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Archive

Entries from March 1, 2005 - March 31, 2005

Wednesday
Mar302005

The Next Frontier in Experience Design: Housework!

Ok. Imagine this design challenge: Make cleaning your house a stellar design experience.

UK designer Dyson has in creating the next generation of cyborg-like vacuum cleaners. Even the website is a stellar example in experience design with flash animations, games, high-tech graphics, a slick interface and even downloadable wallpaper celebrating the newest creation: The Ball.

Of course, you know that you have truly hit the big time when your commercials are lampooned on Saturday Night Live.

(The SNL version depicted the tall, reserved English designer demonstrating the powerful engineering of the Dyson toilet.)

For some of the best writing on experience design, check out ID Fuel, especially Domic Muren's recent post Design is: Experience.

To see the worst examples, visit Mark Hurst's This is Broken, a site where people submit photos and stories of products, signage and customer experience stranger than fiction.

Monday
Mar282005

Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig (and friends)

From IT Conversations:

AKMA asked, "Anyone feel like recording a chapter of Lawrence Lessig's new book?"

Joi Ito then said, "What a great idea!" In less than 24 hours, this idea mushroomed into a significant collaboration by a team of bloggers and others to record and publish all of Free Culture.

Scott Matthews has also compiled a convenient archive of the collected audioblogs reflecting the entire book.

Doug Kaye reads Chapter 1: Creators, a fascinating look at public domain and the culture of "rip, mix and burn" that existed in the 1920's when Walt Disney created "Steamboat Willie", the proto-mouse that became Mickey. The chapter then describes the Japanese practice of re-interpreting established works of art, a practice that sustains the entire Manga comics industry.

From Lessig's bio:

Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, he was the Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Lessig was also a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and a Professor at the University of Chicago Law School. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.

Public Knowledge is a Washington DC based advocacy group working to defend your rights in the emerging digital culture.


Tuesday
Mar222005

Bono Rallies TED Technorati

Bono's acceptance speech at TED 2005 celebrated the entrepreneurial spirit of America and pleaded for a focus on the HIV/AIDS in Africa.

He acknowledged that "we are very good at charity. Americans, like Irish people, are good at it. Even the poorest neighborhoods give more than they can afford. We like to give, and we give a lot. Look at the response to the tsunami. It's inspiring."

The video is mesmerizing... not only in the power of the message and the honesty of the messenger, but in the Obe Won Kenobe-like hologram of Bono himself at the podium interacting with the audience in California (his likeness was beamed from a secret location somewhere in the world).

Bono's acceptance address (selections)
Bono's acceptance address (complete)
Transcript of address

Excerpt:

But justice is a tougher standard than charity. You see, Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice. It makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties. It doubts our concern. It questions our commitment. Because there's no way we can look at what's happening in Africa and, if we're honest, conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else.

As you heard in the film, anywhere else, not here, not here, not in America, not in Europe. In fact a head of state that you're all familiar with admitted this to me, and it's really true. There is no chance this kind of hemorrhaging of human life would be accepted anywhere else other than Africa.


Tuesday
Mar222005

Creative Commons reaches a Digital Tipping Point

As a producer of "content" and packager of ideas into tangible, reproducible forms (photos, illustrations, animations, video and music), the task of promoting viewership whilst retaining any sort of ownership over said content is daunting at best, boring at the very least. Kind of like that entire sentence.

Hurray for the heros of simplicity in our midst, namely Creative Commons and the evangelists of open source at Digital Tipping Point.

Creative Commons is the brainchild of legal expert Lawrence Lessig, an American law professor and author. A terrific article by Magnatune.com, founder John Buckman, describes the evolution of Lessig's idea in an article for Five Eight magazine:

[Lessig] realized that a large gap exists between Internet Culture and the Legal World. Internet Culture, with its emphasis on sharing, communications, and openness, has produced a variety of wonderful things in recent years, perhaps the greatest explosion of creativity in this century. Lessig's fear was that the Legal World, which doesn't automatically embrace these values, is endangering the future of Internet Culture. He endeavored to bridge Internet Culture and Legal Culture, and the Creative Commons is his creation. The Creative Commons licenses make it easy for creators of new works to support positive values, cheaply and legally, while still retaining rights that the creator wants to retain.


Not only can the creator use the license engine to determine what level of ownership to retain and how interested parties may use the work, but an incredibly creative subset of usage terms that reflect both the world of file sharing and the rise of open source solutions for emerging economies:

Digital Tipping Point

At conference in Cambridge sponsored by Monitor Group titled The Invisible Handshake , I met Christian Einfeldt, lawyer and passionate evangelist for Linux. He joined up with his fellow Miami University alum, Paul Donahue, to embark on a self-described "proof of concept" documentary recording the wide-spread adoption of Linux by artists, technicians, security guards and [gasp!] elected officials.

The film focuses not on computing, but on convergence of social networks with embedded technology.

Intervees include Gilberto Gil, the lively Culture Minister of Brazil, and Christian Ude, Mayor of Munich (who, in a priceless moment of translingual clarity refers to Microsoft "der Marktfueher").

A full list of interviews from the film are available here.

Saturday
Mar192005

Art Spiegelman in Da Burgh

ART SPEIGELMAN: COMIX 101
Saturday, April 9, 2005, 8:00 p.m.
Byham Theater, downtown Pittsburgh, PA

From The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust:

Ever since 1992, when Art Spiegelman won a Pulitzer Prize for Maus, his masterful Holocaust comic book narrative, fans of adult comics have admired the work of this outstanding and provocative artist. In Maus and Maus II, by portraying Jews as mice and Nazis as cats, Spiegelman created an unusual and controversial context for his powerful narrative.

Now celebrating his 10th anniversary as one of the cover artists for The New Yorker magazine, Art Spiegelman continues to challenge his public with illustrations and comics that are best known for their scratchboard, illustrative style and controversial content. In his lecture with slides, COMIX 101, Art Spiegelman takes his audiences on a chronological tour of the evolution of comics, all the while explaining the value of this medium and why it should not be ignored.

(purchase tickets here)

Friday
Mar182005

The New Map Game: Based on the work of Thomas P.M. Barnett

Alphachimp Studio Inc. and four of our top graphic facilitators, will be supporting the upcoming event:










THE NEW MAP GAME
May 31st - June 2nd, 2005
at the Hyatt Regency Newport
in Newport, Rhode Island


details | register

Today's strategic landscape is dramatically changing. The forces of globalization have made the traditional calculus obsolete and a new map is being drawn in the process.

Please come and contribute to THE NEW MAP GAME, an exciting opportunity to explore first-hand the grand strategy of one of globalization’s leading cartographers, Thomas P.M. Barnett. His New York Times bestselling book, The Pentagon's New Map, is a provocative new blueprint for the future of defense, diplomacy and international competition.

Join Dr. Barnett in this three-day executive-level war game that will pit business leaders, military strategists and government policy makers against each other in a realistic, role-playing competition designed to provide players with an intimate understanding of how the near future could unfold.

Please note, due to game mechanics and the unique nature of this event, attendance is limited to the first 100 participants.

Learn more about this groundbreaking event at www.newmapgame.com!
Listen to an interview with Barnett on WHYY Philadelphia.
IT Conversations presents Barnett's speech on The Penetagon's New Map from Pop!Tech 8.


Thursday
Mar172005

Andrew Zolli, the Fastest Italian in Brooklyn

We'd like to congratulate our friend Andrew Zolli: the Z in Z+ Partners.

Along with forty-nine other talented mongrels who work on the fringes of business, science and art, Zolli has been ID'd in the roster of FastCompany's Fast 50.

Listed as a "Peak Performer" by FC, this futurist, designer and author--who himself works at the intersection of culture, design, technology, and futures research--is actually the nicest superstar you'll ever meet.

His superpower as a human curator was responsible for the vast assembly of preternatural geniuses and fringe lunatics at Pop!Tech 8, themed as The Next Renaissance.

When conference host and co-founder Bob Metcalfe warned that this should not be confused with "that big Italian Renaissance," Zolli joked: "Actually, it is the Renaissance of Big Italians!"

We at Alphachimp would like to cheer this fast futurist from the sidelines, as he zips from Boston to Brooklyn and beyond: "Go, Zolli! Go!"

(check out Andrew's many interviews, articles and speeches, as well as the Z+ Partners blog.)

Thursday
Mar032005

Yellow Arrow & DiVA (DIGITAL VIDEO & ART FAIR)

YELLOW ARROW PERFORMANCE AND PARTY FOR DiVA (DIGITAL VIDEO & ART FAIR)

Thursday, March 10th; 10 PM
Unity Restaurant at Embassy Suites
102 North End Avenue
New York, NY 10282
Battery Park City

Opening Night Party by the LMCC - March 10th from 10 p.m.: DiVA kicks off with an opening after-party on March 10th that will definitely be an event in itself. The party will feature a special performance by Yellow Arrow. In addition to the distribution of Yellow Arrow stickers and projections displaying the content of the Yellow Arrow Global Gallery, mobile Yellow Arrows will point out a series of live micro-performances staged throughout the party and announced via TXT messaging. Sign up for the mob online at http://www.lmcc.net/diva/

Seasoned turntable veteran Star Eyes will deliver a searing DJ set to create an atmosphere of modern chaos at Unity a bi-level space inside the Embassy Suites Hotel in Battery Park, which overlooks the Hudson River.

$5 suggested donation to support artists creating work in Lower Manhattan. For more information: http://www.lmcc.net/EventsandExhibitions/diva/index.htm

Tuesday
Mar012005

Alphachimp Studio Speaks on Enhancing Knowledge Capture

"Why do we recommend this event? This talented duo effectively enhances a presentation."
~ Techyevent

PRESENTATION: "Graphic Facilitation for Enhancing Knowledge Capture and Communication" with Peter Durand and Alicia Diane Durand, Alphachimp Studio, Inc.

Time:March 14, 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Venue:Pittsburgh Technology Council Building, 2000 Technology Drive
Joint Meeting: Pittsburgh Chapter, Society for Technical Communication and Pittsburgh Regional Knowledge Management Consortium

CLICK BELOW FOR DETAILS

QUALIFICATIONS: Alphachimp Studio Inc. is a creative consultancy that specializes in Graphic Facilitation, Web Documentation and Information Graphics to improve the efficiency, energy and productivity of conferences, meetings and collaborative design sessions. To develop their unique approach, Peter and Diane Durand have combined backgrounds in theater, visual learning, systems thinking, web design, information graphics and storytelling with their experience as knowledge workers at the Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Accelerated Solutions Environment.

WHY ATTEND: Enhanced understanding for effective communication.

IDEAL FOR: Anyone responsible for effectively communicating to large groups.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN: Methods for Graphic Facilitation (Mind Mapping, Complex Systems, Shared Experiences), and Web Documentation (Electronic Invitations, Rapid Ideation, Information Graphics, Surveys, Web Journals, Blogs) will be illustrated. 

WHAT'S UNIQUE ABOUT THIS PROGRAM? Alphachimp Studios enhances verbal presentations with realtime art to enhance audience learning. This presentation is based on case studies of their work and experience. Peter and Diane of Alphachimp will demonstrate what they do and how it dovetails with the information and knowledge needs of groups and organizations.

BOTTOM LINE BENEFIT? Grasp the subtlties of more learning/retention in less time.

FEE: $20 non-members/$15 members/$10 for students and unemployed

REGISTER: RSVP by March 9 to Darlene Mullenix
PHONE: 412-288-8676
EMAIL: dmullenix@federatedinv.com