I think it’s quaint that MoMA has acquired the @ symbol as they state on their site @ at MoMA, but aside from a lot of blog posts pointing to it—so what? Why now, why not when email was ubiquitous? Now that Twitter has appropriated the @ symbol as their own communication symbol did it finally grab the attention of MoMA curators? They go into detail about what they actually have which is fine, it just sort of seems like the timing is a bit of a side show.
There was a ton of things in the post How to Spark a Snowcrash, & What the Web Really Does that I could relate to, especially in terms of why I publish Design Notes. I’m pretty sure I’ve even covered some of the topics in posts. But what was helpful with Emergent by Design’s post was that it expanded on why sharing info is a good idea to why it’s a valuable way to expand what a person already has the potential to do. Post found via andjelicaaa’s twitter stream.
What a great idea to promote awareness about the .Battersea Dogs & Cats Home in London. In the article Dogs and cats abandoned at Battersea home become photogenic stars of new stamps they profile the cats and dogs that made it onto the stamps.
In light of Tribune Company CEO Randy Michaels list of banned words for WGN news staff, Ian Chillag of NPR has put them all together in a sentence.
In other news, stay tuned, because in our top story tonight, some really good (or bad) news: as expected, in a surprise move yesterday, informed sources say, a world class icon, diva, mother of all motorists, and famed undocumented alien, lauded for putting area residents at risk and in harm’s way, but at this point in time behind bars for allegations that — according to sketchy details that, to be fair, have officials and authorities under fire for speaking out — he reportedly engaged in shower activity with all of you folks at 5 am in the morning, underwent surgery, utilized an undisclosed vehicle in torrential rain in a near miss manhunt when it was time for a break, literally fled on foot, completely surprised his mother with a clash with bare naked police behind closed doors, definitely possibly completely destroyed a medical hospital under false pretenses, and is lucky to be alive after, the fact of the matter is, he lent a helping hand to a legendary incarcerated pedestrian lone gunman (the perpetrator who over in a neighboring state, perished in a perfect storm of no brainers and things that went terribly wrong, and was plagued by killing sprees in which he gave 110% only to have his senseless murders marred by the untimely deaths of guys and folks whose fatal deaths came in the wake of auto accidents, and while it may be a mute point, let’s everybody touch base on the fact that he was under seige in the wake of unrest after shots rang out in close proximity of the best kept secret on the campaign trail which had authorities reeling up in one place and down in another, and going forward, the alleged aftermath of the death toll for youths behind the podium exceeds those out there, down there, and out in that other place by a two to one margin), is seeking white stuff for those of you that want it, and thus, we’ll explain what he did when we’ll be back — we’ll be right back, after the break and after these commercial messages, and we say “we’re back,” “welcome back,” or “welcome back everybody.”
Piers and PSFK have been pretty good supporters of the blog and helpful to me, so when he asked if I’d mention PSFK Conference New York 2010 on Friday, April 09, 2010 I said sure. Below are all the speakers—I’ve seen and hear a couple of them before and can attest to their smarts.
Colin Beavan – Green pioneer and journalist aka No Impact Man
John Dimatos – Lecturer concepting tech solutions for Unicef at NYU
Nick Felton – Designer and creator of the annual infographic Feltron Report
Zach Lieberman – Creative technologist whose work bridges the real world with the digital
Andrew Hoppin – CIO who leverages digital media to create social impact across New York
Grant McCracken – Anthropologist and author of the book Chief Culture Officer
Shantell Martin – Illustrator & DJ who creates vivid video-projection ‘Oras’
Steve Powers – Contemporary artist who recently created the city-wide A Love Letter For You
Erik Proulx – Creative catalyst who inspires peers about their future; filmmaker behind Lemonade
Tina Roth Eisenberg – Graphic designer; and global tastemaker through her blog SwissMiss
Rob Walker – national columnist and instigator of Significant Objects
If you only have time to read a couple posts this Sunday morning, you should def. consider Core77 Wiretap: Portigal Consulting talk about the Analog Human and The Digital Machine as one to put in the cue. I’m friends with Steve but that’s not why I’m suggesting that people should read this. There’s a ton of great starting points for further discussion between design, marketing, technology and people. While I don’t necessarily agree with everything in the conversation there’s a lot to consider. These days I’m thinking about analytics, data and the way those elements influence design decisions. Steve mentions this quote…
We think of people with Bunsen burners and spreadsheets. It’s like the opposite of the Scientific Method: you’ve created this paradigm where it’s impossible—you reject any information that’s new because it doesn’t fit the framework of the information you already have.
There’s a lot more to the conversation that I don’t need to repeat wholesale, so just check out the post. And thanks to Christopher Butler for passing it on to me.
While I recognize that it is still too soon to talk about the influence of the iPad when it has yet to come out, the post Books in the Age of the iPad is worth spending a lot more time with than the conspiracy theories of whether the iPad will ship with a camera or not.
There’s so much I could block quote, but that would be a disservice to not actually reading the whole post. But I will post this bit…
When people lament the loss of the printed book, this — comfort — is usually what they’re talking about. My eyes tire more easily, they say. The batteries run out, the screen is tough to read in sunlight. It doesn’t like bath tubs.
Important to note is that these aren’t complaints about the text losing meaning. Books don’t become harder to understand, or confusing just because they’re digital. It’s mainly issues concerning quality. One inevitable property of the quality argument is that technology is closing the gap (through advancements in screens and batteries) and because of additional features (note taking, bookmarking, searching), will inevitably surpass the comfort level of reading on paper.
The convenience of digital text — on demand, lightweight (in file size and physicality), searchable — already far trumps that of traditional printed matter.
The formula used to be simple:
stop printing Formless Content; only print well-considered Definite Content.The iPad changes this.
What I like about this post from Matt Daniels is passes along some hilarious info about guys and credit card interest rates and fees. Apparently a women’s photo had as much impact in response as dropping the interest rate by five points. As sad as that seems the post also goes into behavioral economics. Sometimes when I read about a more scientific method for planning I want to put my head through a wall. Irrational humans can’t predict things they’ve never encountered before but I also flip to looking at my stats to see what grabs people attention. So what’s the happy balance between tipping your hand to overwhelming evidence for something obvious and possibly crass and doing the opposite of what is expected an reap bigger rewards?
I’m not sure if there was any single example that made crowdsourcing in vogue aside from cheap tech, people that had time on their hands, there were no budgets to pay people to come up with ideas and/or the misguided idea of following a crowd is never a mistake (think focus groups). But with that said in the post Crowdsourcing: Art vs Model there’s a lot to consider. Who actually benefits from such an exercise, the people organizing the system or those participating? And down the road what does it mean for those creating the system…
What I like about this post is that Young & Brilliant has contrasted the more typical sports athlete (with an old management team) and contrasted her with another athlete in the same field that by the looks of it has grown her voice and image with the same social media tools everyone has.
