• Putting together your own free-from-cable living room viewing experience: not ready for prime time – I understand this kind of living room experience isn’t for everyone. It’s a lot less work to just click a button up or down on a standard remote control. And it can be difficult to explain how to use this unfamiliar toolbox of buttons, programs and devices.

  Over Thanksgiving a friend graciously house-sat at our apartment. It took my wife more than an hour to write a detailed description explaining how to use our new TV setup. After explaining how to use the mouse and keyboard, we had to describe how to switch among applications.

• Even avid readers find it hard to read nowadays – "I used to read books all the time. If I was awake, I’d be reading or at the very least carrying a book around. But now? The last book I read was John Galsworthy’s “Forsyte Saga,” which I finished more than a month ago, and then only after many weeks of halfhearted fits and starts, a situation that was pretty alarming, given that Mr. Galsworthy’s story was full of the sorts of characters who come to life and accompany you in your mind, sitting in the passenger seat, as real as anybody, while you drive around town doing errands.

  I still read, of course. I read all sorts of things: Web sites and blog posts and e-mail messages and Tweets and even, occasionally, a newspaper or magazine article…

  Deep reading — the kind that you engage in when you get lost in the syntax and imagery and the long, convoluted sentences of a really meaty book — is a special sort of exercise that creates a new part of the brain that did not exist at birth."

• The Air Force is just the latest organization to adopt the PS3 as a cheaper cluster computer – Talk about unintended usage! "The PS3s offer some outstanding performance for the price," said Richard Linderman, senior scientist for advanced computing architectures at the Air Force Research Laboratory. "It's an opportunity to leverage the large gaming market and get those kinds of cost efficiencies which are more along the lines of high-performance computing."

  (Thanks, Kenichi!)

• Russia considers the functional and cultural impacts of changing their 11 time zones – The time zones, set up by the Soviets to showcase the country’s size, have long been a source of national pride, but the government is now viewing them as a liability and is considering shedding some. In today’s economy of constant communication, it is hard to manage businesses and other affairs when one region is waking up and another is thinking about dinner. The issue has blossomed in recent days into an intense debate across the country about how Russians see themselves, about how the regions should relate to the center, about how to address the age-old problem of creating a sense of unity in this land.
• Digital whiteboard for the Kindle – [This is a good example of the “ecosystem” we identified as an opportunity area in our Reading Ahead research] Luidia, the maker of an interactive whiteboard technology called eBeam, is extending its reach onto another screen: Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader. The start-up is launching a system that automatically zaps a copy of notes and scribbles left on whiteboards into people’s Kindle or Kindle DX. It works by turning the notes (captured digitally by the eBeam system) into an image file, and then emailing that file to a Kindle. The notes capability could help improve the ways students use the Kindle in classrooms, says Luidia. Nearly 90% of Luidia’s customers are K-12 schools, some of which have been experimenting with using Kindles and e-reading technology to lighten the load of students. In theory, a teacher could present a whole lesson and then zap the notes to students or parents.

• Waldo Hunt, 88, dies; repopularized pop-up books in 1960s – "He was such an important publisher of pop-up books who really advanced them technically. The pop-up designers who worked for him were amazing creative engineers," said Cynthia Burlingham, director of the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at the Hammer Museum of UCLA.

  The first golden age of movable books began in the late 1800s, when European publishers crafted elaborate books for children, and ended with the onset of World War I. With Mr. Hunt's epiphany, the second golden age was about to begin.

  "I knew I'd found the magic key," Mr. Hunt said. "No one was doing pop-ups in this country. No one could afford to make them here. They had to be done by hand, and labor was too expensive."

  He started Graphics International, and produced a series of pop-up ads featuring zoo scenes as part of a magazine campaign for Wrigley's gum. Soon, his company was creating pop-up table decorations and greeting cards for Hallmark.

• Electronic Popable Books from MIT – Electronic popables integrate paper-based electronic sensors that allow amazing interactivity — turning on lights and moving images at the touch of a finger. Will it catch on or will the line between printing on paper and electronic media become so blurred that consumers will opt to watch the story on a screen?
• StoryCorps: National Day of Listening – On the day after Thanksgiving, set aside one hour to record a conversation with someone important to you. You can interview anyone you choose: an older relative, a friend, a teacher, or someone from the neighborhood.

  You can preserve the interview using recording equipment readily available in most homes, such as cell phones, tape recorders, computers, or even pen and paper. Our free Do-It-Yourself Instruction Guide is easy to use and will prepare you and your interview partner to record a memorable conversation, no matter which recording method you choose.

  Make a yearly tradition of listening to and preserving a loved one’s story. The stories you collect will become treasured keepsakes that grow more valuable with each passing generation.
  (via BoingBoing)

• London 2009 – a set on Flickr – My London pictures from our recent visit
• Every year, The Harris Poll asks a cross-section of adults whether they think about 20 leading industries do a good or a bad job of serving their consumers. – Note that the cable industry regularly appears on this poll as doing a bad job.
• Time Warner insincerely and manipulatively asks customers to "vote" if it should "get tough" or "roll over" – Facing expiring deals with a number of key programmers, the nation's second-largest cable operator is launching a Web site, rolloverorgettough.com, which it says is designed to give its subscribers a voice in what it calls unfair price demands by content suppliers. Time Warner says those who operate broadcast and cable networks are asking for "incredible price hikes," as much as 300%. Customers will be able to vote on whether the operator rolls over, or should get tough, about price increases.

  "You're our customers, so help us decide what to do. We're just one company, but there are millions of you. Together, we just might be able to make a difference in what America pays for its favorite entertainment."

My article Organizational Empathy, from Top to Bottom has been published by Appliance magazine. I consider my experience as an HMO “customer” as a way to look how organizations instill and act on empathy at all levels.

I went online to make a medical appointment recently, and I was surprised that there was no place to explain my symptoms or reasons for needing to see the doctor. When I arrived at the clinic a few days later, a receptionist collected my copayment without any discussion of my situation. I found my assigned room and dropped check-in printout in the appropriate tray. After a moment, my name was called, and a medical assistant brought me back and began administering “treatment.” I was told to stand on a scale, and then brought to a room where she took my blood pressure. Then she wheeled over a device on a pole and produced a long metal probe. She advanced on me with it, pointing it at my face, without saying a word. Bewildered and slightly afraid, I soon realized it was a digital thermometer and that I was supposed to open my mouth (which I did, seconds before impact).

I heart memes license plate, California, 2009

And who doesn’t. We all want to belong somewhere. Even if it’s in an alternate subcultural universe, it’s comforting to know that your thoughts are connected somehow to the hive mind.

For anyone wanting a walk down short-term memory lane, The Internet Meme Database should suffice. And for those who want it live and in-concert, MIT will be hosting the second ROFLCon Internet culture conference in April 2010.

• A Good Way to Change a Corporate Culture – To start a culture change all we need to do is two simple things: 1. Do dramatic story-worthy things that represent the culture we want to create. Then let other people tell stories about it. 2. Find other people who do story-worthy things that represent the culture we want to create. Then tell stories about them.
  (This echoes a long-standing belief of mine, but it's far better articulated than I've ever been able to do. Via Stephen Anderson)

• Storylistening for consumer insight – There are many ways of collecting stories but here are three that may be new to you:
  * Anecdote circles
  * Naive interviewers
  * Mass narrative capture
  Collecting stories is not about finding the one perfect story that describes a brand or a consumer experience. Rather it is about gathering a broad spread of qualitative data. Individually a story may be seen to be banal but their power lies in the cumulative effect of many stories.

  Interpreting stories
  * Experts
  * Machines
  * Participants

  Story interpretation is best done by a range of groups (e.g. consumers themselves, a marketing department) that may have differing perspectives on the same situation. The most appropriate techniques often avoid direct analysis initially and allow different groups to immerse themselves in the stories to produce nuanced interpretations of the consumers' world.
  (via DinaMehta.com)

• Sony, B&N promise to rekindle rights for book owners – Boing Boing recently talked to Sony's Steve Haber, President of Digital Reading, about its flagship ebook reader, named the "Daily Edition." "Our commitment is that you bought it, you own it," Haber said. "Our hope is to see this as ubiquitous. Buy on any device, read on any device. … We're obligated to have DRM but we don't pull content back."
• OnFiction is a magazine with the aim of developing the psychology of fiction. – Using theoretical and empirical perspectives, we endeavour to understand how fiction is created, and how readers and audience members engage in it.
• What design researchers can learn from hostage negotiators – Interesting to look at various collaboration and communication scenarios and unpack what's going on to define some principles that can be reused. Not sure how much new about design research is brought to light here, but the framing may make it more memorable or understandable. Always glad to see the emphasis on rapport, but I don't agree with their hostage-rapport approach as a one-size-fits-all method for design research rapport building. I also think they underplay the emotional levels that good design research can uncover. Beyond frustration with products, we hear stories about cancer, divorce, infertility, hopes, dreams, and beyond. All very charged stuff.
• If you outlaw meep, only outlaws will say meep – Tthe nonsense word started with the 1980s Muppet character Beaker. Bob Thompson, a pop culture professor at Syracuse University, said he first heard students meep about a year ago during a class screening of a television show.
  "Something happened and one of them said 'Meep,'" he said. "And then they all started doing it."

  The meeps, he said, came from all of the students in the class in rapid-fire succession. When he asked them what that meant, they said it didn't really mean anything.

  But meeping doesn't seem to be funny to Danvers High School Principal Thomas Murray, who threatened to suspend students caught meeping in school.

  In an interview with the Salem News, Murray said automated calls were made to parents, warning them of the possible punishment after administrators learned that students were conspiring online to mass-meep in one part of the school building.

  (via MeFi)

• IST2010ENG/ EDEBIYAT / 40 Districts 40 Books by 40 Authors: ‘My Istanbul’ series at Tüyap 2009… – My Istanbul is a monumental project of 40 books in which 40 distinguished authors told their own districts.

  40 authors born and lived in Istanbul wrote their own feelings, thoughts and memories in their own style about 40 districts of Istanbul for this project originated from the idea that every district has a different story, a different identity and a different spirit.

  Realized in cooperation with Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture Literature Directorate and Heyamola Publications the project ‘My Istanbul’ will display Istanbul’s recent history by the words of witnesses while each district is being re-interpreted by sui generis views of the authors.

• Jake Cressman – Part of the Hot Studio team that won the Portigal Consulting/Core77 1-Hour Design Challenge! Congrats, Jake!
• CONGRATS: Hot wins ‘The Future of Digital Reading’ design challenge – Designers + Beer = Fun: Late on a Friday afternoon, a group of Hot’s designers and a good-natured friend gathered in Hot’s biggest conference room. We spread books of all sizes out on the conference table, salty and sweet snacks in every corner, and several six packs of beer on ice. What more could you need? We watched segments from Portigal Consulting’s video where they outlined their findings, and paused a few times to discuss amongst ourselves. After we got comfortable with the background material, we divided into a couple teams, each focusing on a different approach

  The winning SuperFlyer concept came from a collaboration of Shalin Amin, Holly Hagen, Leslie Kang, and our buddy Jake Cressman.

• Book Review: Deconstructing Product Design, by William Lidwell and Gerry Manacsa – …the color commentary from design thinkers such as interaction designer Jon Kolko, product designer Scott Henderson and design researcher Steve Portigal….While I never imagined that product design would have a sounding board to rival the judges of American Idol, Deconstructing Product Design provides exactly such a chorus. So while Tickle Me Elmo himself is lavished with product love worthy of Paula Abdul, the oversexed and strangely hydrocephalic-headed Bratz dolls spark diverse criticism and discussion. As a writer for a design blog, critiquing a book that brings together disparate voices critiquing products is (a) rather meta, and (b) totally hypocritical, but the remarkable thing about observing the way culture is observed is that it rarely fails to entertain.

• The Ephemera Society is a non-profit body concerned with the collection, preservation, study and educational uses of hand-written and printed ephemera. – The term ‘ephemera’ covers a wide range of documents including leaflets, handbills, tickets, trade cards, programmes and playbills, printed tins and packaging, advertising inserts, posters, newspapers and much more. In the words of the society’s founder, Maurice Rickards, “the minor transient documents of everyday life”.

  Essentially produced to meet the needs of the day, such items reflect the moods and mores of past times in a way that more formal records cannot. Collectors of printed ephemera vary in their approach. Some focus on the ephemera of a particular trade or profession, others are interested in its social or graphic history. Other ephemerists collect documents simply as evocative reminders of the past.

• What does it mean when getting access to medical care looks like getting tickets for a popular concert? – Ottawa's chief medical officer of health announced Thursday that the city will start issuing single-use, non-transferable wristbands in place of tickets to indicate each person's place in the queue. He expects that to make things fairer than the ticket system for others in line. "People are picking up tickets and then disappearing, picking up more than one ticket, just generally misusing and gaming the system," Levy said.

  Until now, some healthy people have been picking up tickets ahead of time so their children or other vulnerable relatives won't have to spend hours waiting in crowds at the clinics, where they could be exposed them to diseases such as swine flu. The new system could prevent them from taking such measures.