My Fave New Blog: Bad Pictograms I | dispositio

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Here's an excerpt & do read the full post by Holger Syme!

"Pictograms work on a principle of maximum reduction and minimal specificity: the figure depicted ought to represent as many individually distinct viewers as possible. It should address itself to everyone concerned.

That’s the idea, anyway – and that’s why the above are “good” pictograms. There are plenty of “bad” pictograms, or ones that are described as bad by people around the interwebs. Like these (above)..."

The Next Book I Read Will Be: James Gleick's The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood |Excellent Review Brain Pickings

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by Maria Popova

"What African drum languages have to do with the future of the Internet.

The future of information is something we’re deeply interested in, but no such intellectual exploit is complete without a full understanding of its past. That, in the context of so much more, is exactly what iconic science writer James Gleick explores in The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood — a new book that may just be the book to read this year, flowing from tonal languages to early communication technology to self-replicating memes to deliver an astonishing 360-degree view of the vast and and opportune playground for us modern “creatures of the information,” to borrow vocabulary from Jorge Luis Borges’ much more dystopian take on information in the 1941 classic, “The Library of Babel,” which casts a library’s endless labyrinth of books and shelves as a metaphor for the universe.

Gleick illustrates the central dogma of information theory through a riveting journey across African drum languages, the story of the Morse code, history of the French optical telegraph, and a number of other fascinating facets of humanity’s infinite quest to transmit what matters with ever-greater efficiency.

We know about streaming information, parsing it, sorting it, matching it, and filtering it. Our furniture includes iPods and plasma screens, our skills include texting and Googling, we are endowed, we are expert, so we see information in the foreground,” he writes. “But it has always been there.” ~ James Gleick

But what makes the book most compelling to us is that, unlike some of his more defeatist contemporaries, Gleick roots his core argument in a certain faith in humanity, in our moral and intellectual capacity for elevation, making the evolution and flood of information an occasion to celebrate new opportunities and expand our limits, rather than to despair and disengage...."

read the full review here:

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/03/30/james-gleick-the-information/

Nice Post from Jeff Bullas: Is This the Future of Books?

Excerpt from Jeff Bullas' original post:

"Is This The Future of Books?

This presentation at a TED talk by Mike Matas demonstrates the first full-length interactive book for the iPad (while at Apple, Mike Matas helped write the user interface for the iPhone and iPad. Now with Push Pop Press, he’s helping to rewrite the electronic book).

....Niche Books are Now a Profitable Venture

Books that were not worth publishing when distribution was expensive and markets
were local can be extremely profitable when digital distribution costs on the web approach zero and a niche in your city in the 100′s becomes a global market in the tens of thousands.
Bloggers with audiences and subscribers in the hundreds of thousands can take micro content (posts) and then edit and aggregate and produce macro content (books). No longer do you need to wait for a publisher to discover you and “pick you” to publish, you can curate, connect and lead you own tribe of fans, readers and viewers and wrangle your own audience. The social media aware author and blogger who understands the power and leverage of having 1,000′s of people ‘Follow’ you on Twitter and ‘Like’ you on Facebook can have a tribe of fans that can launch and promote their own book without waiting to be picked by a publisher.
Maybe a self published $9.99 Kindle or eBook that is a impulse purchase and sold to a potential digital global audience of billions as the world becomes increasingly connected on fixed and mobile devices is a good idea. Maybe a very profitable book can be sold for $2.99 if you sell it in the tens of thousands.

What do you think?"

read the full post on his blog:

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/05/13/is-this-the-future-of-books/

Super Cool Post & Gorgeous Visuals from Mirada: Rome- the Genesis of a Web-Based Art Form

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Excerpt from a long, delicious post!:

"In late February 2011, Mirada was called upon to provide the conceptual design, animation and technology development for Chris Milk's newest interactive music video experience with Danger Mouse. Mirada gathered with teams from Google Creative Labs and North Kingdom around a conference table in Mirada's Marina del Rey studio to hear @radical.media's Chris Milk describe his vision for a groundbreaking new project. The Director envisioned an interactive music video experience called "3 Dreams of Black" for the team of Danger Mouse and composer Daniele Luppi's Spaghetti Western-inspired concept album ROME featuring Jack White and Norah Jones.

The fact that Mirada was entrusted to drive the look, feel and behavior of all the 3D assets in this innovative project was incredibly exciting, and spoke to our core values and passions. The scope of the project was ambitious. Far beyond any traditional music video, this was to be a real time experience built entirely in WebGL, a technology so new it was only certified for release by Google one week prior...."

read the full post here:

http://www.mirada.com/rome.php

MUST READ: IDEO's Diego Rodriguez on 21 Principles for Innovation in the Real World: from TNW

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Diego Rodriguez' key principles in point form - You MUST read the full interview though to get the genius behind these ideas!

On Being an Innovator

What’s your process?

1. Experience the world instead of talking about experiencing the world.
2. See and hear with the mind of a child.
3. Always ask: How do we want people to feel after they use it?
4. Prototype as if you are right. Listen as if you are wrong.
5. Anything can be prototyped and you can prototype with anything.
6. Live at the intersection of desirability, viability and feasibility.

On Leading Innovation

How do you lead?

7. If you’re going to be leading innovation, develop a taste for the many flavors of innovation.
8. Most new ideas aren’t.
9. Killing good ideas is a good idea.
10. Baby steps often lead to big leaps.
11. Everyone needs time to innovate.
12. Try cultivating instead of managing.

On Failing

What’s your relationship to failure?

13. Do everything right and you’ll probably fail.
14. Failure sucks, but instructs. (If you let it.)
15. Celebrate errors of commission. Stamp out errors of omission.
16. High EQ teams rule.
17. It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.
18. Knowing when to orbit the hairball.

Shipping

19. Have a point of view.
20. Never settle. Be remarkable. (Shoot to do epic stuff.)
21. Doing is the resolution of knowing.

WOW do I want to go there! Coliseum on Fire Installation in September

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Description:

"If you’re heading to Rome between September 17th-19th, you’ll want to make an evening pilgrimage to the Colisseum to take in an extraordinary video installation conceived by Thyra Hilden (Denmark) and Pio Diaz (Argentina) and curated by Gianni Mercurio and Christina Clausen.

On those evenings, video screens placed in the arches of the Colosseum will make it appear as if the monument is on fire. The installation, titled “Coliseum on Fire,” is part of a wider project, City on Fire, to which the artists have devoted themselves to for some years, creating virtual fires in important institutions, monuments, museums, and churches throughout Europe. The events in Berlin, Frankfurt, Kiev, Aarhus, and Copenhagen were especially memorable. http://www.hildendiaz.dk/."

Excellent Post on: Transmedia in the Music Industry | Grazie! Transmedia Lab

Grazie to Transmedia Lab for a great informative post:

Par Ana Vasile et Olivier Godest • 12 May, 2011 • Catégorie: Study Case

"Faced with the evolution of uses and new media consumption habits, the music industry has to face similar problems to those seen in the audiovisual industry: unstable audiences, growing competition and pirating. However, new economic models and multiplatform projects are emerging: Jay Z, Gorillaz or Nine Inch Nails for example, are reinforcing their relationships with their audiences through storytelling.

New distribution models

The authors of record labels are faced with one main problem these days: the decreasing sales of material media (CD, DVD), which is directly linked to the digital explosion.

Even though it’s often brought up as producers’ number one fear, music only represents 2,9% of illegal downloads, as shown in this Ars Technica study. While most big producers are concentrating their efforts on fighting pirating with entities like the BPI in the UK, the Hadopi law in France or the RIAA in the US, new music development actors and economic development models are changing the playing field.

For example Spotify is a free music access provider that had 10 000 000 users last year with a service financed by advertizing. Since May 1st, Spotify’s policy has changed under pressure from record labels.

New Spotify Users will still be able to enjoy free service as it is offered now for the next 6 months. Afterwards, all the users of the free service will be able to listen to a song a maximum of 5 times, after this limit, the user will have to buy the song.

The number of listening hours will also be limited to 10 hours a month, a 50% decrease from last year. Spotify had to change its free policy under pressure from record producers who were denouncing an economic model that caused them losses. For example, Lemonde.fr criticized streaming based models by analyzing the distribution of money that comes from them and highlighting the fact that they hurt independent labels and artists..."

read the full post on their site.