Color Me Katie: Thursday. – – Fun project of putting “thought bubbles” on various surfaces and taking pictures of people passing under them. Then photoshopping in the thoughts you think they were having.
Category Archives: Random
A White Album Christmas
Summer and I went to a performance a couple weeks back entitled “A White Album Christmas” and weren’t entirely sure what to expect.
They sold out every seat in the house and all of the standing room available. It was absolutely fantastic. Every song on the Beatles White Album was performed, as well as a few others, while performers fliped, spun, threw and flew through the air.
Here are a few shots I took from the sidelines (link):
Filed under Fun, Photography, Random
Dave Gingery’s Philosophy
Who is Dave Gingery you might ask? I don’t know either, but one night stumbling around on the web I came across a page written on the way he looks at things and it stuck with me.
http://www.lindsaybks.com/dgjp/dave/philos/index.html
“Most of my life was spent in trying to figure out how to do a $50.00 project for 50 cents, and the remainder of my time was spent in trying to scrounge up the 50 cents.”
I really like his perspective on “apparent obstacles”. Give it a read, maybe you’ll be inspired to pick up that project that you’d talked yourself out of and give it another shot.
Acquiring knowledge is a relatively straight forward process, and so is the development of manual skill. You can know what others know, and you can do what they do. Your level of performance is determined by a combination of opportunity, energy expended and available resource. You can provide your own opportunity, and you can decide how diligently you will apply yourself. So, we must deal with the problem of resources which is no small matter if you are the bird with 50 cents who needs $50.00 worth of stuff! Nevertheless, it can be done, so let’s get with it while we are yet young and eager.
Google Lively is Dead.
Google started their foray into the Virtual Worlds game about five months ago with “Google Lively“, a cartoonish browser based virtual world complete with flying avatars. It was touted as a Second Life killer but it seems not to have been able to withstand the weight of its own hype.
Google announced today that it will be calling that experiment quits and returning its team back to the core search and advertising groups.
In July we launched Lively in Google Labs because we wanted users to be able to interact with their friends and express themselves online in new ways. Google has always been supportive of this kind of experimentation because we believe it’s the best way to create groundbreaking products that make a difference to people’s lives. But we’ve also always accepted that when you take these kinds of risks not every bet is going to pay off.
I’ve long been curious about what it takes to build and manage a virtual world although I don’t have the time to explore them. Yet I still have high hopes for what they could mean in the future. That being said it is a little sad to see such a significant investor and innovator give up so quickly.
More on the world of Virtual Worlds at TerraNova http://terranova.blogs.com/
Filed under Random
Perception Becomes Reality
I was noticing the DOW fell 700 points today after the Bailout Plan didn’t pass.
Then I was thinking about the collapse of Washington Mutual last week and it reminded me of a conversation from one of my favorite movies, “Sneakers”.
Cosmo: Posit: People think a bank might be financially shaky.
Martin Bishop: Consequence: People start to withdraw their money.
Cosmo: Result: Pretty soon it is financially shaky.
Martin Bishop: Conclusion: You can make banks fail.
Cosmo: Bzzt. I’ve already done that. Maybe you’ve heard about a few? Think bigger.
Martin Bishop: Stock market?
Cosmo: Yes.
Martin Bishop: Currency market?
Cosmo: Yes.
Martin Bishop: Commodities market?
Cosmo: Yes.
Martin Bishop: Small countries?
From Bloomberg News:
Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) — JPMorgan Chase & Co., the third- biggest U.S. bank by assets, agreed to acquire Washington Mutual Inc.‘s deposits and branches for $1.9 billion after regulators seized the thrift in the biggest bank failure in U.S. history.
Customers withdrew $16.7 billion from WaMu accounts since Sept. 16, leaving the Seattle-based bank “unsound,” the Office of Thrift Supervision said today. WaMu’s branches will open tomorrow and customers will have full access to all their accounts, Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said on a conference call.
Thinking about Design Thinking
I never took any art classes and I don’t know how to draw, paint, sculpt, etc… but I have been spending a large amount of time over the past several months getting more and more into my obsession with design. Trying to take apart what I consider “good design” into the process components that might have been involved in bringing those wonderful ideas, or reimaginations, to reality.
During my reading I came across some keywords that have opened my design education. Keywords are the keys to the kingdom when it comes to internet research. You find the right set and they will guide you to all the others. This time it was “Design Thinking”.
I came across the term when reading about Stanford’s d.School and how they were applying the Design Thinking process in a collaborative effort with their business school. One link led to another and I was hooked.
This is good stuff.
This is creative, analytical, visual problem solving.
From Wikipedia:
Design thinking is a process for practical, creative resolution of problems or issues that looks for an improved future result.[1] Unlike analytical thinking, design thinking is a creative process based around the “building up” of ideas. There are no judgments in design thinking. This eliminates the fear of failure and encourages maximum input and participation. Outside the box thinking is encouraged in this process since this can often lead to creative solutions.
Everywhere I’ve looked I have found applications for this type of problem solving. I like “what if” scenarios (to a point) and I like applying them in open problem solving arenas. I always try to see hurdles as opportunities. More often to run around than jump over.
I’d like to say I’ve been using this type of problem solving for a long time but there is a lot I can learn here. Maybe you can too, in your business, in your personal/social life, wherever.
Tim Brown of IDEO (one of the most successful design firms in the world) is largely credited with coining the term and is it’s lead evangelist. Check out his blog at http://designthinking.ideo.com for some thoughtful musings on the process. Also check out http://www.core77.com for some really hot designs.