Thanks to a funny series of recent events, I am posting this light-hearted yet entertaining post about myself. On Friday afternoon, I noticed that my craft blogging colleague over at , Garth Johnson, had posted an update on the work of textile artist, Ai Kijima, whose work I wrote about a few months ago. In his post, Garth gave me props for my review of Ai s work, so naturally, I followed up with an email thanking him.
However, in the process of sending this email, knowing that Garth has a diverse and eclectic background in the music business (which makes his iPod naturally diverse), I attached the following meme to my message, which I had picked up over at Screaming and Punching (a celebrity gossip blog). Here s the instructions: Take a list of scenes within a pre-determined storyline outlined from opening credits to end credits and assign a song to each section of the narrative using the shuffle feature on your iPod or via iTunes on your computer. Once the narrative is described for you by your own music, you get to make up a title and assign a cast.
I forwarded this meme to Garth as an intentional challenge to his creative writing ability knowing that out of the process, something interesting, twisted and pithy would emerge. So to make a long story short, he delivered (quite hilariously, I might add) and I am now obliged to reciprocate. So, here s my version: Treatment Set in the near dystopic future, as predicted, the world has run out of gasoline and Lamar is the mayor of a small agrarian craft community in Western North Carolina.
The evil villain, Nepheline Syenite, a former petroleum profiteer from Texas, seeks to take over the landfill methane source that the community uses to run their ceramics and glass studios. Lamar is the only one who can save the community and ultimately preserve the laid-back, creative, bohemian lifestyle in the lush countryside that they all have come to love. The fate of the community now hangs in the balance and if Lamar fails, they will all be forced to return to the sprawling suburbia from which they migrated and take graphic design jobs in architect offices, working in small cubicles in large windowless rooms with bad fluorescent lighting, surrounded by fake plants, while being forced to drink weak coffee from styofoam cups.
Ewwww The Cast Robert Downey, Jr. as Lamar Natalie Portman as his lovely wife, Robin Demi Moore as his Mom Danny DeVito as his Limoncello sipping sidekick Marilyn Manson as the Antagonist Patrick Stewart as the Wise Old Man Opening Credits Body Movin by Beastie Boys, Biz Markie, Redman and Erik Sermon Oh yeah, I am going to like this movie already. A sweet tune to get the party started, just cheesy enough to start things off on an upswing.
Waking Up Hombre by MIA Nice. I would like to wake up to this tune. In any case, here you can easily envision our protagonist rubbing his eyes and yawning as the beat thumps Oi Ga-Ra-To Pi-qa mine nu-mu-ro First Day at School SupaHero by Aceyalone This is my kind of movie.
Here I can see our hero strutting to class lipsyncing the lyrics Yeah, you know, I could do it but right now my cape is in the cleaners, but as soon as I get it out I m a gonna get at you. The best part of this song is where he says I am perfectly flawed. I like it, that s our boy.
Falling in Love Orozco by Tosca This is a pretty chill song. It reminds me of falling in love, life is great, everything is beautiful. By this point, my little narrative is unfolding through my iPod like the Tao te Ching, it s like everything was meant to be this way.
Life is good. Fight Song There s a Riot Going On by The Roots No freaking way! I blinked a bit, but it really happened.
Although in reality, the tune starts out with snoring and ends about six seconds later. There is no riot. It is supposed to be ironic, I guess.
In any case, what is a storyline without a good argument or at least a misunderstanding? I guess our narrative starts to go south at this point. Breaking Up To All of You by RJD2 Opens with cymbals and rolls into a slow seventies groove, sad enough, I guess.
Breaking up is hard this song reinforces it. Prom J ai Dormi Sous l Eau by Air I would say that this is a pretty laid back tune. Our narrative here goes something like this: they miss the prom in lieu of a nice turkey dinner and an after party with a handful of Xanax.
So much for fighting the villian tonight, it ain t gonna happen. Life Addiction by Kanye West Ouch It looks as if all of that Xanax got the best of our Hero. Mental Breakdown Polkamatic by Vitalic Polka music will push anyone over the edge.
Although, this song is not as bad as the title makes it sound, there is hope for our hero. He s just on edge for a bit as the music tells the story. Driving I m with Pilots by Ladytron This tune is a little eratic for driving but our hero is on his way back up.
It is a long road to recovery but there is hope. Perhaps here he should drive himself over to a rehab clinic. Wedding Orisun Lye (The Creator) by King Sunny Ade I am not sure what this song is about as the artist is Nigerian.
It sounds happy and upbeat enough. Good wedding, nice looking couple We all hope that they last. Birth of a Child A Wolf at the Door (it Girl, Rag Doll) by Radiohead I am not sure how this works considering the lyrics go something like help me call the doctor put me inside, put me inside, put me inside, put me inside, put me inside Maybe my iPod is being ironic?
Final Battle Honest by Nuspirit Helsinki Now we are ready to throw down, protagonist vs. antagonist, mano y mano, gloves off and my iPod comes out with a tune that is about as laid back as our fight song. There are no french horns in Bruce Willis movies but noooooo, my iPod has a sense of humor.
I guess our hero is back on the stuff again just recall his life theme, this sums up our story line. Death Scene Voyager by Daft Punk Now we are getting into it. A least he goes out in glory with a funky bass line and flames.
In death, things are looking up for our hero. The bad news is it s back to the suburbs for the rest of our craft community; Marilyn Manson is pulling the plug on Utopia. Funeral Song M.
I.A. [Diplo s Mix] Another MIA tune, this one from Piracy Funds Terrorism.
Our protagonist goes out with a proper send off. He wasn t much of fighter but he sure knew how to party. End Credits Litli T nlistarma urinn by Bj rk I couldn t think of a more appropriate ending to such a quirky movie.
Bj rk s Gling-Glo album is about as strange as it gets there s something about her singing jazz in Icelandic that just wraps this all up so well. It seems our hero failed us, but we are OK about it. In the end, we were entertained and intrigued.
You have to admit though the guy had charisma. I guess Robert Downey, Jr. was a great casting choice after all.
Listen to this podcast
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Creativity Podcast Series- #2 Amber Nussbaum
This podcast is the second in a series of podcasts with highly creative people. I am interested to see if there is anything to learn from creative people in terms of reforming education, especially as it relates to digital and media literacy. Amber Nussbaum is a 24 year old graphic designer for a Fortune 500 transportation company and my oldest daughter.
She is without a doubt one of the most creative people I know. In this podcast she shares her own thoughts on creativity, her growth as a blogger (she has been at it for 8 years), and her memories about receiving her education as an unschooler. Here are Amber s Show Notes:1.
Amber introduces herself. 2. Examples of the creative projects and venues with which she finds herself involved.
3. Amber describes some of her home improvement projects and the magazines that have featured her work.4.
She defines creativity: Looking at what you enjoy most in life and putting that as an outward manifestation of yourself. 5. Amber started blogging at 16.
She didn t know that was what it was called at the time. It started as a Web site where she would post her poetry and her ideas trying to find her voice. She had something to say and wanted a place to gather her thoughts.
She wasn t as concerned about audience when she got started as she was about documenting her thoughts.6. Next, she moved to Moveable Type, she has been using it since the first version became available.
She began promoting local band s shows and would post news, pics and blog about upcoming shows and after show performance reviews.That was when Amber s site really started getting some real traffic. She wrote for for awhile, writing record reviews.
But then when she switched Web hosts she lost a lot of her files and took her site down from frustration.7. Aug.
2004 she put her domain back up. She describes her blog as a mishmash of her life and creations. But rather than just blogging as a journal or diary, she uses her blog to document her life in photography and as a way to help others learn how to do the projects she has recently mastered herself.
8. Amber averages about 1500 unique hits per day. (After this podcast recording Life Hacker featured an artsy home improvement project she did and she got 6000 hits in one day.
)9. Amber helps out artists who display their wares on , a site with all original pieces by independent artists. Typically, she will feature one item and it will sell in a few hours due the numbers of readers looking at what she posts.
Amber says it is satisfying to feel she is helping the artist while giving the person who buys the object a beautiful piece of art and giving her readers something lovely to look at on her blog.10. Amber describes how her unconventional schooling experience helped her to become the self-directed, creative thinker she is today.
She credits he way she was taught for her ability to think critically. People will say to her, Oh you are a knitter Where can I take a knitting class? Amber didn t know how to respond as she never took a knitting class.
She believes in using books, the Web, and folks in her network online to learn new things. Just like she use to do in her homeschool.11.
Amber encourages us all to go after things yourself rather than depending on someone to teach you. She describes how the web provides community and how by reading do it yourself information found on other like-minded blogs, she has made real life friends. Some folks say that socializing on computers distances you from true human touch.
But Amber argues that it is not so today with blogs and other social networking sites. She connects with others all the time who like the same things she does. No matter how obscure what you are into is the web will help you find others who love it too.
12. Amber shares how her early experiences online shaped her Internet use today. Only old people used Telenet and talked about it, no one her age.
But she knew about it and connecting with others online in 1993 in our homeschool got her attention. She felt invested in the Internet as a communication medium.13.
The creative process for Amber begins with being somewhere and seeing something wonderful and taking out her camera and capturing the moment and then coming back and blogging about it. Often her real life experiences will inspire her creations. In terms of her Web site, Amber fears that some might think it is nerdy but pretty much all the time she lives her life thinking this moment would be cool to post about.
She likes sharing her experiences online.14. How can creativity improve education overall?
Amber shares creative lessons she remembers from her middle school experience. Giving a kid a camera is giving them power. The power to create.
She recalls having to be in character all day as part of a book report project.15.Teachers might be intimidated by giving their students the amount of control over their learning she had in her educational experience.
But Amber feels that being in charge of her learning helped her graduate in the top spot of her college class. Her education taught her to make decisions.16.
Amber compares college read a book and take a test to the more organic way she learned in our home. She said when you are vested in the learning process, you want to learn.17.
Amber describes the learning experience of going different places being there and doing it. Retention is amazing when you are taught like that. 18.
She feels college should be more project-based. She describes an engaged, creative lesson done in one of her art history classes.19.
The most incredible moment of the interview was when Amber called me a dynamic instructor who is passionate about what she is teaching. It was a defining moment for me, both as her teacher and her mother.20.
A passionate teacher is that teacher - passion makes the difference!21. Forced learning doesn t appeal to Amber at all, even in the world of work.
If you feel vested then you are going to be 100% there in the process making it happen.22. Her theme is If you feel you have a stake in what you are doing you are going to give it your all.
23. Since she has an authentic audience via her blog she puts more into refining her writing. She feels this would work for students as well.
24. Problem/project- based learning requires more work from the teacher but cool things will come out of it. Teachers will have to give more of themselves, but it will make the product more valuable.
Being creative means taking risks.26. How many of you remember stuff you did in the 6th grade?
Well I do. Because I was a part of the learning. I was in charge.
27.Give a kid responsibility and they will act responsible. Give them the opportunity to create.
Listen to the interview in MP3 format
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Audiocast: Digital Storytelling with Joe Lambert
Like many other folks, I m fascinated by the prospect of digital storytelling to restore voice to classroom activities. So often, schools are caught up in testing, and a focus on activities that do not engage us personally, as human beings. Digital storytelling, like blogs and podcasts, enable children and teachers to develop creativity.
That s important in a world that increasingly requires us to be more creative. Although I have had the opportunity to work on digital storytelling a la oral composition approach, I have to confess that I am a product of traditional schooling. As such, I m text dominant and oral composition isn t something I m entirely comfortable with, although our children certainly benefit from the oral composition approach.
In attending Lambert s workshop, I hoped to explore the world that David Jakes had introduced me to via his web site and blog. On Monday, March 19th, three of my team and I took the short trip from San Antonio to Austin, Tx to attend Joe Lambert s (pictured above) Digital Storytelling Workshop. The 3-day workshop was facilitated by Joe Lambert and Stefani Sese (profile shot below).
I truly enjoyed the first day of the workshop because of its focus on the seven elements of digital storytelling. I m grateful to Joe for allowing me to share the interview and audiocast of the Digital Storytelling workshop (Day 1 only Days 2 3 were more about short minilessons and working through the creation of your digital story). Day 1 was particularly fun because of the StoryCircle.
We pretty much started out the day in StoryCircle, sitting in a circle and going around the room to introduce ourselves, then share what our story was. Over the last few months, I ve been meditating on how to do a quick homage to my Dad, and Garbed in Silver is an adaptation of a story I wrote 17 years ago. What was shared during the StoryCircle was the best.
The rest of the session included short mini-lessons on Adobe Photoshop Elements and Final Cut Pro Express. With my focus on no/low cost software, I had only worked on Adobe Photoshop and Fireworks in the past. Since I ve never been interested at all by art, graphic design, or anything like that, I prefer to work with single-use image editing tools and if I have to use something, THE GIMP is what I use (even on my Macbook).
Final Cut Pro Express, though, was a joy to work with. I was impressed at how easy it was and how much control it provided. Once you ve worked with Final Cut Pro Express, it s hard to imagine using PhotoShop or Moviemaker (that crashes every 10 minutes) but that s what our schools have, and not everyone is using Mac OS X.
A Conversation with Joe Lambert, Director/Founder of the Center for Digital Storytelling Audio Recording of Day 1 of the Digital Storytelling Workshop - Not yet available AudioCast Links: Center for Digital Storytelling Miguel s Digital Storytelling Resources Digital Storytelling Cookbook Contact information for the Center for Digital Storytelling: 1803 Martin Luther King Jr. Way Berkeley, CA 94709 USA 510-548-2065 phone 510-548-1345 fax Helen Barrett on Digital Storytelling as ePortfolios Sound clips in the audiocast come from Free Royalty-Free clips available online at Digital Stories (in Quicktime Movie format): Family Time - Christina Morrow (2.2 megs) Garbed in Silver - Miguel Guhlin (21.
5 megs) Alaska - Larry Stegall (13.7 megs) My Island - Greg Rodriguez (15.4 megs) Photos: (Left to Right: Stefanie Sese (Facilitator) and Susanna) (Left to Right: Christina Morrow and Joe Lambert) Prior to the workshop, an email went out announcing what would be done, goals and objectives.
Here s a copy I really appreciated this step! In 1993, CDS s founders developed a unique workshop environment that assists people in creating video stories from their family photos and home video. It is based on a philosophy of emphasizing fundamental elements of good storymaking combined with a demystification of multimedia technology and tools.
We have helped over 10,000 people to mine powerful and effective tales from the pictures of their lives, or the lives of their loved ones. The stories have covered every conceivable topic: tales of survival and achievement; corporate brand stories, travel adventures; love stories, health and healing; oral histories about cultures, historic periods, and work experiences; and memorials to loved ones.The class is a great introduction for the multimedia novice or the professional to working with digital imaging and digital video softwares.
The workshops include hands-on instruction to Adobe Photoshop and Final Cut Express and script/storyboard development. The CDS teaching staff will give each student specific assistance on their projects, including design, scripting, and other issues regarding the specific use of their digital story.Students will complete a 3 minute piece which will be output to disk and mailed following the workshop.
COURSE OBJECTIVES 1. To provide students with an introduction to the tools of desktop video in a production context.2.
To introduce storytelling methodology (point of view, emotional content, dramatic action) into a dialogue about new media content.3. Assist students in completing a project.
ROUGH TIMETABLE OF WORKSHOP DAY ONE Introduction Presentation of 7 Elements and Digital Stories to introduce digital storytelling and analyze story elements in prior student work. Story Circle to discuss students own project plans in group setting. Lunch Adobe Photoshop Elements Hands-on Tutorial Preparation and Digitization of Individual Materials including scriptwriting and revision, image selection and storyboarding, scanning and image preparation in Photoshop on student workstations.
DAY TWO Adobe Premiere Pro Hands-on Tutorial Final Individual Script Review Record Voice-overs Assemble rough edit in Adobe Premiere Pro DAY THREE Complete Rough Edit in Adobe Premiere Pro Select and add Soundtrack audio Select and add special effects in Adobe Premiere Pro including image pan and zoom, motion, superimpositions, transparency and titles. Complete Final Edit Export Draft of final version of digital story for workshop presentation. PRE-WORKSHOP PREPARATION To get the most of out the workshop we recommend preparing the following materials: an idea for a story you want to tell, a script, images, video and music.
It is best if you come with a rough draft of a script. Since we are working on pieces that will be 2-3 minutes long, bring a script that is about 1.5 pages, double spaced or 250 words.
Also bring photographs, art work, letters and items for your story. Images can be scanned ahead of time or during the workshop. Around 20 images is a good number.
If you can scan them ahead of time we recommend scanning at about 300 dpi and bringing them on a CD if possible, or flash card.If you are planning on using video make sure you have previewed your tapes prior to the class and made notes about which 5-15 second clips you will want to capture. Video uses a lot of memory and can be time consuming to work with so we will use video efficiently and in small clips.
If you are using a video format other than VHS or Mini-DV please bring along your camera for use in capturing your video clips to the computer.For background music you can bring music on CD. Choose a couple of possibilities and then you can choose the option that works best.
We will also have copyright free music and software available at the workshop if you would like to use that, or you may find songs available on-line for purchase.Our web site has a copy of the Digital Storytelling Cookbook, the manual we have created to accompany the class. You will find the first sections helpful to read prior to the class.
There is a PDF version of the front sections of the cookbook at can also find helpful resources in the new text: Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community by Joe Lambert which is available for purchase on-line at:
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RiotACT business profile # 2 - Bottles of Australia
[Tony Pemmer with bottle printer] Jazz and I ventured out to the wilds of Hume to talk to Tony Pemmer, the owner of Bottles of Australia about his operation out there. For those who want the word whole (rather than my own inadequate translation), the recording of the complete interview (with intriguing ambient sounds from the busy factory) is available (there s lots of good stuff in there). Tony described his product as a mobile billboard delivered via plastic drink bottles.
BoA employs 28 people designing the graphics to go on plastic drink bottles, the bottles themselves, and printing graphics onto bottles right here in Canberra. This is no small operation, they do runs of over 100,000 bottles for the likes of Puma, Asics, and Warner Brothers Movie World as well as batches as small as 50. If you ve got a branded plastic drink bottle have a look on the bottom and chances are it bears the BoA mark.
The business began with a $5,000 overdraft in 1989 out of a bicycle retail outlet, importing stickers from Hawaii. Eventually the drink bottles took over the business. Previously all plastic drink bottles were imported from abroad.
The production line starts with impressive stacks of boxes containing blank bottles awaiting an order [Boxes of bottles] The bottles have to pass through gauntlets of flamethrowers which change the surface tension to be amenable to holding ink. They stay this way for a few days before returning to their natural state. [Flaming bottles] Organising the positioning of bottles is a key to keeping things efficient.
[Bundles of bottles] The big machines automatically flame the bottles before aligning them and coating them with ultra-violet sensitive ink, a pass under a UV light then makes them ready for printing with a different colour. [Bottle printing machine] [Bottles being printed] Here s a short video of the machinery in action: At the end they shoot out lickety split. [Bottles come off the line] For more than two colours they have a different machine which can give it the full monty: [multi colour bottle printing machine] At the far end of the factory a team of piece workers put lids on the bottles while they check for printing errors.
BoA operates at a well-better-than-industry-standard defect rate of between 1 and 3 percent. [Putting tops on the bottles] Tony thinks location is not a major limitation in dealing with customers, being closer to Sydney just makes him further away from Melbourne. However a lack of experienced staff with manufacturing skills has stopped them getting more ambitious and building a plastic moulding plant.
That work is outsourced to Sydney. It would be cheaper still to import from China (the materials alone cost more in Australia than a finished bottle from China shipped to your door) but the responsiveness of the Australian manufacturer in a rapidly evolving design environment offsets the overall costs. As it is staff for the printing operation have to be trained in house.
Customers range from major corporations rounding out a sports fashion line and the likes of BHP down to schools and sports clubs. Drink bottles are commonly used in branding exercises and when people want a branded drink bottle there s BoA, they also do a big line in exporting. When they started printing bottles in 1991 they took delivery of a printing machine and then started learning how to print.
Tony made the point that printing a sports bottle is essentially no different to container decorating a shampoo bottle. Tony started in business in Batemans Bay running a sports and bike shop aged 19. Since then he and his wife Mary have built a series of businesses in what he describes as a tag team bouncing ideas off each other.
He credits being open to new ideas as a key to the success he s had. Interestingly when dealing with fashion brands they have to lock in the hot new colours 18 months before they re unleashed on the consumer market as something new, fresh and spontaneous. Currently Tony and Mary have the business at a point where they re toning down their day to day involvement.
Tony is an advocate of trusting and empowering staff and is doing his very best to not be indispensable. Working on the business but not in the business is a mantra for him. He concedes that part of this is about making the business potentially sale ready.
To avoid burnout he advocates all business owners treat their business as an investment rather than a lifestyle (or worse, a money pit or a job). For those looking to start new businesses Tony advocates borrowing more than you think you ll need. The last thing any business would want is to end up six months down the line needing more money and no longer credit worthy.
Staff recruitment mostly comes through referrals, often coming through the piece workers in the lidding area. A sign outside the factory often handles recruiting needs and in the last resort an ad in the Canberra Times gets results. The traits most sought after in staff is flexibility and a willingness to learn.
In BoA s early days marketing was through magazine ads in trade journals and sports mags. These days aggressive branding through packaging and delivery trucks is used as well as catalogue product placement and sponsorship of Tony s beloved Canberra Capitals (Tully Bevilaqua was answering the phones on reception as we left). When we asked about local Government policy Tony expressed his horror at the demise of Business ACT in the last budget.
He had found them to be very effective in supporting projects which had lead to more Canberrans being employed. Additionally they had effectively encouraged network effects between local businesses. The massive slash and burn has seen an end to that which Tony felt was to Canberra s detriment.
On the federal level he was thrilled with the Free Trade Agreements negotiated by the Howard Government which had opened up markets for BoA bottles. He wistfully wondered what life would be like under a flat tax system liberating business from the vagaries of the current tax system. Aside from bottles BoA has worked on developing bottle related accessories.
Next time you watch a Brumbies game have a look at what the drink carriers carry the water out in. [Bottle carrier] The V8 bottle carrier was designed with help from the design faculty at the University of Canberra. Interestingly Tony was very keen on handling efficiencies.
He makes a compelling argument that a lot of businesses fail to account for the cost of making staff move product around through inefficient storage and handling. We were impressed with the way stock at BoA moves smoothly from one end of the building to the end. Looking ahead he felt the biggest risk facing BoA was staffing.
Finding good people and hanging on to them. In the current environment with the public service recruiting heavily for high wages it s hard to find good people for junior roles. In terms of business philosophy Tony compares business to a trip to the casino.
But encourages people to take a risk and not be too downhearted if the risk doesn t always come off. Here s Tony and his wife and partner Mary at the doors of the BoA building. [Tony and Mary outside BOA] * RiotACT receives no inducements or considerations to produce business profiles.
In this case we approached BoA for the interview. If there s a local business you d like to know more about email with their details and why you think they re interesting. The feed for podcatching the audio of this and future Business Profiles (~30mins) is
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Interview: Jeff Veen
Download the MP3 (9.
02 MB) Topics we cover in the interview How designing for the web has changed How to measure the impact of usability checks Life at Google - and how Measure Map is playing out The state of the industry URLS Mentioned Measure Map The blog analytics tool Adaptive Path Full transcription of the interview SD: This is Sarah Drew for Vitamin and I m sitting here with Jeff Veen, who s had a long and illustrious history and is at this moment in time at Google. I d like to start with design and what you see as the evolution of design that may be happening, and understanding design in a much larger context than what we ve maybe traditionally understood it. JV: Yeah, I think that s true.
Even if you look at the past couple of decades it s changed phenomenally from the print-based, what-you-see-is-what-you-get design to being much more interactive. There s a lack of control that s going on in a lot of the design that we re doing and I think that has historically been kind of difficult for a lot of designers to make that shift, but what s really interesting now is I m seeing designers who have come up only having ever designed for the web and while they may lack some of the finer nuances of typography or things like that, what they re really good at is thinking about what the web is good at, what the web has in terms of constraint and working with that, and being really native to the web. So yeah, that s changing an awful lot.
SD: Do you see a wider application of how we understand design, I mean in the sense that design is applicable to genomes, to architecture, to graphics, to language, to urban design, to maybe even companies, and as a [web designer do you find yourself using a wider application of design ? JV: Well, I find myself doing design a lot differently. In the past I don t think we had to think as much about use, and what people are trying to do with our design, and that s an interesting set of disciplines.
I think that product designers in the past have thought about those things, ergonomics and things like that, but people who are working with documents, graphics, layouts, that sort of thing, they never really had to consider that. A book was a book, and you knew what the constraint was and you designed to it. That s so different now, so I spend far more of my time now understanding technology, doing user research, doing basic ethnography, anthropology, stuff like that which I never considered was going to be part of my career.
That takes up probably more time than the actual design process itself, the actual arranging things on a screen that makes sense to people ( ) is trying to build that level of empathy for what people are trying to do and try to embody that when we sit do to do that design. So, yeah, it changes a lot. SD: A lot of your work has been in the areas of both UI design and usability - how to track that, how to quantify that, how to communicate that, how to design and optimise that JV: Well, usability is a little piece of that.
Usability is a little bit like spell checking, like just making sure that the decisions we ve already made, we ve made correctly. I think a lot of people got on this usability bandwagon and put a little bit too much faith into it, to try to use usability to help them decide what to do rather than whether or not they ve done things right. Deciding what to do, that s the job of design, right?
That s where you have to figure out what people are trying to get done here, how can I help them do that, what are the expectations people have, what are the conventions that they already understand. Usability doesn t help us with any of that, but it does help us understand whether or not I did it right, and so there s an awful lot of different techniques. We try to go out and talk to people all the time, I do telephone interviews with potential users, I demo the thing that I m working on to anybody who ll take a look at it.
I just want to make sure that I understand the kinds of things they re trying to do, and that I can help them do that. SD: Do you find that when you re showing a product to someone that general patterns tend to come up or is there a unique user experience that you re seeing when you re showing it? JV: There s definitely patterns.
Humans are wired to work a certain way, especially when you have everybody looking at a screen, everybody using a mouse, there s certainly patterns there. There are also differences in those patterns based on the different types of audiences that we re working with. I created an application for people who have weblogs.
Those are people who have a desire to publish on the web, have a little bit of technical understanding, they ve maybe edited a template before,so there s some assumptions that I can make about that audience as opposed to an audience that s trying to get information about their healthcare. That s a much broader set of expectations that people have, perhaps a lot [of] different backgrounds in the kinds of experience they have with technology so we can t just necessarily take for granted that people are going to understand all of this unless we have a really good understanding of who those audience segments really are. SD: I would imagine at Google that you have a lot of time for really researching your user base, right?
JV: There s no time! There s no time for it. That s the terrible irony about what we do.
First, I don t think that a lot of people understand the value of the research because it take time, and it s time when people aren t writing code or designing pages. It is all very qualitative, almost nebulous - I mean, you can create a research plan and you can follow the plan and everything, but it takes time and it s kind of expensive when time is very expensive. So a lot of the research we do on the fly, really ad hoc, and I think that s totally fine because a little research is always better than no research at all.
But Google is the kind of company that really wants to invest in user experience, understands the importance of research - but even so we re all doing a million things at once and we still want to get out ahead of the competition, so it s always this balance between those things. SD: It was interesting to me in your talk how you contextualize Web 2.0, and I think we re very much creatures of story: tell us a story and we will often as a group follow it or aggregate towards it, if you will.
What do you think is the new story is for us? JV: I studied history when I was in school, it was my major, actually; ironically, here all I feel I do is work in the future now, but in the presentation I gave today at this workshop I started with a bunch of stories about how this cycle has happened in the past, how there s been some sort of technological innovation that nobody expected. That s happened throughout history, whether it was the steam engine or the Model T or the web browser, and a tremendous amount of capital tends to flow towards those technological innovations, so a bunch of people get really rich and it changes the way we do something, typically business - that certainly happened in the late nineties.
There was this innovation and suddenly every business changed, some of them subtly, but some of them fundamentally, in the way in which they did their business because of web technologies and a tremendous amount of money went into funding and financing that, and a bunch of people got rich, and people thought this would continue forever. Of course it doesn t, there isn t an unlimited supply of capital. Eventually something has to pay off and everybody got scared and there was a big bust.
Well, that s going to happen again, inevitably. I don t know if it will necessarily happen in this industry with these Web 2.0 companies that are getting funded now.
Perhaps it won t, perhaps it ll shake out and things will level off and that will be good, but even if it does happen again there s a lot that we can learn this time around: right, there s these design techniques, there s this way about thinking about our audiences, there s this openness that these new companies have that old companies, traditional companies, never had before, and that s the kind of stuff I try to tease out of these stories that I look for. SD: I also think just in talking with people and watching it seems that there s definitely is a sense of people really building their foundations at this round in a way that was maybe not there before, I mean understanding that incremental growth and smaller, strong foundation, kind of lean and mean instead of bloated JV: I wonder about that. Maybe I m skeptical because I went through it before and certainly there aren t people going out saying, I am going to change way people buy groceries and I m taking this company public and we are going to be a two billion dollar company next year.
That s not happening, thank God that s not happening, because that was exhausting. At the same time this idea of keeping things very small, trying to build a business first and then take the funding, like, those are great principles. I don t think those principles, while they may be spoken a lot, are held by a lot of these companies to be honest, and again I might just be cynical about this, but I think everybody is doing this for the American Dream, right, well, not everybody, but a fair amount of people are getting into this thinking I can build a web app, I can sell it, I can get rich , and that s not going to happen to most people, but I think a lot of people have the potential to think, I can create a web app, I can build a community of users that like it, I can make a good living off of that .
Ryan Carson is inspiring to me, the way they have done their little web apps, that they are turning it into a business, it s a great lifestyle for them, things like that and I m sure there s a potential reward out of all of that but perhaps y know, making a living off of a web application, not a terrible thing, so we ll see. SD: I appreciate that you have both the wide, the long, and also the deep view. Can you talk a little bit about the company you were at before Google?
JV: Sure, about five years ago, 2001, at the worst possible time in the industry, the absolute bottom of the bust, I started a company with six of my friends, all peers in the industry, all designers in various fields of design, we started a company called Adaptive Path. It was a great time, frankly, to start a company, it was a really bad business environment but still there was projects going on and were able to find the little projects to get started and we sort of grew up out of that. We followed this rebirth of the industry and it s been an absolutely fantastic experience to have because we tried to embody a lot of the principles of good design in our company and I think we ve followed through on that pretty well.
I miss it a lot, I mean I m down at Google now, we did a product inside of Adaptive Path called Measure Map which we sold to Google and I went with that, to bring that over but I absolutely miss Adaptive Path as well, it continues to be a fantastic group of people doing really, really important work. SD: Measure Map, can you tell me a little bit about how that s playing out as people are starting to use it? JV: Well, Measure Map was kind of interesting to me in that, much like Evan Williams who started Blogger and now is doing Odeo, he said in his talk today that he needed to make applications that he wanted to use.
That s what Measure Map was for me. I had had a blog for three or four years, I knew it was doing well because I got email, and people would leave comments, but I had no idea how well. I looked at all these analytics tools that were out there, the stat counters and so on, and I couldn t figure them out.
I thought, I m kind of a smart guy, what s going on here? , and it turns out that most of them were either enterprise level or very powerful open source tools for sysadmins that were managing servers. There was nothing to help people understand what impact they were having with a blog.
So I said well let s do a web analytics tool just for blogs, specific to that kind of traffic, to that kind of web site, and instead of measuring hits or advertising conversions or any of that stuff why don t we just measure participation, how the blog is doing, and what you can you learn from that. We tried to make it as simple as possible. When you log into Measure Map, there s just four numbers - how many people came today, and what did they do, did they link to you, did they leave a comment, how many posts did they read Four simple things - you can drill into that, get a little more detail, but we really just wanted to show cause and effect.
It s like a garden, you pay attention to it and it will grow. SD: Within Google are you being asked to work on the next generation of the visual UIs for the display of data? JV: Well, I m taking a variety of approaches to working in a giant company like that.
I really have no intent on redesigning Google. I don t even want the opportunity. We re taking Measure Map and they have a Google Analytics product and we re working with those guys to bring best practices together and help people understand how their traffic is doing and stuff like that.
There s a lot of amazing design work that s happening at Google right now and we re sort of looking at what the best practices are for this kind of audience, for these kinds of applications, and seeing how there s all these points of integration and that s kind of the work we re doing so I think there s going to be an awful lot coming out of all of this. SD: So, for our listeners, any last jewels you d like to give? What would be your advice, from your professional career?
JV: One of the things that I ve always told designers is to go make stuff. Always be making stuff, and frankly it could not be easier now. It doesn t matter if you re a designer, a developer or what, the risk in building web application or frankly in visualising your ideas is so much lower now.
Ten years ago it cost millions of dollars to try to visualise something. You had to buy very expensive servers, you had to get very expensive software to run on those servers, you had to pay for very expensive advertising before you could even get started. Now we have cost per click advertising for pennies, servers that are dirt cheap, software s all free now, and the software is so good now.
We developed Measure Map on Ruby on Rails and it was remarkable how little effort it took for us to iterate and change our ideas and to visualise stuff as quickly as possible. So that s my thing, if you have an idea it s a lot easier now to just go try, and that s what I encourage everybody to do. Yeah, absolutely.
SD: Well, thank you, really wonderful interview. Thanks. Transcribed by Scott Morris Like this article?
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More cha cha changes!
Song Playing: Incubus - Nice To Know You Dallas was a great trip!
I got to see some family, have a bunch of laughs and watch some good footie action (futbol). Unfortunately, De Rosario was injured within 30 min of the match and was helped off the pitch! DeRo sprained his ankle, and his status will be evaluated for the next game May 20th against Chicago.
That is not good for the Dynamo, especially with new forwards on our line and Brian Ching (leagues leading scorer) playing with our USA National Squad at the FIFA World Cup in Germany. Our forwards really need some time to synchronize or at least get to know each other s movements while Ching is out and De Rosario (our strongest midfielders) is not part of the equation. I don t think we are going to have a smooth ride these next few weeks.
It s going to take a lot on the part of our players to get things together in such a short period of time. Regardless, the Dynamo can count on my bro and I being there to support our club! So it s Monday and I have already begun to review some new photoblogs for my needs.
I really want to provide a great overall experience on my site that will of course deal with more images and projects. I do have 3 weeks until school begins and during that time I shall unveil a new site that I will build upon. The changes will begin at any given time, so please be patient and forgive the mess.
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This new DVD by Scott Kelby, Editor of Photoshop User magazine, is designed for people who are already using Adobe Photoshop CS (or even Photoshop 7) and want to unlock the amazing power of Photoshop CS2 now. Scott shows you step-by-step how it s all done, and there s no faster or easier way to unlock the secrets and incredible new features of Photoshop CS2 so you can start using them right away.
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The important new features for digital photographers, and start using them like a pro
. How to use Photoshop rsquo;s new Smart Sharpen, Noise Reduction filter, and more!
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How to use CS2 s new Camera Raw plug-in, to take your Raw images to the next level
Photoshop CS2 is packed with hidden tweaks, enhancements, and features, but how to put them to work isn t always obvious. This DVD will have you using Photoshop CS2 like a pro right away. Plus, you ll learn all those little shortcuts, tricks, and insider secrets that ll let you apply the power of CS2 to your own work today.
Customer Review: Good, but consider joining NAPP instead
Scott Kelby is president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), and is one of the best-known Photoshop celebrities. I m a NAPP member, and as a NAPP member I get access to all sorts of video tutorials and other Photoshop tutorials, as well as a monthly magazine called Photoshop User.
The reason for saying all of this is that I have seen most of what is on this DVD in one form or another through NAPP.
I grabbed this DVD from my local library because I was curious to see what s on it. It s a good DVD. It s focused on teaching the new features of Photoshop CS2.
Scott always does a good tutorial, so you won t be disappointed if you buy this DVD. But consider that for a few bucks more, you can join NAPP and get all the same content plus way more (including some great discounts with various retailers and services).
Keywords: , , , , , MSN MoneyCentral - With the introduction of the BLM500, we can help ensure print operations have all the tools they need to maximize opportunities and profits in the evolving digital printing market.
Oce has simplified the complex preparation for booklet printing
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Eric Kinney, President
PRWeb - Industry Leader Quad/Graphics Joins PODi, The Digital Printing Initiative Quad/Direct Marketing has joined PODi as an Associate Member. Quad/Direct Marketing is a division of Quad/Graphics ( ), the nation s largest privately held printer of
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ON DEMAND Conference Expo Announces Best of Show Award Winners
Forbes - Monochrome Digital Printing Equipment: Xerox, Nuvera 288 Print MIS/ERP: Avanti, Graphic Arts Management System Process Color Digital Printing Equipment: Kodak, NexPress M700 Spot Color Digital Printing Equipment: Oce, VarioStream 9240
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Mohawk Helps Save the Planet One Planet at a Time
CSR Wire - Mohawk engineers its papers to provide optimal performance for sheetfed, web and digital printing. Mohawk papers are used in a wide variety of communications including prestigious annual reports, corporate identity systems, high-end brochures
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The Colorful Sound of Silence: Sound Absorbing Foam in More Than 50
WebWire - The paint adheres to the fine-pored surface so well that even digital printing is possible.
As a result, high-definition pictures with velvety smooth surfaces can be created without being recognizable as sound insulation. Moreover, Basotect can be
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Annie Jennings
PRWeb - America s Pentagon Terrorists Book Released The Book is 119 pages in B W except the Cover in color regular settings for Digital Printing this Book. The Site has the Author s and Dennis Foley s Book Descriptions.
This Book is of Pentagon Star
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The 25 most influential blacks in technology
Blackenterprise.com - Jones was founder and CEO of Colossal Graphics Inc., which invented and developed large-format PostScript digital printing and software used for oversize text.
He also developed unique bulk ink delivery systems for large format printers. Says Jones
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NUR Macroprinters and Visutech - Teaming up in Pursuit of Scandinavia
MSN MoneyCentral - It is the premiere event for the sign making industry in the region attracting visitors from the wide-format printing industry, including digital printing and screen printing. NUR will be exhibiting at Sign Scandinavia this year at the Swedish
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Kodak Announces First-of-its Kind Picture Protection Plan to
MSN MoneyCentral - Businesses effectively communicate with customers worldwide using Kodak solutions for prepress, conventional and digital printing and document imaging; Creative Professionals rely on Kodak technology to uniquely tell their story through moving or
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Digital Character Design and Painting is really two books in one: it teaches the fundamentals of character design, and the skills, tools, and techniques needed to master digital painting.
Character design is all about ideas and how to put those ideas together to create a look and feel for a character. It s about creating a character that elicits a specific emotion from viewers fear, joy, anger, sadness, etc. Character design does not have a standard creation process, but there are basic principles that can be followed.
Digital Character Design and Painting explores these principles and teaches conventional artists how to enhance their skills to bridge the gap between traditional and digital art. All of the fundamentals of character design, from artistic design issues and character development to physical details of the character are explored.
Unlike character design, digital painting is not so much about ideas as it is about the combination of method, technique, and artistic theory.
It is about making something that will be viewed in two dimensions imitate three dimensions. Using a variety of practical Painter 7 tutorials, artists learn how to apply traditional painting techniques with digital tools. Details on sketching, color theory, lighting, and texturing are also covered, along with specific techniques for painting trees and foliage, eyes, faces, hair, clothing, and fur.
Using these practical techniques and procedures, artists can learn how to create and beautifully illustrate their own life-like or fantasy characters for games, movies, or other commercial productions.
On the CD!
* Sketches, paper textures, brushes, and texture files to use with the tutorials presented in the book and to customize for your own projects
* Demo version of Painter 7 from Procreate (All of the material in the book Painter 8 compatible.
)
Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, Windows ME, or Windows XP. IBM Compatible PC, Pentium 200 or higher, 64 MB RAM, 24-bit 800 x 600 Display, 2X CD-ROM Drive, Mouse or Tablet.
Mac OS 8.6 or higher, Power Macintosh G3 or higher, 64MB RAM, 128MB RAM for Mac OS X, 24-bit (800 x 600) color display (1024 x 768 for Mac OS X), Mouse or tablet. Users also need QuickTime 6 to view the movie clips included, and Painter 7 or equivalent program to perform the steps in the tutorials.
Customer Review: AWESOME BOOK ABOUT CHARACTER DESIGN
This book is totally out of this world on the topic of character design. Very detailed and well thought out. I will definatly recommend it to designers and artists.
The undersigned - freelance graphic designer and web designer. Portfolio and personal blog where he writes some guides about general web designing and WordPress theming.
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Nila Aye illustration
How can you not love Nila Aye s art?
Sparkling colors, perky, upbeat, delightful! Aye was born in Rangoon, Burma in 1972. Her family then moved to England in 1975.
In 1992 she worked for 3 months in Vogue s art department. Following this she studied Graphic Design at Central St Martins, specializing in illustration. A few of her clients include: Beau Monde Cards, Marks and Spencers, Paperchase, British Vogue, Tatler, Time Out, Telegraph Magazine, Harrods, Yorkshire Water, BBC, National Citer, Lucozade, Jacadi, Random House and Vigo cards amongst many others.
She also illustrates a weekly column in You Magazine.
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A Non-Designers Guide to Graphic Design
Graphic design is the art of taking a concept and turning it into an aesthetically pleasing real world incarnation. This is, of course, not just restricted to web site design, but is applied to virtually everything that appears on shop shelves, in showrooms, or is presented as a service.
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Masqueraider Marketing(TM) and Pardini Design(TM) Enter Into Strategic Alliance (Market Wire via Yahoo! Finance)
Masqueraider Marketing(TM) and Pardini Design(TM) Enter Into Strategic Alliance (Market Wire via Yahoo!
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