Yesterday was a sick day – nasal congestion on par with the iPad-induced streaming lockdown of a week ago. Today, I’m clearing both my inbox and my head to the backdrop of Múm’s Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy…
*****
Brands eager to gain a foothold in the online recruiting space ought to consider eschewing a strong Facebook presence – or so say a handful of Wharton seniors in this fascinating roundtable from Human Resource Executive Online. Says one:
It really takes away from the credibility of the firm, especially because we know Facebook so well — just the connotation that comes with it; it’s not necessarily this professional, reliable tool that you want to use.
Another key point made repeatedly within the article: Young, skilled employees have an innate desire to understand the role that their work plays in the larger objectives of their employer. A point which is, in my own experience, frequently overlooked.
Published on February 5, 2010 11:44 am.
Filed under: Ephemera, Notes on Things Seen Tags: employees, graph, optimization, ralph lauren, visualization, wharton
Some thoughtful reading from this morning – time spent trying to wash from my mouth the bitter taste of ABC’s two-hour homage to Milton by way of Coppola-in-the-jungle ((I am referring, of course, to last evening’s LOST season premiere))…all to Aloe Blacc’s terrific Shine Through:
Published on February 3, 2010 3:45 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Notes on Things Seen Tags: conversation, crowdsourcing, customer demand, designers, economics, education, evolution, institutions, narratives, redesign process, restraints
Heavyset favorite Helge Tenno posits that we ought to re-examine the notion that more screens bearing more information represents progress, and instead look to methods that allow us to integrate our assembled data into physical objects. As I posted yesterday, there’s a bit of a theme going on here, notably from Ed Cotton and Faris Yakob (whose own conviction to this end is considerably longer-held). Helge posts some interesting examples – the Copenhagen Wheel demo ((As an aside, fans of Copenhagen Wheel project will want to check out this article from the World Business Council on Sustainable Development, suggesting a commercial future for electric bicycles.)) was new to me – and integrates some good thinking from Tim Brown of IDEO, as well.
Published on February 2, 2010 2:53 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Notes on Things Seen Tags: architecture, designers, electric bicycles, exhibition, experiments, mobile device, open platform, personal data, signage
Tuesday morning thoughts and readings collected against the backdrop of Charlotte Gainsbourg’s fantastic new album, IRM…I’m feeling rather progressive about my choice, given the relatively mundane musical selections made in Boston ((Seriously, the Beatles??)) these days, in comparison with those in, say, Barcelona.
Published on February 2, 2010 10:44 am.
Filed under: Ephemera, Notes on Things Seen Tags: architecture, charlotte gainsbourg, end of days, institutions, iphone, joi ito, parlor game, satellites
Ed Cotton posits over on Influx Insights that a key theme of 2010 will be the intersection of digital and physical devices, a point I quite intended to make on last week’s BIMA panel on The Digital State ((but, in my glee, forgot)). The crux of his post is a recently announced partnership between personal platform of choice FourSquare and the Bravo Network, aimed at providing real-world promotions for viewers of the network’s programming. I can only imagine that check-ins from Kiehls are about to skyrocket.
Published on February 1, 2010 12:57 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Notes on Things Seen Tags: consumer behavior, journalism, new york times, partnership, personal platform, retort
Some found materials and reading collected while spending the weekend pondering the mind-numbing decline of Robert Christgau, Dean of American Rock Critics ((Truly a confounding title, no?)), who placed American Saturday Night by Brad Paisley atop his 2009 ballot for the Pazz and Jop poll. While I’ve little remaining appetite for further infographics, there’s likely an intrepid soul willing to take on the charting of Christgau’s decline in a format as easily-consumed as Paisley’s quasi-country-with-a-slice-of-the-21st-century pop. Until that day when The Village Voice takes a cue from Etsy and opens up its API, the Dean himself has made the data available.
Published on February 1, 2010 7:00 am.
Filed under: Ephemera, Notes on Things Seen Tags: charles platt, infographics, journalism, knowledge, love affair, paper airplane, robert christgau, roland barthes, teaching, Twitter
In my Rogue Film School, which I just founded, I say–and not even as a provocation–that I prefer people who have worked as bouncers in a sex club, or have been wardens in the lunatic asylum. You must live life in its very elementary forms. The Mexicans have a very nice word for it: pura vida. It doesn’t mean just purity of life, but the raw, stark-naked quality of life.
Published on January 6, 2010 7:30 am.
Filed under: Ephemera, Quotations Tags: pura vida, quality of life, werner herzog
Greg Smith over at Vague Terrain has a terrific writeup on a new installation at the Mediateca Expandida de LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, entitled PLAYLIST:
The core of PLAYLIST will be the exploration of the “8bit movement”, spread out from the manipulation of obsolete game technologies in order to create new instruments to [...]
Published on December 14, 2009 1:26 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Links Tags: aesthetics, games, manipulation, parallel paths
The good folks at Poke London shut their doors this past week for a day to engage in their first day-long hack around the broad topic of food (this, of course, being an area of particularly English expertise).
It’s a great idea. Color me impressed.
Iain Tait has a rundown of the first hack: The proper cappuccino:
Today’s [...]
Published on December 11, 2009 5:29 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Links Tags: cappuccino, creative enterprise, Grant McCracken, hack
I think that the training from traditional businesses causes people to focus on minimizing the downside instead of single-mindedly focusing on the upside. However, in a venture investment, the MOST you will lose is the money you have invested. Getting 1 million of the 5 million that you invested back from a liquidation is not nearly as important as making sure you’re in the next big hit and that the investments that have potential achieve their potential and find their acquirers and partners.
via Joi Ito’s Weblog
Published on October 12, 2009 9:55 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Notes on Things Seen Tags: engagement, investments, relationship, venture model
Coneycopia
Video commission by British television network exploring the question of whether Coney Island is nearing the end of life. Lovely.
on Vimeo (via Vimeo)
Published on October 11, 2009 5:00 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Notes on Things Seen Tags: coney island, extinction
Visual Acoustics:
Gorgeous photography, art and architecture mashup.
via Vimeo
Published on October 11, 2009 3:30 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Links
![]()
The well designed map displays unemployment, foreclosures, bankruptcy, or a composite “stress index”, by county.
(via AP Economic Stress Map (Aug 09 data) – Chart Porn)
Published on October 9, 2009 8:04 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Links Tags: aggregate, map, stressors
![]()
Sha Hwang, from Stamen Design, has recently created a series of though-provoking visualizations on the NYC subway ridership over the last decades. Using a spreadsheet with the annual recorded entries at each station in the NYC subway system, Sha Hwang decided to plot them on an interactive map (using modest maps) applying two different methods: scaled dots (centered on each station) and lines (unifying the different stations). Even though there are some pertinent questions, in the original blog post, as to the danger of extrapolating traffic flow from individual station boarding, this initial experiment is notwithstanding very valuable, since it could help explain many urban and sociological changes in the city over time. (via visualcomplexity.com | NYC Subway Ridership 1905-2006)
Published on October 9, 2009 2:04 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Links Tags: maps, subway, traffic flow, visualization
Gadgetoff 2009 lunch ride:
Gadgetoff 2009 unleashed an intense series of kabooms, zaps, chomps, and kerplurks rattling 400 attendees on the beautiful 83 acre Staten Island grounds September 25th while slinging Lenovo laptops with a trebuchet, cooking hot dogs with Telsa Coil Towers, riding jet fueled 5g merry-go-rounds, writing code drunk for autonomous cars legally, and thrashing a series of incredible lectures and demos throughout the day!
(via Design Verb)
Published on October 9, 2009 11:04 am.
Filed under: Ephemera, Links Tags: cars
![]()
A brief, albeit thoughtful look at the history of pictogram development.
via Design Assembly
Published on October 9, 2009 8:02 am.
Filed under: Ephemera, Links Tags: pictogram
![]()
How Long People Live in America
via flowingdata.com
Published on October 8, 2009 9:35 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Links
Published on October 8, 2009 6:34 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Links Tags: visualization
Published on October 8, 2009 5:00 am.
Filed under: Ephemera, Links
“I don’t compromise often. I live in the real world and know what’s possible and what’s not. It’s a dialogue between what you see appearing before your eyes and what you direct, choose, realize. Compromise is a dangerous word because it makes me think of petulance, and I don’t want to be like that. You can’t go kicking-and-screaming to get everything you want; rather, you adapt to get it as close as you can to your vision. It’s about learning and working within the confines of your limitations, be they financial, physical, or temporal.”
–
Choreographer David Dawson
via BaseNow
Published on October 7, 2009 8:35 pm.
Filed under: Ephemera, Quotations Tags: compromise, dialogue, learning, petulance
