Bobulate, for Intentional Organization

Dan Hill with the best review of a talk I’ve read to date:

The most compelling talk was Kevin Slavin’s, which is already being spoken of as one of the great presentations of the 21st century. If there were a Nobel Prize available for Powerpoint, Slavin would be a shoe-in for this round (although I have a sneaking suspicion it was Keynote, and thus disqualified). It was a majestically imaginative construction, a teetering house of cards, each new level beautifully delivered, veering from the physics of stealth bombers to the overwhelming dominance of high-frequency trading in the stock markets, via the early history of trading in lower Mannahatta, to today’s NYC where real estate transactions in an entire sector of the city are dominated by optimising the physical proximity of algorithms to the mass of telecommunications infrastructure that is the ‘carrier hotel’ of 60 Hudson Street, before all of financial services ascends into the singularity and leaves this corporeal realm behind.

If there were a Pulitzer Prize for reviews of talks done-in-Keynote-costumed-as-PowerPoint, Dan Hill would no doubt be the recipient.

A project of V&A, the patterns of beaches and shorelines:

Devised by artist Sue Lawty in association with the V&A, the World Beach Project is a global art project open to anybody, anywhere, of any age, building on the experience many of us have had on holiday of making patterns on beaches and shorelines.

The continents mapped by beaches and shorelines but from a vantage point we thought we outgrew.

Alex Stenweiss invented the album cover as we know it to create a new art form:

“I love music so much and I had such ambition that I was willing to go way beyond what the hell they paid me for. I wanted people to look at the artwork and hear the music.”

So:

In 1940, as Columbia Records’ young new art director, he pitched an idea: Why not replace the standard plain brown wrapper with an eye-catching illustration? The company took a chance, and within months record sales increased by over 800 per cent. His covers for Columbia — combining bold typography with modern, elegant illustrations — took the industry by storm and revolutionized the way records were sold. …. He launched the golden age of album cover design and influenced generations of designers to follow.

His new book, Alex Steinweiss: Inventor of the Modern Album Cover, was recently honored.

[Image: Alex Steinweiss Bartok, Concerto 3]

Craig Mod on why he climbs:

Climbing is meditation. I’ve long since realized this is why I’m drawn to this kind of activity.

By ‘meditation’ I mean, having space to think. Feeling an emptiness in the mind that enables you to consider solutions to tough problems, or not-so-tough problems, or just, god forbid, to relax. I find I need doses of this space in regular intervals. …. There is even a phrase in Latin — solvitur ambulando — meaning, “it is solved by walking”.

A taxi driver from the Newark airport last night — a long drive — asked me, “Do you drive?” Yes, I replied, but I no longer have a car. Too much of a hassle in the city. I let him know, however, that when I let go of my car ten years ago, I let go of my place to think. I used to think in motion, and the car represented that motion. Thinking places have been transferred, in part to subways, in part to morning runs. These feel like whitespace between busy and quiet, between public and private, making room for thoughts. Thinking that I intend, not the sort that you punctuate others’ with.

It turned out this driver, originally from Haiti, hasn’t been able to get home to see his family — a tradition each year in February. This taxi is his place in motion.

My talk, “Frames: Notes on Improvisation and Design,” is online. Some notes and references follow:

• The Sound of Miles Davis: In a rare national television appearance filmed April 2, 1959, the legendary trumpet player performs with the Gil Evans Orchestra and one of his ‘great quintets,’ featuring tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb.

• Study: Prefrontal Cortex In Jazz Musicians Winds Down When Improvising: [T]he medial prefrontal cortex is involved in self-initiated thoughts and behaviors, and is very active when a person describes an event that has happened to him or makes up a story. …. While this brain pattern is unusual, it resembles the pattern seen in people when they are dreaming.

• Co-creation and the new landscapes of design: The evolution in design research from a user-centered approach to co-designing is changing the roles of the designer, the researcher and the person formerly known as the “user”. The implications of this shift for the education of designers and researchers are enormous.

• The Transmedia Design Challenge: Technology that is Pleasurable and Satisfying: Don Norman on transmedia today — the new emergence of multiple media in common pursuit of a story or experience.

• Erving Goffman: A sociologist well-known for his analyses of human interaction. He wrote on subjects ranging from the way people behave in public to the different forms of talk, and always from the point of view that every facet of human behavior is significant in the strategy and tactics of social struggle. More on Frame Analysis [via]

• Oral tradition research, captured by Milman Parry Collection

Improv patterns:

• Motoya Expresso Express
• HelloHealth
• JetBlue Story Booth
• Pop-up Lunch
• Zero Energy Media Wall
• No Pants Day, Improv Everywhere

Soundtrack:

• Visualization of Giant Steps, John Coltrane, Courtesy Dan Cohen
• Prelude, Op. 28. No. 7, Chopin
• String Quartet C-sharp Minor, Opus 131, Beethoven

Thanks to those who were able to come!

Jeffrey Zeldman on showing up early:

If you plan to arrive early, then you are covered when circumstances beyond your control conspire to make you late. …. This is simple and obvious but many otherwise brilliant professionals clearly don’t think about it. The result is that they often arrive late. It’s never their fault, and yet it’s always the same people who are late.

And:

Love means never having to say you’re sorry, but client services means apologizing every five minutes. Give yourself one less thing to be sorry for. Take some free advice. Show up often, and show up early.

See also.

Reporting in from the third-annual Interaction10 conference, one that is quickly growing to be my favorite. It is:

[E]ducation, inspiration and connection in the world of interaction design. Our goal is for you to go home with your brain full of new ideas, tools and strategies, your body tired from staying up late enrapt in fascinating conversations, and your life enriched by friends new and old.

And excited to be giving a talk this morning on improvisation and design. As you might expect, there is sure to be lots of mention of the crossover between music and design. Hope to see you if you’re here.

George Bernard Shaw’s office, a hideout that allowed him privacy since, “People bother me,” Shaw confessed. “I came here to hide from them.”

He liked journeying forth to his office. It allowed his wife to tell callers he was “out”. This writing hut, sometimes referred to as a “summer house”, sometimes mistaken for a tool shed, took him a good minute or two to reach after he stepped from the veranda at the back of the house (“my Riviera”). In some ways, the sanctuary resembled Doctor Who’s flying police phone box: smaller-looking outside than within. And it gave the illusion of flying round the world since, with a couple of hefty shoves morning and afternoon, it could be made to revolve and follow the sun. And who would have guessed it contained so much technology? There was an electric heater, a typewriter, a bunk for Napoleonic naps and a telephone to the house which could be used for emergencies such as lunch: surely everything a writer could need.

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