Chasing the Bunny in a Blue Ocean February 9, 2010
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Blue Ocean, Trends ; comments closedWhenever I write something, from tweets to blog posts, I re-post it to Facebook. My 900-or-so friends are very inclined to comment and reply there. Many of these friends are from the “real” world, but several are not. Most of the people who comment, I notice, are those whom I have met.
In response to my eBook reader review, I got some discussion. One comment in particular drew me to want to write a longer post.
Adam McKercher (I went to school with him) wrote a comment:
I don’t know how you [...] keep up with all the “If Only” aspects of computer culture, the vastness and need for improvement, and constant revision is what ultimately lead me to change majors.
I have to say, being in a business like this requires you to be able to look through a telescope, binoculars, bifocals and a magnifying glass, sometimes in the same sentence. Keeping yourself sane while doing so is… an exercise in the power of the human brain. I’m actually hoping to do less “microscope” level work in the future. I really like following trends and making recommendations based on my knowledge of some sort of understanding of the eco-system.
At the same time, when I talk about following trends, it’s difficult to draw a hard line between watching trends and keeping up with the Joneses. If you pay too much attention to what everyone else is doing, it will end up influencing your medium-term decisions, and most critically, your day-to-day work.
A former manager of mine had this illness: the “me-too” illness. My coworkers and I started calling it “chasing the bunny”, like a greyhound on the racetrack. We would be hard at work on something that we were told to do the previous week, and then we would get these mixed messages from our manager. Once we learned to ignore it, things were OK, we were able to focus on work. However, now we were used to ignoring our manager. This tells me that chasing the bunny is not a good management style. The environment we had was not agile enough to be able to make these changes in direction very easily.
I guess a really easy way to avoid this is to have a great mission statement for your business or product, and create a very clear vision – the place you want to reach in 3, 5 or even 25 years. If you know where you’re headed, you won’t be prone to rubbernecking at your competition while you should be keeping your eyes on the road.
In the case of 37 Signals’ Basecamp, they may have just taken out those three things and stopped. I’d love to see the 4-square Strategy Canvas for any 37 Signals product. Maybe I’ll have to blog about this one later.
The book itself was written in 2004, so their case studies are a bit dated – similar to how reading The Long Tail
At the same time, if you’re any good at abstraction, you can take the case studies in these books, extrapolate a bit, and come up with a decent picture of what the author(s) might have said, had they gotten an extra 6 or 7 years to write the book. Maybe that’s the best argument ever to create “living” books, like the Complete Guide to Google Wave. When you’re writing about something that changes almost daily, how do you reach the point when you can say, “this is the most complete picture of this concept”. I read earlier this week about a fancy kind of publication called a Monograph. What a very old-world concept. Very pretentious. Very wrong.
How much do you follow trends, and consciously let those trends effect your work? Would you rather just stop reading raw, real-time messages, and only consume “dead tree” media, allowing time for the message to slowly drip into your train of thought? Do you have a system for absorbing this stuff at all?
Magazine Reader Concept by Bonnier January 2, 2010
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Video, Magazine, Trends ; comments closedThe parent company of my old employers have hired a design firm to create a concept of an ideal electronic magazine reader.
One of my favorite parts is when he talks about feeling as though you have “completed” reading the magazine. He says it from the editorial point of view, but for me it has to do with my habits (or you could call it OCD). When I’m reading email or feeds, I get driven by the number, as in the number of remaining articles to be read, or the number of comments to approve, the number of plugins to update, the number of emails to delete. It gives me a sense of how far I’ve gotten, and it’s a powerful motivator for someone like me.
It’s also cool that the spine is e-paper. That and the “heating up” rubbing gesture are two of my favorite parts about this video.
Really, these concept videos are so damn flashy – even though this one is trying to be minimalist. I get frustrated, because I know that actually seeing this device is still several years away, if it ever gets made. I still think of the Optimus Keyboard, which is now finally released 4-5 years later, and with a $2000 price tag. On the other hand, it’s pretty awesome.
Even if we never see this device in the wild, hopefully the good design and user experience will make its way into other applications and devices in the next few years.
Think and Drink is Tomorrow Night! 9/16/09 October 15, 2009
Posted by Ryan in : Local, community, Digital Media, Events, floridacreatives, Orlando, Social Media Events, Trends ; comments closedJust a friendly reminder that tomorrow night, Friday, Sept 16th, at 7PM, we will be opening the doors of the historic Cameo Theatre to an event to have everyone get together, share ideas, talk about community building, and hear from a few people who have experienced success in their own communities.
Please bring $5 cash per person – each paid admission also gets a free drink coupon for a drink at the bar (non-alcoholic options are also available). If you don’t want to pay cash, we can hook you up on the internet, but the EventBrite service slaps us with an extra $1 service charge.
http://thinkanddrink.eventbrite.com/
We will be keeping the venue open as late as everyone wants to stay, so call the babysitter, put out the cat, and tell the wife (or husband) not to wait up for you! The conversation can continue until the wee hours of the morning! The Cameo will keep the bar open as long as we need it.
Who will be there?
Gwendolyn Anello is a co-owner of Anello Consulting out of Merritt Island. She consults several organizations in the areas of communications, market development, community and public affairs, and fundraising.
Chris Blanc is the Marketing Director for the Enzian Theatre and the Florida Film Festival. As if that wasn’t enough, he’s involved in several other local communities, and had a hand in creating the Dandelion Cafe.
Darren McDaniel is the creator of a feature film (The Essence of Irwin), the founder of a local internet startup (Petentials), former programming director at the Downtown Media Arts Center, and has done PhD-level research Sociology at Vanderbilt.
Julie Norris is the owner of Dandelion CommuniTEA Cafe and the host of Front Porch Radio on WPRK 91.5FM every Wednesday. She’s also a new mommy! Congrats!
John Rife was a media missionary in S. Pacific / Asia, a founding member of Interactive Expeditions (IntXinc.com), is an independent documentary filmmaker, a video blogger and is currently pursuing an MFA in Digital Media at UCF.Lance Turner is the founder of the Ourlando movement and the owner of AEonBlue in Winter Park. You’ll see Lance at tons of local events snapping pictures or signing up small businesses to bring the local color.
The Cameo Theatre
1013 E Colonial Dr (corner of Mills & Colonial)
Orlando, FL, 32803
Map Link: http://bit.ly/2gK2BC
About Florida Creatives
Ryan Price and John Rife hatched the idea for Florida Creatives Happy Hours in Ryan’s kitchen 3 years ago, and the event is now a fixture in the Orlando community. FLCreatives has expanded to Jacksonville, Brevard County and South Florida. The first New Media Think and Drink was held in January 2008 at Redlight Redlight in Winter Park. John and Ryan are planning to hold Think and Drink several times a year. Get more info at www.FLCreatives.com or follow @flcreatives on Twitter.
When was the last time you favorited a tweet? June 29, 2009
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, del.icio.us links, Podcasts, Social Networking, Trends, Twitter ; comments closedA few days ago I was listening to @davewiner and @jayrosen_nyu on their Rebooting the News podcast, and dave was talking about his 40tweets app.
40twits takes a look at the stats for the shortened URLs you post to twitter and decides which ones are most popular, then displays them in order. Dave’s current top link as about Wikipedia and Michael Jackson.
I don’t know if it counts the link being retweeted, but I’m going to guess yes.
This got me thinking about one of the original features of twitter – the favorite. I remember using favorites a lot before I started following 1000+ people. Now I just sort of let the wave go by. Also, not every desktop tool has an easy/visible favorite button.
I put out a call to my twitter group: “when was the last time you favorited a tweet?” and got a big response. (displayed in reverse order)
Thanks @gilcreque, @modulist, @karschp, @thandelike, @ericschechter, @domhay, @staticnrg, @tiburon, @doreeno, @incanus77, and @mrscrumley for replying. Of everyone who participated, it seems like Eric Schechter and myself are the only two people who don’t use it very often, or at all.
Looks like I’m not the only person thinking about the utility of Twitter Favorites. This post by Christopher Lynn is about the same subject.
TweetDeck has a view to let you look at your favorites, but I didn’t see a place to add a favorite very easily – it’s hiding under “other actions”, which you see when you hover over the user’s icon. Tweetie (desktop) requires a right-click, or you can press the “F” key, then a little star appears next to the tweet.
I currently pipe my blog feed to twitter, and I don’t hear a lot of complaints about that. I’m thinking about piping my Delicious bookmarks to twitter as well. Do any of you folks pipe your bookmarks in? Would you like to see more useful links on twitter?
My Pipes to Retweet Article as a Video May 28, 2009
Posted by Ryan in : HowTo, Tech, Video, Blogging, pipes, Recipies, Trends, Twitter ; comments closedI’ve been getting lots of good karma and feedback from people about my retweeting recipe using Yahoo Pipes. In truth, the tutorial can be a bit hard to swallow if you aren’t familiar with pipes or a node-based editing system.
Xavier Vespa from Hyve Up has done an easy to follow, step-by-step version of a retweeting recipe based on the content of my original tutorial.
From: HU Twitter: How-to Retweet Automatically – Video Demo
JetPack, Bespin, Ubiquity… and beyond May 21, 2009
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Video, Browsers, Design, interface, Programming, Trends ; comments closedMozilla Labs announced a new product called JetPack, which reminds me of the kinds of features you’ve seen in Adobe Air, Flock and Songbird, but the tool makes creating said features very simple.
Mozilla Labs Jetpack – Intro & Tutorial from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
In the video, the developer mentioned two other Mozilla Labs projects, the first of which I hadn’t seen before. It’s called Bespin, and it’s a cloud-based code editor. Right now, they are hosting the app for open source developers, but I’d love to be able to host an instance on my own server in the future.
Introducing Bespin from Dion Almaer on Vimeo.
Last but not least is what’s basically an implementation of QuickSilver (the application launcher) in your Firefox browser, but instead of launching desktop apps, you’re accessing web services, search and browser actions. The project is called Ubiquity, and it’s cool (for people who like using the keyboard).
Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
Then they just get downright insane…
Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.
This video really takes the idea of web browsing away from just a bunch of flashing data and gives some good context. I can’t say I would like to use that exact interface, but extra points for effort.
Or if you’d rather see something that’s not so far in the future, this MIT student builds on some ideas that are already out there and improves them. It still has some of the “spatial history” ideas, and takes the idea of “pages” out of the browser, but if you ask me, it doesn’t go far enough.
Firefox Concept Video from liyan chang on Vimeo.
Peter Hirshberg on TV and the web – TED Talks November 23, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Video, Digital Media, Historic, Radio, TED, Trends, TV, Video, Web Sites ; comments closedJust a few minutes after I wrote my most recent “Internet killed TV” rant, I see this more well-informed and context-rich talk about the very same subject, complete with references to Marshall Mcluhan.
From Peter Hirshberg on TV and the web | Video on TED.com:
In this absorbing look at emerging media and tech history, Peter Hirshberg shares some crucial lessons from Silicon Valley and explains why the web is so much more than “better TV.”
A Silicon Valley executive, entrepreneur and marketing specialist, Peter Hirshberg might just be the definitive voice on how new technology affects business and culture. Full bio and more links
YouTube Has Replaced MTV
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Video, Trends, TV, Video, youtube ; comments closedIt’s official – crappy reality TV has been replaced by reality, captured on your Flip™ brand camera!
You tube held their first ever awards show – YouTube Live, complete with Discovery Channel stars, pop (and anti-pop) music, ukuleles, breakdancers, vulgarity and lots more, all in a familiar MTV Music Awards-style format.
Now that YouTube has peaked, it’s time for some of the verticals and startups to try again. A few years ago, all you heard about was Yet Another Video Site popping up every 5 minutes. Now I fully expect cable networks, magazines, radio stations, and companies none of us have heard of to adopt similar tactics — most will fail, but a few will succeed, and we can stop subscribing to cable TV, because crappy entertainment, gossip, infinite programming and cheesey awards shows have now arrived on the internet too!
I expect also (more like hope) that there will be lots of directory services and lowest-common-denominator channels showing up, like the TV Guide of the web, the Home Shopping Channel (I guess SlickDeals and the like have gotten us part-way there), the religious video, and what have you.
One reason why we don’t see more cable networks rushing to put all their content online in its full form is the on-demand nature of it all. If you want to watch the Sopranos, you’re forced to watch what comes on a few minutes before and after, perhaps the entire show, and for HBO, especially the commercials for their other original programming and the movies of the month. This was an important way to hook the viewer into coming back.
However, DVRs and Tivo have killed that for people who don’t care about watching it in real time, so why do prime-time schedules even matter any longer? Everyone made a big deal about Barack Obama breaking in to the World Series for his 30 minute commercial, but weren’t people watching it on Tivo a few hours later, or the next day?
In the future, there will not be any possible way to grab the attention of that many people at once, unless we have another 9/11 (knock on wood). I don’t even have to watch the Superbowl any longer, I can catch all the commercials on YouTube the next morning.
What do we do now?
Larry Halff and Tara Hunt – Ma.gnolia 2 October 28, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Entrepreneurship, Love, microformats, OAuth, open source, OpenID, Social Media Events, Trends, Viddler, Video, Web Services, Web Sites ; comments closedVideo introducing Ma.gnolia 2 from this year’s Gnomedex conference:
Larry Halff and Tara Hunt [...] discussing how Ma.gnolia has implemented many of the tools of the open web such as OpenID, OAuth and Microformats and [...] unveiling Ma.gnolia 2, the next evolution of Ma.gnolia and a building block of the open web.
The real Web 2.0 entrepreneurs like Larry will realise when they’ve got something great — and how they can get that something into the hands of the most people possible might be by giving it away, opening the data for unknown uses, letting you import (and export) as much as you want, giving you tools that don’t just raise their bottom line, but instead make you love the service so much that you need to invite everyone you know to use it.
Letting go the Strings of Servitude October 23, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Coworking, Tech, BarCamp, Blogging, bloggingfringe, Career, CoLab, Drupal, floridacreatives, Liberatr, Orlando, OrlandoScene, PopSci, Site News, Social Media Events, Teaching, Trends, Video ; comments closed
That’s right, folks, I quit my job at Bonnier. No more PopSci, no more corporate life.
Somehow I thought our friend Jonathan (above) working his VCRs and television sets helped get that message across. As Pandos, instead of fighting against modern technology, just letting a couple of simple magnetic tapes play serves as a more entertaining picture than a single curated stream.
My life working at Bonnier had become a lifestyle – long days (and nights), spending all day in the same place doing the same thing. I couldn’t even take 7 months of that.
So now what?
I’ve got a couple of freelance things lined up that should bring in the next month’s income alright, but I don’t want another hourly job. Here are some ways I plan on keeping myself distracted:
- Drupal Easy – this is the home for some (free) Drupal advice, and hopefully some (paid) screencasts, eBooks and tutorials. I will be doing a Drupal conference circuit in the next few months to connect with folks who are looking for training more than straight-up work. I hope I am a good provider.
- Orlando Scene TV – I still have yet to see a project emerge that achieves the goals of this videoblog. The more I think about it, the more it needs to be a one-on-one account of some fun stuff. We were trying to bring more of a TV correspondent feel to the show, but that takes work, and this is supposed to be about fun! Maintaining this channel gives a place for the Blogging Fringe videos and Orlando Puppet Festival content to go, and video is so engaging, measurable and portable — I really love doing this.
- Florida Creatives Podcast – I have been meeting some great people who need to get pulled in to this community, and one of the best ways to get them to care about you is by doing the completely selfless thing and asking them about themselves for half an hour, and sharing the conversation with the world on a well-trafficked web site. The happy hours will certainly continue.
- Florida Creative Summit – the idea here is to do something like BarCamp, but that covers more than just geekery – I am talking to some folks about how to pull this off right now, most of that goes down at Florida Creatives Happy Hour. This is the whole point of Florida Creatives coming to be in the first place.
- Coworking Orlando and our first coworking space in Orlando, CoLab – Coworking Teusdays are still going strong after some 8 months — also, I have already paid my $49 for use of a desk at CoLab in November — I’m not sure whether I will be full-time or part-time there in the future, but I know I want to be present for the birth of the formal coworking movement in Orlando. This is something I’ve been talking about for years, and now it’s downtown and affordable. Couple that with all the communities looking for useful consistent space, and the need for something like this is even greater. This probably deserves a separate blog post…
- Oh so many more things… like getting other Florida Creatives chapters going in other cities, like Brevard, Jacksonville, Lakeland, Tampa, South Florida — helping Petentials get to a happy place — doing a joint event with Doterati — creating a DIY community, a graphics hackers community, a podcasting community, a blogging community, an independent microblogging site, and lots of things I can’t think of just now.
To all my Bonnier peoples, I will keep in touch. Let’s do lunch! Blackwater BBQ?
To everyone else, it’s good to be back!
