Service Design project. We'll be proposing a concept for patients that need rehabilitation due to nervous degenerative diseases or spinal cord injuries.

Four students from UID were selected to go to Rehab Station for three days.

Today we worked with the guys from Floda 31 at making movie posters with only one graphic element and the film title. I chose the movie Moon. This is the result.

Where to start. No really I'm not sure. The whole gang woke up and we proceeded to dragging ourselves to the Elephant block to present our work to Pekka. The presentation went very well and he mentioned that some of the ideas we had had also been mentioned by previous design consultancy hires. I took this in the good way: the ideas we had over the course of 3 work days were of professional calibre. After a few comments, thank yous and a gift of gloves and cognac, we headed back to the hotel to take a nap. We packed our things, cooked up all the food we had left for breakfast and went to the post office and the flagship Nokia store. At 1620ish we took the bus to Helsinki-Vantaa airport without knowing where Jingjing, Jabi or Titti were. Got the the airport, met everyone. Flew out. Good week.

With only one day left to complete all of the design concepts and prepare a presentation, we all met up fairly early at the Elephant block and proceeded to working. We started by dividing the tasks up. As I'm still developing my sketching and InDesign skills, I felt that I should try to be an efficient idea-person. For each of the concepts and slides, I tried to help the people working on these by finding complementary ideas so that the ideas that were to be presented would make sense. I also pushed Pawar so he would drop his perfectionist habits. Over lunch, I went to Kamppi to meet with Kaisa at BBQ House; great food and what I think is the most unambiguous of restaurant names. After lunch, the group met back at Stockmanns for a marker and pen extravaganza. The 500 € that were given to us were to be put to use. Went to Alko with Benjamin and Pawar to get some proper Finnish vodka. It would be blasphemous to leave the country without some. The work group got moved a floor below where we had been working in the morning. We effectively worked from 1430 until 2230 and completed the presentation slides which were to be shown the next morning at 0800. We were intent on skipping dinner in order to get this completed. The WDC Helsinki 2012 staff had just finished a board meeting and had too many gourmet sandwiches on their hands, as well as some fresh fruit and juice. Just out lucky day as it seems! After a short break, we resumed working. At the end of it all, we all agreed that a stiff drink was exactly what we needed. We headed out to Uudenmaankatu. Long name, I know. This is one of the two very happening streets in Helsinki. Sadly, when we got there it was completely deserted, save one guys crossing the street. So upon Pawar's decision, we went to Aussie Bar : a pub entirely owned and staffed by Australians. We met a group of girls who were having a bachelorette party that evening and decided to head out to Molly Malone's once the Aussie Bar died down. The rest is history.

Started off the day horribly by noticing that Benjamin was already gone. Woke up Pawar and had some breakfast. Then we tried to look professional and walked fast toward the Elephant block in order to continue on the ideation. It was clear in my mind that once it was decided what was to happen in the space, what it should look like would become clear. We worked until 1215 and headed out to Stockmann to see which supplies it would make sense that we purchase. Turns out we didn't really need anything. I do think though that replenishing Titti's reserve is the least we could do with the money. We were supposed to go for lunch at a cheap pizza place and ended up eating Nepali food on Annankatu. Pawar was all up in his quasi-native food, teaching us how to eat properly with only a right hand and a naan. The next stop of the day was the Church of Rock or Temppeliaukion kirkko. It's a giant dome-roofed church that was closed for renovations until May...so we ended playing snow-bowling with the perfect 1 degree snow for a while. On the way back we stopped by the Hotel Torni for a view of the City. This hotel is 12 stories high and is just about the tallest building in Helsinki. We walked back to the Elephant block after a panorama photo séance at around 16:00 for a last bit of work. We organized our ideas into blocks and tried to finally decide what we were going to use as real ideas in the WDC project. Many decision were actually taken by voting on other's ideas. Design by comity is rarely a good idea but I guess that when the comity is comprised entirely of designers it's not all that bad. At the end of the work session, we thought it would be a good idea to make a plan for the next day, seeing as it was the last day left of actual work.

Woke up early and headed out the Elephant block to drop the bags and head out to the Kiasma museum. The outside architecture is beautiful and student prices make it worth the trip. Without describing each piece, The World is an Infinite Abstraction was simply amazing. The large amount of coloured ribbons created an effect like no other. The gift shop it classic Contemporary Art museum gift shop: get lost for hours in the books, posters, postcards and so on. After the museum we went to Kaupahalli, a traditional roofed market where Titti greatly recommended the soup. I had quite the great creme of asparagus (Parsakeitto). We then went to the upper floor where there was a Marimekko outlet. I had never heard of this famous Finnish brand. Now I know to keep an eye out for it. It was getting late that day and we still hadn't gotten any work done. We took the tram back and got to work. We got some ideas pertaining to the three main themes of WDC and then proceeded to classify those ideas by theme. We received the floor plans files for the space as well as the original powerpoint presentation given to us yesterday. We also got a credit card for 500 € at Stockmann. I really think that the WDC could have been more prepared that they were. We did have most of what we needed, which Titti had luckily brought from Umeå. Worked until 1830-ish and walked back to the Hotel, buying some food and beer on the way, intent on going out. As per recommended by Mikko, we headed for Molly Malone's for a few brews. Turns out that place has live music all year round. We ended up speaking to many Finnish people as well as the band that was playing who turned out to be from Stockholm. Met a Finn from Helsinki (Kaisa) and her friend (Jessica). We had some Finnish blueberry shots which consist of vodka, blueberry juice and some cream, all layered. It it consumed by completing a turn around oneself, drinking and then banging the glass to the floor. Went home late with a massive hang-over to come.