Cleese On Creativity

I love me some John Cleese, and he has kind of a fascinating take on creativity. (Although I don’t want to believe it, because I care for my laptop to much.) I will say that about half of the stuff I’ve written has been thanks to a spark that hits me when I am asleep.

via: webcomics.com

We are a constantly stimulated people who multitask to the nth degree. We text and instant message and email all while we are having a conversation with the person standing right in front of us. Why then would we not want to bring more content to the largest screen in our house, the television. News of widgets being built into HD TVs for extra news, weather, sports, etc. seems like a nice option and I will admit when I saw it I was attracted. These widgets can bring extra content to your big screen and possibly tie into the content your currently watching. A commercial could bring not only the advertisement of the product but a chance for an impulse buy right there online. You could access character bios for your favorite sci-fi series or bring up a map of the area for the travel show your watching. Now while much of what I have just described is extrapolation from the current technology available, the key point is that television is running the show. Content originates from cable or satellite and extra information is added on.

Why not take it a step further and remove a middle man in the process. Content is created by artists, journalists, and other professionals and then bundled on television. If you want Comedy Central, your going to get the home shopping network as well. If cable is not willing to a la carte or even if they are would we not have more control over our consumption of content if our television is powered by the internet? All of the widgety type functionality I mentioned earlier could be achieved much more seamlessly with an internet delivery than with cable/satellite trying to bundle more services. Television content on the internet is very available but lacks the live feature of television. Being able to come to work the next day and discuss last night’s 30 Rock is not and option if you have to wait for it to show up on Hulu. It seems to me that this content delivery model is in for an overhaul.

For good or for bad the television experience, at some point, involves plopping down on the couch, turning on the television and flipping. Having to not make a decision of what to watch before getting a 3 second preview. In what I hope will be a new emerging media delivery model, streaming internet video does not offer this method of viewing. This is not the only shortfall of bringing the masses into the fold of internet television (hardware being the largest) but it is something to consider. My proposal: have a favorites list of channels/networks that would mimic televisions stations (this could be preset with popular sets and customizable). When “flipping” a “channel” would play a 10-15 second cold opening to draw viewers in and commercials could be inserted at any time after this. These programs could recycle after a 30 minute period to also mimic television operation. This concern may be a way off and is not the ideal operation of internet delivered video but I would like to see more people on board with a new model, this may be a piece in bridging the gap.

We finished up green screen photography for a client at Chroma Studios this week. We managed to get everything we needed on the shoot and I was very pleased with the outcome. Our talent was fantastic and we had a manageable schedule that we moved through at a good pace.

We managed to do some additional tests with our various HD cameras and I am increasingly impressed with the quality of footage that we are able to get out of a variety of capture devices. Our main camera was a Panasonic HDX900 shooting in 720p and a secondary Panasonic 200HVX. Both are fantastic, however, I did continue to shoot a variety of element tests using a Canon 5D Mark II and have continued to be impressed with the quality of the video at the price point.

The plates are noisier than what we get from the Panasonic cameras, but with the oversampling factor, the DSLRs are fantastic. This is a huge issue for keyed footage, but workable. The plates that come off the Canon in exteriors and well lit interiors are going to continue to pressure the lower end cameras coming out in the 2-3K price range.The form factor is very challenge to use, but in a studio or set environment, I think the cameras are extremely compelling.

The unlocking of the manual controls on the Canon’s has been a key element in their usefulness for pro’s and I think that we will see more accessories that help make this camera more usable in the field.

Do you know the way to San Jose? We do. WOOT!

The eLearning Guild’s annual developer conference is rapidly approaching. DevLearn 09 is sure to be a great event with keynotes from Leo Laporte and more. The conference this year is particularly interesting, with a complete ARG being played around a “Zombie Apocalypse” scenario. Teams, points, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and more are all coming together in a very fun interactive way. It’s been great so far! I’m looking forward to see where it goes once the conference gets started.

The Iona Group will be going, with myself, Mark Tovey and John Feser all attending. Mark and I will be presenting. Our topic is about the use of APIs in eLearning. It’s a topic that is pretty dear to us. We have learned quite a bit about this through our experience getting Doctum up and running. The concept of building a resuable, sharable codebase is very prevalent in web and interactive development, but we have found that in the eLearning community it is relatively unheard of.

This could be due to a number of things, but by and large it appears to us that this may be in large part due to the fact that eLearning tools are not focused on separating content from presentation and behavior.

This practice is the foundation of of OOP and implemented in all of our work at The Iona Group. We’re happy to talk to others about it.

Here is the link to our presentation… check it out.

The Iona Group’s Chad Udell and Mark Tovey will be presenting at the eLearning Guild’s annual developer conference, DevLearn. The session is titled: “Stop Building it from Scratch! How to Build a Reusable e-Learning Framework

“. The conference is held each fall in San Jose and draws thousands of eLearning Developers worldwide to come and learn about the latest eLearning development tools, techniques and strategies.

From the site description:

Is your organization constantly going
through the same development path to produce your e-Learning…
rehashing the same code, digging through line after line of spaghetti,
and not seeing any real reuse benefits? If you want to leverage your
intellectual property, and put your toolset to work for you, come ready
to take note of practical tools, tips, and techniques you can employ
immediately to enjoy productivity benefits.

In this session,
you’ll learn secrets that Rapid Development gurus use. If you are tired
of simple tools that speed up development, but really tie your hands
when it comes to true customization, you need to learn more about
application programming interfaces (APIs). The Web 2.0 world has
largely been shaped by the emergence of Web services and the dominance
of XML, yet so few e Learning development programs allow you to tap
into those powerful tools. You’ll leave this session with ideas on how
to build your own APIs, or use preexisting ones, right away.

In this session, you will learn:

• The benefits of building content in a reusable format
• Practical examples of reusable e-Learning concepts
• How to apply object-oriented development techniques to e-Learning
• What APIs are, and how you can use them to speed up development
• Techniques for designing your own e-Learning APIs
• Designing data schemas for flexibility

Audience:
Advanced
designers and developers with basic programming skills in ActionScript,
and who have edited XML. Deeper understanding of XML concepts and
terminology will assist in greater understanding of this topic.

This is the second year for Iona to attend the conference, but the first year they will be presenting there. The conference starts November 9th, and ends November 13th 2009. Chad and Mark’s session is on November 12th.

The session and more information about the conference can be found at the event’s site here.

Our DevLearn Presentation – Stop Building It From Scratch: Creating Reusable eLearning Components

I’ll have a full recap on the conference later, but for now, here is our presentation deck. Enjoy!

Additionally, we have a handout to help you decide if building an API is right for you:

DevLearn ‘09 Recap – What an Awesome Conference!

I’ve just come home from DevLearn 09. DevLearn is the eLearning Guild’s annual developer conference held in San Jose. This is the second time I have gone there, with this year being the first time I have spoken at the event. It was fantastic fun, holding lots of revelations and surprises. Now, tired but happy, begins the real work. The work of consolidating the notes, following up on the contacts made (some virtual contacts finally made real… I always love when that happens) and trying to make some steps to implement the great ideas I picked up there and talked over with new and old colleagues.

Read more

links for 2009-11-15

• SEOmoz | How to Ruin a Web Design – The Design Curve
  So true.
  (tags: webdesign web design articles blog tips)

In the past four weeks I have had been looking at the ways in which I have been completing projects and facing a looming set of deadlines. Much of the work that I engage in deals with a client. That client may be in the commercial sector or it may be a lecture that needs to be delivered to a class. What continually gets lost in a sea of meetings and daily deliverables is the time spent on research and development. I believe that shrinking budgets, shorter timelines, and a climate of economic urgency, can potentially create a creative environment that looks to the daily bottom line more than advancement of the field or a company’s knowledge capital. This has lead me to think about a few ways in which I might be able to limit investment on the seeding of new ideas. So, here goes my pre-holiday New Year’s resolution.

1. PARTY WITH MY PEERS
I hope to conduct a working group that meets to talk about and design products or services that I have always wanted to build, but have not have the opportunity to do so. This group will most likely start by being extremely social, meet no more than hour, write no code, have no agenda, but turn out a series of sketches at the end of the session. I believe this has been called brainstorming in the past– not sure what the experts in collaborative development call it these days. My hope is to just capture ideas that we are passionate about and see if there are commonalities present that we haven’t observed before– in an environment that is inviting and fun. 

2. READ SOMETHING NEW
I have been ordering and reading at least one book per month that is related to my work, but not in my sweet spot. My goal is to push my understanding of current technology/theory and look for ways in which I can expand my existing skill set. Plus, this gives me an opportunity to shop on Amazon, and who doesn’t like shopping?

3. DO SOMETHING NEW EACH WEEK
I have been working very hard to keep my Moleskine notebook filled. Yes, that is verging very close to the hipster side of things, but seriously, I try to sketch out a couple of new thoughts and approaches on a weekly basis. Some of them are flushed out, some are just dreck, and some are just for my own personal amusement. (BTW, if anyone is flying from Toronto to Chicago and finds a red Moleskine book on American Airlines, send it back to me!) I have been pretty good with this one and the discipline is in doing something on a regular basis– no rules and no expectations on what may be a good or bad idea.

Let me know if you have any other thoughts or observations.