Our first actual activity given was a bit of a laugh and and educational example of course. The game chinese whispers was used as a good image for the path of communication. It revealed with some success how the origional information (encoding) became misinterpreted as it was decoded.
An element within this process include "noise." This was said to be technical which I found to be an obvious one - a failure to succesfully address a deign issue. However, a new one for me was semantic noise - the interference of language and culture. Technical noise seems similar to this in a way - the failure to communicate. Semantic noise reminded me that as a designer we have to become literate in the global language of design. Then, to actively address this semantic noise. Technical noise seems to be a problem but semantic is something of interest and opportunity aswell as the interference in a clear signal of communication.
We were asked what a series of objects mean (shampoo, a car, baked beans etc.) to which the answer was "nothing" every time. This challenged my associations between colour and meaning. The red stop sign means stop. But red in it's self does not mean stop, it means nothing. This idea of conditioning is interesting and it is quite exiting to be aware of it. As we were told "context gives meaning" not the other way around. The meaning is created by the reciver (decoded). However, I think context is a factor that can be used by the sender to whatever advantage. 
