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In Montreal and Toronto

March 31st, 2009

It’s so good to be home for a little while! Here’s what I’m up to this week.

Tuesday – Unfinished Business Lectures: Karen Stephenson

BEYOND ORGANIZATION: DESIGNING FOR SUSTAINABLE CHANGE

The nature of organization lies in its barrier to entry: in how “membership” is defined. This is the raison d’être of organizational “culture”.  This disheartening social fact is all the more lamentable in today’s globally interconnected world where our need to meaningfully integrate across disciplines, cultures and firms is more important than ever before. Historically, the prevailing wisdom was to let good ideas “bubble up”, but along with the economic myth of “trickle down” it is just and only that, MYTH! A counter these myths are the proven anthropological approaches that get to the heart of culture, using interviews and participant-observational techniques….all good, but still very time-consuming. What is needed is a new way to reliably accelerate an accurate diagnosis of an organization and intervene to produce predictable and sustainable (read: healthy) change.

For more information and to register, visit www.eventbrite.com/event/291382533

Wired Wednesday

I am going to Wired Wednesday to hear David Crow and Saul Colt speak about cool geeky things that make my heart go pitter patter.  It’s free. It starts at 6. Details here.

Thursday – The Social, MySpace Canada, Toronto

This Thursday I will be the keynote at “The Social” MySpace Canada’s industry event. I will be talking about my new book Yes We Did which is being published in May 2009.

I will also be participating on a panel called “The Social Circle” which will be moderated by Nora Young of CBC Radio’s Spark and include:

  • Yanick Bedard, Director of New Media, Sid Lee Montreal
  • Dave Stevens, General Manager, MySpace Canada
  • Dr. Boris Wertz, CEO of Nexopia and W Media Ventures

Friday – #Geeklunch

I will be organizing a #geeklunch this Friday April 3, 2009 in Toronto. It will probably be at the Bright Pearl since I have a major Dim Sum craving! If you are interested following the #geeklunch tag on Twitter for final details. This time I will bring my camera since I had so much fun at our last one!

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Seriously? Another Microsoft Ad FAIL

January 13th, 2009

Jesse just forwarded me a video of Microsoft’s new ad for Songsmith, their GarageBand competitor. I took a look and…wow. Before I say anything, I should say that if they were going for a deliberately corny feel, then I completely missed the point. But I did find it all sorts of hilarious.

The ad sets up the story of a writer-blocked dad struggling to come up with a jingle who spies his daughter using Songsmith. What, your kids don’t sing product demonstrations in the kitchen? Also, as a professional, why would you let you daughter put flower stickers all over your computer and install singing software on your office machine?

Let’s take a look:

Did you notice anything that was…out of the ordinary? A little bizarre for a Microsoft Ad?

Something like using a MAC BOOK PRO with the apple logo “cleverly” covered by a sticker!  What are you doing Microsoft? I actually laughed out loud when I saw it. Amazing. The song track options sound a little old, like something you would hear on one of those “best of the 50s” compilation CDs they sell on television at night.

My favorite part of the whole ad is when one of his buddies says: “Microsoft huh? So it’s pretty easy to use?” Right, because THAT is the association we have with the software giant:

So I decided to do a little digging and uncover some of the other hidden gems by Microsoft. Here’s what I found.

My Favorite Microsoft Related Videos:

1. I’m a PC Ad

I thought they overstated the stereotypes a little bit. What makes Mac ads so great is that they show instead of tell and I think Microsoft tried to overcompensate a little by spelling it out (“I have glasses!”)

2. If Microsoft Designed the iPod Package

An oldie but a goodie, this one captures the complex identity of all that is Microsoft!

3. Sarcastic Gamer’s Microsoft Surface Parody

I still think this is a cool concept, I just enjoy sarcastic commentary.

4. Windows “Mojave” experiment

I think one of the main problems I have with their ad campaigns is that they seem to spend a lot of time on the defensive. Trying to convince people that, no, really, Vista works, instead of innovating or improving the product. Although when they go “off message” we get things like this:

HOW DID THIS COST MILLIONS OF DOLLARS? Now, before you send me hate mail, I should disclose that I’m speaking as someone who has always owned PCs until last year when I got my first Mac. I was struck by the near unanimous joy that Mac users have with their machines. It was infectious enough that I had to try it, and sure enough, I was seduced by the sleek design, the simple interface and the usability. I think the Mac people agree:

Posted in Blog, Seriously?, Tech & New Media | 6 Comments »

Unfinished Business Series – Innovation in The Obama Campaign

January 8th, 2009

January 13 2009 @ 5pm at the Social Innovation Lab in OCAD. (100 McCaul Street)

I have been working with my good friends Torch Partnership on a cool new project called  Unfinished Business for the last year or so and it has been an amazing experience. It’s an experiment in project design for a program of collaborative innovation, which explores methods of fostering expertise using open systems of collaboration around the convergence of: visualization, collaboration, participation and design.

I am very pleased to announce that as part of this initiative, we have launched a monthly Speaker Series in association with the Social Innovation Lab (sLab) at the Ontario College of Art and Design.

The first session will feature yours truly (me!) and my colleague Scott Thomas, the design lead on the Obama campaign as we discuss the roles of Design and New Media in the Obama campaign.

Event Description:

Scott Thomas and Rahaf Harfoush will lead an interactive discussion on how Design and New Media played an instrumental role in the Barack Obama campaign. Thomas and Harfoush will explore the innovation of both campaign tactics and political strategy. In conversation, we will explore the impact of many forms of openness on participation in the 2008 presidential campaign. Are the progressive tendencies evidenced in the campaign flash-in-the-pan phenomena or a kind of sea change in technologies of engagement.

About Scott:

Scott Thomas (a.k.a SimpleScott) is constantly seeking the simplest answer to complex problems. Scott began his design pursuits studying architecture before bouncing to graphic design and web development. In 2006, he and 5 others began a design collective, lovingly titled, The Post Family. The group is devoted to supporting each others design habits, from silk screen to letterpress, from illustration to blogging, in an effort to “get back to the hand”. In 2007, Scott’s career took a dramatic leap when he was invited to join the New Media team at Obama for America. The chance encounter led Scott to becoming the Design Director of the historic Obama Presidential campaign. Scott plans to continue designing for social causes that might just someday change the world.

Part of the openness concept is that these lectures are FREE! So here is the event link, and I hope to see you there! Spots are filling up quick though so don’t wait too long.

You can learn more about Unfinished Business here. I’m also linking to a post that I wrote on the Unfinished Blog a while ago about Social Interactions and their impact on our network called “Digital Intimacy: Dunbar’s Number Evolved.”

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Ted Tuesdays: Dan Gilbert on the Secret of Happiness

January 8th, 2009

[Update: I am aware it is not Tuesday, but my technological prowess apparently does not extend to understanding the magical intricacies of wordpress' auto-post functionality. Forgive my transgression, at least it's still a day of the week that starts with T!]

Will all this heavy talk here these past few days, I decided to focus on something that we are all chasing: happiness! Our culture has been built around companies offering products and services that can somehow deliver this magical concept. Whether it’s a new kitchen or a new body we are constantly on the hunt for that “thing” that is going to make us happy. Dan Gilbert shares some surprising insights about the nature of happiness, and how achieving it is much easier than you think!

Why you should watch:

Dan Gilbert believes that, in our ardent, lifelong pursuit of happiness, most of us have the wrong map. In the same way that optical illusions fool our eyes — and fool everyone’s eyes in the same way — Gilbert argues that our brains systematically misjudge what will make us happy. And these quirks in our cognition make humans very poor predictors of our own bliss.

The premise of his current research — that our assumptions about what will make us happy are often wrong — is supported with clinical research drawn from psychology and neuroscience. But his delivery is what sets him apart. His engaging — and often hilarious — style pokes fun at typical human behavior and invokes pop-culture references everyone can relate to. This winning style translates also to Gilbert’s writing, which is lucid, approachable and laugh-out-loud funny. The immensely readable Stumbling on Happiness, published in 2006, became a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into 20 languages.

In fact, the title of his book could be drawn from his own life. At 19, he was a high school dropout with dreams of writing science fiction. When a creative writing class at his community college was full, he enrolled in the only available course: psychology. He found his passion there, earned a doctorate in social psychology in 1985 at Princeton, and has since won a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Phi Beta Kappa teaching prize for his work at Harvard. He has written essays and articles for The New York Times, Time and even Starbucks, while continuing his research into happiness at his Hedonic Psychology Laboratory.

Favorite Parts:

  • I love the surprising truth about the happiness level reported by recent lottery winners and recent paraplegics.
  • I laughed out loud at the Monet: happiness synthesis experiment. So funny how we rationalize our choices and the amnesiac control groups just blew my mind!

My Take:

I love this talk. I have always believed that happiness is just a state of mind and that you are completely in control of whether you feel that way or not. It takes me back to my philosophy courses in university where we talked about the illusion of time and how the only thing you can be sure of is the present.  So choose to be happy!

What do you think?

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