Molecularist

Link: Roland Tanglao’s Weblog: Portable Print Party – Crazy Flickr Idea #88.

I am sure this idea which was inspired by Kris winning a HP 375 mobile photo printer at the OSCON HP Photo contest is not new (I am sure Gail has thought of it for sure since she has one of these cool mobile photo printers) but I’ll throw it out there for what it’s worth:

   
* Announce the party. It costs $5/person to be part of the party (for paper and printer ink).
   
* 1st five to sign up are the "shooters for the party". The rest get to party but not to shoot.
   
* 1st five take photos for half an hour somewhere and then meet back at a WiFi cafe with power.
   
* The next half hour the fab five pick their top 5 photos from the half hour shot.
* Then somebody with a laptop downloads the 25 top photos from the fab five.
   
* Finally the whole party including the fab five pick the top five photos on this laptop.
   
* Then you print out 1 of each of the top five photos for everybody at the party.
   
* Much hilarity and fun follows 🙂 !

Excellent idea! A few too many ‘rules’ for my liking, and a bit too techy, but the heart is in the right place. If it were up to me, everyone would be taking photos and printing them the whole night through (or maybe first posting over the air to a website). Then, at the end, select the best, print, and distribute. But, then again, I am used to doing this with a BT printer and a mobile phone. 😉 Indeed, we (Nokia party-freak phone-geeks) are already doing this kind of stuff at our events.

On a related note: I remember reading somewhere (maybe Mimi Ito’s stuff) that jointly going over the evening’s photos (captured on mobile phones) is starting to become a part of people’s evening habits. Roland’s idea here is certainly a fun twist to that new behaviour.

Now I can’t wait to go to a party as fun as this. 😀

Link: Joho the Blog: Knowledge as conversation.

Knowledge is not the body of beliefs that needs no further discussion. Knowledge is the neverending conversation. And much of that conversation is precisely about what we can disagree about and still share a world.

And it is the conversation about knowledge that brings people together,
not just reading about knowledge in books, but talking about it. And
not just knowledge, anything can be a spark for conversation without
having to be some nugget of info, such as a photo, a Pokemon card, a TV
show, a new gadget.

I have a funny feeling that pre-historic people sat around the fire chatting all
excited about the latest flint chipping technique or bone tool, just
like we do today with all the gadget websites. The specifics might have
changed, but the urge to chat and exchange thoughts about something has
not.

With any product, the brand promise is crucial for longevity. The brand is the personality, the story, the aspirations of the product. Watching the way the Republicans have decimated the American brand in the past 10 years, I’ve been wondering when someone would notice the decline of America in terms of its perceived brand.

I’ve always said that a company is no better than the integrity and values the CEO spreads to the rest of the company – witness the difference between Microsoft and Apple, both with hothead leaders, but only one with a strong sense of values. The same applies to the US – the CEO and his cronies are spreading hollow values and a poor attitude that is infecting everything in America. And the rest of the world feels it.

Enough about my thoughts. Here’s a great article about Brand America.

Link: brandchannel.com | American Brand Globally | Brand America | brands | brand | branding.

The tale of how Brand America was built is a truly heroic one. And it must be said that this is a brand that has been managed, for the most part, with honor and integrity, or at least with the best intentions, as well as skill, inventiveness, vigor, consistency and passion, for a quarter of a millennium.

All the more pity, then, that the last few years have seen such a decline in the passion, consistency, vigor, inventiveness, skill, integrity and honor with which it has been managed. From the dismantling of the United States Information Agency to the recent failure of the "Shared Values" public diplomacy initiative, America simply seems to have lost its extraordinary talent for enlightened and effective self-promotion.

[…]

America needs to rediscover its brand instinct, and live by the
principles that most American companies never forgot: clarity and
firmness of purpose and of message; sensitivity to the needs of
different audiences around the world; a simple and attractive
positioning; transparent and ethical behavior in the organization as
well as in the products; coordination between the stakeholders.