Und nebenbei fällt auf, dass Watchberlin nochmal ordentlich zugelegt hat, was User Experience, Interface und Surface und Underface-Design angeht. Mit anderen Worten, es flutscht und läuft und funktioniert (fast) alles. Hut ab.
Update: Sowas, Watchberlin kommen nicht klar, erst hab ich ein hässliches De-Bug-Fenster auf meinem Blog und dann statt Broder Friedman im Film. Schade.
This last weekend I was in Hamburg, attending the big socialdemocratic party summit (Bundesparteitag) that gathered several thousand people to redefine social democratic politics and elect their representers like Kurt Beck, party leader and often said to be a provincial teddy but who proved to have the strength to lead the party on the path towards the next elections.
I liked the atmosphere and the political discussions and met many interesting people. I also quite liked most of the programmatic decisions like a general basic school with ten obligatory classes for all or trying to ban rightwing extremist party NPD. Strange enough in the big media the idea of a general speed limit of 130 kmh had the biggest echo, a very banal decision I don’t care about at all. Well, it’s the auto-country here.
My job was to present and promote the new political community for the social democrats: MeineSPD.net. We (A&B FACE2NET and the SPD) have been working on that platform for quite some time so it was like attending the birth of a child, very anxious about how it would see its first light. And the reactions were amazing. Of course, there are many things to improve, but in general, the people loved their new community were they can connect to other party members and people interested in social democratic politics, upload fotos, discuss in forums, build groups and blog. In the course of the three days there were about 3000 registrations. Simply amazing.
Schrödingers Cat, installation by Reinhard WannerThese three have something in common: It’s the promise for something big that’s hiding behind it. When I heard Radioheads “OK Computer” for the first time or Notwists “Shrink”, I knew it were great pieces of music I am just not able to understand yet. I listened to them again and again and slowly they unfolded their magic just like I expected.
With system theory it happened to me in a similar way. The first time I heard about the idea of seeing society as a communicative system that consists of communication and nothing else I was fascinated yet unable to grasp only ten percent of what it really means as a consequence. Now, I even read books understanding that their authors criticize system theory without having understood them.
As for quantum theory I am still struggling – what about these strange states and probabilities little quantums are in? Being waves and particles at the same time? And what about Schrödinger’s cat who is dead AND alive at the same time? I know there is something big waiting for me, I just need to be patient to understand.
In the meantime I listen to Stars new album “In Our Bedroom After The War” (order on itunes) because it’s really great and look forward to Chikinki‘s new album “Brace Brace” which will be out on Weekender records in November. Singer Rupert’S voice still sounds pretty whiny but very charismatic and the whole Chikinki-experience has become much bigger and broader. Check out “Oh my God” from the new album:
[audio:http://weekenderrecords.de/mp3/chikinki-oh_my_god.mp3]
Friday and Saturday I attended the Jahrestagung (annual summit) of the German scientist community for organizational communication. It was not only nice to meet Thomas Pleil and Ansgar Zerfaß again and to listen some very interesting insights about the professional world of organizational communication like Vodafone, EADS or Scholz & Friends but also good to realize that I could follow most of the speeches pretty much – after all, we had the most advanced scientists on that subject gathered here. And I was delighted to see, that the vibe amongst all these scientists and professionals was very relaxed and folksy. In the end we (I comprise myself here) do not only like to talk much, but also: to listen.
The museum of natural history in Berlin has recently been renovated and now features an impressive amount of interactive use of multimedia stations: 3D-movies that take the environment into account, moving screens, touch sensitive information. It’s full of kids and they seem to have a lot of fun learning.
Here you’ll see an interactive projection about animal families.
That sex porn was one of the main drivers of the internet (and now its mobile derivatives) is a statement that surely can be discussed but still pops up here and then again and again.
And taking this story on BoingBoing about remote-controlled fruit flies into account, adding the fact that one of the scientist behind the fruit flies experiments is Dr Gero Miesenböck and funded by the us military brings us to one sad conclusion: Despite being humans, complexly developed creatures, sex and violence are still the main drivers of our progress.
Example picture taken from the Brandnew-blog
The “before – after” effect is not only curious and interesting for plastic surgery but also for corporate design. Questions and answers about what has changed, why and how, give not only experts a good background but also provide the enthusiastic design amateur with useful insights about the use of colors and forms and what effect they might have on the public image of an organization.
Brandnew is a new and well done blog about just this subject by UnderConsideration, a network of web savvy designers, founded by the Mexicans Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit who reside in Brooklyn, NYC now and with many contributors from the US and Canada.
Plus, they have these cute little chicks as their logo and heraldic animal..
[via ich.mir.mich]
Es ging sogar als Pressemeldung und Blogeintrag raus und ich bin stolz, auch darauf hinzuweisen: Ab sofort bin ich bei A&B FACE2NET mitverantwortlich für den Bereich Digital Conversations.
Ich hoffe darauf hinarbeiten zu können, dass dies keine leere Phrase bleibt (Update: Ein Rückblick auf Projekte wie die Roten Blogs oder die Programmwerkstatt für die SPD, dem Mutterblog oder auf die Dinge, die da kommen für das BMAS kann diese Sorge durchaus entkräften), sondern wir tatsächlich als Kommunikationsagentur helfen können, Gespräche im Internet sichtbar und verständlich zu machen und zusammen mit den Kunden Strukturen zu entwickeln, um angemessen darauf zu reagieren und die Crowd-Intelligence da draußen zu nutzen. Die Erfahrung, die wir hier vor allem mit Projekten aus der politischen Sphäre gewonnen haben, sollte dabei durchaus hilfreich sein.
Continue reading
Playmusicmagazine is an awesome online mag about music which has one of the most intriguing user interfaces I have ever seen. Videos, soundfiles, pictures and text just blend into a highly engaging and entertaining mix of multimedia. And the Oslo-based crew have taste in music without letting themselves be constrained by musical genres! And now they need help, that’s why they asked me to pass this job offer on to you, dear readers, to work as editor and contributor for their international online mag. Read Lars Baek’s email after the break. Continue reading
Eine nette Geschichte, die sich die PR-Firma Euromarcom für die Schüler Community Breakster ausgedacht hat: Bill Kaulitz, Sänger von Tokyo Hotel sei dort angeblich anonym unterwegs, aber an der Stimme erkannt worden! Stimme? Genau, und gleich wurde noch die Nachricht untergebracht, dass Breakster auch kostenloses VoIP zwischen Gruppenmitgliedern ermöglicht.
Schließlich wird noch auf die Betreiberfirma Smeet verlinkt. Dumm nur, dass dafür die Domain smeets.de verwendet wurde – ein Unternehmen, das Luftreinigungstechnologie herstellt. Nicht grade ein PR-Gau, aber doch ein witziges Versehen.
Update: Inzwischen ist der Link korrigiert.