On the early days of this blog, i intended to cover all kind topics, from comics to science. Debunking Astrology was one of the first posts, where the skeptic in me showed off. Even if i don’t take a public stance against pseudo science as often as i should, some things should be exposed, with homeopathy as one of the main offenders to science.
That’s why i’m supporting the 10:23 Campaign, joining next Saturday a Global Overdose to expose homeopathic remedies as in fact worthless. People in more than 60 cities all over the world will join to ingest an overdose of homeopathic pills, and since those remedies don’t have any active ingredient and work as a pure placebo, you should get the point of what homeopathic products are good for.
In Lisbon, we question how the official drug administration, Infarmed, considers these pills as valid farmaceuticals to be sold along with antibiotics or birth control pills. If you’d like to expose this scam, come and meet us next February 5th, at 10:23am at Jardim do Príncipe Real, Lisbon.
Fired up? Ready for a new year? I sure am. And instead of writing one more pointless post with predictions for 2011, i actually changed something after my holiday break.
So here it is: a light redesign of ASourceOfInspiration.com. The reasons are simple: bring all the inspiring content (Twitter quotes, YouTube favorites, Delicious bookmarks and Tumblr images) into my own URL, sharing more visual content along with the regular posts. Oh, and trying out a fluid layout with HTML5 and CSS3.
For those subscribing the RSS feed, you’ll have the regular posts but in case you want the full pack, there’s now an alternate feed with extra videos and images.
While working on the new theme, i realized how much i missed coding. Strategy is important, but so is tinkering with stuff. Maybe that’s my resolution for 2011: play more. Have a great year!
It’s been a while since my last Shamess PromoTion, where i highlight projects created by friends, mostly from Portugal. The project i’ll be describing today was developed by SAPO, where some good friends managed to deliver one of the most solid web applications i’ve seen lately, specially considering that Lisbon isn’t exactly Silicon Valley.
So, what’s Pond ? It’s an aggregator and publishing tool for social media services, that allows anyone to manage their social graph on a single place. You can import your friend list from social web services, merge friend contacts and update your social web status on the web, mobile or desktop.
The wide range of platform support is certainly the highlighted feature: Besides the web, Android, and Symbian mobile apps are available (iPhone soon) and desktop software (Mac, Windows and Linux) will also be released.
Currently Pond supports Twitter, Flickr, SAPO Fotos, YouTube, SAPO Vídeos, Facebook and SAPO Blogs, as well any RSS or Atom feed. It will surely be a great way to introduce the power of social web to a wider portuguese audience, since the application is sponsored by TMN the largest mobile carrier in Portugal (disclaimer: TMN is a Fulllsix client) PT Comunicações and Meo (it will be interesting to see a social app on a IPTV service: social TV).
With smartphones becoming more affordable, growth on the social web will be fueled by mobile web with centralizing services like Pond or Vodafone 360 taking full advantage our digital identities. I only wish i could add more metadata to my friends info, like birthdays, tags or events. Give me that, and i’ll be a happy ? Ponder ?
As promised, here’s the presentation from yesterday at RIApt AUG, on a 30 minutes talk about why you should care about Progressive Enhancement and how it can be applied to websites developed with the Flash platform.
The year was 2006, and the trend formerly know as Web 2.0 was in full steam. A group of brilliant folks decided to organize the first edition of Shift Conference in Portugal. I managed to find some free time and attended one of the workshops, on the theme of “Creativity” with Dannie Jost and Henriette Weber Andersen. Two years later, Henriette has really pushed the envelope further, both professionally and personally, with her latest achievement in the form of a free eBook: Why every company should be a rockband.
While working for companies with start ups and online marketing and PR, she also helped bring passion to the communities she’s involved, and continued her involvement with Shift as a Super Duper Advisor .
Unfortunately, i wasn’t able to attend the talk where Henriette presented the ideas on the book, but as a big fan of her personal rockband, i’ve asked her a few questions she kindly accepted to answer.
Henriette, Toothless Tiger, avant garde social business expert: who are you really ?
Who am I really ? I am a lady from the north hunting integrity, authenticity, remarkability, creativity, and trustworthiness in business all over the world. I am a first mover within tech and business and how to implement the ways and ideas of the internet in organizations. Heck some people even call me a guru =)
At Shift, we had a first glimpse on “why every company should be a rockband”, that has now been self published as a book. Sounds like there’s a story here, and i’d love you to share how this book was born and the main ideas discussed on it.
Well the book was born because my own book deal in Denmark got canceled. it’s not that I cry myself to sleep every night over it, it just shows that when you’re battling in places where i am battling – the publishing industry does not understand. I have felt it on my own body that publishing houses wants to make everything mainstream. I think mainstream is so incredibly boring and without attitude. It makes everything become normal. meh. Anyway I decided to make my own publishing house (called Toothless Tiger Press), where nothing had to be mainstream – it could be as quirky and strange and wonderful excentric, and all the power over the works had to be in the hands of the author. To make Toothless Tiger Press I needed to have an ebook. People at shift really loved the talk so I decided to work a bit longer on the slides and turn them into an ebook. It collided with my blog post on the 7th of December on 24ways.org – it was a blast and now it’s out there and people are sending me mails to say thank you – it rocks =).
The main idea in the ebook is that the world has changed and it doesn’t look a bit like “business as usual”. Still we conduct business as usual. s. It heavily related on some blogposts I have done on toothlesstiger.com for the past year arguing that “the business of business needs to be more than business”. and that’s the main idea. It’s a way of changing the world. which is also why I hope that everybody will read this ebook and react on it, and spread the ebook like wildfire – in some way – making something more.
Bands have groupies. Companies have …
groupies too and fans. Groupies are the hardcore people surrounding your company and who can’t live without it. Fans are more moderate. You need to work on getting people who purchase your products to first become customers, then to become fans, and if you’re lucky they will become groupies as well.
We’re both very interested in creativity. Bands have it, the web as lots of it, but companies are usually stifling it. Are companies behaving like the music industry instead of focusing in being rock bands?
I think that the creativity is lacking in companies because of control. In some companies it’s extremely hard and I think that some companies are acting as the music industry. let it go man. You can’t control the chaos of the web. it should not be managed – it should be lead. so let go of the command and control mentality, it doesn’t really belong in a rockband (or in the music industry – but I guess they are waking up to see that)
Game time. Match each one of the brands / companies below with a rock band.
(I haven’t given these much consideration so I hope I won’t be held responsible that much) Nokia : R.E.M Motorola: Lordi
Tired of not knowing the faces and stories of those of you who spend precious time reading this blog, and having realized that Google has turned public their Friend Connect service, i’ve placed the gadget on the sidebar (and a review/rate on single pages).
It’s right above my tweets, one of the best places i could get, as readers are the main reason that push me to find fresh inspirations. So, again, thanks for all your attention and let’s connect.
My friend Andre, and blogger at AdvertisingEtc, just directed a visual delicacy using a Phantom camera at 1000fps. The commercial announces the release of a new magazine: Relance.
On his own words “the concept of the ad is that the subjects are being compressed into the magazine“. And, boy, they look pretty good to me. Congrats Andre.
Credits
Agency: Uzina (Portugal)
Creative Director: Gustavo Suarez
Art Director: André Breda
Copywriter: Roberto Ferraz
Account Director: António Roquette
Production Company: Garage Films (Portugal)
Director: Enrique Escamilla
Photography Director: Carlos Lopes (Cácá)
Executive Producer: Miguel Varela
Editor: Marcos Castiel
Post-production Director: Marta Metrass
Phantom Operator: Raoul Rodriguez
Post-Production: Ingreme (Portugal)
Music Supervision: Level Two Music (Australia)
Song: QUA – Painting Monsters
Composer: Cornel Wilczek
Sound post-production: Ameba (Portugal)
Patrick at Creative review shared his thoughts on how the last decade has affected our professional life, and most of it i deeply relate to, specially on how the Internet has changed the life of people that work in design, and to a broader extent, the whole society (at least in developed countries).
Ten years ago i was leaving university, thinking on how i would get along with Business Management, but having fun with Flash 4 on my spare time, while hanging around in IRC and building personal webpages on HotDog HTML editor. At that time, i didn’t even knew there was a job for a digital marketeer much less in advertising.
A few career changes later and past the dot com bubble, i find myself in a place i wouldn’t have dreamed of 10 years ago. The last 5 years have been a reward for always keeping my faith on the enormous potential of the web. New organizational models, the rise of social media, the fall of traditional media, the birth and rise of Google, it’s been a hell of a ride.
What about you, how was your last decade? How has it changed your career? Do you find yourself at the place you envisioned ?
.
