Warhol on the iPhone (not really)

“What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.” — Andy Warhol

So too with the iPhone. A billionaire can buy homes, cars, clothes that the rest of us cannot afford. But he cannot buy a better phone, at any price, than the iPhone that you can have in your pocket today.

Design and Toothbrushes

Great post on design on the Objectified Weblog:

If everything in our lives were afforded the design attention that my toothbrush has, we would sit in chairs that floated while tickling our troubled backs, have tables that yielded at our aching elbows while remaining firm on top, walk on floors that tingled like active sand, and sleep on pillows that would never allow our ears to flatten against our heads.

Ideas are Worthless

Great post by Derek Silvers from back in 2005. It’s easy to fall into the trap of seeing good work and responding with ‘we had that idea years ago’. Course you did, we all did but it’s nothing unless you do it. Reminds me of many peoples responses to Modern Art (‘anyone could do that’ well you didn’t, they did).

It’s so funny when I hear people being so protective of ideas. (People who want me to sign an NDA to tell me the simplest idea.)

To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.

Explanation:

AWFUL IDEA = -1
WEAK IDEA = 1
SO-SO IDEA = 5
GOOD IDEA = 10
GREAT IDEA = 15
BRILLIANT IDEA = 20

NO EXECUTION = $1
WEAK EXECUTION = $1000
SO-SO- EXECUTION = $10,000
GOOD EXECUTION = $100,000
GREAT EXECUTION = $1,000,000
BRILLIANT EXECUTION = $10,000,000

To make a business, you need to multiply the two.

The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20.
The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.

That’s why I don’t want to hear people’s ideas.
I’m not interested until I see their execution.

Encourage Virality

Last Graph

This is very old but still very good. One of the most wonderful (and sometimes scary) facets of digital technology is its in-built ability to naturally track our behaviour. I use Last FM all the time which follows the songs I listen to and this site creates a lovely visualisation of thiem in a graph. Lovely.

Township Funk

Heard this the other night, absolutely outstanding…. a friend just showed me the video, just gets better and better, amazing dancing in a jerky zombie style. 

The Image Fulgurator

This a device for physically manipulating photographs. It intervenes when a photo is being taken, without the photographer being able to detect anything. The manipulation is only visible on the photo afterwards.

In principle, the Fulgurator can be used anywhere where there is another camera nearby that is being used with a flash. It operates via a kind of reactive flash projection that enables an image to be projected on an object exactly at the moment when someone else is photographing it. The intervention is unobtrusive because it takes only a few milliseconds. Every photo another photographer takes of an object at which the Fulgurator is also aimed is affected by the manipulation. Hence visual information can be smuggled unnoticed into the images of others.

Some good pointers for designing a presentation

I made these for a Presentation Course but quite like them as they’re pretty useful things to think about for anything really….

What are your objectives?

What do you want the group to do or think?

Analyse the audience

Their knowledge

Their concerns and preferences

The individuals

Impact introduction

Explain the purpose of the presentation

Define its benefit to the audience

Convincing conclusion

Restate the purpose

Highlight the key point

Spell out any next steps

Thank

Structure Main Body

Classify and group by themes

Ensure simple flow

Build in examples and personal stories

Make it relevant to the group

Insert summaries and transition points

Delivery

Construct your notes

Rehearse

Anti-stress measures

George Carlin – RIP

The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What’s that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating …and you finish off as an orgasm. —

QIK

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