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September 16, 2011 - Comments Off on A Library of Links

A Library of Links

A shrewdness of apes. A business of ferrets. A team of horses. A convocation of eagles. A parliament of owls. A company of parrots. An army of frogs. A group of animals always receives a name, and links being like animals in the wild, we've decided that a collection of links is called a library.

This week's edition of The Thinking Mechanism is a library of links:

• RIM Off 19%: Year View Weaker; Margins Going Down. Some people we know, that in the past swore by their blackberries, are now awaiting the iPhone 5. Why put your faith into something that seems to be fading, they seem to be asking.

• Jensen Harris shows what makes a great Metro app, and demonstrates the future of Windows. Mind you the tablet and OS shown are early betas and will not be available to the public for a year. A lot can happen in a year. A lot will happen in a year.

• The Boston Globe implements responsive design on their site. Beautiful and clean information and visual design Are you watching NYTimes.com?

• The United States of Design: Fast Company selects the 50 most influential designers in America, while First Lady Michelle Obama honors National Design Awards Winners.

• The much awaited Google+ API is now available.

• 48 hours of footage are uploaded to YouTube every minute. And now that they've added a built-in editor to the site the number is sure to rise.

• Google+ wants to be like Twitter wants to be like Facebook wants to be like Google+. Next step: Facebook launches a subscribe button.

• To help all the marketeers that are questioning the value of Promoted Tweets, Twitter opens up their web analytics via a free dashboard.

• In the UK a fight to extend copyright is won. Are copyright terms on their way to being permanent? Disney sure hopes so.

• And lastly, using technology to do something just cause it's cool: dynamic water signage/sculpture.

 

The Thinking Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Fridays, covering the ideas The Mechanism is thinking and talking about with our peers and clients.

 

Published by: antonioortiz in The Thinking Mechanism
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September 9, 2011 - Comments Off on The Egg

The Egg

During meetings, on phone calls, while casually talking in the hallway, someone utters the phrase "it's a chicken and egg thing." It is usually uttered to describe a challenge where determining what should happen first is hard to ascertain. In reality the whole chicken and the egg metaphor is just an easy way to not make a decision. By hiding behind an aphorism a decision is postponed, the conversation put on hold.

Well, the answer is the egg. So there.

Now you can't say "what came first?" because you know the answer. So, don't postpone the decision, keep the conversation going.

Yes, the egg.

The chicken evolved from another animal. Maybe a dinosaur, maybe a bird, maybe some other creature we have yet to discover. Chickens are mutants. Some animal laid an egg, inside that egg was a mutation and when it hatched, a chicken was born.

Except, once I started writing this and went searching for the scientific evidence that I held as truth I learned British scientists had discovered a protein they claim unequivocally proves the chicken came first.

The scientists found that a protein found only in a chicken's ovaries is necessary for the formation of the egg. The egg can therefore only exist if it has been created inside a chicken. The protein speeds up the development of the hard shell, which is essential in protecting the delicate yolk and fluids while the chick grows inside the egg, the report said.  "It had long been suspected that the egg came first but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first," said Dr. Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University's Department of Engineering Materials, according to the Mail." The protein had been identified before and it was linked to egg formation, but by examining it closely we have been able to see how it controls the process," he said.

Well, the answer is the chicken. So there.

Every day you have the capacity to know more than the day before. Every day the potential exists for you to realize that something you held as absolute truth it's not.

Next time someone says it's a chicken and egg thing, just say the chicken came first, make a decision, move the conversation, question your assumptions, get the thing done, and go learn something new.

The Thinking Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Fridays, covering the ideas The Mechanism is thinking and talking about with our peers and clients.

Published by: antonioortiz in The Thinking Mechanism
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September 2, 2011 - Comments Off on Water Always Wins

Water Always Wins

It used to be that art was the device we used to view ourselves within the world around us. Art would help us see things in new ways, with new perspectives. Once you stood in front of Monet's Water Lilies at MoMA, a massive triptych the size of a wall, you never looked at water the same again.

Today technology is what we use to view ourselves, but unlike art, the better the technology gets the more introspective the perspective becomes. We are coddled by algorithms and mobile devices to do what we want, the way we want it, when we want it, everything shifting towards us and not the world around us.

As hurricane Irene assaulted our area with it's macabre beauty and destruction, it was hard not to think that water is truly the enemy of technology. Hard not to think that we need more artists using technology to create art that shifts our viewfinder outwards allowing us to see things again for the first time.

That is precisely what two young filmmakers did while Irene pummeled the streets of New York, and in turn shared with us a new, unexpected perspective of the city we love and often take from granted.

The Thinking Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Fridays, covering the ideas The Mechanism is thinking and talking about with our peers and clients.

Published by: antonioortiz in The Thinking Mechanism
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August 26, 2011 - Comments Off on The P is for Paul

The P is for Paul

This week we saw an earthquake hit New York, a hurricane shutting down the city's massive subway system, Google forfeiting $500 Million generated by online ads for Canadian pharmacies and the aftermath of HP's decision to flat out get out of the PC business, but the biggest news of the week was the resignation of Steven P. Jobs as CEO of Apple.

Though it did not come as a surprise, what with the medical leave and the move of the publication of his biography from next year to this November, it did shock. We knew it was coming, and yet it startled us.

Many stories have been published in response to his resignation, and about the future of Apple, including many profiles of Tim Cook who was immediately named CEO in perfect succession.

[ Shame on all those who have only focused on the sexuality of the man whose operational genius allowed Apple to produce the Macs, iMacs, Macbooks, Airs, iPods, iPhones and iPads the way they wanted while simultaneously maintaining an envied inventory chain worldwide, leading Apple to profits so large they recently had more money in the bank than the US government and surpassed Exxon Mobile (for a brief period of time) as the world's most valuable company. So if you want to talk about who the man sleeps with go ahead, you are an idiot. ]

Jobs reinvented many industries and forced all of us to reconsider what we thought was the norm. There is a reason we always hear the question "how would Apple do it?"

I was tempted to include lists to my favorite articles concerning the resignation, a quick search would yield many of those. Instead I'll share this: I wrote my university application essays on a Mac. All my college papers, dissertations, assignments, all done on Macs. I made a website to sell the arts, in 1993, on a Mac. All the career-elevating work I've ever done in my life, happened on a Mac (and now on an iPhone and an iPad as well). All the work we are doing here for our clients, happens mostly on Macs (and every time we have to test a website on a PC I am reminded why). Many call such loyalty fanboy-ism, and yes, there is a touch of that, but the truth is simpler. At every step of our lives when we wanted to challenge ourselves, when we had to challenge ourselves creatively, when we've pursued something so large we weren't sure how we could do it, or whether we could do it at all, an Apple product helped us forge ahead. It really is that simple.

Oh alright, one link, the commencement speech is really a must see.

And in the spirit of all those amazing keynotes that I will surely miss:

One More Thing.

Pixar.

Because of Pixar we know that Apple will have a bright future without Steve Jobs as CEO. Jobs has been an integral part of the growth of Pixar and yet we seldom think of him when talking about the unprecedented string of multi-billion-dollar-earning movies created by the studio. Because Jobs' biggest contribution at Pixar is the company's team and culture, the way they work and create, in essence the company itself. Likewise, Jobs' greatest accomplishment at Apple is not any of the many products they've created but a team, a work ethic, a company capable of producing them.

The Thinking Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Fridays, covering the ideas The Mechanism is thinking and talking about with our peers and clients.

Published by: antonioortiz in Pharmaceuticals, The Thinking Mechanism
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August 19, 2011 - Comments Off on A Penny for your Thoughts

A Penny for your Thoughts

"A definition is the enclosing of a wilderness of ideas within a wall of words." Samuel Butler

In last weekend's The New York Times the paper featured an Opinion article by Neal Gabler titled The Elusive Big Idea. In the article Gabler explores the very definition of ideas and thinking. What is an idea? What are they for? And, do we care?

If our ideas seem smaller nowadays, it’s not because we are dumber than our forebears but because we just don’t care as much about ideas as they did. In effect, we are living in an increasingly post-idea world — a world in which big, thought-provoking ideas that can’t instantly be monetized are of so little intrinsic value that fewer people are generating them and fewer outlets are disseminating them, the Internet notwithstanding. Bold ideas are almost passé.

It is not so much that bold ideas are passé as it is that bold ideas tend to be very costly.

Patent lawsuits are rampant at the moment, everyone suing everyone else, from Lodsys suing independent developers (and Apple trying to defend them), to Google, Apple, Microsoft, HTC, Samsung, and others all suing each other in various incestuous permutations fighting to put up the the walls that will determine what "mobile" means.

And it's not just technology. Lawyers, especially lawyers from Thompson Patent Law, with their walls of words, are doing a great job to make anyone pursuing creative thought feel like the simple act of thinking is always pending litigation. Check This Out to find out the easy solution to sort out this issue quickly.

Ultimately there are two kinds of ideas: those that live in the ether of concepts and angels and dreams and those that are made known through action.

The boldest idea is the one that is actually implemented. Anyone can have a thought, anyone can try to define it, contain it, claim it, sue for it, but few, those that dare develop it, build it, are the true thinkers.

Bold ideas may be passé, but bold, differentiating action is not, and never will be.

Most importantly, if you can make something happen from an idea once, you can do it again.

With apologies to Benjamin Franklin, well done is better than well sued.

The Thinking Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Fridays, covering the ideas The Mechanism is thinking and talking about with our peers and clients.

Published by: antonioortiz in The Thinking Mechanism
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August 12, 2011 - Comments Off on The Thinking Mechanism – 8/12/11

The Thinking Mechanism – 8/12/11

The Thinking Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Fridays, covering the ideas The Mechanism is thinking and talking about with our peers and clients.

The week in quick links:

• beta620: Experimental Projects from The New York Times.

• Phase Change Materials Bring Us Closer to "Brain-like" Computers.

• The Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors.

• Web Typography for the Lonely.

• An 80 page dissertation on what makes Instagram tick.

• Twitter's Jack Dorsey reportedly invests in "new kind" of marking firm led by Ex-Apple Exec.

• Björk's Biophilia album-app: reviews from a techie and a music fan.

• Cooking classes, Live on Google+.

• A preference box you want to uncheck on LinkedIn.

Published by: antonioortiz in The Thinking Mechanism
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August 5, 2011 - Comments Off on The Thinking Mechanism – 8/5/11

The Thinking Mechanism – 8/5/11

The Thinking Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Fridays, covering the ideas The Mechanism is thinking and talking about with our peers and clients.

The week in quick links:

• A recent study determined the most influential person on Twitter is a Brazilian comic you've never heard of.

• The interactive trailer for BBC Earth's film One Life is fantastic.

• 2011 Emmy Nominations for Outstanding Main Title Design. - The best in storytelling motion graphics.

• Adobe previews Edge, an HTML5 tool.

• The Expressive Web is the companion showcase site to Adobe's Edge.

• Getting Bin Laden - What happened that night in Abbottabad. by Nicholas Schmidle for The New Yorker. -  "The teams had barely been on target for a minute, and the mission was already veering off course."

• Facebook Buys E-book Maker Push Pop Press, Plans to Integrate its Tech.

• This American Life, When Patents Attack - "Why would a company rent an office in a tiny town in East Texas, put a nameplate on the door, and leave it completely empty for a year? The answer involves a controversial billionaire physicist in Seattle, a 40 pound cookbook, and a war waging right now, all across the software and tech industries."


Published by: antonioortiz in The Thinking Mechanism
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July 29, 2011 - Comments Off on The Thinking Mechanism – 7/29/11

The Thinking Mechanism – 7/29/11

The Thinking Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Fridays, covering the ideas The Mechanism is thinking and talking about with our peers and clients.

The week in quick links:

• Now that you finally got an invite, how Spotify works.

• Google Offers To Re-Write Your Webpages On The Fly, Promising 25% To 60% Speed Improvements.

• OK GO's next viral hit, featuring Pilobolus, goes interactive with Chrome: All Is Not Lost.

• Apple makes Xcode free to all with release of 4.1 on Mac App Store.

• Information Architects - Should you scroll or flip pages on the screen?

• Think Quarterly by Google hits the US with The Innovation Issue.

• This is why your newspaper is dying.

• And lastly, Lucas loses Star Wars copyright case at Supreme Court.

Published by: antonioortiz in The Thinking Mechanism
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July 22, 2011 - Comments Off on The Thinking Mechanism – 7/22/11

The Thinking Mechanism – 7/22/11

The Thinking Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Fridays, covering the ideas The Mechanism is thinking and talking about with our peers and clients.

The week in quick links:

• Mac OS X Lion is out. Here is what to do to prepare for it, what to expect from it, and a massive book-length review from Ubernerd John Siracusa.

• Apple said to be considering making a bid for Hulu.

• Quarterly results are out: Nokia, Microsoft, Apple.

• Apple opens Business App Store for volume purchases.

• R.I.P., Google Labs.

• Andy Hertzfeld on Google+, UI design and how Bob Dylan influenced the Mac.

• Translation technology may let humans speak with dolphins.

• Reinvent NYC.gov - An unprecedented community event at General Assembly to kick off the reinvention of New York City's primary web presence. Civic participation meets the digital age.

• Speed Matters: How Ethernet Went From 3 Mbps to 100 Gbps … and Beyond.

• And lastly, Russia classifies beer as alcoholic, until now it was considered a food stuff.

Published by: antonioortiz in The Thinking Mechanism
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July 15, 2011 - Comments Off on The Thinking Mechanism – 7/15/11

The Thinking Mechanism – 7/15/11

The Thinking Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Fridays, covering the ideas The Mechanism is thinking and talking about with our peers and clients.

Consider this one the take a break from work edition. It is perhaps a bit New York City centric but the spirit of it applies universally. If you don't take the time to experience things outside the realm of your day to day work you are severely cutting your ability to be inspired. In addition, as Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons convey in their book The Invisible Gorilla, if you are hyper-focused you are very likely to begin experiencing a psychological phenomenon that renders you unable to see things that are right in front of you, in a kind of blindness that compromises your intuition.

With that in mind here are a couple of suggestions to clear your mind and perhaps lead you to new experiences:

• Viral video kings OK GO have developed a collaborative dance piece with the fantastic Pilobolus dance company. They are in residence at The Joyce Theater until August 6 with the band dancing with the company on July 25 and 27. If it takes OK GO to get you to see dance at The Joyce Theater, the home of dance in NYC, then so be it. Your creative life will be richer for it.

• British company Punchdrunk has developed an extraordinary new work called Sleep No More. They company have taken over three warehouses and transformed them into The McKittrick Hotel. You arrive, meet at the bar, and then a strange character hands you a mask. For the next three hours, in silence and while wearing the mask, you traverse the hotel exploring complexly designed spaces and follow the actors as they re-enact a version of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Everything, from the sound to the objects in the rooms, is tone perfect. You are free to do as you please and explore. In a recent performance I followed Lady Macbeth and watched her wash her bloody hands. Characters sometimes use the audience to pass notes to other characters.

Sleep No More is wordless Shakespeare, living film noire, the best of contemporary dance, true augmented reality, masterful storytelling, respectful homage, detailed design and that is not even taking in consideration the technical requirements needed to produce and perform such a "play" every night. Punchdrunk have taken the performing arts and remixed them creating something completely new, yet familiar, and absolutely spellbinding.

• And speaking of Shakespeare, you have not experienced New York completely until you have attended Shakespeare In The Park, produced by The Public Theater. It consistently presents some of the best Shakespeare productions with Central Park as the backdrop. This year's productions are The Merchant of Venice and The Winter's Tale and they run until July 30th.

• Now until July 24 is restaurant week in NYC, with dozens of restaurants creating prix fixe menus that are affordable and a great way to discover new cuisines. Have a decent meal with friends for a change and for goodness sake, no talk of work.

• Looking for something that you can explore at your own pace? Starting July 24 and running until November 7 The Museum of Modern Art is displaying Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects in the special exhibitions gallery. From the exhibition description "Talk to Me explores the communication between people and things. All objects contain information that goes well beyond their immediate use or appearance. In some cases, objects like cell phones and computers exist to provide us with access to complex systems and networks, behaving as gateways and interpreters. Whether openly and actively, or in subtle, subliminal ways, things talk to us, and designers help us develop and improvise the dialogue."

• Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, at The Met until August 7, will make you question everything you know about fashion and art and their roles in your life. It is a glorious tribute to an artist gone too soon. A friend recently described it as "the most lavish and gorgeous visual concert ever produced" and I have to agree.

• Can't attend any of these this weekend. Well, iTunes has Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 available for $.99 rental until next Tuesday. Revisit Part 1 and then head to the theater to catch Part 2 as the Harry Potter movie saga comes to an end.

• For those of you that have not read the Harry Potter books, let me try to entice you to read them with the words of Stephen King "Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity." J.K. Rowling single-handedly got a generation of children to read and at over 3000 pages total across seven books that's a lot of reading. She changed the publishing industry. The recently announced Pottermore is set to change publishing once more as she releases the novels in ebook format. But the main point here is not the praise or the business, the point is that a single mother, during tough times in her life, had a singular vision and worked very hard to create a world were hard work, loyalty and persistence pay off. So go right ahead, take a break from work, dive into the series, you may not like it, you may love it, you may be re-reading it, but above all you may learn how to apply that same level of creative detail to your own work.

There you have it, no excuses, walk away from the screens for a few hours and fuel your creativity with something unknown.

Published by: antonioortiz in The Thinking Mechanism
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