The Art of the Possible

Try again

2009-09-17T00:33:34Z

I know, I know, I am a useless blogger. In my schedule I have regular “update blog” diary item. It is amazing how I lack the ability to keep to this commitment, though perhaps my personal trainer could also say the same about my running performance.

Perhaps I edit myself too much, lets have a quick summary of what comes top of mind.

Apple released snow leopard – I've installed it on my 17' Powerbook – its certainly quicker on the startup, and looks as polished as ever. The install and backup process took forever as the upgrade made me reformat my hard disk before I could install, so I had to do a time machine backup and restore, which all worked well, except it took almost 2 days

I have had a couple of apps crash and the exchange support is nice to see, I don't like the way it mixes and separates views of the mailbox, its not really comparable to an outlook client.

It also forced me to upgrade my Aperture post the upgrade which was a bit of a surprise and also knocked out my dj Traktor software which needed to be upgraded again and will give me a whole new world of pain as I try the setup with the CDJ and the Xone 4D is maintained. Anyway thats what dark winter nights are for.

ITag

2009-08-04T23:52:52Z

http://www.microsoft.com/tag/content/support/developer/

More about this – Shortly.

Revisiting the Long Tail & Woolworths

2009-02-04T01:02:16Z

Opportunity is all around. Perhaps some might call me crazy for stating that but wherever change occurs in a market, opportunity is also created.

Recent changes in our economy have been so great that it has caused business leaders to consider the situation to be a reset not just a recession. You can see this commentary by Tom Peters on his blog here.

If we are talking about a reset, then we we need to revaluating our tactics and strategies. Whatever you plan was, whatever you metrics were, its highly likely that you need to revisit them. That applies in virtually every personal and commercial plan you have, from home ownership to company floatation.

Thinking about this made me want to revisit a few key publications that have appeared in recent years.

The Long Tail by Chris Anderson

The long tail is about how endless choice has the ability to provide to generate huge demand, that the world is no longer focused on popularity ( remember when Top of the Pops mattered?) but on endless niches. Hits still matter, but there is a lot going on in the tail.

The concept of the long tail was easy to apply to books,DVDs and Music. But the use of the tail is appearing in other markets too, in particular foods (organic and gourmet products), clothing (vintage and custom clothing), even in brewing (micro brewers & distribution).

Even content itself can be exposed in the long tail, take a look at Guy Kawasaki and Alltop.com. So what does this mean?

1) a diverse inventory matters

2) exposing that inventory matters

3) customer experience matters

4) Having a brand that is known and trusted matters.

While the sad demise of Woolworths recently filled the media. Perhaps what it is less well known is how the brand has been bought by and will now appear as an online brand.

In the physical world Woolworths was always the place you thought “there is a good chance I might find it there”. Well, an online Woolworths undoubtedly has the potential to provide the same consumer experience, yet with an infinite amount of shelf space and inventory, it really can meet a very broad range of consumer queries.

Woolworths may well have a very prosperous future in the long tail.

Photosynth on CNN & Presidential Inauguration

2009-01-21T14:06:53Z

Earlier this week I posted a note about how a silverlight version of photosynth was now available. You can now see that tool used in the context of the Presidential inauguration on CNN.com.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/44.president/inauguration/themoment/

I think its great example of how images from different photographers using different cameras were able to capture a scene and link those images together to form a single view of a moment of history.

Photosynth viewer in Silverlight

2009-01-16T12:12:02Z

Many of you will now have had a chance to try out Photosynth which can be found at http://photosynth.net/

Photosynth can essentially stitch images together while maintaining ( if the image is shot correctly) the relative position of the image in relation to other images in three dimensions.

It you can then view these images using the photosynth viewer.

Earlier this week Microsoft announced the ability to playback photosynth images in a silverlight player.

The biggest impact of this is that photosynth viewing is that it is no longer dependant on the local machine. Therefore photosynths can now be viewed on PCs and MACs.

You can find more details about Photosynth and Silverlight here:

http://photosynth.net/silverlight/about.aspx

Take a look at the great barn in the sliverlight viewer.

Microsoft Surface and Tesco Wines

2009-01-11T22:04:00Z

I thought it about time I should write up a little about a trial project that was put together with Microsoft Surface with Tesco wines.

While Microsoft obviously supplied the base hardware. Two of our partners Identity Mine and Conchango worked on the design and development of the surface application.

As part of the trial the Technology was used at a Tesco Wines tasting event.

You can see a video of the application being used here.

I always enjoy the response we get when consumers try surface. Everything they think they can do with the surface, they inevitably can ( moving items, turning items around). The number of possible retail experiences that could be generated by such a technology seem huge.

MIX09 are you going?

2009-01-10T15:19:01Z

MIX is the key event for Microsoft in the Online space. This year’s event will be held in Las Vegas between the 18th and 20th of March.

Even if you can’t make it – its worth booking marking as all the content from the event will be posted online, and there will be many announcements posted up onto the site.

http://2009.visitmix.com/Default.aspx

Making a product that matters

2009-01-07T23:46:58Z

I’ve been reading “Design Matters: How great designs will make people love your company” by Robert Brunner and Stewart Emery.

Its an interesting text, though it does come over a little strong in the Apple/Jobs fan boy department.

Perhaps the observation that struck a cord with me the most was the concept of “mattering”.Does your product matter to someone?

There is a reference to Microsoft in the text, in terms that Microsoft software is used by millions of people everyday, only a small percentage would see that software as mattering to them. Its seen more as a utility.

Software can matter to people – Facebook matters, Twitter matters, Instant Messenger matters etc. People genuinely care about what such software does, it becomes intrinsic in their lives.

So how do you make your software matter?

Well that clearly comes from the experience your software enables not the software itself. I’m no experience designer but if you find this area interesting looking into the work of our Principle Researcher for Design at Microsoft, Bill Buxton might be a starting point.

Weekend: Books

2009-01-05T21:05:52Z

I have to admit to being a bit of book fiend. I just can’t walk past a bookshop without going in. I always seem to have a want list, and Christmas always gives me the excuse to go, sometimes literally, for larger volumes.

The first one is certainly the largest book I now own. It is certainly not bedtime reading material, and commands an entire desk for its reading.

The Le Corbusier book Le Grand is a massive volume in every sense of the word. It also presents a fantastic level of detail into the workings of one of the greatest design visionaries of the 20th Century. I am no book reviewer, but if you have any interest in Architecture or design, it really is worth a look.

I was also very lucky to pick up in LA a copy of Guy Bourdin beautiful two volume set – A Message For You. I love the photographic work of Guy Bourdin, he has never achieved the notoriety of many other famous photographers.

His work is so colorful and imaginative, full of narrative and intrigue. Its astonishing that the majority of the work was done in the 70s, without a hint of Photoshop.

The two other physically lighter volumes I picked up were:

Truman Capote- In Cold Blood

and the mind bending:

Michio Kaku – Physics of the Impossible.

Well you can’t say I don’t have diverse interests!, happy reading!

Microsoft Research & the Christmas Lectures

2008-12-29T23:35:43Z

I mentioned in a previously that Chris Bishop ( chief research scientist at Microsoft Cambridge) from will be presenting the Christmas lectures at the royal Institution , this year. You can find more details regarding the lectures below, the theme is the building of the ultimate computer.

http://www.rigb.org/christmaslectures08/

Although the Christmas lectures are aimed at a young audiences they are extremely well put together and they will be available on line from channel 5 – here.

That’s the wonder of Woolworths ( and the Media)

2008-12-29T23:13:50Z

Well, its all over bar the sale of the stores for dear old woolies.

A huge percentage of the population will be misty eyed at the demise of Woolworths. Once the only source of anything decent in a the small town high street. The creation or ever larger supermarkets and specialist stores eroded Woolies market offering down to a very large pick and mix selection.

My biggest irritation is that of the Media drive to point out business failure as sign of an ever increasing mammoth depression. If one were to believe the media,it would appear that there could well be no retailers left on the high street by next month.

The failures of Zavvi, Woolworths, MFI & Whittards all appearing to be signals of impending doom, and the need for the public to start digging allotments as soon possible.

But lets just take a little pause here. Were these good retailers? in good markets? selling products and creating propositions that consumers actually wanted?

You don’t need to be a retail analyst to figure out that selling CDs on the high street is not exactly a growing market these days.

But our dear media friends don’t make stories about how well some online business are growing, and growing very well.

Take ASOS.com for example:

Asos scope broadens as sales double

Now, I have no doubt there is a nasty full on recession on the way, but people still consume ( even if less). The right propositions to the right market still work.

The rise of Netbooks and Microsoft Windows 7

2008-12-29T18:51:33Z

As Marc recently noted I have been fortunate enough to try out a test build of Windows 7 on an Advent netbook.

There are plenty of reviews circulating on the web about the new capabilities of Windows 7. Take your pick from here.

What intrigued me the most, was the performance claims around the usage of Windows & on the ever growing trend of Netbooks PCs.

The Advent Machine (4211-B) has 1Gb of Memory. I have to admit to being very pleasantly surprised by the performance of Windows 7 in many of the areas that matter to me ( startup, shutdown, sleep & wake). I am always conscious of extolling the virtues of any technology that is not in the public domain yet, but from my personal tests, the performance on such a low specification machine is formidable.

The netbook is a clear emerging trend towards a true consumer, portable device for the user who perceives access to a full set of internet services as paramount.

To date this has been a trend that has been somewhat problematic for the end consumer. The challenge being that the majority of machines initially shipped with distributions of the Linux operating system. Whilst a technologically competent platform, the challenges of maintaining, updating and supporting such systems became a real challenge to the average consumer.

Netbooks could really be a platform for Windows to shine on in the future.

Food

2008-11-06T00:22:40Z

Or rather very good food, is becoming an increasingly hard an exclusive thing to find. Clearly having the time to have have had a lunch or two at a few Alain Ducasse restaurants in France has had an effect on me. I find France and its relationship with food intriguing . The words that come to mind are care, quality and pleasure.

The large majority of people I meet her care about, where their food comes from, right down to the region and how it was made.

There is a huge respect for the quality of the food and genuine pleasure in the consuming of that food.

In the UK we seem to have lost that skill and value from the fabric of our society. Our GDP may be higher, but we are defiantly not eating that well.

Windows Home Server

2008-11-04T16:21:24Z

So, your home PC dies ( disk fails, blows up etc). You haven't got a backup ( or if you have its only of a few things, and not very up to date). This would be the exact moment when you could say "never mind, I have a complete, up to date image of that PC on my windows home server, I can just get another machine and recover everything back". If you have not got Windows Home Server then you might be feeling slightly more upset.

And that's a really good reason, why having Windows Home Server is a very good idea.

Link to Windows Home Server

Over the next few weeks I will be getting my home server up and operational. I'll report back on the progress I make.

The Neglected Blog

2008-10-02T02:45:52Z

Well I have to admit to some failure in my ability to update and maintain this blog. The biggest sin in blogging appears to be failing to blog regularly. Really , I have tried! But I don't have a job with any real regular pattern to it, and I can easily find myself in different part of the country every day of the week.

I am also conscious about what I write. It just seems too easy to cut and paste a few links and say 'what do you think about that?' I don't think that adds value at all and devalues the purpose. surely one should be adding some thought or commentary.

I am also being more fastidious as I have been reading

What I talk about when I talk about running- Haruki Murakami

Murakami is one of my favourite authors.His style is very hard to explain. It always a first person narrative, and its deceptively simple. Its like sliding on very polished marble. Its beautifully smooth, it feels effortless but you know an awful lot of effort went into producing it.

His latest book, is even more humbling for me, as he writes about his running. He s very modest about his running, but the man can run! a marathon every year! 62 miles in day ! triathlons! It really is a demonstration of will. As he did with writing where he simply just started writing one day, the same is with running, he simply started running one day.

What impresses me the most is how he finds time to do this, plus all is other works. How he is so self disciplined and meticulous in what he does. Apart from the obvious benefits of exercise it also does help focus the mind , particularly as you grow older. The challenge of simply having the same drive you has when you were younger needs a degree of discipline and focus and somehow that can be be archived through physical effort.

Somehow i need to create a pattern in my own life that allows this physical effort and drive the production of better more steady work.

So how does this make me a better blogger? I am not really sure, I will have to work on it, you will be my judge.