In Brands We Trust

This “transparency” thing has got me thinking.
If you’re not bogged down in the delightful world of marketing, here’s a quick catch-up. It’s pretty much what it sounds like. The metaphorical extension of the physical property of allowing light to pass through a material… that is: openness, communication and accountability. It’s all the buzz in the [...]

Without You They’re All Lost

I’m a working father of a 5 year old cat.
I’ve thought about taking on more responsibility, perhaps a Rottweiler or Doberman, but we’ll be moving to a small inner-city apartment soon and our carefully drawn floor-plans indicate that our new lounge room is so small that even reading a book on the couch is only [...]

When Will The Cost Of Education Go Digital?

I think I’ve mentioned it before here, but I’ve been thinking for a long time of doing some further studies. The two things that have been holding me back, to varying degrees, are time and money. To some extent I’ve managed to solve the time issues, but because I’m outside of my own country the [...]

Conspicuous Expression

I was reading a marketing magazine over the weekend, and it did something all the way through that I’ve seen in many other places. It lumped all social media, and in particular Facebook and Twitter, together like they’re all the same thing.
You can fit all kinds of online systems under this same nebulous category, but [...]

Build Things People Want

I love getting Josh Spear’s blog in my feeds. It’s full of cool hipster stuff I can’t be bothered ordering online, but it’s always on-the-pulse, interesting and great to look at. I feel like I’m getting reflected cred just by reading it.
I’m not so sure I love Josh Spear. At 24 he’s busy flying around [...]

All The Cool Kids Are Doing It, Really

If you’re a fan of TV series Heroes then you’ll have met Eric Doyle, “The Puppet Master”. He raises his hands in the air and starts moving them around and everyone’s forced to follow him.
My friend the Astro cable TV network and I have been holed up in a hotel room in Brunei for 2 [...]

AWARE Shows That Singapore Now Has A New Mouth, And It Has Teeth

I saw something happen in media and information in Singapore this month that I’ve never really seen before.
If you’re Singaporean you probably haven’t been able to surf any local sites without scrolling over AWARE in the past week or two.
The women’s rights association was hijacked during their AGM by what seems at this stage to [...]

SheepTool – Remote Group Decision Interface

“SheepTool offers a better, more natural alternative to videoconferencing. At meeting time, everyone logs onto a shared virtual workspace and opens up a communal audio connection, the Bleatspace. At the same time, a round field is shown onscreen, and clustered in the middle are icons that represent each participant, consisting of nothing more than a [...]

Smile, Any Time Is Social Media Time

Is social media getting a bit too invasive? We’ve probably all had dinner with someone who photographs our food, and I recently appeared on Facebook having a very bad hair day and covered in kitchen-prep sweat because the dinner party was being “documented”, but there are still places you expect to be safe from the [...]

The End Of Cyberspace

“With every iteration of social media the overlay between the virtual and real worlds becomes closer. In ten years we’ve moved from abstract, anonymised virtual presences to social networks that map closely on to people’s lives. The next step, hastened by mobile internet and GPS uptake, is the ‘end of cyberspace’ – digital information becoming [...]