Comics as Tech Humor and Social Digestion

Comics as Tech Humor and Social Digestion

by | Feb 20, 2011 | Innovation Shifts

Humor can help translate and digest social angst, in this case about technology in everyday life.  Today’s comics in the Los Angeles Times included several embedded comments about technology and its twists.

For example, Blondie today is about Dagwood Bumstead learning Twitter from his young neighbor and you should be able to catch it on Blondie.com at this link. He is nervous about the experience and trying to put on a good face.

Thanks to Comics.com, I can embed today’s JumpStart, which discusses web etiquette and ends up being lampooned by the character’s son as a Facebook post at the end of the cartoon.  It reminded me of some marvelous conversations that I had yesterday with some lovely ladies over 60 who were discussing their frustrations with learning and embracing technology.

Streaming ideas at DLD Conference today and tomorrow

Streaming ideas at DLD Conference today and tomorrow

by | Jan 23, 2011 | Innovation Shifts

If you have time to have streaming video in the background today and/or tomorrow, there is a mix of intriguing ideas happening in Munich. Live.

A couple of my friends are in Munich right now at the DLD Conference in Munich (Digital-Life-Design) (www.dld-conference.com). You can watch the streams on Livestream, if you like (http://www.livestream.com/dldconference). It is a quirky mix of thinkers, entrepreneurs, businesses, artists, musicians, authors, etc.  The schedule is at http://www.dld-conference.com/events/event/dld11_program_aid_5.html, on German time.

The topics on the schedule include museums, music, books, fashion, space, design, mobile, augmented reality, innovation, urbanism, local, etc. Monday, two tracks are going on at the same time, so you may want to look at the list to see if there is anything you’d like to peek in on.

DLD Conference

Live streaming insights from DLD in Munich

What to Do with 2010’s Ideas for 2011 – Gems, Silt, Clouds, and Mañana

What to Do with 2010’s Ideas for 2011 – Gems, Silt, Clouds, and Mañana

by | Dec 29, 2010 | Innovation Shifts

What can we do with all of our great, unwashed and un-rinsed ideas from 2010 as we head into 2011?

Is it a question of ignoring the silt of our lives? Or finding new ways to sift and regroup them at our beck and call?

I recently bought a DVD set from Judy Carter, which gave me some great ideas for 2011. She recently sent an e-newsletter item out about when and how to chase around new ideas.  The December 2010 rumblings by Yahoo about closing or selling Delicious.com pushed me into shopping for new solution for this same question:

What should we do with all our ideas throughout the year?

I used to be queen of lists. I hate all my lists – I would write ideas for new projects and creative work down, yet would either consider them “done” or never find them again.
Cloud Tools: So far, I’m trialing both Evernote and Diigo in my search for the perfect cloud computing solution with all of my devices — cell phone, laptop, desktop (for video editing and research), iPad, and computers while at other people’s offices. I like the concept of cloud solutions with my own folksonomy of tagging. I can save and tag ideas from the web or emails, then actually FIND them again later by topic on ANY computer in the “cloud.” I can send them to the cloud from my phone, iPad, or whatever, with tags – so I can actually nurture them and find them when you want them. Each solution has its own quick buttons and macro key clicks to do this quickly, so I’m building new habits.
They don’t help, however, with the 6” stack of idea notes that I’ve assembled and left unnurtured in 2010…
Do I read them all? Highlight? Scan and injest into the cloud?
Big Stuff: I do have another solution for my BIG projects, like books, research, video shows, and classes. For these bigger projects, I’m somewhat addicted to Microsoft’s OneNote on my main computer. I just print to OneNote2010 what I’m working on and have a gigantic archive of searchable items that I can ‘folderize’ and visualize. In any of these tools, I can tag or label things the way MY funky brain works and feed the beast when I’m looking for something cool later. These often are big squishy messes of ideas and details to wrestle with, so I benefit from a big, squishy tool.

Mañan a: What can we do with the “other” stuff? I am blessed with something that Julie Schulman and I coined a decade ago — mañana lists. We would create a mañana list of all the things we knew needed to be done that we agreed could always be done tomorrow.  I love to use the tag “mañana.” That’s for the interesting things for “if I have time later.” It’s the “no guilt tag.”

I welcome other suggestions.  Productivity software is one of the big growth areas in this time of tsunamis of information.  Lots of services will help you filter what comes in from the outside.  This challenge is what to do with the gems and silt from the inside…and how to think about re-gifting and sorting them with others.
Have a great 2011 with your new adventures. And may all your ideas be bountiful AND taggable.