Author Archives: jim

An Elevator Story

Design and use…

Nokia, Human Behavior Research, 3rd World Poverty

Says it all

1983 All Over Again

Ah, 1983, I remember it well. I was selling 45 rpm, 7-inch singles for CBS Records (Michael Jackson’s Thriller had just been released) and the folks from headquarters brought in a new fangled thing called a Compact Disc, with a just-off-the-boat Japanese Sony CD player with a voltage converter. I think the CD they played [...]

A Little Place Of My Own

I was recently advised that hoteliers treat New York City much like a separate country within the United States. NYC has its own gravity and way of working. As major (and minor) hotel companies strive to find a little bit of differentiation within an increasingly monolithic industry, the New York Times profiles an architect who [...]

The Kids Are (Mostly) Alright

Pro Sound News has published an article about the latest statistics for digital music downloading by “tweens”, those children between 9 and 14. While the slant in this article is decidedly negative (it is a trade publication after all), the stats show that most kids of this age group are using paid or legal downloading [...]

Grass Just As Broke On The Other Side Of The Fence

Natalie Merchant made headlines half a decade ago when she decided to leave the confines of a major label contract and go it alone, setting up her own independent label for her releases. Seen as a maverick move by the status quo, Merchant and her manager stated at the time that she would ultimately make [...]

Crying Wii Wii Wii All The Way Home

 
The Wii seems to be inspiring lots of motion interactive uses beyond the games that play on the box. I can see a whole niche film industry spring up around this little hack. You could call it the Open Window movement.
DIY virtuoso Johnny Chung Lee has already more than proven himself with his Wiimote whiteboard [...]

The best article on the future of music, ever.

I met David Byrne twice. Once when the Talking Heads played the Boomer Theater in Norman, Oklahoma on tour for their second album. We sat up in the old projection room aka green room sipping Heineken’s with the rest of the band. And once a few years later in the Stop Making Sense days when [...]

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

The science of robots gets better and better. Balance seems to have been solved, and now dexterity has been added to the robotic mix.
Toyota’s new robot can play the violin, help the aged
TOKYO (AFP) — Toyota Motor on Thursday unveiled a robot that can play the violin as part of its efforts to develop futuristic [...]

Next Year’s Marketing

The predictions for what will be hot next are a staple at this time of year. This is true for consumer items and for business trends. I liked this list of marketing ideas for 2008.
Few marketing programs completely fulfill one’s hopes. In the new year, marketers should avoid over-hyped opportunities to focus on measuring success [...]