Wordle creates beautiful tag clouds from any text. This is what it did with my delicious tags. If only it was hyperlinked too.
Via: Thomas Hawk who points to a hack for creating a Flickr tag cloud in the same way.
A new way to manipulate video as you watch: you can "grab" on-screen objects and move them backwards and forwards, though actually you are only moving the video backwards and forwards. A "hint path" shows how the object can be moved.
The DimP direct manipulation player has been developed by the University of Toronto's Dynamic Graphics Project. There's an explanation in the video below.
Interesting to perhaps think of ways of matching this engine to a touch screen to give rise to some interactive outdoor / in-store activation ideas.
Edelman's Steve Rubel shares his predictions for the future of the internet in a presentation he gave last week to Next 08 in Hamburg:
Thanks to Osgur Alaz
I love this (only partially) tongue in cheek visualisation of the extinction timeline of a number of things we take for granted.
Whether it is innocence (2001), retirement (2017) or ugliness (c.2060) Richard Watson can see it coming to an end some day. In fact he even predicts the end of futurists in c.2050 (at about the same time he thinks that we might finally wave good bye to Cher).
Stuck for experiential brand activation ideas? You could do worse than browse Interactive Architecture for stimulation.
This fantastic site is run by Ruairi Glynn of UCL's Bartlett School of Architecture and Central Saint Martins and it does a great job of bridging the specialisms of digital media, architecture, textile design and industrial design.
The Funky Forest installation pictured above makes for a nice starting point. But be careful you could lose a whole day to this site.
A truly great piece of communication. I can see how this could work really well in a pitch situation.
Via Toad
Another slideshare treat. This is a trends presentation given by Aki Spicer to his colleagues at Fallon in Minneapolis over lunch the other day (which they incidentally broadcast live by video across the internet using Yahoo! Live).
His focus is on 10 trends in social media and how to take advantage of them. Here's the takeaway for those in a hurry:
First up, a great presentation on the future of marketing from Paul Isakson. He concludes with the statement "modern marketing = making people's lives better":
Which reminds me, I never posted this t'riffic presentation on Insights from Matthew Milan of Critical Mass in Toronto:
And, while I'm at it, I also forgot to post Gareth Kay's splendid presentation from late last year on what makes for a good idea:
As Paul Arden said: "Give away everything you know, and more will come back to you". Start by putting your schtick on Slideshare.
Jon Howard recently posted a fantastic quote by David Byrne of Talking Heads:
"Analysis is like a lobotomy. Who wants to have all their edges shaved off? I’m afraid that everything will get homogenised and be the same. I’m afraid that reason will triumph and the world will become a place where anyone who doesn’t fit will become unnecessary."
Image: my photobooth shot of Barbapapa (not David Byrne)
I'm a sucker for unusual visual representations and Grayson Perry's 'Map of an Englishman' (below) is certainly unusual. Grayson, of course, is the eccentric Turner Prize winning artist from Essex who is perhaps more famous for his transvestite alter-ego 'Claire' than he is for his celebrated ceramics.
His etching 'Map of an Englishman' (2004) pictures the human psyche as an island. Areas of the island represent personality traits, emotions and character flaws. Offshore, rough-looking seas are named after psychological disorders like agoraphobia and schizophrenia.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this is Grayson's auto-phrenology.
This is Number 241 in the splendid Strange Maps series. Go here to zoom in and browse.
Update: take a look at this rather similar map of humanity that has been doing the rounds lately.
Gordon Torr: Managing Creative People: Lessons for Leadership in the Ideas Economy
I hope Gordon didn't choose that subtitle. It seems below him somehow. Grubby even. His book is, he insists, the first attempt to fully explore how to get the best out of creative people. I'm currently half way through and loving every bit of it. More soon. (****)
Randall Rothenberg: Where the Suckers Moon: The Life and Death of an Advertising Campaign
Rothenberg is a long time NYT journalist who went on to be editor of Ad Age and is now president and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Where the Suckers Moon is an implausibly detailed account of the pitch and subsequent development of an ad campaign for Subaru USA. The book ends with Wieden's Subaru ads being voted dead last by consumers on Superbowl Sunday in 1993. It's quite a ride. (*****)
Joshua Ferris: Then We Came to the End
The rythyms of life in a Chicago ad agency during a recession. The writing is a bit too staccato for my liking and the characters are all long gone before you can get to know them. Nonetheless, it is about as close to home as you can get. (***)
Nick Davies: Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media
Davies finds his colleagues in the media guilty of systematically recycling press releases and news agency output without checking the facts or seeking to find the truth. Shame he doesn't even attempt to seek a solution. (****)
Sam Delaney: Get Smashed!: The Story of the Men Who Made the Adverts That Changed Our Lives
Enjoyable romp through the history of (mostly British) advertising containing some (possibly apocryphal) tales from those that lived through it. (*****)
Mark Tungate: Adland: A Global History of Advertising
Tungate manages to make the history of advertising boring. Quite an achievement. (**)
Robert Johansen: Get There Early
The Institute for the Future's president Bob Johansen gives us the benefit of his 30 years as a trends forecaster and futurist. (***)
Joe Moran: Queuing for Beginners: The Story of Daily Life from Breakfast to Bedtime
Watching the English revisited. Joe Moran digs into the Mass Observation archive (and a lot more besides) to tell the story of how everyday British habits have changed over the last century. (****)
Oona Strathern: A Brief History of the Future; How Visionary Thinkers Changed the World and Tomorrow's Trends Are 'Made' and Marketed
A worthy attempt at pulling together the history of futurists and trendspotters. Nice companion to 'Where's my Jetpack?' (****)
Jim Taylor & Steve Hatch: Rigorous Magic: Communication Ideas and Their Application
A valiant but ultimately flawed attempt to codify and assess the value of different types of communications ideas. The typology they have created is useful but they fall down when it comes to providing workable definitions (e.g. between an 'emotional platform' and a 'brand idea'). Furthermore, being media men they are predictably in thrall of those kinds of ideas that media agencies can control ('activation' and 'symbiotic' ideas), less enthusiastic about 'brand' ideas and brazenly critical of the value of 'advertising' ideas. (**)
Stuart Maconie: Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North
Imagine if Pevsner was written by Nick Hornby. Maconie fights his demons about living in the South of England by going back home to the North. Supposendly a travel book, this is Maconie's humorous and informative take on the North-South divide. (***)
Mark Earls: Herd: How to Change Mass Behaviour by Harnessing Our True Nature
Mark Earls, the professional contrarian and erstwhile Head of Planning at Ogilvy London has developed his ideas about herd thinking into a book for all to see. (****)
Dick Taverne: The March of Unreason: Science, Democracy, and the New Fundamentalism
If you like Ben Goldacre's Bad Science column in The Guardian then you will enjoy this. I don't agree with all of it but then that's part of the point. (***)
Andrew Marr: My Trade: A Short History of British Journalism
Andrew Marr writes his autobiography under the guise of authoring an insider perspective on the world of news journalism. Fascinating and written with a light touch. Not as ambitious as it might have been but riveting nonetheless. (****)
David Freud: Freud in the City
David Freud (great grandson of Sigmund) tells of his exploits in the City of London as British investment banking changed irrevocably after the 'Big Bang' of 1987. An erstwhile journalist, Freud tells a good yarn and provides an interesting and jargon-free look inside the workings of the City of London. (***)
