Twitter-out | Twitter-in’
(Twitter founders: Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Evan Williams) Jessica B. Lifland | USA TODAY Who stays, who goes? I can't push too hard on the proposition that I have anything truly ground breaking, in the context of twitterology, the new science of micro-blogging. My...
The alphabet and the earth
Images credit The geography of the mind, mapped in place In a way, any drawing that we create, is a kind of signature. Designing is demarcation. And the origin of the alphabet, stretching back 3,500 to 4,000 years ago, to the proto-sinaitic beginnings is, in fact, a...
200 million @ Facebook: Brand and Human Storytelling
What brands face, in Facebook? Many, if their culture is robust enough... In the metaphor of communing, there are layers -- circles -- of connections that we have with each other and our friends. A drop, ripples. Stories are told -- they are shared, and they spread,...
Bing bada boom
Thoughts on bing, the new search engine for Microsoft Just days ago, the kick off. According to the overview from Microsoft, "the idea behind 'Manifesto' is to elicit an emotional response about a concept that is decidedly not emotional." And it's a tough call, to...
Calvin Trimpin | Sound mage
Photograph Peter Haley ©2009 The creation of sound, in place, made Decades ago, I was both a student, then instructor at Fort Worden. There were some amazing encounters -- George Tsutakawa, Karen Guzak, Mary Ann Peters, Barbara Schwartz, Elaine DeKooning, Sam Hamill...
What I wonder about: personal brands, icons and totems.
Why does Tim Girvin love crows and ravens? Some people have equated the raven as being something inextricably linked to me -- my personal brand. That is, when people see something on the raven, or the crow, they presume that I know about it, or should. And they tell...
Kindle, Amazon, Clouds and the Metaphor of Movement
Fire, the long river and the mist in the motion in learning Some time back, I was speaking (and working with) with a writer -- Kurt Dahl, a IT manager and strategist then for Nordstrom, about the idea of the future of the book. He didn't really believe in the book --...
Arthur Erickson | Concretions
Ricardo L. Castro, 2005. Courtesy of the Vancouver Art Gallery A passage -- the journey built -- the life's journal in design I met Arthur here, at Robson Square, decades ago, in a building of his design, while I was speaking on design, to a group of designers....
iPhone Painting | The New Yorker
Jorge Colombo | cover illustration, the New Yorker, June 2009 Starting at the beginning, the mouse, the magic, the drawn and the digital. Of course, really, it all starts here, in drawing -- the touch of the fingers, with insight, interpretation and meditation. Then...
When it’s rough, sex sells
Marketing sex, retail and the recession There's been a dire downturn, underlining the bleakly obvious. And it's been down for everyone -- everything -- everywhere. All markets -- and each of us -- everyone's been affected, crystallizing the clearly understated. There...