the F rant

People have always created things in their spare time – whether tinkering in their sheds, fixing cars, making quilts, painting, taking photos or other creative hobbies.  This is not new.  However, what is new is that the digital space is allowing millions of people to combine these efforts on mass scale, huge projects of potentially incredible benefit.  Clay Shirky recently introduced a term to describe this human contribution in non-work hours, “Cognitive Surplus”.

Here is an example of cognitive surplus visualised:

For years, we have consumed media – now we may find that digital media allows us to simultaneously consume and create.  Media as a collaborative service, rather than a product.  Passive and active consumption are options.  Think about the changes to sports viewing, to live TV, to debate, to conversation.  More than just doing something as inane as tweeting while a show is on, we’re talking about genuine co-creation – choose your own adventure – across all media, across any topic or issue.  Crowdsourced problem solving, beyond distributed computing, into distributed thinking. The opportunities are bloody exciting.

FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends

Apple has just launched an updated version of the Safari web browser. One of the key features is an in-built “reader”, that identifies an article (of any type) and displays it in a floating screen, free from clutter, advertisements and other content.

Content looks lovely in the reader – almost as it does on a printed page. Clean, simple, scrollable.

Check out these comparisons below:

This will pose a big problem for advertisers, as people have now been given a simple way of avoiding ads. It’s a big issue for publishers, who have created an overwhelming, many might say ludicrous amount of advertising inventory on their sites, with digital advertisements such as “Over The Pages” and “Page Takeovers”, many of which are site initiated – disturbing and annoying us in a vain attempt to “disrupt” our reading and make us pay attention to the product.

Simply, now as much as ever, compelling, permission based content and engagement is crucial. Marketeers and organisations have to earn their permission to speak, to engage and to encourage reaction. So many marketeers have avoided the elephant in the digital room – that so few people even look at their ads, let alone interact with them. Their default options of raising awareness via mass digital media broadcast are simply running out.

FREEDOM: Economics, Politics and Business, FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends advertising, apple, media

URL Performance Art from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

Try typing it yourself – no copying and pasting! http://asdflkjhasdflkjhasdflkjhasdflkjhasdflkjhasdflkjhasdflkjhasdflkj.com

FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends

Australia’s Minister for Communications, Senator Stephen Conroy, also known as the Global Village Idiot, has launched a scathing attack on Facebook.

Conroy, the man who with his boss Kevin Rudd, decided to censor and slow Australia’s internet access, and spend $42 billion dollars building an NBN, asks the question:

What would you prefer, a corporate giant who is answerable to no one and motivated solely by profit making the rules on the internet, or a democratically elected government with all the checks and balances in place?

Well, Minister, let’s put the Australian Government vs Facebook to the test:

Rudd / Conroy: Other people (voters – regretful voters I might suggest) decided to have them control me vs Facebook: I alone chose to be on Facebook

= Facebook win

Rudd / Conroy = Motivated by power vs Facebook: Motivated by profit

= Facebook win

Rudd / Conroy: The only Federal Government in Australia (Monopoly) vs Facebook: One of many providers in the highly competitive social networking space

= Facebook win

Rudd / Conroy: Average of 32% of everything every Australian earns + 10% GST on everything we spend + assortment of hundreds of taxes, fees and charges vs Facebook: Free

= Facebook win

Rudd / Conroy: Answerable to the public once every three years vs Facebook: Answerable to customers every single day

= Facebook win

Rudd / Conroy: Owns every single piece of information about every single Australian, including all banking, tax, employment, marriage records, family history, etc. vs Facebook: Only what you choose to put into it

= Facebook win

Rudd / Conroy: Makes rules enforceable by the police and legal system covering almost every single element of life, death and everything in between vs Facebook: Makes rules covering Facebook

= Facebook win

OVERALL WINNER = FACEBOOK.  Your thoughts?

FREEDOM: Economics, Politics and Business, FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends facebook, Rudd

Check out this 1993 ad for the infamous Apple Newton.

Now check out this 2010 for the new Apple iPad. I like the subtle hat tip back to the Newton ad. Let’s hope the iPad is somewhat more successful than the Newton. I’d say it will be. Out with the stylus and handwriting recognition. In with the broader acceptance for tablet based and mobile computing.

FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends apple, ipad

There’s a lot to be said about simplicity. It’s the sign that someone “gets it”. The simpler, the better. As Albert Einstein said: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”.

Alan Siegel gave this speech about simplicity at a recent TED conference. I love it, it really struck a chord. We spend too much time talking massive reams of rubbish. Companies spend billions of dollars bombarding people with words – when only a few will do. A bank gives us millions of reasons to join, and when we do, it suffocates us in millions of words of terms and condition.

Siegel argues:

“There is no way that we should allow government to communicate the way they communicate. There is no way we should do business with companies that have agreements with stealth provisions and that are unintelligible. So, how are we going to change the world? Make clarity, transparency and simplicity a national priority.”

In another piece, he describes why there is so much complexity in Goverment:

…many Americans are watching their credit card fees rise without understanding why. We get health care bills and benefit statements that read like gibberish. And we struggle with incomprehensible government documents.

Yes, there are reasons why government and complexity go together like dogs and hydrants. First, many public officials think that everything they say must sound “official.” Second, new laws keep getting passed, old laws keep getting amended, and all laws generate reams of regulations. Third, there’s individual and institutional self-protection — covering your posterior, rather than communicating with the public.

Still, in a democracy, government must communicate clearly. When Americans can’t figure out how to answer census questions, complete tax forms or qualify for small-business assistance, the economy suffers, federal revenues decline and confidence in government sinks to new lows. But, when our leaders communicate clearly, Americans answer appeals for action, from President Franklin Roosevelt’s declaration, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” to President Kennedy’s call, “Ask what you can do for your country.” In fact, President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address took only two minutes and 246 words.

Too many words, too much complexity. Why not cut it right down to the core and have faith that people will understand, that we don’t have to spell everything out in complex jargon?

Here’s what, I’ll start right now.

FREEDOM: Economics, Politics and Business, FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends design, simplicity

Unlike many, I think the Apple iPad will be a revolutionary product.

As I said in my summary on the iPad on it’s announcement, I think it will change the way many people / organisations function.  Here’s a wonderful (and very cool) example – putting a DJ mixing desk into an iPad, the  iPad Mixr DJ App.  This App is bloody lovely, and if they give me a free copy, I’d happily review it on an iPad (when I get one).

To think that instead of carting milk crates and heavy equipment around, DJs will now be able to turn up to gigs with just their iPads and headphones, and play sets from there.  Nice.

Looking at it from another perspective – it’s another great example of a technology undermining the current business.  In the same way emails have undermined Australia Post, the way digital cameras have undermined Kodak, the way that Skype is undermining business travel, this app may well undermine Technics, Vestax, Pioneer and other manufacturers of DJ equipment.  What these manufacturers should do is create high quality apps of their own, bringing in their experience and customer base and ensuring their relevance within this changing environment.

FUN: Music, Culture and Entertainment, FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends apple, dj, ipad

I‚Äôve said a few times that 2010 is the year of data visualisation ‚Äì ways in which ordinary information can be visualised in a way that is practical and informative at a glance. In the old days, we were limited to visualising only small amounts of information, due to the cost of the materials. Time is money, so only thing we’d pay for, the only thing we could practically use to track and visualise is a diary – a way in which we could visualise our time in blocks over a day, week, month, year.

Now, technology is allowing us to track and visualise almost anything. This is now leading to an explosion of data visualisation (or visualization if you’re American) tools, and now merging art with data.

David McCandless

Here are a few ways people have made data visualisation beautiful:

David McCandless is a guru in this area. He’s a London-based author, writer and designer who “loves pie, hates pie charts”.
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/

Information Aesthetics is designed and maintained by Andrew Vande Moere, a Senior Lecturer at the Design Lab at the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning of the University of Sydney:
http://infosthetics.com

Here’s a collection of photos of the Boston Commons – and a colour wheel based on the distribution of particular colours. User generated art.
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2010/03/flickrs-season-wheel.html

Type in a word, and the word itself is created by using a variety of random book covers from Amazon.com
http://amaztype.tha.jp/US/Books/Title?q=MELBOURNE

Type in up to two words, and Flickr Time will display a clock made up of images based on photos that contain those words / tags
http://www.hottoast.org/convexstyle/flickrtime/

Turn any website into a graph – the simpler the graph, the better the website. A giid way of explaining to a client if their website has poor navigation
http://www.aharef.info/static/htmlgraph/

Turn your music listening into a chart
http://www.leebyron.com/what/lastfm/

A site that finds tweets based on particular words / terms (I hate, I love, I think) and displays them on the screen in realtime
http://twistori.com/

FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends art, chart, data visualisation, data visualization, information aesthetics, information visualisation