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Top 10 Ways Marketers Waste Money

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Thanks for Trinty P3 in sharing and @timBuesing for posting

Race against the Tube

Now you all know I'm a running nut and love digital ideas well look at this little puppy, my favourite running shoes Asics, who ever came up with this idea really understands a runners mentality that if something moves, then you have to race it, great idea, race the Tube and mind the gap.

ASICS Tube Race from AnalogFolk on Vimeo.

CNN launches data visualisation tool

CNN launches data visualisation tool


This is really pretty cool. CNN has launched a great Twitter data visualization tool called ‘Ecosphere’ in support of the COP17 climate change conference in Durban, which starts this week.

The site picks up every tweet tagged with the #COP17 hashtag and uses them to stimulate growth in a plant or tree in the Ecosphere that represents a certain topic, such as sustainability.

The Ecosphere constantly listens to the global conversation on Twitter and every new tweet tagged with hashtag #COP17 is brought into the
environment, scanned for keywords and then grouped with similar contributions, connecting input from around the world, and building conversations within the dynamic environment.

It produces a lush 3D environment that allows you to explore, view content up close or zoom out to observe the visualisation as a whole. It is beautifully distracting.

The Ecosphere will culminate in Durban with an installation piece at the COP17 Conference that renders this globe as a 3D holographic image.

Lovely work and it looks stunning

Mirror Mirror

The Magic Mirror [nytlabs.com], developed by The New York Times Research & Development Lab has just been selected as one of Time's "50 Best Inventions" of 2011. It is probably the best gadget to fullfil those urgent craves from the data addicted, during those few moments they cannot reach their smart phones. This is very neat but if you want to know what the weather is like outside surely you'd look out the bloody window:) seriously though this has great potential especially from a health perspective.

At first sight, the mirror looks like any normal plain, reflective surface. However, next to showing one's reflection, this mirror is also able to deliver daily news and weather details while brushing your teeth or combing your hair. It combines a Philips Mirror TV with a Microsoft Kinect camera to allow you to access all sorts of information while admiring your own reflection. For instance, the mirror can check one's daily calendar and social feeds, and displays all sorts of statistics regarding one's health, including historical sleep patterns or walking activity.

The top creative minds in digital, where's Australia?

Read this last night in Adweek a great piece by Gabriel Beltrone who wrote a who's who in the Global village of top digital creative's, and when you read the roll call and see what they have done you can't really argue with it. (Well apart from one in my mind but we won't go there.) But my point; no one was selected from Australia or New Zealand, yes I know other countries were left out too but I'm in Australia so I'm looking at this area. Isn't anyone from this neck of the woods who could challenge this group? If so who would it be and if not, why in your mind do you think that we haven't the talent? Interested to know. Read in full here

CAN YOU GUESS THE CREATIVES FROM JUST THEIR ILLUSTRATIONS?

Doing Good - so good you want to eat

Everyday objects that can be improved on, you just need to be a creative thinker ahhh this is a little idea that has everything that I adore about creativity; beautifully simple and functional, Thank you Gyeongwan Koo who turned a very good idea into an even better one. This idea starts life in your hands just like an ordinary set of chopsticks except it’s tipped with a starch cap hiding a seed. When you’re done with it, stick the starch end down into the ground and watch as new life climbs up your recycled chopstick. This idea is so good I could really eat it,what a tasty idea.

UX should be child's play

I watched this video a couple of times over the weekend and as it's pretty amazing in that the child only seems to know or understand the interactions of an iPad above a hard copy magazine, at first I smiled and thought; WOW how times are changing that our kids will naturally interact in iPad mode rather than a hard copy mind you it's not surprising considering this kind of interaction is already on everything from touch screens in public places to smart boards in our kids schools you can even drive a car and model airplane via your iPhone! So
when I looked at it a second time I couldn't help feeling a tad sad in the fact that, here is a child that finds turning a page in a magazine so alien, why should I feel sad? Having 3 kids of my own I encourage them to explore and do things that as a child I did - climb trees, make dens to reading books. There's still something very stimulating about books - the touch the smell to the sound of the pages turning etc. No iPad version can replicate that. Neither is right or wrong but I do think it's a right of all children to interact with much information as possible regardless if it's from an iPad or from a book.

Hopefully then we'll have kids who'll grow up to be thinkers rather than robots and just conditioned to think in a certain way.