Matt Law

Heston's most important ingredient for innovation

List of Google mashups / projects from around the world

A collection of awesome Google-related projects from people around the world, some good ones here:

1. Global Billboard
2. YouTubeDisko
3. Translate beat box
4. Google Chrome - Canopy
5. You are here

Anatomy of the Stuxnet computer virus

Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus from Patrick Clair on Vimeo.

w3c HTML 5 page: loving this

 

 

It stands strong and true, resilient and universal as the markup you write. It shines as bright and as bold as the forward-thinking, dedicated web developers you are. It's the standard's standard, a pennant for progress. And it certainly doesn't use tables for layout.

w3c HTML 5 page

Chromaroma - love this - make a game from your travel

Chromaroma from Mudlark on Vimeo.

Chromaroma is a game that shows you your movements and location as you swipe your Oyster Card in and out of the Tube (Bus, Tram and Boat coming soon).It connects communities of people who cross paths and routes on a regular basis, and encourages people to make new journeys and use public transport in a different way by exploring new areas and potentially using different modes of public transport.

Chromaroma by Mudlark

 

RSA Animate: drive

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Just in case you have been living under a rock. Worth looking at this if you are thinking about how to motivate anyone you work with. Money doesn't cut it.

 

Put all the geeks in one room and they will change your company?

Campaign reports a story today about how JWT have launched a new arm called ‘JWT Experience’ to focus on technology and interactive. What everyone else is spending their time doing there right now I am not sure – all the pre 1999 stuff? 

In principle it sounds like an interesting idea, and I guess they have been inspired by BBH Labs and the success of that, but in this day and age is it a good idea for an ad agency to set up another ‘technology’ department? It’s quite anachronistic, and reminds me of the ad agencies all starting a digital agency in 2000-2002 to ‘do’ digital.

If you look at a lesson from big business, they all set up a digital brand in the early days to safely test the digital territory. Abbey National set up “Cahoot” so people could do online banking and British Gas set up “house.co.uk” so people could submit meter readings. Over the longer term these extensions became a hindrance, as it was the core of the business needed to change. Things were able to happen quicker when you can put a bunch of people together and say you’re the digital guys, but the challenge is affecting the core.

So in a way the development today is good for JWT because it helps slow moving organisations innovate, and the devil knows that JWT is that – but the innovation happens at the edges. For as long as there is a separate department who is responsible for interactivity, rather than it being central to the efforts of the business, it will always be window dressing.

How many meetings is too many meetings?

Following on from my earlier post about 'brainstorming' I was interested to read about the new book from the guys behind 37signals - the productivity people behind basecamp. It's called Re:work and it's about getting stuff done, a topic close to my heart. You can download a preview PDF here. I am not sure if I totally agree with their comments on meetings as they see them (perhaps rightly) as a block to actually doing things, and this makes them Bad and Wrong.

I certainly have worked with a couple of companies where all the marketing people are in meetings all day long and then work in the evening, and you wonder if all this group activity and consensus building actually helps make better products in the end.

At their worst I think meetings are responsibility sharing mechanisms. Building excuses for failure and sharing the blame: "it wasn't my fault, we agreed it in a meeting".  However, many of the same principles apply for meetings as they do for brainstorms, you are essentially exchanging productivity for team building and developing a shared sense of purpose. I heard something interesting the other day, in that at least 50% of the purpose of a meeting has got nothing to do with the work, it is about engendering the feeling of joint responsibility and having a common goal. 

Nonetheless, the following tips from the 37signals people may be helpful if you find yourself in 6 hours of meetings today:

• Set a timer. When it rings, meeting’s over. Period.
• Invite as few people as possible.
• Always have a clear agenda.
• Begin with a specific problem.
• Meet at the site of the problem instead of a conference room. Point to real things and suggest real changes.
• End with a solution and make someone responsible for implementing it.

Augmented reality gaming: with a goldfish

We (Elvis) launched this week an augmented reality game for the Britvic water brand Drench. It’s an on-pack promotion for bottled water (sounds boring) in which you go online to play an augmented reality game where you use your webcam to burst bubbles by hitting them with your head. (sounds interesting!). There is a code that will be on a lot of water bottles in the coming months which will qualify you for prizes.

Drench Goldfish - one beat ahead

Minority report: g-speak demonstration

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Radically condensed demonstration of oblong's g-speak spatial operating environment