Piotr Ślusarski / blog

5 storyboard-based mobile apps that will boost your productivity (and make you a better problem solver)

Sat, 14 Mar 2015 18:12:14 +0100

Caught in a whirlwind of things to do? Care to facilitate a brainstorm? Need a spark to set your creativity on fire - or let your inner star shine? The big picture of what you’re contending with is best painted with a set of small ones. So grab a mobile device, try storyboarding. It’s not just for professionals! These apps will show you how to get your issue visualized, reorganized - and fixed.

Index Card

If you are a ‘Homeland’ fan, chances are even now you can see it pretty clear in your mind’s eye: the main heroine, Carrie Mathison passionately turning her apartment wall into something that could only be construed as a torrent of post-it notes, paper clippings, polaroids and whatnots. Her goal: to catch a bad guy.

Armed with Index Card she just might have put the wall into much better use. IC is a neat app to compile and arrange written down ideas in a visual manner. In so doing it lets you stay in control of the flow of these ideas: anything from a draft of your keynote speech broken down into chunks through to character advancement in a role-playing game. It doesn’t stop there for the greatly challenged: gotta plan a wedding? Or, perhaps, connect the dots for a bad guy to be caught? There’s a whole river, erm, torrent of possibilities. A familiar corkboard interface makes for a heart-warming, ‘blast from the past’ feel.

Grid

Sometimes referred to as “a spreadsheet actually fun to use”, Grid helps you keep and organize notes, pictures, people and places. Tap a field, drag its edges for the right size, insert a shopping list for that housewarming party you’re throwing this weekend or some text and images as an illustration of your current holiday in Indonesia you just can’t stop loving - and you get it all in an eye-pleasing wrapping (to brag about in front of your friends).

There’s more: if you have another Grid user open your project at the same time, both of you can then fine-tune it with effects seen instantly - add this, remove that, do whatever strikes your fancy. And I’m not even beginning to scratch the surface here. Grid is for you if you live and breathe visual thinking.

Mindomo

In the words of its creators, Mindomo is waiting there for you to “unleash the power of your ideas with mind mapping”. Use cases: memorizing info, establishing language learning goals, comparing products and services, (thorough) planning (of) meetings, sketching your new and brilliant business idea like a madman, brainstorming…I could go on forever. “To understand something you need to visualize its main elements and the connections between them”, rightly point out Mindomo’s authors.

Once you’ve created your maps (media, links and attachments are allowed), they can be converted into presentations instantly, as well as shared with others for collaborative work in real time, and, finally, synced to the cloud. That makes Mindomo a fully-fledged project collaboration and task management tool, which might get you closer to what you strive for.

Flava

Seize (and flava up) the day! Flava is about capturing noteworthy moments of your life by means of multimedia and presenting a personal timeline of who you are and what you are like. It supports text, photo, voice, video or location data. You can get creative with it: make a baby book documenting how quick a toddler grows into a…tween (sigh) or a dating journal packed with all of those unforgettable moments spent with your other half. “With just a single touch, you can turn your timeline into a diary, a tasty note, a travel journal or a family photo album”, the app description says. Imagine, sometime in the future, looking at an entry made 20 years ago with all those precious memories coming back to you like a cool sea breeze.

ideaBoost

Copywriters, project managers, entrepreneurs, your neighbors, you - anyone in need of churning out ideas on a regular basis should take a gander at ideaBoost. At first sight it’s just an app utilizing some sticky notes on a virtual platform with an aim to ease the creative process by letting ad people engaged in it brainstorm online over that new washing powder campaign.

But the real value of ideaBoost lies in a plethora of idea generation methods it employs. These methods allow you to look at a notion from many different angles, which may turn out to be crucial for generating the one, final idea, the big one. Take the Mandala Chart that consists in developing “eureka moments” around your challenge with Mandala cells. Or SCAMPER, a checklist of idea-spreading questions as devised by Alex Osborn. And how about the Phoenix Checklist? This little piece of work was drawn up by no less than the CIA - to teach their agents versatile thinking.

popchartlab:Presenting Fantastical Fictive Beers, for when only...

Wed, 04 Feb 2015 13:59:18 +0100

popchartlab:

Presenting Fantastical Fictive Beers, for when only a fictional brew will do.

Can you not get enough of that wonderful Duff? Want to crack a Girlie Girl with Al Bundy? Or maybe you need a Butterbeer to help you cope with the fact that a noseless wizard is always trying to kill you? Whatever your quaff, kick back and enjoy this scrupulously illustrated selection of 71 beers from some of the greatest movies, books, and TV shows ever.

Get it now.

"There’s an old story about cake mixes. So when they started cake mixes in the ’40s, they..."

Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:20:07 +0100

“There’s an old story about cake mixes. So when they started cake mixes in the ’40s, they would take this powder and they would put it in a box, and they would ask housewives to basically pour it in, stir some water in it, mix it, put it in the oven, and — voila! — you had cake. But it turns out they were very unpopular. People did not want them. And they thought about all kinds of reasons for that. Maybe the taste was not good. No, the taste was great. What they figured out was that there was not enough effort involved. It was so easy that nobody could serve cake to their guests and say, “Here is my cake.” No, no, no, it was somebody else’s cake. It was as if you bought it in the store. It didn’t really feel like your own. So what did they do? They took the eggs and the milk out of the powder. (Laughter) Now you had to break the eggs and add them. You had to measure the milk and add it, mixing it. Now it was your cake. Now everything was fine.”

- Dan Ariely: What makes us feel good about our work? | TED

timemagazine: TIME’s new cover: From Uber to Airbnb, go inside...

Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:14:06 +0100

timemagazine:

TIME’s new cover: From Uber to Airbnb, go inside the sharing economy. Photo-illustration by Chris Buck for TIME.

Video Games and the Curse of Retro

Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:31:03 +0100

Video Games and the Curse of Retro:

newyorker:

Simon Parkin writes:

We refer to “retro games” and “retro gaming,” but such terminology is almost never applied to books or films, which are, at most, “vintage” or “classic.” Does the Beatles’ ”Revolver” fall into the category of “retro music”? Are we “retro-reading” every time we pick…

mentalflossr: 13 TV Commercials Directed by Wes Anderson While...

Mon, 12 Jan 2015 15:59:00 +0100

mentalflossr:

13 TV Commercials Directed by Wes Anderson

While Wes Anderson is best known for his award-winning films, his TV commercials are worth watching.

Zobacz też: 7 najlepszych reklam nakręconych przez mistrzów kina

Zara's 'Holocaust uniform' and other clothing errors

Wed, 27 Aug 2014 19:23:36 +0200

Zara's 'Holocaust uniform' and other clothing errors:

It was meant to be a Wild West-inspired T-shirt for children, but to some people a children’s top by Zara looked like an eerie reminder of the prison clothing victims of the Holocaust wore. How do clothes brands get some things so wrong, asks Chris Stokel-Walker.

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Photo

Mon, 02 Dec 2013 19:05:41 +0100

Chamlety 2013 - najgorsze kreacje reklamowe roku

Mon, 02 Dec 2013 12:31:59 +0100

Chamlety 2013 - najgorsze kreacje reklamowe roku:

Jedna z nominowanych:

I jej (niezamierzona) inspiracja (1933):

Baner reklamowy Przedsiębiorstwa Techniczno-Handlowego...

Fri, 29 Nov 2013 14:23:24 +0100

Baner reklamowy Przedsiębiorstwa Techniczno-Handlowego “Eldom” na trasie Wyścigu Pokoju, 1968.

"How funny would it be when people start hunting for flying pizzas…*"

Tue, 26 Nov 2013 18:42:00 +0100

“How funny would it be when people start hunting for flying pizzas…*”

- O cywilnym wykorzystaniu dronów (też). | *Komentarz na internetach.

"Is it only a matter of time before they automatically open the window after you’ve farted?"

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:02:00 +0200

“Is it only a matter of time before they automatically open the window after you’ve farted?”

- Guardian zastanawia się nad przyszłością samochodów. Ja też.

Trader Joe’s ex-prez now selling expired food - Salon.com

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 12:59:07 +0200

Trader Joe’s ex-prez now selling expired food - Salon.com:

unconsumption:

Doug Rauch, who spent 14 years as the president of Trader Joe’s, is opening a new kind of grocery store: one that sells expired food. He’s calling it The Daily Table, and it will open early next year in Dorchester, Massachusetts.

The idea isn’t as radical as it sounds. A full third of the world’s food, and up to 40 percent in the United States, is wasted each year. Plenty of foods that appear to be expired, or past their sell-by date, turn out to be perfectly safe. Still, a recent study found that nine out of ten Americans will throw out food that’s past its “use before” date without first checking to see if it’s still good. It amounts to $165 million that ends up in the trash each year, just waiting for someone to capitalize on it.

Digital Dogs: A short history of man’s best friend in video games

Wed, 18 Sep 2013 17:38:00 +0200

Digital Dogs: A short history of man’s best friend in video games:

wierszezgoogle: Musisz się zawsze róży bać Musisz się...

Sat, 13 Jul 2013 14:58:21 +0200

wierszezgoogle:

Musisz się zawsze róży bać

Musisz się zakochać

Musisz się wkurwić

Musisz się zapisać do usługi w sieci sony entertainment network

Wytwórnia Wód Gazowanych "JERZY"

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 17:50:18 +0200

Wytwórnia Wód Gazowanych "JERZY":

The First Day of Summer by Screeching Weasel on Grooveshark The summer’s starting soWhy...

Fri, 21 Jun 2013 00:54:56 +0200

The First Day of Summer by Screeching Weasel on Grooveshark

The summer’s starting so
Why aren’t you?

nineinchnails: Nine Inch Nails: “Came Back Haunted.” The new...

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 18:23:46 +0200

nineinchnails:

Nine Inch Nails: “Came Back Haunted.” The new single from the forthcoming album “Hesitation Marks,” out September 3rd. Download “Came Back Haunted” on nin.com and iTunes starting June 6th.

Lubię ich od 10 maja 2007.

"People in the study haggled over the price of a new car while sitting in either hard wooden chairs..."

Thu, 23 May 2013 00:01:03 +0200

“People in the study haggled over the price of a new car while sitting in either hard wooden chairs or softer cushioned chairs. Those people sitting in the harder cushion-free chairs didn’t feel more negative, yet they changed their offer prices less over the course of the negotiation, offering 28% less than people in soft chairs. That is, hard chairs made people harder negotiators. This suggests that when people touch soft products, they may be more susceptible to outside persuasive influences.”

- Please Touch the Merchandise, Lawrence Williams, Joshua Ackerman

The Pause That Refreshes Mall-aise by Herman Krieger Herman...

Mon, 20 May 2013 22:58:57 +0200

The Pause That Refreshes

Mall-aise by Herman Krieger

Herman Krieger is a photographer based in Eugene, Oregon (…) His humorous take on the world is perfectly showcased in this series of black and white images depicting aspects of the American mall.