In No Particular Order

These my micropostings and bookmarks – August 18th through September 2nd:

• Net Promoter Scores by sector (The Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Blog) – Useful piece on the NPS scores by industry sector, from the 3.2m user-base that Bazaarvoice's clients reach.
• Welcome to FashionStake. The revolutionary online marketplace for fashion. – Interesting site that allows customers to 'invest' in a collection and shape its progress. A step on from customer-mediated selling (eg ThisNext) or launching directly to customers via social sites, this approach merges fractional ownership with an 'angel' approach (eg WineAngel).
• Conversation Home | Nordstrom.com – Nordstrom does conversations/stories – social commerce meets high-end retail.
• Top 10 Politico Tech Blunders, From the Internets to the Google | Fast Company – Delightful. Jokes aside, a humbling reminder of the jargon related to the web, and if course the fundamentally complex underpinnings. This ain't no digital book.
• DANNY LYON: "The End of the Age of Photography – Part II" (2010) – Wonderfully intemperate rant by a wonderful photographer against the evils of the digital age: not seeing, not keeping, not remembering. Touching on the archive aspects, the behavioural aspects and some personal recollections. Tempting to fully agree, but there's a whiff of reactionary thinking, plus a lack of options to move forward, rather than moving back… The thought of children just erasing a lifetime's digital works is as chilling as a cherished library being send to Oxfam or for pulp…

Spotted at a client: so nude, it’s invisible.

These my micropostings and bookmarks – July 18th through August 6th:

• 22 Michaels: How we tripled our sales using YouTube – Good article on capitalising on Haul Video
• Toshiba brings texture to touch (video) — Engadget – Tactic feedback on a touchpad.
• Compete | Compete – Hitwise meets Alexa. Some useful info free, especially the site to site comparisons.
• Matt Ridley: When ideas have sex | Video on TED.com – Tools evolve more slowly than skeletons, trade is 100,000 years older than farming… stimulating presentation on trade and sharing as the root of human progress and innovation.
• Apple's Real Achilles Heel – Umair Haque – Harvard Business Review – Apple is a 20th century company dressed as a 21st century one.

These my micropostings and bookmarks – June 28th through July 17th:

• Twitter’s Ascension in Japan – Thomas Crampton – Twitter = mumble, the liking for blogging anonymously, and a haiku-esque brevity all help Twitter fare well in Japan. Neat article.
• Slow fashion: forever yours | Life and style | The Guardian – A new trend towards not having trends? <br />
  <br />
  Attractive-sounding approach – neo-classics and perennials – emphasising quality and fitness to purpose over the 'wastefulness' of fast fashion… Difficult to see this as more than a curated 'new trend' to replace the justificiation each year of buying a 'new twist on a classic', routine, however the trend to a mixed, eclectic approach is certainly interesting. <br />
  <br />
  Can't help thinking, however, it's just called being a grown-up rather than 18 years old, and sad to see that we're now calling a 'mixed price-point' assortment "egalitarian"… the revolutionaries at the barricades were not after the right to mix Hermes with Bic, or to storm the Bastille wearing Converse as well as Laboutin!
• Insert Batteries Any Way You Like With Microsoft Instaload | Fast Company – Great idea. Even though it's been a long time coming, it's something to enjoy just of itself.
• Organic Magazine Theme – Nice wordpress organic theme…
• High Line 2 Sneak Peek: Lounging Lawn, Flyovers, and the "Chelsea Thicket" | Fast Company – Nice article and sneak peak on activity at The High Line in NYC. Really inspiring and a wonderful experience within the ur-city of New York.<br />
  <br />
  Thanks again to @tlittleton for advising me to visit

These my micropostings and bookmarks – May 28th through June 28th:

• The Ultimate List: 300+ Social Media Statistics – Erk. 300+? Social Mediaites sure love their statistics about social media… and then put them into such purty videos too!
• Nice-looking and configurable twitter ticker (eduVoyage: Ruby on Rails Development) –
• MILLENNIALS AND ENTERPRISE2.O « Futures-Diagnosis – Quoth Norman in considering this myth, as a prelude to Enterprise2.0<br />
  <br />
  <br />
  "The myth of digital whizzkids<br />
  <br />
  The myth of the digital whizzkid needs to be challenged for four reasons:<br />
  <br />
  First, because it mistakenly assumes that young people effortlessly adopt digital technology into their lives because they are into the technology;<br />
  Secondly, because the myth of digitally savvy children is actually an expression of adult confusion about how to conduct their relations with children, which has little to do with children’s relationship to the new media;<br />
  Third, because it flatters children instead of critically engaging them in a quest to engage more fully with the technology itself; to understand the science and mathematics behind the magic of the digital world;<br />
  Fourth, because by reducing adults to the level of children in need of expert guidance, it infantilises serious questions regarding collaboration in the workplace."
• Brian Skerry reveals ocean's glory — and horror | Video on TED.com – Wonderful underwater photography, with a tough message.
• iPhone vs. Android | Nielsen Wire – Some nice, current factoids on usage and demographics between iPhone and Android users. Nicest of all a section on the respective desires to stick with their OS on their next phone…
• If the past is a palimpsest, what are we? | MetaFilter – Recovered and fabricated memory…<br />
  <br />
  "happiness is more important than truth" in evolutionary terms.

These my micropostings and bookmarks – April 30th through May 23rd:

• web based CRM software – online contact manager – absoluteBUSY – Interesting-looking hosted CRM solution. Works well and quickly on a Mac and the structure looks neat. Can't see how to import/export though, nor how to operate with other systems of feeds, but logged here so I can find it later.
• Facebook Leaks Usernames, User IDs, and Personal Details to Advertisers – Very clear deconstruction of how FB passes user information – username, city, age, gender – to advertisers. It'd be a simple problem to resolve globally, so must assume that this is part of their plan?<br />
  <br />
  Thanks to Antony for pointing this out.
• The Biggest Challenges for a Conference Program Director – Monique gives a lucid view on the challenges for a conference director, articulating well the balance between a conference that people want to attend and the marketing thereof. Rings many bells.<br />
  <br />
  The format of the video interview is neat too (apart from the sofa – yak!) – brief video, with the key points in text below.
• Etacts – Social plugin for gmail. Tracks contact activity, sets reminders, logs conversations, mass mailing and more.
• BBC News – Today – Audio slideshow: Eye examination – Really nice slideshow format.
• How Renting, Not Owning an iPhone Could Have Saved Gizmodo: Expert | Fast Company – Common sense, interesting angle and well-written to boot.

This Thursday, 20 May, the community near Columbia Road, E2, is putting on a charity auction, with some stupendous works of art, of generosity and fun in order to raise money for Sonia.

Sonia is a young and much-loved teacher who suffered a devastating stroke last year leaving her severely disabled. This auction is to raise money to adapt her home and therefore support her independent living.

Taking place at Columbia Primary School, there are some stupendous lots: originals from the Chapman Brothers, Rob Ryan, Gavin Turk, Nelly Duff and a wonderful 1 hour personal tour of Hackney by Iain Sinclair.

We also have hand-delivered warm croissant from Joe’s Newsagent (a local legend), decluttering help, prints, photos, guidance, massage, rare Adidas trainers… You need to see the whole catalogue for info…

Latest news will be on www.raise-the-roof.net, and there’s a full auction listing here (pdf): raisetheroof-auction-lots.

If you can come along then please do – it’ll be a real event and there’s an opportunity either to get some wonderful, one-off art/artefacts at a great price, or (gasp!) pay the full price for them and help secure Sonia’s future.

If you’re coming do let me know. I’ll be there later and we’ll be having a post-auction drink/nibble. Let me know so I have the vaguest chance of being organised!

Meanwhile, if you’re an event organiser or someone who’s thinking of asking me to speak, my own personal contribution is here:

http://www.ianjindal.com/speaking-and-events-calendar/fundraising-an-accessible-house-for-sonya/

Please do come along. It’s going to be a remarkable and fun evening and to assist a remarkable teach who’s impact on my daughter and countless others will be life-long and positive.

These my micropostings and bookmarks – April 22nd through April 24th:

• 'Skinput' – BBC News – Sensors turn skin into gadget control pad – Following from the Patti Maes 'Sixth Sense' presentation at TED here's further work on 'bio' input methods – this time us skin.<br />
  <br />
  Any technology with a good pun deserves to succeed
• Almost Genius: The Cardboard Box That Fits Anything Perfectly | Fast Company – Elegant and efficient packing.
• Reboot: Puma and Yves Béhar Spend Three Years Designing Super-Green Shoebox | Fast Company – Great design – sustainable, elegant, ruthless and stonkingly desirable. The box is nicer than the contents
• Augmented Contact Lenses Cover Your Eye with a Screen of 100s of LEDs | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World – This is an update on the contact lenses I covered in my Future of Digital Marketing keynote. <br />
  <br />
  I said 18 months for progress – they've achieved more in I predicted, and in half the time.
• The White House unleashes AdWords against Wall Street | Econsultancy – "Imagine for a minute that you're the president of the United States and you're trying to make the case against Wall Street. What's the best way to do it? As the president, you have almost unlimited access to the traditional media, but that's not always enough today.<br />
  <br />
  So U.S. president Barack Obama, whose use of the internet arguably helped him win the presidency, isn't relying on the mainstream media to promote his Wall Street reform agenda; he's using Google. And he's going straight for the jugular by bidding on topical keywords related to embattled investment bank Goldman Sachs."

These my micropostings and bookmarks – March 14th through April 8th:

• Thin and Bright: Rosco LED LitePads | B&H Photo Video Pro Audio – Something else for the "must get some soon" list…
• Atom Activity Base Schema (Draft) – Starting point to document and define the fields and data formats in an 'activity-based schema' to support lifestreaming etc. Consider alongside APML and microformats.
• 6 Thoughts About Location Madness – Marshall Kirkpatrick on RWW with thoughts on location-based services and whether they're the new new thing…
• Category Templates « WordPress Codex – Really useful page describing how Wordpress selects which template to use for an archive listing, and how to add a custom template for individual categories. We are using this to create 'microsites' of categories on internetretailing.net. Well-described.
• SnowValley – "Thank you for your order pages" Gallery – A gallery of 134 "Thank you for your order" pages from their 2009 christmas order/checkout/delivery report. Nice.

These my micropostings and bookmarks – March 6th through March 10th:

• Reaching Affluents on Social Nets – eMarketer – Affluent customers don't use social networks to 'connect with' brands. <br />
  <br />
  Doh. <br />
  <br />
  Question is whether any at all "connects" with a brand once they've 'friended' it in passing…
• Kelkoo Press Release – UK online shoppers biggest spenders in Europe – Recent factoid from Kelkoo
• ASOS Follows Fashion – fashionable thoughts from our favourite tweeters – Not only do ASOS "get" twitter, but they're now setting out to 'own' it! For fashion, at least. Remind me, what did publishers used to do?
• US and Western European online retail will grow double digit year-on-year over the next five years – The Forrester Blog For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals – Factoids from Forrester
• Reduce. Reuse. Reinvent. | Free Patents That Will Save Our Galaxy – Awesome. Great 'patent' illustrations. Oh to be able to draw this well and have the dedication to turn the thought into something this funny and well-produced! Bravo.

These my micropostings and bookmarks – February 12th through March 6th:

• "Embrace Your Page Rage" – adaptive path » newsletter for february 24, 2010 – Nice and provocative article on the notion of 'pages' in web design. Of interest to ecommerce professionals and online merchandisers given the dynamic, algorithm-driven 'pages' we serve to our customer 'personae'.
• Layers: Screen Capture for Mac. PSD Compatible. – Wow – screen capture on steroids. Not only does is have nice, full-window and full-browser grabbing (even parts outside of the screen), but the grab is converted into a PSD layered image so you can play with the various elements in photoshop later. Very interesting.
• Bokode – Camera Culture Group, MIT Media Lab – Bokeh-code: diffraction patterns from out-of-focus light points convey more data, from further, while using less space than a traditional barcode. <br />
  The requirement for a light source could be an issue, but certainly a nice approach, and one that uses 'out-of-focus' as a way of carrying more data.
• FCUK Exposes Its Naked Marketing Scheme to ChatRoulette Users | addybaddy | Fast Company – Nice appropriation of ChatRoulette to bolster the brand positioning. Quick off the mark – I like the confidence.
• HipLogic Inc. – A mobile 'platform' layer that runs on closed handset systems to offer an integrated 'smartphone' and app-like experience, even for phones that lack an app-friendly OS. Currently available in the UK via Carphone Warehouse as http://snapplife.com/
• Last day of Borders – Lorenzo Wood's photo – Lorenzo's photo of the last day of Borders.
• Quick and easy podcasting with an iPhone 3GS, GarageBand, and Posterous –

These my micropostings and bookmarks – January 29th through February 9th:

• 45+ CSS Grid Systems, Layout Generators and Tutorials that every Designer should know | tripwire magazine – CSS grid layouts
• Grid System Generator – Neat interface to play with grid options for wireframes
• The Fallacy of Old World PR | Jonathan MacDonald – Succinct piece on Toyota's response to the recall – knowledge for 13months, do nothing, taken by surprise… then the CEO driven away from the press conference in a black Audi…
• Samson Zoom H4 Digital Recorder: Six Ways to Maximize Your Use of This Awesome Device | I'd Rather Be Writing – Tom Johnson – Useful summary of using the zoom h4. Comments are useful.
• doubleyouwhy! » Nikki Graziano – Plotted equations overlaid on photographs. Neat (but the graphs are more interesting than the images ).

These my micropostings and bookmarks – January 15th through January 22nd:

• Data, Data Everywhere and Not a Thought to Think « Jim Sterne on eMetrics – Jim's contribution to the 'data: tool or crutch; evil or saviour' debate. Balanced and with some nice links. Ideal given that it's a topic I'm speaking on at an SXSW panel this March! Thanks Jim
• Christmas 2009 volumes – Hitwise Intelligence – Robin Goad – UK – Interesting to see the "dec 26/27" surge in web activity again, but also the sheer volume of customers searching for sale information and store opening times…
• "Myth of the White Messiah" – review of the tropes in Avatar – Fun and well-put argument on the plot of Avatar.
• WordPress › TDO Mini Forms « WordPress Plugins – Wonder if I can use this as a way to let peeps upload press releases?
• RankSpeed – video conferencing: good – Interesting "blog/twitter 'sentiment'" rankings. Analyses key words in social media 'mentions' to build a picture of a product's reputation.

  This is the list for "video conferencing". The list is useful even if one queries the methodology.

So, leaving aside any nitpicking points about whether “premieres” is a verb, or whether it’s Polanski’s film or Olivia Williams‘, suffice to say that it’s the ‘Olivia connection’ (via Sophie, Olivia’s sister, longest-standing friend etc) that has Vicky heading off to Berlin on the 12th for the premiere of the film at t’Berlin Film Festival.

Here’s the trailer:

The official website’s here: theghost-romanpolanski.com

I’m assuming that the URL is not a reference to Polanski’s imminent disappearance at the US Federal Authorities’ pleasure, just a reference to the book

Looks like it’ll be a blast of a film and I’m looking forward to photos of the evening (while yours truly stays at home and minds the kids – a quid pro quo for one too many trips this year).

These my micropostings and bookmarks – December 14th through January 7th:

• YouTube – Zugara's Augmented Reality & Motion Capture Shopping App – Zuagar's 'demo' of AR in use to choose clothing. Now apparently in use at Fashionista.
• YouTube – How to use Fashionista – The New Webcam Social Shopper – Nice implementation (in video, at least) of Zugara's augmented reality software. Not sure why AR's needed at all – just seems to do scaling that could easily be done with arm-waving.

  That said, it's a nice demo of how the Playstation's EyeToy is not being used for apparel retail.

  Funny old world.

• Josef Hoflehner Photographer | Jet Airliner – Wow – that's what I call wonderful black n white photography. Not only is the subject incredibly well-observed, but look at the contrast, the choice of tone… Sigh.
• How to Write a Wordpress Plugin | Devlounge –
• Xmas 2009 online retail stats round up | Blog | Econsultancy – Useful roundup of the various stats, predictions and punditry
• Mobilizy Proposes ARML to AR Consortium :Mobilizy – Hm. After APML we now have "Augmented Reality Markup Language".

  The main thrust is to get geo/location information into AR browsers and devices.

  This appears to be a glorified "Open Waypoint" system (since the ARML data should work on Google Earth etc), and I wonder whether there's something similar already in the directory/hyperlocal/yellow pages community to manage this?

In between the rain and snow, a brief and uplifting moment of sunshine on Newport Beach (“traeth mawr” or ‘big beach’).

Rainbow on Newport Beach

We’d determined to ‘walk the kids’ every day for a couple of hours, come rain or shine, and this was the first time that the “shine” part had kicked in.

Made it all worthwhile.

The image, btw, is taken on the iPhone using the Pano app to stitch together 3 images.

These my micropostings and bookmarks – November 23rd through December 2nd:

• What Is A Klout Score? – The Klout score – an interesting (and openly-stated) measure of twitter "clout". Props to them for their opennes – much to ponder.
• Twitter Fan Wiki / Mashups – Useful list of twitter resources and mashups.
• Twitter API Wiki / Twitter API Documentation – The Twitter API documentation – the what and how of accessing information from the mighty twitter
• Jack Cheng — Jack of all trades, master of none. – Great weblog: – tone, content and design. Particularly like the time-based nav (top) and the footer.
• Mr B – Emporium of reading delights in Bath.

  http://www.mrbsemporium.com/Gift%20Vouchers.htm in particular is a great idea – building on the store experience, with a twist of humour and individuality.

  This, surely, is why passionate, niche retailers will survive and hopefully thrive?

These my micropostings and bookmarks – October 20th through November 21st:

• Feltron Eight – Graphically-lovely, informationally stimulating and generally the sort of thing I wished I've have thought of (and had the commitment to actually do… 8 years ago!).

  Just look at the lovely triangle/fractally thing for 2008. Sigh.

• Wordr – Monoblogging – expressing yourself one word at a time.

  Beautifully-executed site, too.

• Five qualities of a great iPhone app | Software | iPhone Central | Macworld – Sensible and relates well to the Gap's recent iPhone app-design competition.
• MySupermarket.co.uk launches online service for retailers and manufacturers – Interesting development. As the company moves from price-comparison and basket-switching they realise that a) they are a data business and b) that the grocery retailers need the comparative data maybe more than they need the sales!

  This is a bit like 'hitwise for grocery consideration'.

  "mySupermarket Insights service will enable clients to view real-time supermarket prices of all products in their categories at Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda and Ocado, in order to help assist their pricing, sales and marketing strategies. In addition to instant access to current pricing data, the service also offers all prices and promotions going back an entire year, and automatically inform clients upon logging in which prices have changed within the past seven days."

• Get Started with Wave – The Complete Guide to Google Wave: How to Use Google Wave – Useful. I was confused. Now a little less so, but still no-one to wave to…
• What’s Happening Now: Hashtags on Twitter Lists « OUseful.Info, the blog… – Twitter lists, Yahoo Pipes… all very clever. I'll read this one day and maybe understand it…
• "Fun can change behaviour for the better" – YouTube – Piano stairs – TheFunTheory.com – Rolighetsteorin.se

  Nice example of visual clues, humour, interaction and situationalist approaches.

  Not sure what VW's involvement is, but if it's marketing it's the sort of fun marketing I like.

Thought I’d share a mini-triumph to a niggling problem with iCal and recurring events I’d accepted into my calendar.

I work with a number of clients, most of whom are on MS Exchange of one flavour or another. I get meeting invites from them and accept them joyously into iCal on my Mac. For the most part this works fine, except when it comes to recurring events. My diary was littered with recurring events stretching into the future without end and I was unable to delete these since – as iCal kindly reminded me – I was not the meeting organiser.

I asked clients to send a cancellation, but this didn’t remove the event, and in some cases they’d already removed or finished the recurrence, just leaving me with an infinite stub.

I could delete the individual instances, but had to remember not to delete the whole series (or I’d lose the events that had really happened and that I’d attended) and I also had to take care not to ‘inform the organiser’ of the deletion – it’s never fun getting spammed about someone cancelling an event that doesn’t exist in your world!

In a moment of googling joy today I came across this ancient tip:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2006012408314747

where it mentioned that the ‘organiser’ was identified by their email address. The tip suggested grepping and editing the underlying calendar with a text editor (wah – destruction of data alert!) but it sparked an idea that worked… Here’s how to be able to edit these otherwise untouchable appointments…

• Open the event and look under attendees for the organiser (it says after their name, eg “Ian Jindal (organiser)”)
• Click on the organiser’s name to see their email address and copy this (an option if you ctrl-click on the name)
• Close the appointment and go to Address Book app
• Go to your own address card (Card >> My Card)
• Enter edit mode (apple-L) and add a new email address for yourself – paste in the copied email address for the event organiser, then exit Edit mode (apple-L again)
• Go back to your calendar and open the event
• Bingo! iCal thinks that “you” are the event organiser (since they Organiser’s email address is in your address card) and therefore lets you edit the event. Change the recurrence ‘end date’ to a date of your choice.
• Save.

I now have a clean calendar and a light heart

Just remember to remove the temporary extra email(s) from your address card.

Wow – I love this!

A friend’s brother’s just won an art prize and when I initially looked at the video (distracted, sorry), I didn’t really “get” it. Half way through it hit me – great idea, beautifully executed and recorded with restraint. Tip: look at the leaves…

Anyway, Clem won the Celeste Prize in the Video, Installation, Sculpture category. Nice one. Here’s the video…

The Guide from Clement Price – Thomas on Vimeo.