Technology

The other Olympic logo, and what it teaches us about checking with Joe Public first.

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

 Vancouver2010_2
Discussing what constitutes a good logo, is as safe as discussing what makes up a great cup of tea.

In the latter, it’s anything from the leaf structure, to the mountain elevation in which the shrub is grown, to the fermemtation process of the dry leaf, the water in which it is brewed, the milk you add, to the ritual (and crockery used) in serving the beverage. Tastes change, and ultimately it’s the end user’s perception rather than the ‘tea taster‘s’ that is relevant.

The Vancouver logo could add some perspective. It wasn’t "awarded’ to an agency, but was the result of a competition opened to the public, in the early spirit of, you know, user-generated content. There too, people weren’t happy. (It was called the ‘offspring of the Michelin Man, among other things!)

But there was a difference. In Vancouver, it was the design community that protested most. In the UK it was the hoi polloi that was livid–who said the logo looked like "two characters from The Simpsons engaged in a sexual act!"

Vancouver threw the logo design open to anyone. The brief specified that the logo must."

  • Capture and reflect the unique image and spirit of Canada, Vancouver and Whistler
  • Capture both Canada’€™s passion for winter sport, and the energy and excitement of the Olympic Winter Games
  • Reflect Canada’s love and commitment towards our spectacular natural environment
  • Embody Canada’s values and aspirations, celebrating our diversity and inclusiveness
  • Provide a broad symbolic platform for interpretive storytelling – an emblem that can convey a range of meanings

The winners explained that it represented the "inukshuk" or €œthat which stands in the capacity of a person" — a sort of a guide to help people find their way through the
wilderness. It stands for friendship in Inuktitut.

What does the London logo stand for? It was left to Sebastian Coe, Chairman of the 2012 Olympic commitee, who defending it saying:

"We don’t do bland. This is not a bland city"

That’s it?

Joe Gomez, from the UK sent me this, calling it an ill-fitting jigsaw, and a broken window that is"jagged and wobbly to look good on their laptops, mobiles and TV screens."

If Sebastian Coe is the equivalent of the ‘tea taster,’ I would rather trust Joe Public -you know, people like Joe.

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Timeshifting and the role of aggregators

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

An eMarketer report says that podcast listeners think that transferring podcasts to portable players is too complicated and time consuming. In 2006, there were 10 million podcast listeners. That will jump to 25 million next year. The report, based on surveys of people in ten US cities. Weekly listeners’ growth is much slower, but steadily increases

This brings me to the point about why technology sometimes cannot keep up with changing lifestyle –in this case a practice we almost take for granted: time-shifting.

Having tried out many software applications, from Juice to iTunes, I know the frustration when downloads move like treacle, or iTunes just won’t grab a feed you want. It often reminds me of the time we needed a user manual to operate another time-shifting device -the VCR.

iTunes is dead easy to use, but not every podcast I need is available through the interface. Direct downloads from a podcaster’s site involves that extra step, and if they aren’t using a good aggregator, the bandwidth may be terrible.

Which is where good aggregators come into play. Services such as LibSyn (stands for Liberated Syndication!) make it very easy, at a nominal fee.

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Googling as ‘due diligence.’ Ever done it?

/ Angelo Fernando / 2 Comments


The folks at Harvard Business Review have a case they want
you to crack.

It’s called called "We Googled You" and is right up your street! It involves googling a potential employee as a background
check, and coming up with search results that could cost the candidate the job.

I think it’s a good what-if scenario not just from an HR
perspective, but about due diligence and reputation systems in the digital age.
What we ‘know’ based on search results, may not often be the complete picture.
Digital breadcrumbs that people leave behind may be skewed by the algorithm.
Would you do business or not with an organization based on its reputation you
find online?

We know that the blogosphere sometimes
gets it wrong; the posts remain, even after the facts have been disproved.

Back to the case study. A fictitious Mimi
Brewster, is googled after the interview, and her dossier turns up with
something no candidate would present at an interview. Problem? Or reality in the digital age?

The case study is open to anyone, and closes tomorrow, June 15th.

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What could Photosynth do for you?

/ Angelo Fernando / 3 Comments

Don’t miss checking out Photosynth, an idea in Microsoft’s Live Labs. You need to download a small app first to work with IE or Firefox.

It’s hard to describe how the technology works. I enjoyed being able to fly through Trafalgar Square,
in way that’s actually smoother, and easier than Second Life. 

But it makes me wonder: If you could zoom in to a Coca-Cola logo on a T-shirt, in a vendor’s display rack, in the vast pigeon-filled piazza of St. Mark’s in Venice (you must sign into Photosynth for this), imagine what this could do elsewhere. Not just for brands (though brand managers would sure like that!) but for organizations trying to create experiences out of the collage of images that could be filed with details.

1. Obvious one: Tourism marketing for travel agents, countries,
states and cities. Get people to submit holiday photos, and turn them
into citizen photo-journalists.

2. Art galleries: Deploy street teams with digital cameras to cover
a topic or art form and mash-up their work into composite experience.

3. Colleges: Stitch together thousands of images out there of
campuses, schools, dorms, pubs and places of interest now in the hands
of alumni. Create a multi-perspective virtual tour that belongs to
them, literally.

4. Mega-events: Political conventions, the Olympics, Street marches
and other crowd-magnets. Wouldn’t it be a great way preserve a
historical record right down to the wording on the buttons, street
signs and posters? Boggles the mind to think what Woodstock would have looked like with this kind of coverage.

This is the outer edge of social media.

There’s a similar use of 3D modeling and digital images in Google’s StreetView,
but it doesn’t involve citizens’ input. We don’t know how Microsoft
will do with Photosynth. But the concept is definitely exciting.

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“Everything is Miscellaneous”

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Weinberger
I just picked up "Everything is Miscellaneous" (David Weinberger) and an odd image popped into my mind: Jimmy Wales hanging out at the Library of Congress.

I had mentally dismissed this double spread ad for Conde Nast
–or so I thought. Excuse my wanting to deconstruct the ad to make a
point. The context and scale of the photograph adds to the incongruity
of the founder of Wikipedia
perched on a railing in one corner of the Library. Its magnificient
cathedral-like arches, and everything else in balance create a great
metaphor. You just know that this guy is here to quietly turn things on
his head –in a good way, mind you.

I know why that image came to mind. The jacket cover of Miscellaneous has a blurb from Mr. Wales lovingly complaining:


"Just when I thought I understood the world, David Wenberger turns it upside down – and rightside up again."

Sure, it’s one of those sweeping ‘advance praise for’ comments you’ve
seen on many other jacket blurbs heaping praise on a new book about the
digital economy.

But it’s hard to exaggerate this book’s analysis. Weinberger, who co-authored The Cluetrain Manifesto,
notes that the card catalog system gives us a ‘narrow slit’ to look
through the world of books, but ‘imperfect classification’ in the
digital world, is paradoxically richer. He’s referring of course to
tags and links that create this thing called ‘social knowing’ (the term
‘social media’ isn’t in the index) by showing us connections, and
putting bits of knowledge into context.

Which is exactly what the book does, drawing on centuries of historical
precedents, to make that point of miscellany over and over again.

 

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Communicators prefer MySpace over other social networks.

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

Curious about the results of the survey on Social Networks ?

Of the nine social networks, MySpace has the most users. 32.1% consider themselves ‘Active Users.’
An equally high number, 25% are ‘Occasional Users.’

MyRagan and FaceBook nearly tie for second place –12% and 12.5%, respectively.

But…

More respondents claim to be ‘Occasional Users’ of LinkedIn (25%) than any other by a large margin.
In the open ended question, two respondents named Plaxo, and Zaadz as networks they use. (Plaxo, incidentally, is not a social network, per se, but a way to manage an online contact database.)

What does this tell us? My interpretation of these results:

1. For sure, we are experiencing social network overload, and people
are trying out many services, but eventually settle for one.
2. People seem comfortable being occasional users.
3. All these networks expecting us to make them our home page, or the first thing we check when we are online, are dreaming!
4. Communicators will abandon you if you don’t add value, and offer the same old, same old.

Note: This was a survey posted on the Friday before the
Labor Day weekend. Poor timing, I admit. But instead of wrapping it up
in one week, as I did in previous surveys, I kept it open for two. We
had much more respondents this time. Thanks for participating.

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When drive-time meets talk-time. The other mobile network.

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

I’ve always wondered why someone had not come up with a service that allowed drivers to call up someone in another car in front of them, or in the next lane.

Ome compamy has. A new service called SameLane requires drivers to register with their license plate number and a cell phone. They then put up a sticker in their window announcing they are part of the SameLane network. The SameLane mobile number (not their personal mobile number) is also displayed.

When someone in the next lane wants to call up that driver, they call theSameLane  number, enter the license plate number, and the call is patched through.

It has some potential, because it’s an opt-in network, so receiving a call won’t be considered a nuisance. Privacy is maintained by the network, since SameLane says the phone number of the receiver ewill never be disclosed.

But there are potential problems, the first of which is the liability of promoting drivers, rather than passengers, to make calls while driving. SameLane compares ‘talking to strangers’ akin to chatting to someone in a Starbuck’s line. The comparison is obviously misleading.

But it’s an interesting development. Treating thousands of vehicles going in the same direction as you, as a network. 

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Friday Survey – Search Engine Usage

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Pssst! Could you spare another 1.8 minutes?

This week, I would love to hear about your preferences when using Search.

We always wonder how we ever lived without Search. There are lots of
stats on browser usage, and debate about the 80/20 rule of Natural and
Paid search. But this week I like to get a snapshot of usage among PR,
Marketing, Journalism and Advertising people.

Click here to take survey.

Results will be posted here on Wednesday, May 16th.

(Cross posting from ValleyPRBlog.com)

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Second Life for everyone?

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Gartner, yesterday at its tech symposium made a prediction that’s going to set the clock ticking. It said that 80% of active Internet users will be involved in Sccond Life by 2011.

So it’s not surprising that coleges are rushing into SL.

Among them are a few expected names —Columbia, Harvard, Leeds Colege, and Stanford. University of Texas has four islands!  The San Francisco museum of science, art and human perception has its Exploratium in SL. One university has held a 300 level writing seminar (on technology and society). Harvard had an ‘immersive’ seminar last year. The list goes on…

In one sense, Second Life is social media at its best –immersive,
interactive, dynamic, and a totally opt-in environment. But it’s the ability to
engage in content that truly attracts me. Reuters has video, a news
ticker, and downloadable documents in a rich multimedia experience you
just could not have, even via a web 2.0 web site.

From the perspective of lectures, and student interacton, this will
be where many other social media tools –video and movies, IM,
pictures, flash animation, blogs and wikis come together.

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