AttentionVsMeaningAdded

AttentionVsMeaningAdded
Originally uploaded by ddavison.

Dave Pollard is at it again . In this post on the use of graphics in gaining attention for his blog post, there is an interesting recursion - I get grabbed by his graphic, read the post and then grab the graphic to link to his blogpost. Pretty effective way to get the conversation going!

I used flickr for this post, the previous one was uploaded directly into blogger.

Perhaps this is where the audio/vlog component should start.

Your graphic caught my attention

Dave Pollard is at it again. Attention grabbing graphics are a primary reason that I continue to follow Dave's rather verbose blog - his pictures grab my attention - and I am seduced into reading further. This post graphic led me to read the detail supporting his 2X2 "take" on Attention vs. Meaning.

How to Save the World

High Tech T-shirts!

The new look in LumaLive fabrics from Phillips - think of the mashup possibilities of wifi or portable message devices and these new Light-emitting fabrics. 1:24 minute video on YouTube - Light-emitting shirts!

The video has received over 1 Million views on YouTube.

A bedtime story

A bedtime story
Originally uploaded by fd.

Chris Anderson's reach is broad indeed. the next generation really "gets" The Long Tail.

Paul Saffo: Innovation is being good at failure | GoingOn Home

Vision of the Valley - Paul Saffo: Innovation is being good at failure | GoingOn Home

In this video Paul describes Silicon Valley's culture of innovation and admonishes innovators to study failure to learn and grow the "next big thing".

This blog post is hosted by GoingOn Network - a platform I need to explore:
1. it incorporates video like this example
2. It is designed for multiple bloggers hosted under one media brand - following Dave Pollard's "blog-hosted conversations" concept.

A photomosaic Powers of 10 - from Getty Images

10 ways: "From its content to its visual components, a photograph is filled with information. Choose a point on an image and delve deeper into it, linking one idea to another in a never-ending chain."

Try the "information" demo and you'll be intrigued as the zoom "box" takes you deeper into a mosaic of thousands of color images.

On the same site, launch the demo of lightand experience a photomosaic of light and shadow and the eerie, yet powerful gradual sharpening of resolution as an image chosen from the thousands that make up the 3D object and its lighting source "dissolves" into crystal clarity.

There's enough in these two demos to prove that " A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS" taken to the "next level" with a Powers of 10 visualization "platform".

Finding my voice...

I have resisted the inclusion of video clips in the blog until today, when prompted by a link from Robert Scoble (scroll down to see the link trail) I experienced the value of short, well produced and meaningful videos in meriting the attention of blog readers.

This discursion has recalled my recent postThoughts Illustrated: ChangeThis :: How To Be Creative and caused me to ponder about finding the right "voice" . As Hugh MacLeod says in this ChangeThis manifesto on creativity " Part of being a Master is learning how to sing in nobody else's voice but your own."

... and, MacLeod's very pointed sketch about blogging shown at the head of that post makes his point even more telling.

...and, prods me to consider Dave Pollard's diagrammatic taskonomy "Why I Blog?" How to Save the World . Dave spends an enormous amount of time and energy and intellect in modulating his voice - and reading him has offered me a window into how he is attempting to deal with the complexity of our world.

Inspired by Dave's very visual approach to blogging, I started this blog back in April to explore the power of audiovisual storytelling to augment Doug Kaye's growing archive of speech recordings on the Conversations Network.

Along the way Dave also introduced me to Umair Haque's Bubblegeneration Strategy Lab and Haque's most lucid explanation of the business of NewMedia. According to Haque, what I am attempting to do is to act as a reconstructor.

......and, just what is the voice of a reconstructor? - we'll see!

Choices - An inspiring short video

Helen Barrett, a digital storyteller, recounts how her 7th grade memorization of a popular Robert Frost poem informed her choices throughout life. Includes a rare audio recitation by Frost himself. As Helen says, "taking the road less travelled by .....made all the difference."

Choices(.mov)

StoryCorps - Listen

In conjunction with the Library of Congress, StoryCorps records short vignettes of ordinary Americans and now has archived over 7000 recordings. Nowadays we'd call them podcasts.

Worth a listen.

StoryCorps - Listen

Thanks to Robert Scoble for this link. Could be a real winner for small businesses advertising locally and a unique addition to a blog site. Sort of a video version of flickr zeitgeist and much more entertaining and informative.TurnHere: Free video guides for travel, restaurants, hotels, local events & music

The Movie “NMC Campus: Seriously Engaging”

NMC Campus Observer � Our Movie “NMC Campus: Seriously Engaging”

A 5 minute quicktime video or downloadable wmv. This Flash movie describes the remarkable New Media Consortium campus and its several hundred university affiliates.

the best demo of Second Life that I have seen.

Watch it the movie and view the future, and when you have finished scan the NMC sidebar for the tagcloud - lots of interesting things to link to.

Dreams in High Fidelity

Dreams in High Fidelity
A painting that evolves, rendered by the electric Sheep Screen Saver - a "cyborg mind composed of 30,000 computers and people mediated by a genetic algorithm"

Wired Cities - and the death of paper biz mags

http://www.forbes.com/2006/08/30/wireless-wired-broadband_cx_df_0831wiredcities.html

This map at the Forbes.com site will lead you to a slide show picturing the top 30 cities in Forbes' survey of wired cities.

The "liveliness" of the Forbes.com site provides a strong illustration of the difference between Forbes online and the paper version of the magazine. A great example of how printed business magazines are dying, and how Forbes is innovating to retain subscribers and offer advertisers more qualified reader attention than could ever be captured by the paper magazine. Mark Anderson has a related article at Strategic News Service entitled Bizmags: Sexy Dinosaurs Losing Their Grip??!!

ChangeThis :: How To Be Creative

"Part of being a Master is learning how to sing in nobody else's voice but your own." says Hugh McaLeod in this manifesto rated #1 by the readers of ChangeThis. The manifesto is irreverent and filled with MacLeod's business card cartoons. Anyone wanting a kick in the creative butt will enjoy it.
ChangeThis :: How To Be Creative

di angelis on Bar-yam: Networked Civilization Revisited

This graphic from Dr. Bar-Yam's study of "networked civilization" is another great example of the power of visualization.

I was alerted to Dr. Bar-yam's study by Mark Safranski via Critt Jarvis during our "game" days. I did not have the advantage of seeing this graphic which gives a good historical perspective of the concurrent rise in complexity and diversity of specialization. Howard Rheingold sees this dual rise as the Social Dilemma in his challenge to the Cooperation Commons Welcome to the Cooperation Commons — CooperationCommons.

To see Di Angelis' post for his take on Bar-Yam's study click on the link below.

Enterprise Resilience Management Blog: Networked Civilization Revisited

Information Graphics - HistoryShots.com

Followers of Edward Tufte - the principals of HistoryShots.com are creating a portfolio of fascinating information graphicsPolitical Parties II Print

SoNIA Related Papers A Stanford project in advanced visualization of networks

Stanford's Sonia project is of interest to us. John Maloney is working with them on advanced visualization for value networks.

Good list of link to academic papers and citations
SoNIA Related Papers

anacubis Viewer

Here's another visualization tool from i2 anacubis. The link provides a tutorial.

anacubis Viewer

The Global Hyperbolic Tree

(problem!) Blogger could not load this image at this time. It appears to be too big to post.

This visualization is from a presentation I used to depict the deal flow filter of VentureStream, an early stage company accelerator that I founded in 2000.

It varies from the inxight Star Tree in providing a 2 1/2D spherical appearance, and the power of the visual is enhanced over the 2D Star Tree map.

It was obtained from Tamara Munzner when she was working at Stanford. Tamara specializes in visualization and has worked in this field for 2 decades. She is now an assistant professor of Computer Science at University of British Columbia

Tamara Munzner

Tamara Munzner, UBC Home Page
There are some examples here of Tamara's work.

Inxight's Star Tree with links to demos

Hyperbolic trees are a powerful visualization tool for large collections of text, image or web objects.

The link below will take you to customer implementations using the Inxight Star ( hyperbolic) Tree software tools. StarTree is available as an SDK with API's for "mashups" with a variety of data sources.

Welcome to Inxight Software, Inc.

After clicking the link go to the sidebar ( screen shot is pictured here on the right) and click on Richard Saul Wurman's 2000 book Understanding USA. If you have a moment more, return to the Inxight page and click on the NSDL ( National Sciences Data Library) implementation.

Both of these "demos" give you a look at the power of Hyperbolic Trees in visualizing complex information. Richard Saul Wurman is the author of Understanding USA and also author of the seminal book Information Anxiety.

Quoting Richard "Conversation is the most natural, effective, yet most complex mode of human connection. The goal of conversation is understanding between the participants.

Successful visual communication design can be defined as frozen conversation much as wonderful architecture is referred to as frozen music.

Understanding information is power."

I've always regarded Richard as the consummate Information Architect.

After you have had a chance to play with the Star Tree demos, I'd like your comments on whether you found them "successful visual interfaces.