What is Method of Action
Method of Action is an educational website that will launch with three different courses: design, entrepreneurship and gardening. Every course is composed by 50 different "missions". Each mission will accompanied by insightful articles or video that establish best practices for the task at hand, recommending books for further reading, or tools that can help you accomplish your goal.
You can then submit your completed mission, and more experienced peers will review it, giving a passing or failing grade. If you succeed, you will gain points that give you access to more difficult missions.
As you gain experience, you will be able to review and help less experienced users.
Philosophies
Information ≠ knowledge
I read a lot, I have this huge collection of data in my head, and whenever people say something like "I'd like to open a restaurant" I catch myself wanting to say "Well, it's not easy, a study says that says 60% of restaurants close their door within a year". But I know it's the Asperger's in me. So I think about stuff that actually helps like "Well, I read an article that says that the second cheapest wine is the most demanded, because nobody wants to be a cheap bastard. So restaurants bank on this and put their highest profit wine there, which means that you get less bang for your buck".
It's an interesting tidbit, but it can't compare to the actual advice a real restaurateur could provide. His interest would be genuine, his answers heartfelt, and his advice spot-on. Knowledge enables you to connect with people and things at a much more intimate level.
There's a tremendous amount of beauty in things if you have deep knowledge about how they are built, be them organic or man-made. When I moved to Canada a brought along a European style coffee maker. My uncle—an engineer—was fascinated with the mechanics. He took it apart and studied every piece. I had always thought it was "nice" but my uncle found a much more deeper functional beauty.
Knowledge is acquired by actually doing things and reflecting upon it. Proactively thinking about how you can improve what you did.
You will eventually need feedback loops
You can get pretty far with just doing, but there comes a time when you will need someone to tell you how to advance. Imagine you are a solitary but extra-motivated person who wants to sprint as fast as Usain Bolt. Running seems straightforward, just move your damn legs as fast as you can, right?.
Well, it doesn't quite work out like that. You would start out by making impressive milestones, you would cut a couple of seconds every month on a 100m dash. But eventually you would hit a ceiling and you would have no idea how to surpass it. Here is where expertise comes into play, a good coach would be able to catch weaknesses in your strides, coach you on nutrition and muscle building.
Even without hitting your ceiling, it's always comforting knowing there are people watching, giving you tips on the general mechanics.
Who is behind the project
We are Mark and María
We met while working at Vostok Studio, a prestigious design agency based in Madrid, Spain. We worked together during two years for clients such as BBVA, BeBanjo and Minube.
In 2010 we decided to move to Toronto, Canada. Mark would embark in a close collaboration with Uproot, a UX development agency working on high profile projects for Rubbermaid, CBC, Bell and McDonald's Canada; while María worked full-time with Linking Paths, an international web development shop split between Reykjavik, Bilbao, Madrid and Toronto.
María brings serious communication and project management skills to the table. Her passion is making text and visual information understandable. You can find María's work at mariamunuera.com
Mark's has been awarded the University Student of the Year 2008 in the Journalism category by CNN/Expansión magazine for designing and programming the website for the United Nations Information Centre in Mexico City.
He also earned 2nd place in AbreDatos 2010, Spain's national Open Data contest, for designing misparadas.com, a web application that tracks public transportation in real-time. In 2011 he released memela.com, an html5 drawing application that has been featured in Chome Experiments, a Google curated html5 showcase.
Mark is in charge of one the most popular design blogs in Spanish, Duopixel. Duopixel has more than 30,000 unique visitors per month, and has been featured in the book "Blogs, Mad about Design" by maomao publications.
Mark's skills lie at the intersection between design and development.
You can view Mark's work at duopixel.ca
43 comments
Hi Frank, we're no longer in Spain, we're in Toronto. Worker cooperatives are very interesting, but perhaps it's a subject out of the scope of Method of Action.
Hi Mark,
Just a note, the blog entries do not format well in Google Reader,
http://www.google.com/reader/view/feed/http%3A%2F%2Fmethod.ac%2Fblog%2Fatom.xml#stream/feed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fmethod.ac%2Fblog%2Fatom.xml
Amit
Great initiative! I am going to follow this closely.
Hey guys, this sounds like a great plan! Can't wait to see it live!!
hola!
sending you the most positive vibes!
your work is much appreciated.
cheers..)
btw, hopefully there is more to see
and read when i take another look.
cheers, and keep it positive!
neverdesign..)
Last para in feedback loops section: 'it is comforting', not 'contorting'. No offence but this somewhat undermines my confidence in how 'Asperger's' you really are :)
Thanks Hermes! Damn auto-correct, I'm sure I was going to write "conforting" because that's similar to Spanish (my native language).
fantastic - look forward to hearing much more :)
looking forward to see it live. well done guys.
Hey! I took the kerning test and absolutely loved it. When do you think the full program will launch? It sounds like a fantastic idea and I would definitely be interested in it.
Liza: we will be launching in six months
The kerning test would be a great teaching tool -- IF -- the "solutions" were rooted in good typography. The creator needs to take some formal and rigorous typography classes before dispensing his/her wisdom. While a fun exercise the solutions are far (and I do mean far) from acceptable.
Glenn, perhaps if you shared your own work with us, along with some examples of truly good kerning, then your comment would have more credibility.
This question may be a touch premature. The kerning game is quite a bit of fun. I'm assuming that there will be similar games to come. Have you considered a future Android App? Add more words, fonts and levels, maybe a few different little games, and it would make a good $0.99 game for us word-game lovers.
Hi Michael,
I'm working on some other games, I've thought about creating a mobile version of all of them together, kind of like a design pack of mini games.
Unfortunately Android's webkit doesn't support SVG, I'd have to see if there's any workaround for it.
Hi!
I'm not really a blog person, but found this one nicely written and quite entertaining. the game was great, and I'm really looking forward too reading more.
And I think launching the kerning game is a great way too get people aware of the site. There should maybe be a facebook "like" button there, to get more visitors, or what?
Just found it. But it was nicely hidden ;)
There should be more person like you! It is a brilliant initiative
I really liked the kerning game, how easy it was to play and how beautifully designed it was. Though, I think some advices, hints and "why you should do it like this way" would be good to have during the game, maybe after each part, or at the end of the game.
I came to play the kerning game, liked it, and I am glad I found this site. Look like a great thing for people that already enjoy learning in fact.
I want more. Please...
Hi, I like the logo, congratulations, have tried to reflect? I seem to reflect more support to the concept of action, because as this the backhand play this suggests a negative. thanks, sorry my english, is not the best, jeje,
yon2x2: no estoy seguro de lo que quieres decir, si me lo escribes en español te entenderé :)
Hola!
This seems a really interesting projects, I live in Madrid and I have a few friends trying to find new ways of learning. I met them in Medialab-Prado (Madrid), great place to visit if you come back to Madrid one day.
The project is MasterDIWO, and it is based on a cooperative learning process (Do It With Others), take a look on it, it may be worth to you as well, http://www.masterdiwo.org/
Thanks for sharing!
Speechless, can't wait fot this to be launched
Excelente proyecto! lo amé! la mejor de las suertes y espero el lanzamiento.
hola Mark, me refiero a que si reflejas la identidad, o sea la inviertes y pones el play de la manera que todos lo tenemos preconcebido, ayudaría mucho al concepto de acción, de "go for it!!!", de seguir adelante, de aprender, no se si me hago explicar bien,?? me detuve a comentártelo porque me parece una marca muy bien lograda y muy actual!!!!! pero este detalle me salto a la vista, saludos, yon
Gracias yon! El logo está concebido como un romboide doblado, si lo pusiéramos en espejo no se sentiría alineado al margen izquierdo. Un diagrama:
Ah this looks awesome. I routinely describe myself as a developer who couldn't design to save my life. I'll be back often to check this site out once you have it up and running. Good luck!
Me gusta. No es siempre un valor aceptable en el disenho, pero en este caso refleja lo que me pasa. "Jugué" el juego del kerning, me pareció bueno, no estuve del todo de acuerdo con la selección tipográfica. Pero me gustó. Está bueno encontrar cosas sencillas, bien pensadas, que te recuerdan que la calidad no es un valor perdido.
ahh, okokokok, me parece muy bien entonces, felicidades por el logo y por el diseño del juego(kerning game), yo por mi parte lo he comentado con cuanto diseñador gráfico conozco acá en cuba y no he recibido más que buenas opiniones al respecto, además lo he posteado en redes sociales, me pareció un buen ejercicio incluso para aplicarlo a estudiantes de tipografia en sus inicios!!!!!!!saludos!!!
I've just suscribed to the newsletter, I'm genuinely interested on what you'll offer, seems like you guys know how to do things, but also how to teach them. :)
Hi there, this looks like a great idea and I wish you both the best of luck.
Keeping in the spirit of things, one of your links doesn't seem to work for 'United Nations Information Centre in Mexico City'. Think it might need 'www.' in the 'a' tag or I believe this may need to be rectified server side on the actual site.
Keep up the good work with method.ac really looking forward to seeing it in the future.
Thanks Noel, you're right, I've notified them about the problem and included the www meanwhile. Thanks!
Great site, thank you !
I have just done your kerning test. I have been working as a designer and typographer for over 30 years and managed to get 100% for all but two of the questions. In these two I differed sharply from your own kerning but only realised at the end I could have submitted these as alternative solutions. I am now also lecturing in Graphic Communication and I have to congratulate you on a very useful and clever idea. I wish I'd thought of it myself. I will certainly be getting my students to try both the kerning and vector tests. Thank you.
Great idea I will follow you guys!
congrats,
btw love the Kerining Game!
This really is a fascinating concept and I see a tremendous amount of potential it the project.
However, I am wondering how this site will be making the money required to keep running. Will it be ad supported or charge a subscription fee?
Great work. Thank you.
I really like your idea for interactive learning. I especially like the peer review aspect of it. It's so difficult to motivate yourself to do things, and this will be a great way! I look forward to the launch, which I assume will be soon?
PS, I loved the color wheel game!
Louise: ETA is around 4 months from now (summer 2012), glad you liked it!
Damn, this is very exciting, hope you plan further have Method of Action in spanish, it would be nice (or ypu already have it?).
But anyways, i really enjoy the ride through the games and can´t wait for the entire course.
Since you are in Spain, is there any possibility in the near future that you will mount a Course on worker cooperatives, such as those in the Basque Provinces, particularly about the Mondragon Cooperative Model?
Hope so. ~ Frank Adams