No man can serve two masters

Links for 2010-01-05 [del.icio.us]

2010-01-06T00:00:00-08:00

Links for 2009-12-30 [del.icio.us]

2009-12-31T00:00:00-08:00

Pentax Camera Repair

Links for 2009-12-29 [del.icio.us]

2009-12-30T00:00:00-08:00

20x200 : Print Information : think-make-think (2009)
quote from John Maeda made into a print
960 Gridder - Lay out websites with ease.

Think-make-think

2009-12-29T10:26:50+00:00

This is a haiku posted to John Maeda's blog in 2007, which some enterprising people have turned into a very nice little print using sign letters from a junk shop. It echoes the thinking - doing things - thinking virtuous cycle that I stole from someone a while back and have been using in meetings ever since.

The picture above is available to buy from 20x200.com

Links for 2009-12-24 [del.icio.us]

2009-12-25T00:00:00-08:00

Links for 2009-12-23 [del.icio.us]

2009-12-24T00:00:00-08:00

Links for 2009-12-21 [del.icio.us]

2009-12-22T00:00:00-08:00

AppData.com - Facebook Application Metrics

Transamerica cyclists 128 and 129 of 2009, Greg Siple's pics

2009-12-20T15:20:40+00:00

I don't know if I mentioned it, but this summer Sarah and I cycled coast to coast across the USA. I did? Oh, sorry to be a bore, but we just received some photos in the post from Greg Siple, one of the founders of the Adventure Cycling Association in the USA.

The route passes by their offices in Missoula Montana, and the map noted that you are welcome to come in for an ice cream. Despite the fact that it was raining that day, we thought the offer was too good to turn down, so in we went. Once we got there we were introduced to a few people who were welcoming to a turn, Greg was one of them. He explained that since year dot (in this case dot being 1976) he had been photographing the people who came by and cataloguing them. There were some very cool pictures up on the wall - along with some historic bicycles.

So here we are, the 128th and 129th people to pass through their offices in 2009. I think we got there in early-mid July. The pictures are so grainy because they were scanned in from film, printed out on normal 80gsm paper, then scanned in again at our flat. I quite like the effect actually, it feels kind of historic. Like old time pioneer pictures or something.

Links for 2009-12-18 [del.icio.us]

2009-12-19T00:00:00-08:00

National Trust | Roseberry Topping
Lessons From the Doom Loop | Fast Company
The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing | cxpartners
Mag+ on Vimeo
"DOUKOKU" Kokoro Company Ltd.
Her astonishingly small face is capable of creating exotic facial expressions. Her girlish and cute gestures are also polished.

The future of magazine publishing?

2009-12-18T11:11:32+00:00

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

Beautifully made mini-documentary both deconstructing magazine design, talking about adapting this to digital magazine design. Hearteningly, the page turn effect is comprehensively debunked.

"The concept aims to capture the essence of magazine reading, which people have been enjoying for decades: an engaging and unique reading experience in which high-quality writing and stunning imagery build up immersive stories."

The co-pilot lands the airplane

2009-12-14T23:53:11+00:00

Something occurred to me today which I think is interesting, in that in aviation, if ever there is a task to be performed that is potentially dangerous, the co-pilot is the one who does it. This doesn't seem quite right at first look. Why would the pilot with all her years of experience not do the trickiest jobs and let the (relative) rookie do them instead?

It's not because she is so nice and wants to help the co-pilot gain experience.

The reason is because if the co-pilot is in the process of messing it up, it is much easier for the pilot to jump in and override them than it is for the co-pilot to tell their boss that she is in the process of making a terrible mistake. This social pressure to defer to the senior person has been shown time and time again to cause airplanes to fly into the ground at completely the wrong angle. The wild haired brainiac Malcolm Gladwell talks about it in his most recent book the name of which I forget right now.

The tendency if you want something done quick, maybe something you find easy, is to do it yourself, however, if you want a good outcome you should get someone else to do it. Not because you then get the peculiar sensation of pointing someone at something, or because it helps them learn, but because they are more likely to do it right.

Are apps the internet for idiots?

2009-12-13T19:19:58+00:00

This weekend I had an interesting chat with some pals who somehow had all come to buy iPhones at exactly the same time. Obviously they were raving about them and were discussing which apps were good to download. Being 60% of the way towards becoming a grumpy old geezer I unleashed an ill-informed rant about how apps are the stupid person’s way to use the internet. Barely a week seems to go past without another news story about how many billions of app downloads from the Apple store, or how many apps are available for sale there (around 90,000 at the moment I think).

However, it’s quite counterintuitive that apps have become so important in the mobile content market. BlackBerry (RIM) and the manufacturers are desperately trying to catch up with their own versions of the App Store. If someone offered you a programme for your home PC, which you can download and it will show you the weather, or give you travel updates and what is more, it costs £1.99 you would politely invite them to piss off. That is what the internet is for, and you download one programme – an internet browser – to look at all the myriad different types of content online.

In a way, the mobile manufacturers and networks are the architects of their own predicament. The market that evolved between them set the stage for a single minded player to enter and create something well arranged for the users themselves. The mobile telephony and data market has been characterised by the manufacturers and the network providers each trying to ‘own’ the user’s experience. No-one wants to become the ‘dumb pipe’. Can you imagine how stifled the fixed line internet would have been if each of the players – telephone company, modem manufacturers, computer manufacturers would each have been able to block or change the end users experience of the internet. That is something approaching what happened over the last ten years, and is why the much vaunted ‘year of mobile’ hasn’t happened yet.

Apple were very acute in seeing a way through to avoiding this rat’s nest and having a direct relationship with the customer, as well as being on top of a very large distribution network. Apps certainly have improved the user experience, but as people become used to using the mobile internet, and as open systems tend to win out over closed ones, over the long term apps will probably start to die away in favour of using the internet the way it was intended.

Google Goggles - this is the real augmented reality

2009-12-08T14:46:41+00:00

This is absolutely amazing, take a picture of nearly anything and have google search for it, or use a video to see what is what in the real world. Screw printing out bits of paper and holding them up to a webcam, this is what augmented reality is all about. Imagine when you finally get to put a HUD into your sunglasses or your specs.

Also I called this nearly two years ago

Summit to remember [Flickr]

2009-12-07T15:22:04-08:00

mattyboomboom posted a photo:

No it really did look like that [Flickr]

2009-12-07T15:21:05-08:00

mattyboomboom posted a photo:

With the sky flying off diagonally upwards. It happens when you are up high. Something to do with the curvature of the earth, or something.

The top of Volcan Villarica, Pucon [Flickr]

2009-12-07T15:20:07-08:00

mattyboomboom posted a photo:

An instructive lesson as to why you should always check the horizon when you are taking pictures.

Don't go too near that cloud of sulphuric acid [Flickr]

2009-12-07T15:19:09-08:00

mattyboomboom posted a photo:

Some other dudes at the top [Flickr]

2009-12-07T15:17:46-08:00

mattyboomboom posted a photo:

Great case study for IKEA Malmo store facebook promotion

2009-12-04T17:05:03+00:00

Also check out the excellent write-up here: www.penn-olson.com

Celebrate the launch of windows 7 with a Windows 7 Whopper

2009-12-04T11:48:28+00:00

First you had your Windows 7 party, then the Sugababes came along, now in Japan you can celebrate the launch with a windows 7 whopper. 7 whopper patties, for 777 yen. Only available for 7 days.

What does it cost to 'buy' attention? Lessons from the gaming industry

2009-12-01T23:17:05+00:00

Today I found out that one of the biggest and best received PC strategy games from last year, sci-fi game called 'Sins of a Solar Empire' cost only $1 million to develop and was done by a development team of 8 people. That is around say £700,000. There is plenty we could learn from games development companies with their fast and light development processes. It would be pretty easy to spunk £700k in an ad agency and not have too much to show for it.

How many flash-wank websites have their been over the last few years that have cost that much money? I think there was some dreadful Stella Artois go on an interactive film journey that was supposed to have cost a million quid. Given how difficult it was to navigate and how much you had to download you would be lucky if 25 people went through the whole thing.

Sins of a Solar empire has sold, SOLD, 500,000 copies since its release two years ago. When you think about that it doesn't make sense. We need to massively re-frame our expectations if we are charging more to develop work that is supposed to be given away for free to try to earn attention from people and it massively underperforms stuff people are spending their own good money on.

Election marketing in Chile

2009-11-29T21:41:08+00:00

There is an election brewing in Chile. I am not 100% on when it is going to be, probably in the next couple of weeks, but if my review of election advertising is anything to go by, a bloke called Pinera is going to romp home into the presidency.

This is even despite the fact one of his ever present posters fell off a lamp post and brained some poor passing girl. The Carabinieri were taking notes and looking good in their shades as we passed by and the girl held a hanky to her bleeding head. The way the communications are handled out there is completely at odds with how we would do it at home so it has been really interesting to tour the country while this is going on.

There are five main candidates as far as I can tell

Arrate – at least 80 and looks every day of it. Possibly a communist.
Frei – he's got a good logo. Looks a bit evil. Kisses babies. Expect he will come second
Pinera – just like the Samurai who can tell the arrow will hit before the bow string leaves his hand, Pinera has won and he knows it.
An early middle age guy who is trying to grow a beard. I think I may have actually walked past him in Santiago. He had a minder and was wearing shades. 5% of the vote max.
Some young bloke just out of school by the looks of things (only saw him on the last day), maybe going for the tween vote. Lustrous hair just like a boyband.

The whole thing seems almost entirely personality based. Every single ad is a variation on a head and shoulders shot of the candidate, their logo and possibly also their campaign slogan, which is invariably something terribly general like “together a better society” or "national renewal". However for the most part they don't even bother with that, and I'm sure it's not because they have a particularly moody art director on the project.

So there are posters of people's faces up everywhere and names painted up on the walls all over the town and countryside. I suspect it is something to do with building familiarity as without a clear two party system, I imagine elections are based around lots of different people you have never heard of. If you can be the name most familiar to people as the enter the polling booth you are likely to get an 'x'.

I couldn't quite work out if there were a lot of celebrity endorsements going on, at least they looked like they could be celebrities. One of them, who seemed to be everywhere it turned out was the reigning president, who is legally barred from standing again, as 4 years is now the maximum term. She seemed to be supporting everyone who was standing as deputy.

Very strange. Also, there must be a really confusing mix of party affiliations, Pinera in particular has got his mug up with all sorts of different candidates. I wonder if it is the political version of Intel advertising where he pays for part of the ads as long as his face can go up there. Pinera clearly spending a fortune which more than anything else suggests to me that he's going to win. I guess with politics more than anything you end up in a virtuous or vicious circle: people think you're going to win, so you get more funding, so you run more ads and do more promotions, so people think you're going to win...

I just checked, the election is on the 13^th December. I will post an update with the final results...