Floozy Speak!

I had it.  The moment.  The click.  Everyone in life gets the nudge, the spark, the reality biscut that says BING this is it.  I've been lucky enough to have several of these bing moments in my life, I have them all the time actually.  Somewhere in your brain you draw all the right lines make all the right connections and wham you see the future laid out in your mind.. there it is.. your perdiction.. fact, reality, its real, its coming you are seeing it now in your mind before it actually arrives.

Operator11 is that bing.  It occured to me last night and solidifed in my head this morning.  Op11 is gonna go huge. 

What is it?  Its live broadcasting on a myspace me-gen my-voice level.  Its a flash/web experience that ties people, thoughts and ideas to audio video goodness, its a new definement of empowerment and its gonna FLY! 

Why?  Remember those lines I talked about?  They're all converging into one single line.  Plentful excessible broadband meets willing myspace see me generation meets platform to express my inner showman equals experiences and moments that engage and linger for mass absorbtion. 

Seriously, Operator11 is the next 2.0 trend product network service etc that people will be fighting to copy and keep up with and or out do.  It will be the next big platform for key folks that made places like facebook and myspace pop in the first place.  Its a gravy train of early adopter goodness and its gonna infect the web big time the more it refines itself and its experience. 

Now there are some issues.  First, we're all gonna kneel to scalability and bandwidth.  You cant escape it.  In fact I think Operator11 hasn't quite thought about how to deal with it yet. 

Last night Augustus had probably one of his biggest shows yet.  For over an hour, he juggled cams, had ton of comments fly and had probably 15-25 people strapped in for mojo interaction goodness.  It was fun, a good example of operator11 power.. and this is before the storm.  How is Op11 gonna handle 500 Augustus's, shufflin around 50+ participants?  Its big time baby.. how do we scale with that?  More so how does the site itself try and represent that logically in terms of experience? 

When I first joined Operator11 I enjoyed the blind swim.  That is I had no idea what I was looking at and despite their navigational cues it was still me go explore what you got vs me learn from your navigation or me learn from what you want me to see.  When Op11 blows up and theres a crap load of content... those golden moment shows will slip thru the cracks and now i'm kinda afraid of swimming... i dont want to drown. 

So..

1. scalability via the popular massess that WILL arrive to the platform.

Its gonna happen.  The masses are 8-12 months away probably but they will be here soon.  How do we scale for glancability?  How do we scale as browsers of content?  How well does the site bend in the wind?

2. we're all ruled by bandwidth

How's Op11 gonna deal with bandwidth costs, limitations, extremes and scenarios?  Do we pay?  Who's willing to pay?  I am.. I'd probably pay... BUT pay brings me to other things I want to see.

Stuff Operator11 needs.

1. YouTube export.  All this stuff is just that, my stuff, my voice, my story, my vision unfolded on your platform, help me hone craft and keep my stuff and I will love you for life.  So, help me spread my stuff.  Give me a YouTube export... why?  Odds are some of started on youtube.  Also.. and the biggest reason why, traffic and exposure.  YouTube has a crap load of traffic, op11 could benefit from that connection.  Secondly the exposure of having op11 shows via verizon vcast or now on the iphone is damn sexy not to mention I could also get it on my apple tv.  Seems like an obvious smart move, unless it has pending api or backlash ordeals.

2. Mobile capture.  We want a op11 widget or client on our cellphones.  Go play with that.  Broadcast from a phone?  May not that, but capture to be processed and sent to my libiary is a nice sweet viral feature.

3. Experience enhancements.  I'm stuck to one show, lemme go pro, gimme more shows i can do.  Refine the experience more.  Give me that portal of ideas, gear i need, stuff that could enhance my own exp on op11.  Mics, lighting, apps, tools, tricks, shortcuts, tutorials, idea farm.

4. Better connections.  Getting email on a show is nice but often the show isnt really live yet.  Email is good but I want SMS ability.. SMS me the moment you are live, really LIVE.  My time is valuable I dont want to hover waiting for a show to hit. 

5. More informed.  As a director you never know whos watching unless they participate.  It'd be nice to get a notice that says whos all watching vs just those participating.  If yer in the sun, you'll bake more.  I also want Op11 to tell me how many people are in the mix.  Op11 already suffers from the 1.2.3.4 next listing that search engines experience with the problem of having to display alot of info in a small space.  Not many people flip beyond the first few pages of results.. so redefine how we see results.  Think about it as a cockpit in a plane, how could you give people glance-able data to see without making them flip thru pages, a pilot isnt gonna do that, the plane will crash, so make it easier, bring the essentials to the surface let that be info, now make it tasty. 

6. Structure.  While Op11 has categories..  I never use them when i browse, its like too much work.  I'd like way to tune into classes of shows, serious or not, fun or biz, x vs y... and thats it.  4 views, 4 channels of content unfolding now vs  tabbin thru tons of categories... you can still have tags but help me see content easier.

Ok thats it for now.. but you heard it.. the bing, its here, Op11 is here to stay its gonna go big, but it could choke itself along the way if its not careful.

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Posted by dan at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Its lounge'tastic baby!

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Posted by dan at 05:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

That's what it all boils down to in the end.. is your brand consistently yummy.  That's it.  If you can say yes to that, you'll thrive and be yummy forever, if you have 1 second of pause.. odds are you're dead already.  Apparerntly your not as yummy as you thought.

Today was an interesting day.  Again I found myself swimming around things like "the ideal" or "aspirational" man.. i get sick of aspirational, it feels alien to me.  I hate asking customers questions that are alien to me.  Sure I know what aspirational is and all but digging for aspirational data is difficult i think. 

More so I wish we'd just cut to the chase, lets not baby our customers.  Rather than saying a long winded what's your ideal taco experience.. spit it out man.. let's talk tacos, ya or nay.. what gives? 

Everyone I figure absorbs meetings differently.  Sure I take notes.  Yep, nuff said.  But most of the time I start making the connections i hear in the words people say.  I start drawing things.  Sometimes its two sentences of key thoughts with a big target in the middle, get in there, get between the lines!!  Some folks will dance around a subject for what seems like hours without simply saying it.  Help us out here, just spill it man!

My cool doodle of the day is "Unifed Flavor" I heard all this stuff from the client and I kept thinking to myself.. what's the unifed flavor.  What's your flavor?  What's the big picture?  Gimme that unifed, I love that word, unifed flavor.  That'd be a great name for a dodgeball team... up next.. Unifed Flavor! 

Next to my flavor text, I drew a popscile in a box and scribbled... The Ultimate Popsicle... it falls into the world of yummy again.  Yep all brands what to be yummy.. and what better way to be yummy that to have an ultimate popsicle under a unifed flavor.. damn thats good.  That summarized a whole meeting of stuff. 

I tend to save my doodles to blog or voicethread them later for fun.  On popscile indivisible.. with flavor.. for all. 

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Posted by dan at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Make this a reality please...

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Posted by dan at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Its all the glance people.  Glancing.  That is what we do today.  I think the combination of real world browsing + web surfing + speed of life + loss of time + urgency to do much = glance nation. 

Its all in a glance.  Marketers are embracing glance physics.  Make things glancable.  The web is filled with glanceable examples of goodness.  3 seconds to capture the whiff of the promise, whether its a song, movie, website, link, ideal, blog, concept, wish, promise or more, glancing is where its at.

I've been combing through persona data lately.  Working on a gig where we gotta make some personas for the client.  Lately i've been doing that whole end product envisioning, some people dislike that i do it.  Its not that I envision what the end data will be, I envision what the end consumable will be for my client.  What would be absorbed best?  I review the competition, I see what other folks have done, where are personas at in the big scheme of things?  I siphon a few data visualization ideas.  I see it all big and small, too much, too little, where are they going with it, what are they doing what that, and can i figure this out?!

Just then it clicks, glancable.  It must be glancable.  More and more the client wants data it can glance through, sniff out the vibe, motivate the masses and spring board to the next idea - FAST.  Everyone is doing research lately and everyone wants results in a whiff.  Well folks thats glancable. 

So what does it mean?

Excess words not welcome.  Too much text and the whiffers leave the scene.

Proper visualization required.  Make it swimable.  Can you swim in it?  You see the patterns in the data?  Make the data swimable.  Infuse that yummy BBQ rub there right into the flesh of the data.

Be inventive.  Tell me more.  Sure I wanna know the basics, but show me more.  Gimme that dance dance revolution connection. 

Give me families.  Very few personas are truly islands, so tell me the big picture. 

Get them with the whiff, and drill down to goodness.  Good content can always be absorbed but only if the whiffer believes.  Make them believe good content exists in a 2 second whiff.

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Posted by dan at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This weekend I attend a cook out for Lauren & Cole who were celebrating graduation and engagement!  Wooo!  Quite a party.  I brought along the Sanyo HD2 and decided to capture some HD footage.  I wanted to see how well it'd do.  Nuff said, its pretty damn amazing.  My brother's boys were there, Nathan and Paul and I decided to shoot some fun footage of them.   In a couple hours in imovie I had a quick edit done.  I mixed up footage too, a few different formats mixed together, a little starwars theme music, some battlestar songs too, hey ya work with what ya got ya know and presto... 

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Posted by dan at 08:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Wired has a bit piece about how Google and Apple could be teaming up and just you wait!  I think that's dead on.  I remember a while back reading about a senior Apple dude got on the Google board or vice versa, I forget now, but basically ya.. at that moment I perdicted it was only a matter of time until we saw YouTube appear on the AppleTV, and thus its happened!  Sweet.  What's next? 

Could Google be lending Apple a hand in revamping .Mac?  Likely.

I more curious about the stealthy players in the background.  Clearly Apple and Google are future players.. but who else is back there laying track while we sleep?

I think Yahoo is in a crash and burn state at the moment.  At 8 Zillion feet in the air the company is stalling, the wings are on fire and its headed for brush and torns of poor company performance.  Sadly there's some stars on the plane, delicious, flickr and a few other tasty treats.  What happened there?  A combination of things no doubt.  Will they pull up is the answer.

Back to future players.. who's brewing tomorrows brew?  You tell me, provided comments actually work on this blog.. need to fix that. 

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Posted by dan at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I can't get that song outa my head its just too good.  Ok so what's the latest?  Any new big ideas on the home front?

We'll  we're rollin into the final day of report writing.  This is the day where you jot down your last AH HA in powerpoint before it gets mulled over by the masses, edited down, and reworded.  This is the day you gotta hit the brakes to see if what you wrote makes sense.

I had some big ideas on this project.  The idea of the neutral playground I think is damn witty, and wickedly interesting but it may be a concept over my clients head and more in Doctor Who's wonderspace. 

The idea is that when people conduct a search, they expect it to be neutral to the keywords and intent they entered.  We look at search engines like we look at calcuators.  We enter some buttons and we expect output to match our inital thoughts, all in a neutral space of non-bias.  Bias meaning ads, offers, sponsored links and recommended best buddies.  We're not thinking about any of that, we type in zebra, and we expect to see "blah blah blah zebra blah blah blah" in the search results.  We don't expect to see "Lucys Disco Zoo!" cause that means nothing to us, it doesn't have zebra in it and nothing is underlined and bold.  Its blind to us, in fact its playing in our neutral space, wtf, get the hell out, now we're pissed. 

Google, Yahoo, and insert search engine here has taught us what ads look like, and they're usually in banners or colored boxes and they usually dont have the keyword we used and they dont carry the same visua cues of something connected with my search word. 

All you get these days on the browser is a glance, a few glances at that, and in one glance you skip right over those ads and move on to what your tried and true results have. 

The idea is that ads in the neutral playground space are doomed to die.  Of course you are gonna get low click rates, people will skip them, changing them up needs to happen, you need to re-brand with neutrality in mind. 

Telling the client to stop doing ads wont work, of course they'll do them anyways and their results will continue to be haphazard because the glance bail rate on them is high.  But what if we could re-brand this ad to carry more of neutral playground like traits?  Then maybe you could be golden.

Its not that their ads we're evil either really, many of them were actually dead on for the keyword the customer was searching on, and benefical to boot, and not really an ad but more like a trusted internal link, but still, its vibe is dont trust me unless it conforms to the neutral playground rule set. 

That concept will probably get whacked from the report.  To me its pretty yummy yet it also could be read as a big FU to the client I suppose, and thats not something I want to say.  Though at times in research the obvious cow is in the room and no one sees it.  Its right there man, hello.. cow.. present!!

I mean to say people dont like ads in search is like duh, thats a given, yet they do research over and over and over to find out why.  Turn that study on yourself and ask why.  I was thinking about this last night, ad folks, test on your own before testing on others.  A markerter knows bs better than anyone right? Well if smells and looks like bs why you asking questions still?

And this isnt a client whos got a google or blog like free for all spacee, this is a trusted brand, a provider in services, the customer doesnt buy one off items like a vase and leave the scene, the customer is tied to this brand for all life, a continue sap sucking feed of cash leaving the customer to the brand over time.  That kind of relationship sets the mood, and now you want to tack on some ads?  Hello?  Would you like that? 

Ok ads maybe a big no, but best guesses are welcome in search, yet again, they must conform to the playground rules, look like you belong, use visual cues to help me trust, otherwise in a glance you will get judge and jury and you can't stop it. 

Thats the big idea for friday folks.  Stay frisky.

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Posted by dan at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Posted by dan at 07:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been playing this wicked song and video over and over today while I'm working on a report regarding search engine results and how users view and understand them.

This is a wicked song, love it!!  The video is hilarious too. 

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Posted by dan at 06:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been visiting Craigslist lately, looking at odds and ends and theres always a post somewhere on there about the promise of x taking to y giving you z. 

and I love sites that are dumb domains like joyizachoice.com which lead to scams and schemes.  I should rebrand my own domain to:

harmonyizlikeaboxofminiwheates

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Posted by dan at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BusinessWeek magazine has the top 20 most innovative companies in the world listed out there.... not many game companies, if any are on the list.  I see on the web they have the top 50.. still..

When I think innovation, sure the obvious apple comes to mind.. but why not gaming companies.. specificly- Blizzard.

Here's a company that has kept 8 million consumers guessing for years with thier release of World of Warcraft back in 2004.  People are addicted to this game and its not just cause its damn fun, its because it keeps changing, keeps innovating.

I think Blizzard should be on that list.  Talk about a company that grabs the masses, well 8 million of us and takes us on a ride of never ending quests, character and monster changes, tweaks, new abilities, new ideas, new exploits, items, stuff, tips, user interfaces, workarounds, hacks and so forth, that world is innovating 24/7.

Its subscription based innovation at that.  Every few months, rest assured, something new will arrive. 

They got companies like Target and Starbucks on here, pah, phoooy, Blizzard out innovates them any day, even if they piss ya off, ya still play.. not many other companies can get away with that.  You get hacked off at Samsung, you won't but them again.  You get pissed at BMW, scared, but maybe you'll still drive that Mini or 740i eh?

Probably.. but seriously, why don't these so called outlets of biz smarts see the hidden innovation in the industry- gaming.  And not just any gaming, massivily multiplayer online gaming, that is serious innovation at work that will never be fully recognized but the sad not so savvy biz outlets like BuisnessWeek magazine. 

Another thing thats missing on this list, more data.  Just telling me whos grown who hasnt is kinda like a yawn to me.  Can you tell me which companies rule the web presence, or have the most mind share with consumers, or waging war on the aquistion path or are using participatory based innovation strategies? 

What? 

You heard me, Participatory Based Innovation Strategies, or simply put, using the masses to innovate for you.  Who does it? 

First up, yes, Blizzard, then.. Procter & Gamble, Boeing, Nokia.. these are all companies that leverage the web in a participatory way to innovate their products and increase their brand awareness by using the web.  Next to all those 2.0 betas on the scene, Boeing was the first to do this, they did a whole.. come design a plan with us.  Nokia spent millions on its lifestage phone experiences, harnessing its users to show them where the applications for future phones would be, P&G followed suit with its Pampers Mom Blog, and then with individual product blogs and comment forums... the king is obviously Blizzard, with its innovate via subscription model of goodness, you whine enough, change happens. 

What about Web Presence.. who rules that space? Google, nuff said, next up Apple, then its anyones game really.. maybe Sony with just all the bad press they got over the PS3.

Then we have companies who are on the War path of Aquistions.  Who are they?  CISCO.. yes CISCO.  CISCO has gobbled up more companies in the past two years, hell i cant even count how many.. but they are clearly coming back with a serious vengence.  I bet their stock will be back to 50+ by end of 2008.  What where how?  Home, networtking, tech, voip, they are into everything, they are secetly wiring all the ends. 

Google jumps into second place, they like to buy 2.0, hell 3.0 bleeding ideas.  Yahoo would tie with them on that, but they didnt even make BusinessWeek's list.  Yahoo probably buys more 2.0 firms than anyone but their core concept is flawed and dying.. its tanking.. and people are fleeing from the scene.  They need a new spear, a new shiny bike, nobody wants to ride yahoo's bike right now.

Lastly, MindShare, who has it?  Apple, they dominate the mindshare of the masses.. maybe tied with Walmart or Target, every day in research, you never hear anything bad about Target.. its all good, they do x, y, z and even r.  Heck put Google up there too, they are on the frontal lobe as well. 

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Posted by dan at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A few years ago I watched an anime called Yukikaze about a strange future world where good guys, japanese folks, fly really cool smart airplanes, wickedly fast very amazing jets.  Yukikaze is the computer in one of these amazing planes.  Of course in anime you need to have some kind of twisted drama. 

The story is classic, bad guys, aliens in alien aircraft far superior to our own gives humanity the utter beatdown, while Yukikaze a smart cpu enabled plane flown by a depressed self doubting never sure of himself pilot attempts to figure himself out, his smart plane and the rest of the air flying team fight off the alien presence. 

I liked the anime.  It was fast.  It had all the essentials I dig about anime.  It had smoke trails, missles flying, explosions, doubting eye movements, aliens with geometric forms that have stage alterating powers they JUST KEEP GETTING SMARTER, and the classic cpu enabled plane that loves its depressed master.

Right about that time I was also into jungle music.  Still am, can't seem to shake it.  I like the deep agressive beats of a style called "darkstep".  Like most of my music videos and trailers, they kinda flash in my head, i see the edit ahead of time and now i just gotta get it done. 

I married my favorite footage of Yukikaze (episodes 1-3 is all i had at the time) with a jungle track and cranked out a fun edit in a few hours, 2 at max. 

Awhile later, I put it up on youtube... why not, kinda cool.. now.. 41 favorites for that puppy.. wow, thats cool, i guess it clicked for folks much in the same way it clicked for me.

One thing i liked to do in trailers, whenever I could is leave in the japanese audio, i hear like soundeffects, i cant understand them, but that screamin voice sounds cool, something wild is happening.. i always like to mix real soundtracks with dance music, they complement each other well.  They take you beyond the music, they infuse the music into the scene, you really grapple the video, it seems faster, more power, more yeahhhhhh baby.. hence the 41 favorites i think.

So what works about this video if you disect it?  Here's my list of what works...

good sound effects

impossible odds captured

breathy voice samples

nice pacing, good syncing song breaks with sound effect breaks

great song, powerful, never ending, stompin energy

the counting numbers scene, very cool, matches the pace of the song

eyes, eyes are good

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Posted by dan at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

At the all Digital conference this week Steve Jobs made a comment about the ever evolving scene out there in 2.0, 3.0 tech land.  While Gates went on and on on this tech or that tech or that trend, much of it seemed without real weight of what would really stick, Jobs simple commented on how interested he was in applications that improved peoples life. 

Think about that for a sec.  Life.  iLife.  Apple.  Apple's big business over the past few years has been heavily centered around people, personal choices in music, empowered applications for music, video, work. 

It just sorta dawned on me this morning that Steve is really into the self help hacks of the web.  You can bet he's got his eyes on life hacker, 37 signals, and any other player on the scene striving to make your world less overwhelming. 

That was one of the big takeaways i got from his interview, a sense of yes tech forward but lets make sure it sticks, and benefits people.  I feel like Gates comments made him appear far more nitty gritty in the radio shack innovation spectrum, Gates was big on R&D and what the future has painted yet thats not today, thats not reality, its a could be state.  Jobs didnt want to really talk about the could be state, sure he has speculations, but to me he kept us wondering, wanting, dreaming that we still had ideas in our heads on where all this goes.. that is one hell of a savvy dude.

I get the impression its like save the person, save the world ideals in Jobs.  Save people, mentally, creatively, tap into their spirits and give them the canvas.

One last thought here is that lately I've been back on my book/audiobook craze.  In the car I've been relistening to Rich Dad Poor Dad, and recently listened to Get Things Done by Dave Allen, the first disc a sleeper.. i think, well i actually lost it, but the last disc, woah, that rocks.  Dave makes a comment about physic ram, and about how we need to often clear out that physic ram we got, empty yer brain cause no doubt you'll fill it up again with todos, urgent matters, barriers, etc.  I think Jobs is secertly in the physic ram enhancement business.  His PC's get things done the minute you open them up.  His products exude do stuff, acomplish more, be connected, be free.. screw connectivity, its all on your terms anyways, and we're here to help. 

Groovy.

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Posted by dan at 08:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)