Iain...

Remixing

2013-02-16T11:57:00.000+00:00

I watched this video some time ago but you should watch it, and the whole series if you haven't...

Everything is a Remix Part 1 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

How i remember it

2012-04-20T11:18:00.000+00:00

There’s an app coming soon that allows you to remove things from your photographs. Irritating things like passers-by or cars that obscure you - or even the background you were hoping for. Fittingly it’s called Remove and it works quite simply by taking a few pictures whenever you think you are taking one and then identifies the bits that moved (and can therefore be removed).

Now that sounds simple enough, and quite a promising service – even one that phone and camera manufacturers might include as standard once we get over storage issues and the like. But it got me thinking about memories. I’m lucky enough to be old enough that my entire life hasn’t been captured on camera and a good proportion of what has, hasn’t yet made it on to the web (yet). I don’t really remember much before being about 7, but most of what I do remember of that, and probably the next 5 years, is largely connected to or based on photos and/or stories recounted to me.

What does this mean for those younger than me, both now and in the future? At first glance they’re in a better position, with a greater degree of certainty. The building blocks of our memories are now stored for us on the web; on Flickr, Instagram, YouTube and the like. However, as Jonah recounted in Wired last year, memories are reconsolidated - they aren’t static but are recreated at the point of recall.

We all know what Photoshop does for supermodels, and in film I’ve seen what can be done working with a great company that does product placement. They digitally embed brands into pre-recorded film and TV content. They can (and do) switch the model and brand of TV or PC in your favourite soap, or insert a can of a certain brand of cola in front of the presenter throughout that talent show you watch but shouldn’t. Now they can’t do this real-time yet but it is coming soon enough. It’s also not hard to imagine how one could use technology a bit like Photosynth to adapt photographs in a similar way, using location to find other photos and matching up the content to reshape, replace and remove items in the shot either dynamically or in batches.

As brands seek to build deeper and more meaningful relationships with consumers, and are willing to pay the premium for doing so, it’s not hard to see where these trends and technologies could take us. As someone like Facebook can just buy the rights to my photos on Instagram, how long before they are adapted and reshuffled to reconsolidate my memory or other’s perceptions of me, my taste and preferences? How different is this really to a sophisticated superstitial, or to Project Glass and augmented reality?

Perhaps, as the guy in Eternal sunshine says, these adaptations will be “on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you'll miss”, and probably we’ll be willing to suffer the intrusion if the benefit is significant enough. But I think I prefer Huxley’s notion – “that every man's memory is his private literature”.

Pinteresting formats

2012-02-27T18:55:00.001+00:00

I've been using pinterest for a while now, and at first treated it as largely an outgoing channel. I generally don't do much of it at work, just on the way to and fro - and hence on the mobile. But recently I started consuming a bit more, browsing the lists of my friends, and of the masses.

Now I have a lot of apps; rss readers, social apps and all the usual suspects and one thing beats home about this one - it's the scrolling. It's the one aspect of the experience that seems to be new, well not new, but embraced in the app. It's a pita if you have a poor connection (and to be honest the app crashes quite regularly for me) but when it works it works nicely, and because its just pictures its nice to browse like that. I guess because it's just big pictures that people knew would be scaled down it works like that...

So I was thinking that this kind of stream, with reasonably low importance and high visual recognition in the main, could suit use of accelerometer tilt as an interface. I think it would speed things up a little - particularly when you explore the All category in the evening! I don't know if this is because I'm in the UK but I find that browsing All in the morning yields much more interesting stuff - perhaps its to do with traditional news reading patterns, and of course that I am not that interested in floral arrangements, pictures of cats, or finger nails (in that way it reminds me of groupon). I also suspect we'll see more really long graphics designed to be consumed downwards in the pinterest world, vying for some viral fame...

A ramble about quantified selflessness

2012-02-20T15:59:00.004+00:00

It doesn't sound very charitable but in this age of chuggers and £10 direct debits, people often feel like they want something in return for their charitable support... I'm sure it's a combination of doubt, suspicion and more besides but its still a major issue for charities.

In the past the focus was often on feedback, and on providing some means of equating your ongoing commitment to the cause. We created episodic sites that created links with communities, the opportunity to communicate with them, and provided a much richer look at the situations and how they were improved with aid. With a group of other charities we looked into means of tracking a donation, how far and wide it traveled, the good it really did, the people it reached. We talked about metadata, rfid platforms, technology and all that jazz. But it all fell at the feet of practical considerations, and although it was a worthwhile goal and there was a lot of support, there were too many challenges to move forward.

Roll on a few years and we have banks helping us by rounding up pennies in pounds, gadgets like striiv enabling us to donate when we achieve our fitness goals and little checkboxes on restaurant bills and planes to add a little something for others. We even have platforms like theMutual that encourages donations by providing incentives like exclusive deals. So there are a load of good ideas around that make it easier to do a little good. But as we approach a world where the most accurate record of our contributions becomes our Facebook timeline, and where our obsession with creating and gathering data seems to grow and grow, it seems that people are and can increasingly be satisfied by a little social selflessness status update now and again.

Often it seems that to get the real mass market into thinking about doing something they need to be able to really see what's in it for them perhaps there is opportunity in this area of what i find myself (slightly squirmingly) calling quantified selflessness; feeding back to a passive individual the good that they are doing and then allowing them to share it as they see fit.

Colour me

2012-02-10T15:47:00.000+00:00

I have been mulling over an idea for a while now, since watching something on the TV about perception. I think it was Horizon or similar, but it was broadly looking at how the brain works and how we perceive the world around us. Part of this revolved around colours. Colour perception, it seems, is closely linked to language - to the extent that apparently we can only easily perceive colours for which we have a word. This was illustrated through an African tribe who's language only contains 5 colour words one of which covers most of what we would call blues and greens. When shown a selection of coloured shapes and asked to distinguish the odd one out, they struggled to spot the one that was (in our language and to my brain) distinctly a blue amongst greens.

The conclusion was basically that our perception of the world is affected by our knowledge of language - that people with few discernible colour words might see the world differently. This struck me particularly because my sons are colourblind so I already know that they perceive the world differently, but I guess I hadn't considered that language would be such a key factor.

Anyway it got me to thinking that it makes sense to try to help people get as good a grasp of the language of colour as possible. I'd obviously really like my kids to have as rich an experience of the world as they can, but also all those other people who haven't encountered, learnt or experienced a wide variety of colours.

So a project perhaps, to teach people more colours. A simple dynamic interface, I thought, that draws colours with distinct names from a source (like Wikipedia) and presents the name, description (perhaps to aid those who have difficulty with some colours) and then a selection of photographs that give contexts in which the colour appears. This apparently is the other element that's important in aiding perception, and one would imagine, recall. Could use something like the ideelabs api I would think.

Not fully formed but given some time or a helping hand an achievable little project.

IF you read this THEN automate your digital life with ifttt

2012-01-30T20:20:00.000+00:00

If you've ever done any programming then you'll know about an 'if' statement. If (in the event that) something (happens), then do something else.

If you haven't tried it, then I recommend you try If This Then That (http://ifttt.com/). Its just a fantastic way to simplify stuff that you seem to have to do online.

Unfinished business

2012-01-09T10:44:00.000+00:00

A new year and another chance to change, do thing different and become something else. I know only too well how hard a blog is to stick to, particularly when you are as flighty as me, so I'll make no promises about that. I will however start the year by trying to at least finish off the backlog of draft posts. They linger like a lost to do list, occasionally appearing when I have the least time to do anything about it. There are thoughts and ideas and things that never made the light of day because they weren't finished, weren't right, weren't good enough, or just because it was time to get off the train. I guess if I'm ever going to get any good at this then I am going to have to, as Godin suggests, just ship.

Hny

Iq if

2011-11-25T20:23:00.001+00:00

Today I was lucky enough to attend the iq squared IF conference at the Royal Geographic Society in Kensington.

I went, not knowing what to expect really. I'd selected the speakers I wanted to see in each of the sessions - but was pleased to discover that instead I got to see all of the speakers do their own TED style shorter preso's. What a barrage of mental stimulation therefore...

Huge diversity of expertise, style and content seemed strangely united and convergent. Perhaps as much around passionate inquisitive and creative minds as specific ideals...

I'll write a bit more when I have my notes, but we went from neuroscience to vertical gardens, and from poetry to urban anthropology so I took plenty!

Trending vending

2011-09-01T08:10:00.001+00:00

In a world where people are increasingly demanding and seeking instant gratification its perhaps not a massive surprise that I've read a load of stuff about vending machines lately.

Whether you are French or not, we all like a fresh baguette, well I do – a proper one, not one of those shiny ones that has been hanging around in a basket for hours in Tesco. One that is warm through and has that great crisp crunch. Here we have an enterprising frenchman who has seen the future and apparently it's not garlic bread, but instant baguettes - hot from a vending oven thing.

Here at home with volatile markets driving up the desirability of precious metals (and the shopping centre presumably making a bit of a statement about their clientele) Westfield have a vending machine offering gold in a variety of gift wrapped weights up to a 250g bar at £10,000.

In the US Facebook is demonstrating its internal innovation credentials with a vending machine that has reduced the cost of managing replacement accessories by about 35%. The brainwave of a support engineer (who possibly doesn't like too much personal contact) it tracks and manages keyboards, mouses and the like.

Best Buy have been rolling their Express vending machines for consumer electronics out at airports in the US for a while but they are so successful that they are pushing out to other venues including Disney resorts and college campuses.

With plenty of technology like this maturing and Mark B at dreamforce highlighting the future of 'connecting to the social enterprise' through simple physical interactions like this those clunky old boxes are starting to feel interesting again...

The softer side of digital (p1)

2011-08-17T10:08:00.001+00:00

I did a little talk earlier this week on the subject above. It was based on a presentation I pulled together for a thinktank for outdoor brands a few weeks back. The driver for the initial presentation was fairly simple - the attendees at the outdoor event were at a variety of different stages in terms of their digital channel maturity but the organiser's perspective was that most of them 'had spent the last 5 years trying to get their transactional sites sorted'. The premise for the piece therefore was to look at the changes in behaviour, in technology and in business and draw some conclusions on how to address them. The subtitle became 'building brands and relationships online' - primarily because this seemed the next phase for a lot of those present. Their digital past had been to identify digital as a channel that they needed to be in, but primarily as a sales channel.

I thought i'd jot down some of the themes in a couple of posts before i forget them - this is the first one outlining a couple of different ways we looked at this to provide some context, before the second part which sets out some key concepts to bear in mind building brands online.

The first lens I thought about was that of online behaviour, of how people use digital technology. For me, digital has moved from second fiddle (an awkward alternative), to second nature (something we hardly think about). So digital is where we spend the most time, consume the most media, and it's where we hang out - so its where to find us. There are some great stats collated by google if you want to support making such a point some time.

From there I wandered into the changing face of technology. While we are already adopting this technology as fast as it can come and revelling in the digital hedonism of it all, actually technology is adapting to make things even easier for us. I'm thinking of natural user interfaces; gesture, facial and voice recognition and things like augmented reality that all close down the gap between people and machines.

So we have people getting into computers and computers getting into people. Nice. But from a business perspective all this online activity is empowering consumers and giving them a totally new degree of influence. That in turn is driving new business models and disruption with companies like Amazon, Groupon and iTunes changing the nature of the value chain in all manner of markets. For many of the manufacturer brands I was talking to, they are no longer in control of the means in which someone is likely to experience their product.What was once likely to be confined to retail environments they could control can now be found discounted, purchased in bulk, displayed inamongst other brands, compared on price, value or rating.

The short of all this is that the ever-growing digital landscape is where businesses can exert some influence on how their brand is perceived through their actions, and that this no longer means transactional ability but a much broader range of experiences that build relationships.

One of the most exciting things for me at the moment is that this is making marketing start to feel like marketing again (and less like Levitt's sales), to 'meeting the wants and needs of the consumers'. Not just in the sense of developing products that they want, but also in the sense of providing value that they might cherish, providing meaning beyond messages, and building lasting relationships. Through marketing we can make things people really embrace, enjoy or find useful in their lives and if we can keep it relevant the brand can enable the business to be profitable.

QR codes for me...

2010-07-28T09:15:00.001+00:00

Me on Facebook

Me on Twitter

If you want a handy bookmarklet that will generate these with goo.gl look here

iPad and Velcro: made for eachother...

2010-06-17T09:34:00.001+00:00

Velcro is well used and abused at my house, webcams stuck to computers, soft toys stuck to walls, doorbell stuck to frame but now i know what its really for...

The boys are ready...

2010-06-12T18:30:00.001+00:00

Social Media Revolution evolution

2010-05-18T11:48:00.001+00:00

You will probably have seen some version of this by now but this has been updated and now contains some fresh and even more notable stats...

If its just stealing the statistics you are after then you might like this... http://socialnomics.net/2010/05/05/social-media-revolution-2-refresh/

Some stuff from screen media

2010-05-13T14:49:00.001+00:00

A few highlights from Earls Court a couple of weeks back. I was actually surprised that there wasn’t more truly remarkable stuff there, so i only stayed an hour, but here are a few things I took snaps of…

A digital billboard, with some animated sequences. This still is of the Nike Grid campaign which is location specific and is amongst the prizes – your name gets on the billboard.

Video screens on the sides of buses.Turned at least one head.

Despite my shoddy camera(work) this screen was crystal clear and showing quite a few luxury brand video sequences.

These are 2 separate displays that result from the recent collaboration between Microsoft and Intel. This translucent screen on the left sits in front of the real world shop (it could be inside or actually part of the exterior window) and provides you with a touch screen augmented experience. So if you see something inside that you want – you can point to it, and it will superimpose an image of the item, or play a video demonstration etc. etc.

The other side is a video screen – its multitouch and light sensitive and has a camera for ‘anonymous video analytics’. So you can interact with ads or product information or whatever, it can turn up the brightness at night, and it can determine what to show you based on whether you are paying attention or not, or whether you are male or female for example.

If you simply must have it – digital signage on back packs – with horrendous scrolling messages above them.

These were interesting, essentially cubes that can be collected and configured in any arrangement and used as a digital display. Again my photography has let me down a bit but I think you get the gist…

28 days later - thoughts on an iPad

2010-05-05T05:14:00.003+00:00

I've been backed up on this blog post, partly because of a holiday, then because of an ashcloud, and then because of the ashcloud backlog I've been working through!

That said, before my break I got to spend some time with the ipad, to satisfy my thirst for such things. Much has been said now, but as we (officially) still don't have the iPad here in the UK I think can still share a couple of quick comments. So here goes:

1. Its smaller than you think
2. Its the second screen I've been on about

I'll elaborate a little, as that seems a bit vague. I have spoken to loads of people (UK based people in the main) and pretty much unanimously they were expecting the ipad to be bigger. Not huge, bit big - like a4 (or maybe foolscap as so many would prefer it to be widescreen). But its not, its not at all. As you can see from this picture its pretty small; that book is a5 for comparison. Now, that makes it a little disappointing at first, but the interesting point is that the more you use it the more you realise why.

I've elaborated on this and the other point in a blog post here...

iPad upgrade path

2010-02-02T16:59:00.000+00:00

Take a look at this post from Mission:Repair (they fix iphones and stuff). It shows that the replacement parts for the existing ipad already has a space fitted for a camera - although the release version famously doesn't have one yet...

iPad Camera rumor becoming a reality? We think so. « Mission:Repair Blog

A Lego me...

2010-01-13T13:45:00.001+00:00

Courtesy of their little iphone app.. nice - but it doesn't let me order all the pieces... yet :)

Now who wouldn't want one of those...

2010-01-12T12:36:00.000+00:00

I wasn't at CES this year and i haven't really had time to follow it so i am gradually seeing all the things i would have wanted to see if I was. First on the list a remote control helicopter thing you can control from your iphone, feeding back pictures and even with added AR games...

Stereotypes predicted by google

2010-01-11T15:36:00.000+00:00

via http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?p=704

My dad...

2010-01-05T11:14:00.000+00:00

Perhaps if my father had read the american edition...
(via youmightfindyourself)

Analytics annotations - at last!

2010-01-04T13:49:00.002+00:00

I missed this before the holidays but Analytics launched a Holiday Bonus pack of new features that finally includes... annotations. No more will we have to churn out and reformat to explain changes in data and performance. If, like me you have some sites that you monitor closely, but others that you are more irregular with, and you work on with a distributed group - then this is for you. Should make it really easy to combine information from different people employing simple marketing tactics and infer results without spending too much time in the meeting room... Its also pretty cool if your memory is a bit shaky :)

Tank

2009-12-08T22:50:00.001+00:00

Nice to see many at my first drinktank for aaa-aaaages...

Elearning, music, engines, 3d, collaboration and cheese all made an appearance - so the usual diversity was in evidence.

Best to all of you off to leWeb tomorrow. Bob voyage!

Location:Sutherland Grove,Wandsworth,United Kingdom

Profligacy, profundity and prevalence

2009-12-07T23:31:00.002+00:00

Some p words today, to celebrate me blogging again, and because they all just seemed to come up over the course of the day...

Supper tonight was a splendid prawn green curry for which I didn't have to lift a finger. Thanks. What a treat!

Location:Victoria Dr,Wandsworth,United Kingdom

Stop motion with wolf and pig.

2009-04-20T14:59:00.001+00:00

Blimey - there's plenty of love and time gone into that!