Monthly Archives: December 2008
Prognosticators 20.0 Dec 15, 08
Pew / Internet just released their latest installment of “The Future of the Internet” where they ask various people what the Internet will be like 20 years from now. I think the fact that this is only Pew’s 3rd installment in the series speaks volumes.
Think about where the internet was 20 years ago — heck — 10 years ago and you can see it’s daunting to even attempt and imagine what anything will be like 20 years from now. I’d be tempted to guess jetpacks for everyone (solar-powerered, natch), food in pill form and (tastefully) metallic clothing. That, or a zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic dust bowl with ragged clothing.
With a quick scan through the responses to a question about the future mobile technology, I’d peg a lot of the predictions becoming reality in the next 2 – 5 years (if they’re not already here now. For example, “Voice recognition and touch user-interfaces with the internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020.” Somebody should get these folks an iPhone.
Another example; “The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations” — I think that’s in my job description.
On a semi-related note, Kevin Kelly has a great talk on the next 6,500 days of the web. His position—which I agree with—is the web of the future will be radically different that what we know and love today.
Hat tip to Advertising Lab
Staying Creative Dec 4, 08
I recently started a group for Creative Directors over on LinkedIn (the group is a precursor to yet-to-be unveiled project I’m developing) and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the discussions. A recent discussion started with the question of how to maintain your creative spark when you’re pulled out of a creative environment and dealing with left-brained folks all day.
I won’t include anyone else’s comments (although they’re welcome to comment here), but here’s my $.02 on the subject (slightly modified from my original comment on LinkedIn):
1) I can’t picture a day when I’d want to step away from designing and the creative process. BUT the thing that’s constantly kicking my butt is the fact that I get pulled in so many different directions — meetings, emails, hallway meetings, mediation/counseling—the fun never ends. Don’t get me wrong, I truly enjoy what I do, but the trade-off is I can’t always give my projects as much attention as I’d like. I haven’t found (and don’t see) a design/management/leadership balance yet.
2) The first (and best) piece of advice I received when I was starting my career in the design world was to ‘hire people better than you’. Coming from the guy who just hired me, that sounded like really smart advice. : ) It’s something that I’ve tried to do since I put on a hiring hat (7 years ago—time flies), and it’s served me well. To earlier point(s), it’s humbling to get your butt kicked by a creative dyamo, but the good part is I learn a lot in the process and it pushes me to do better work.
This is either a cautionary tale or good advice (I hope) for those looking to grow in their careers. What do you think? If you manage people, how do you maintain balance? If you’re a creative, how do keep your spark sparkin’?
Throwing out an idea Dec 3, 08
For a while now, I’ve been thinking I should throw some of the random product/service/whatever ideas that pop into my head on the blog… things that I think are viable from a business and/or usage standpoint, but things I probably don’t have the time/skills/resources to implement.
Todays seems like as good a day as any to start, so here’s the idea: Create an iPhone app that allows you to order pizza online.
If it were an independent app, maybe it could allow you to select the nearest pizza purveyor and order your favorite pie. The app could also keep track of special offers and coupons which might also serve as a revenue stream (i.e. pizza co’s might pay a small percentage as a finder’s fee.) Come to think of it, this might work as a standalone website, too.
If the app were developed by a specific brand—say, Domino’s—you could incorporate a mobile pizza tracker, 1-click ordering for your favorite toppings, etc.
This idea was sparked by this post via Peter’s shared items
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