March 2008 Archives

I devoured the first 120 pages of David Silverman's Typo last night. Be aware: This is not about typography or fonts. It's about a young business owner, mistakes to be made, and the school of experience!

Cited from the first page: We’ve all been in debt from time to time. Maybe you borrowed five dollars from a friend, or maybe you ran up something on your credit card you shouldn’t have, like a bread machine. Who needs a bread machine? If Armageddon comes, you won’t need a loaf of homemade rye. Or maybe you borrowed a couple million dollars to buy a typesetting company in the Midwest with your best friend and mentor and then watched it all go horribly wrong. Oh right, that was me… New York City, 2004

[Update April 3: Wow, what a story! Finished after 3 nights of reading. And I want to append: It's not only for entrepreneurs, it's for everyone in search of engaging life lessons.]

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From IMDB: Born in India but raised in the posh suburban Penn Valley area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, M. Night Shyamalan is the son of two doctors. His passion for filmmaking began when he was given a Super-8 camera at age eight, and even at that young age began to model his career on that of his idol, Steven Spielberg. His first film, Praying with Anger (1992), was based somewhat on his own trip back to visit the India of his birth. He raised all the funds for this project, in addition to directing, producing and starring in it. Wide Awake (1998), his second film, he wrote and directed, and shot it in the Philadelphia-area Catholic school he once attended--even though his family was of a different religion, they sent him to that school because of its strict discipline.

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"I'd like you to turn 5 again."

From Wikipedia: Martin Scorsese was born in New York City. His father, Luciano Charles Scorsese (1900–1993), and mother, Catherine Scorsese (née Cappa; 1912–1997), both worked in New York's Garment District, his father as a clothes presser and his mother as a seamstress. It was at this stage in his life that he developed his passion for cinema. Scorsese developed an admiration for neo-realist cinema. He recounted its influence in a documentary on Italian neorealism, and commented on how The Bicycle Thief inspired him and how this influenced his view or portrayal of his Sicilian heritage. His initial desire to become a priest was forsaken for cinema – the seminary traded for NYU Film School, where he received his MFA in film directing in 1969.

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"How could I have done this? Doesn't make any sense. Where is the protagonist, where is the antagonist, where is the drama? Unavoidable. Gotta re-shoot."

From Wikipedia: Martin Scorsese was born in New York City. His father, Luciano Charles Scorsese (1900–1993), and mother, Catherine Scorsese (née Cappa; 1912–1997), both worked in New York's Garment District, his father as a clothes presser and his mother as a seamstress. It was at this stage in his life that he developed his passion for cinema. Scorsese developed an admiration for neo-realist cinema. He recounted its influence in a documentary on Italian neorealism, and commented on how The Bicycle Thief inspired him and how this influenced his view or portrayal of his Sicilian heritage. His initial desire to become a priest was forsaken for cinema – the seminary traded for NYU Film School, where he received his MFA in film directing in 1969.

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One video of our previous selection has been disabled. One new clip instead ...

Building x-cultural awareness [T-1]: Watch TV, identify cultural stereotypes, accept differences, and develop a foundation to overcome them. Today: Canada. (If you are from Canada or the region, please feel free to criticize the selection or to point us towards better sources.)

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a Canadian crown corporation, is the country's national public radio and television broadcaster. Watch clips from their broadcast on YouTube:

TNT has disabled our selection of clips from 4 months ago. Let's revisit Russia.

Building x-cultural awareness [T-1]: Watch TV, identify cultural stereotypes, accept differences, and develop a foundation to overcome them. Today: Russia. (If you are from Russia or the region, please feel free to criticize the selection or to point us towards better sources.)

The TNT is a private TV channel from Russia. Watch clips from their broadcast on YouTube:

Building x-cultural awareness [T-2]: Watch TV, identify cultural stereotypes, accept differences, and develop a foundation to overcome them. So far we had:

• Australia Seven Network, Nine Network, and Network Ten
• Canada CBC
• China CCTV and CCTV International
• Dubai Dubai TV
• France France 4
• Germany ZDF
• Italy Rai
• New Zealand TVNZ (TV One, TV2, TVNZ6), Māori Television, TV3, and C4
• Norway NRK
• Russia TNT
• Spain RTVE
• Sweden SVT
• Switzerland SF and TSR 1/ TSR 2
• Taiwan CTV
• UK BBC
• USA CBS.

The regular TV Worldwide features broadcasting content from around the world! For other tags and topics, check our quick guide for first-time visitors.

Look for everything TV Worldwide!

I loved Jules Verne as a teenager! Journey to the Center of the Earth and From the Earth to the Moon were my favorites ...

Building x-cultural awareness [T-2]: Watch TV, identify cultural stereotypes, accept differences, and develop a foundation to overcome them. Today: Australia. (If you are from Australia or the region, please feel free to criticize the selection or to point us towards better sources.)

There is Seven Network, Nine Network, and Network Ten. Where are 1 to 6 btw? And why are 7 and 9 owned by Yahoo and Microsoft, respectively? No YouTube channels this time, traditional Web sites instead.

Watch Seven Network! | Watch Nine Network! | Watch Network Ten!

Building x-cultural awareness [T-3]: Watch TV, identify cultural stereotypes, accept differences, and develop a foundation to overcome them. Today: New Zealand. (If you are from New Zealand or the region, please feel free to criticize the selection or to point us towards better sources.)

There is TVNZ (TV One, TV2, TVNZ6), Māori Television, TV3, and C4. No YouTube channels this time, traditional Web sites instead.

Watch TVNZ! | Watch Māori Television! | Watch TV3! | Watch C4!

Our regular Essential Slides features selected slide shows from the marvelous www.slideshare.net. Topics over the last months included Waterfalls and Washing Machines, An Advanced Branding Masterclass, Customer Experience Design, Turning Design Ideas into Reality, Creating Pleasurable Interfaces, and Marty Neumeier amongst others.

For other tags and topics, check our quick guide for first-time visitors.

Look for everything Essential Slides!

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& the Red Fez is a stream of ideas and inspirations, ranging from international marketing to IT - mixed with some completely unrelated topics of personal interest.

[Update December 2, 2008: Replaced by About & the Red Fez.]

My first internship was with the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. Analyzing satellite data from the 70s to assist research for the then soon-to-be-launched ROSAT X-ray satellite.

An amazing world indeed. Programming a VAX. Handling large images on a computer for the first time in my life.

20 years later. Images on a computer are being taken for granted. Google and Microsoft open up the sky for the rest of us ...

Moon, Mars, the sky, and Rob Scoble crying >

Looking back at 11 months of blogging: We focused mainly on 3 technology brands. Apple, Google, and Microsoft - in alphabetical order. Yahoo played a role as well.

For other tags and topics, check our quick guide for first-time visitors.

Look for everything Apple! | Look for everything Google! | Look for everything Microsoft! | Look for everything Yahoo!

According to Wikipedia, the first TV ad was broadcast in the US at 2:29 PM on July 1, 1941. Today, over the course of 10 hours, there are approximately 3 hours of ads. Take a medium length of 30 sec per clip and you could air 360 of them on one channel within 10 hours. Below we have 9. Multiply that by 40. Start the clips and enjoy a visually inspiring 5-minute coffee break - a selection worth watching:

[Please be aware that certain spots may contain mature content, which is unsuitable to minors.]

Wait a minute. This one is even better than ... Re-found it today.

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I remember an afternoon in Munich's Haus der Kunst (House of Arts) showing a Peter Fischli & David Weiss video. The Way Things Go.

AKQA re-uses the theme for Pot Noodle.

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TED Talks: Barry Schwartz, 2005.

"Podcasts? What are podcasts?"

As far as I remember, I started with podcasts in early 2005. It was before iTunes jumped onto the bandwagon and listening to podcasts was: Right-click the newest talk on Doug Kay's ITConversations - transfer it to the iPod Shuffle - and fill a 4 hour drive from work to home with genuine insight from all those bright minds.

One of them was Barry Schwartz.

Wow. He definitely expressed what we were already thinking and delivering in our Microsoft consulting projects and elsewhere: Less is more.

There were (and still are) simply too many choices in most of the user interfaces/ information architectures. Reduce, reduce, and then half the number of choices!

Options result in paralysis.

View the talk!

Back to 1984: 4 predictions about the future, by Nicholas Negroponte. Amazing. The advantage of using fingers.

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I have been following this excellent viral marketing campaign for some time now. Recently, Seth Godin appeared as co-actor.

In his own words: "This is disgusting." C'est degueulasse. Closing scene in Godard's A bout de souffle (Italian version).

Read Seth Godin! | Watch Blendtec!

Saatchi and Saatchi imitating Lee and Sachi?

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According to Wikipedia, the first TV ad was broadcast in the US at 2:29 PM on July 1, 1941. Today, over the course of 10 hours, there are approximately 3 hours of ads. Take a medium length of 30 sec per clip and you could air 360 of them on one channel within 10 hours. Below we have 9. Multiply that by 40. Start the clips and enjoy a visually inspiring 5-minute coffee break - a selection worth watching:

[Please be aware that certain spots may contain mature content, which is unsuitable to minors.]

Visually subtract the product and add the claim instead. Amazing. Interested in the making of?

We used Twitter back in December for a university x-cultural experiment which was quite successful. For the CEO in a nutshell: What is that latest craze?

Image © TechCrunch

You might know a lot about iJobs, but there is a lot more to learn with Fortune. View Fortune!

"Before Chris Anderson took over as editor of WIRED, he spent seven years at The Economist, where he worked as editor of both the technology and business sections.

"Alan Kay conceived of laptops and graphical interfaces years before they were realized. At Xerox PARC, Apple, HP and Disney, he has developed tools for improving the mind."

As long as we are waiting for the TED 2008 talks to appear: A powerful idea about teaching ideas from 2007, by Alan Kay. The world is not what it seems.

View the talk!

As long as we are waiting for the TED 2008 talks to appear: Queerer than we can suppose from 2005. A narrow range of reality which we judge to be normal.

TED Talks 2005, Richard Dawkins. View the talk! | Read his books!

From Wikipedia: "CeBIT (Centrum der Büro- und Informationstechnik; German for "Centre of Office and Information technology") is the world's largest computer expo."

Kevin Turner is here, I found a QIK stream as well, but:

It looks quite provincial. No one else streaming QIKs? The world's largest computer expo? Either computers are dead or I missed something ...

[Update March 5: Found another QIKster - Xonio.]

View the QIK site!

Leisa Reichelt has an amazing presentation from IA Summit 07.

Last night I watched a 30 year old documentary stating: "There has been no real innovation in the automative industry for 50 years now." Times have changed since then.

[Update March 5: Jason's perspective.]

Watch FastCompany!

BusinessWeek today: "CP+B has beaten out Publicis Groupe’s Fallon in Minneapolis in the final round of a review for a $300 million Microsoft assignment. The agency also beat out WPP Group’s JWT and Interpublic Group’s McCann Erickson, which were previously eliminated."

Instead of watching TV: Go to http://www.cpbgroup.com/, click and enjoy.

[As always for traditional agency online experiences: Try to stay away from state-of-the-art browsers with state-of-the-art security settings. No Safari. Enable pop-ups in Firefox. Hint to CP+B: Why not open a YouTube account and embed/ link your portfolio there; virally spread via an additional, well-known channel? Apart from that: Excellent work!]

Bill DeRouchey shares another slideshow: Learning IxD From Everyday Objects. Priority, zoning, clarity, purpose, and simplicity. Great examples! Listen to the presentation!

Peter Mehrholz gives his view on last week's TED Conference: "TED is easily the premier conference experience I’ve ever had." My recommendation: Definitely make sure to watch the crow video. View peterme.com!