...If collaboration only seeks to share data, information, files, records, workflow and teamwork, we would be missing an important link, the one that we get when we make our team not only collaborate by joining and adding their tasks and goals to accomplish a common goal, but make them share knowledge and building a community of practice. Then we will have commitment, global thinking, enhance competences, experience, dynamic deeds and all gaps will be fulfilled, a collaborative knowledge teamwork which provides the best of information, planning, skills and training.
Read more at Collaboration Ideas
Mobile Media Production & Training https://www.facebook.com/transmediaNT
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
Gaze-Tracking & Museums
A paper on Current Research and Implications.
In a nutshell, information is delivered to the user on the basis of where they look. Awesome!
In a nutshell, information is delivered to the user on the basis of where they look. Awesome!
The future of storytelling
not an author and a reader > a collision of co-creators
not reading or watching > playing and procreating
not a product > a process
not a tidy straight line > a mosaic in constant motion, a pattern that you can view from any perspective
not a beginning and an end > the end of the beginning, middle and end
not a frozen narrative > a connective imagination, a dream of a dream that we dream together
not fiction but not fact > the elastic middle where real and not real meet
not a work of art that you pause your life to take in > a stream within a stream of your own lifestream
By cloudhead
not reading or watching > playing and procreating
not a product > a process
not a tidy straight line > a mosaic in constant motion, a pattern that you can view from any perspective
not a beginning and an end > the end of the beginning, middle and end
not a frozen narrative > a connective imagination, a dream of a dream that we dream together
not fiction but not fact > the elastic middle where real and not real meet
not a work of art that you pause your life to take in > a stream within a stream of your own lifestream
By cloudhead
The Digital Native: Myth & Reality
This paper offers a critical perspective on popular and political understandings of young people and digital technologies – characterised by notions of ‘digital natives’, the ‘net generation’ and other commonsense portrayals of expert young technology users. The paper considers the accuracy of such descriptions in reflecting young people’s actual uses of digital technology and digital information, arguing that a misplaced technological and biological determinism underpins many current portrayals of children, young people and digital technology. Having presented a more realistic basis for approaching generational differences in technology use, the paper explores the functions and roles that information professionals (especially librarians, teachers and other information specialists) can be expected to play in supporting young people in the digital age.
Read more here.
Read more here.
Transformations in Cultural Communication 2011
Melbourne, 14-15 April 2011. Details and registration here.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
A Vision for Museum 2030
In late 2010, the Brooklyn Museum took the extraordinary step of discontinuing its efforts to engage with faraway virtual consumers to focus on tools that got people together face-to-face and, more importantly, connected them to the physical reality of museum content. This radical move asserted that communities needed to move beyond online consumption and embrace physical participation in order to satisfy the goals of museum-goers and the institutions they might visit. We didn’t know it at the time, but getting people thus engaged built upon the only quality that truly differentiated museums from any other producers of content.
A tidal wave soon followed as more museums elevated their furtive online social experiments to more full-bodied engagement programs. A museum in St. Louis figured out that communities have always been dependent on purpose more than entertainment, so it keyed its ecology exhibit into the curriculum of the local public grade schools and encouraged kids and parents to join a community that would help them learn. A technology museum in San Francisco created weekly on-site events for computer programmers to discuss how to best adapt an ongoing exhibit on AI.
Now there are communities that participate in everything from genetic research and archeological digs, to oil painting restoration and poetry...all through engagement campaigns (both online and off) that create topical, timed, and purpose-driven reason for them to get involved and bring them into museums. It’s odd that less than a decade ago we celebrated Twitter subscriber lists as accomplishments of community, when now we have engaged consumers who are also participants in museum visits and purchasers of museum content.
What’s the future look like? Now that museum communities are real, the next decade will herald a new era of creativity. It’s possible that by 2030 we’ll see museums routinely involve their communities in the vetting of information, selection and design of exhibits, and other forms of mediated crowd-sourcing. Members could get engaged with what’s inside museums before it’s ever inside.
Read more at the Center for the Future of Museums
A tidal wave soon followed as more museums elevated their furtive online social experiments to more full-bodied engagement programs. A museum in St. Louis figured out that communities have always been dependent on purpose more than entertainment, so it keyed its ecology exhibit into the curriculum of the local public grade schools and encouraged kids and parents to join a community that would help them learn. A technology museum in San Francisco created weekly on-site events for computer programmers to discuss how to best adapt an ongoing exhibit on AI.
Now there are communities that participate in everything from genetic research and archeological digs, to oil painting restoration and poetry...all through engagement campaigns (both online and off) that create topical, timed, and purpose-driven reason for them to get involved and bring them into museums. It’s odd that less than a decade ago we celebrated Twitter subscriber lists as accomplishments of community, when now we have engaged consumers who are also participants in museum visits and purchasers of museum content.
What’s the future look like? Now that museum communities are real, the next decade will herald a new era of creativity. It’s possible that by 2030 we’ll see museums routinely involve their communities in the vetting of information, selection and design of exhibits, and other forms of mediated crowd-sourcing. Members could get engaged with what’s inside museums before it’s ever inside.
Read more at the Center for the Future of Museums
Social Media, Mobiles & Museums
Presented by leading thinkers and museum experts, the papers provide an incisive, up-to-the-minute analysis of trends in the use of mobile devices by museum audiences, with a special focus on outreach efforts to under-served communities. Among the many important contemporary issues covered in this publication are:
* How social networking and mobility tools can help museums connect with their audiences
* Assessments of current tools and systems
* How these tools can help enrich and extend the learning experience
* The principles that guide new social media applications
* How to integrate social media applications into contemporary museum practice
* What the future holds for mobile media devices and social networking in the museum setting
* Data-driven analyses of developments in the field
* Insightful distillations of museum experiences to date
* Forecasts of trends and developments “just around the corner”.
Download the paper here.
* How social networking and mobility tools can help museums connect with their audiences
* Assessments of current tools and systems
* How these tools can help enrich and extend the learning experience
* The principles that guide new social media applications
* How to integrate social media applications into contemporary museum practice
* What the future holds for mobile media devices and social networking in the museum setting
* Data-driven analyses of developments in the field
* Insightful distillations of museum experiences to date
* Forecasts of trends and developments “just around the corner”.
Download the paper here.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Chamber of Arts and Culture
What is a Chamber of Arts and Culture? Western Australia is about to find out. Just like the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, it is made up of some seriously heavyweight businesspeople. Among them Sam Walsh, the CEO of Rio Tinto Iron Ore, and Janet Holmes à Court, who's well known across the country for her business and arts interests.
Also on the board are representatives from WA's arts and cultural organisations, including Jude van der Merwe. Jude and Janet join Amanda Smith in the studio to speak about this new venture and its possibilities.
Download the podcast here.
Also on the board are representatives from WA's arts and cultural organisations, including Jude van der Merwe. Jude and Janet join Amanda Smith in the studio to speak about this new venture and its possibilities.
Download the podcast here.
Free Movies Online @ Open Culture
The best free cultural & educational media on the web is available at Open Culture
Smartphones And Their Potential To Support Family Learning in the Cultural Sector
This report investigates whether smartphones in general and iPhones in particular offer new opportunities for the cultural sector to connect with Mums and indeed families in all their forms? Could we harness some of the energy and excitement we saw in the playful response to smartphones to help improve family visits to museums or draw families into museums? What was the potential?
This report summarises some of the trends we have identified in smartphones and their usage, the key family needs within museums and how the two might map onto one another to support family learning within the cultural sector – identifying opportunities and challenges for organisations in the years ahead.
Research and Reports | Frankly, Green + Webb
This report summarises some of the trends we have identified in smartphones and their usage, the key family needs within museums and how the two might map onto one another to support family learning within the cultural sector – identifying opportunities and challenges for organisations in the years ahead.
Research and Reports | Frankly, Green + Webb
Digital Technologies & the Museum Experience
Loic Tallon has just released a book: this link is to an extract.
Monday, November 22, 2010
The Two Dimensions of Market Orientation
Both requirements correspond to distinct capabilities, timelines and approaches. Meeting existing needs tends to happen on a short term range and often leads to innovation derived from current markets. Anticipation often addresses future needs and is the basis to create new markets. Some companies have the propensity towards developing and exploiting existing markets. Others, such as Apple, are primarily targeted at tapping new markets by offering novel ‘proposals’. Successful companies of the future will most likely be able to combine both capabilities – in order to serve innovators, early adopters as well as the majority in the innovation diffusion cycle.
Read more at Game-Changer
Read more at Game-Changer
Art • Youth • Culture
Australian Government funding for schools explained at Australian Policy Online
Art • Youth • Culture report with Arts Council response here.
Art • Youth • Culture report with Arts Council response here.
Wall of Failure
You can tell a lot about an organization by how they treat failure. Do they focus on the learning or do they focus on the punishment? Read more by Tom Fishburne
Toolkit for Innovative Thinking
When you're working on a project, things always go smoother when you have the right tools at hand.
If your mind is working on something innovative, the same is true.The mind is full of ideas from past experiences and from observations gained through conversations, movies, television, etc. While you may chose to rely on your subconscious mind to access these ideas, why not take a more structured approach, using specific tools and techniques?
In her book “The Seeds of Innovation”, Elaine Dundon has created a systems thinking approach to innovation. At first those two thoughts seem contradictory, but in reality it can become a very powerful synergy. For example, here’s a “toolkit” you can dive into when you are faced with a challenge...
If your mind is working on something innovative, the same is true.The mind is full of ideas from past experiences and from observations gained through conversations, movies, television, etc. While you may chose to rely on your subconscious mind to access these ideas, why not take a more structured approach, using specific tools and techniques?
In her book “The Seeds of Innovation”, Elaine Dundon has created a systems thinking approach to innovation. At first those two thoughts seem contradictory, but in reality it can become a very powerful synergy. For example, here’s a “toolkit” you can dive into when you are faced with a challenge...
Digital Curation Centre
Anyone who has an obligation to store, manage and protect digital data can turn to the DCC for expert advice and practical help.
Social Media Policy for a Museum
I found these documents that may be useful to anyone looking to write a guideline for their organisation.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
20 Things I Learned...
For things you’ve always wanted to know about the web but were afraid to ask, read 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web
Friday, November 19, 2010
Hub Melbourne Incubator: Digital Playroom?
The Hub is about the power of people with ideas. It’s about the audacity, optimism and drive of the people who believe they can change things. Change minds, change lives, and ultimately change the world a little. Another world is not just possible, it’s happening. In the same way that an ecosystem is about the interaction of living things with their environment, the Hub is about the power of inspiring places where new connections, relationships and initiatives can evolve, adapt and thrive.
Read more here
And they're not alone: click this for similar Aus incubators.
Hub Melbourne Overview - September 2010
Read more here
And they're not alone: click this for similar Aus incubators.
Hub Melbourne Overview - September 2010
Google, Apple, Smartphones and Near Field Communications
Google and Apple are working on shake-to-pay smartphones. Don't blink, because Near Field Communications (NFC) might soon become a household term before you know it.
Read more at iOnApple
Read more at iOnApple
Why You Should Focus on "Worst Practices"
If you want to be disruptive, don't start with best practices. Try, instead, to find your industry's worst practices and take tiny steps — or better yet, giant leaps — towards bettering them.
So how do you find your worst practices? Here are four ways to get started.
1. Ask your critics
2. Spend a day in the trenches
3. Examine your past
4. Diet on your own dogfood
Read more by Umair Haque - Harvard Business Review
So how do you find your worst practices? Here are four ways to get started.
1. Ask your critics
2. Spend a day in the trenches
3. Examine your past
4. Diet on your own dogfood
Read more by Umair Haque - Harvard Business Review
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Another Digital Playroom Model ?
The NT Government has committed itself to establishing 5 'Digital Playrooms' by 2012. Could this be a model?
Wilurarra Creative supports young adults to build strong communities and strong artistic practices in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands (Western Australia). Wilurarra Creative’s vision is to create a wider horizon for young people and support their cultural and creative well being.
This best practice program of cultural maintenance and renewal uses a dynamic combination of traditional and contemporary creative art-forms. Wilurarra Creative's focus is with people aged 17-30 years, with the participation and leadership of the community's elders and role models to directly connect Wilurarra Creative's activities for transmission of culture and to ensure relevancy with Ngaanyatjarra people's wider social and cultural circumstances.
Within Wilurarra Creative's Centre people work on a range of different practices including: Music, fashion performance, land & cultural practice, digital media, print media and art and project consulting.
Check out their awesome website here.
See also: Mobile Digital Playroom ?
Wilurarra Creative supports young adults to build strong communities and strong artistic practices in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands (Western Australia). Wilurarra Creative’s vision is to create a wider horizon for young people and support their cultural and creative well being.
This best practice program of cultural maintenance and renewal uses a dynamic combination of traditional and contemporary creative art-forms. Wilurarra Creative's focus is with people aged 17-30 years, with the participation and leadership of the community's elders and role models to directly connect Wilurarra Creative's activities for transmission of culture and to ensure relevancy with Ngaanyatjarra people's wider social and cultural circumstances.
Within Wilurarra Creative's Centre people work on a range of different practices including: Music, fashion performance, land & cultural practice, digital media, print media and art and project consulting.
Check out their awesome website here.
See also: Mobile Digital Playroom ?
Libraries and Web 3.0
Semantic web standards are complex, and difficult to conceptualize, but they offer solutions to many of the issues that plague libraries, including precise web search, authority control, classification, data portability, and disambiguation. This article will outline some of the benefits that linked data could have for libraries, will discuss some of the non-technical obstacles that we face in moving forward, and will finally offer suggestions for practical ways in which libraries can participate in the development of the semantic web.
The Strongest Link: Libraries and Linked Data
The Strongest Link: Libraries and Linked Data
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Science Media Centre Guide for Covering Science
Designed with busy journalists in mind, the Guide is aimed both at the reporters on science, health and environment rounds, and also at general reporters who’d like to get the science right. Download it here.
Open Exhibits
Open Exhibits is a multitouch, mulituser software initiative. The software is free to students, museums and other educational organizations. Download it here.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Research communication costs in Australia, emerging opportunities and benefits
The environment in which research is being conducted and disseminated is undergoing profound change, with new technologies offering new opportunities, changing research practices demanding new capabilities, and increased focus on research performance. Nevertheless, despite billions of dollars being spent by governments on R&D each year, relatively little policy attention has yet been paid to the dissemination of the results of that research through scholarly publishing. A key question facing us today is, are there new opportunities and new models for scholarly communication that could enhance the dissemination of research findings and, thereby, maximise the economic and social returns to public investment in R&D? By exploring the costs involved in scholarly communication activities and some of the potential benefits available through emerging scholarly communication alternatives, this study contributes to helping us answer this question. The study provides background information, which is intended to provide a basis for improved management of, and access to, research information, outputs and infrastructure so that they are discoverable, accessible and shareable. It also provides activity costing estimates for a range of core activities within the higher education sector that may prove useful in the management of institutional budgets and priorities.
Download the PDF at Victoria University
Download the PDF at Victoria University
New museum open 24/7
Ever walk by a statue and wonder, "What made this guy so important?" or pass by a modern sculpture in a park and think, "What on earth is that supposed to be?" Now, in Philadelphia, there's an app for that. And similar apps exist for art and landmarks in other cities ranging from Seattle to New York.
Read more here.
Read more here.
Mobile Digital Storytelling
5 minute video demonstrating iPhone / iTouch / iPad apps by Moving at the Speed of Creativity
Cost Model for Digital Preservation
The website includes information about the cost model, various pieces of documentation, and a tool destined for estimating the future costs of cultural heritage institutions' digital collections. Recommended reading for the BOMAGS consultancy: Cost Model for Digital Preservation
Scholarly Communications Action Handbook
This JISC Scholarly Communications Action Handbook provides guidance and suggested actions, in an effort to address researchers' scholarly communication concerns and improve current practices. The series of actions were created in consultation with the community and should help to establish change. The masterlist of actions is extensive (90 different actions), and is best navigated by starting at one of the following access points: stakeholder groups, activities, concerns or hot topics...
Home | Scholarly Communications Action Handbook
Home | Scholarly Communications Action Handbook
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Augmented Reality for Cultural Institutions
Includes research on the way augmented reality has been applied to the cultural heritage sector.
MA Dissertation by Foteini Valeonti
See also by the same author: The Augmented Reality Suite for Museums
MA Dissertation by Foteini Valeonti
See also by the same author: The Augmented Reality Suite for Museums
Thursday, November 11, 2010
10 reasons to blog even if nobody reads it
When your GM has seemingly unrealistic expectations about building an online blog community, pull this blog post out as a reminder that there are many solid business reasons to have a blog, even if the crickets aren't chirping in the comment section!
Read more here
Read more here
Roundware
Roundware is a flexible, open-source interactive audio platform which can be used to create unique participatory audio experiences.
Round is part museum audio tour and part participatory audio blog. Using mobile networked devices, museum visitors are able to leave audio comments about the museum’s artworks as well as hear those of other museum visitors, artists and curators. Voices are combined with music in an individualized audio experience.
Read more here.
Related article: Best Audio Tour Ever!
Round is part museum audio tour and part participatory audio blog. Using mobile networked devices, museum visitors are able to leave audio comments about the museum’s artworks as well as hear those of other museum visitors, artists and curators. Voices are combined with music in an individualized audio experience.
Read more here.
Related article: Best Audio Tour Ever!
50 Amazing Museum Exhibits You Can Enjoy Online
Museums stand as one of the most necessary cornerstones of human society. They introduce visitors to new ideas and concepts that they may not otherwise pick up in school or at home – thus, hopefully, nurturing intellectualism in the process. Many have now taken to the internet in order to promote everything from Pop Art to paleontology, making them excellent resources for parents, teachers, students and curious adults lacking the resources for globetrotting. Along with their brick-and-mortar exhibition halls, they set up virtual worlds for patrons to explore, many of them accomplishing feats too impractical or expensive to physically pull off. The following institutions offer up a blissfully broad range of online activities suitable for many different audiences. Absorb what they have to offer and gain a greater understanding of the weird and wonderful planet’s past, present and possible future.
50 Amazing Museum Exhibits You Can Enjoy Online
50 Amazing Museum Exhibits You Can Enjoy Online
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Flickr context harvester for archives
In the quest the upload once and distribute across multiple platforms, check out the the Flickr context harvester for archives
See also: Flickr machine tag challenge
See also: Flickr machine tag challenge
Crowdsourcing and social engagement: potential, power and freedom for libraries and users
Can libraries respond to the shift in power and control of information and dare to give users something greater than power – freedom? Download this 28 page analysis here.
The Wealth of Networks
How Social Production Transforms Markets & Freedom
Information, knowledge, and culture are central to human freedom and human development. How they are produced and exchanged in our society critically affects the way we see the state of the world as it is and might be; who decides these questions; and how we, as societies and polities, come to understand what can and ought to be done. For more than 150 years, modern complex democracies have depended in large measure on an industrial information economy for these basic functions. In the past decade and a half, we have begun to see a radical change in the organization of information production. Enabled by technological change, we are beginning to see a series of economic, social, and cultural adaptations that make possible a radical transformation of how we make the information environment we occupy as autonomous individuals, citizens, and members of cultural and social groups. It seems passé today to speak of “the Internet revolution.” In some academic circles, it is positively naïve. But it should not be. The change brought about by the networked information environment is deep. It is structural. It goes to the very foundations of how liberal markets and liberal democracies have coevolved for almost two centuries.
A series of changes in the technologies, economic organization, and social practices of production in this environment has created new opportunities for how we make and exchange information, knowledge, and culture. These changes have increased the role of nonmarket and nonproprietary production, both by individuals alone and by cooperative efforts in a wide range of loosely or tightly woven collaborations. These newly emerging practices have seen remarkable success in areas as diverse as software development and investigative reporting, avant-garde video and multiplayer online games. Together, they hint at the emergence of a new information environment, one in which individuals are free to take a more active role than was possible in the industrial information economy of the twentieth century. This new freedom holds great practical promise: as a dimension of individual freedom; as a platform for better democratic participation; as a medium to foster a more critical and self-reflective culture; and, in an increasingly information dependent global economy, as a mechanism to achieve improvements in human development everywhere.
Read Yochai Benkler's manuscript online here or download the PDF here.
Information, knowledge, and culture are central to human freedom and human development. How they are produced and exchanged in our society critically affects the way we see the state of the world as it is and might be; who decides these questions; and how we, as societies and polities, come to understand what can and ought to be done. For more than 150 years, modern complex democracies have depended in large measure on an industrial information economy for these basic functions. In the past decade and a half, we have begun to see a radical change in the organization of information production. Enabled by technological change, we are beginning to see a series of economic, social, and cultural adaptations that make possible a radical transformation of how we make the information environment we occupy as autonomous individuals, citizens, and members of cultural and social groups. It seems passé today to speak of “the Internet revolution.” In some academic circles, it is positively naïve. But it should not be. The change brought about by the networked information environment is deep. It is structural. It goes to the very foundations of how liberal markets and liberal democracies have coevolved for almost two centuries.
A series of changes in the technologies, economic organization, and social practices of production in this environment has created new opportunities for how we make and exchange information, knowledge, and culture. These changes have increased the role of nonmarket and nonproprietary production, both by individuals alone and by cooperative efforts in a wide range of loosely or tightly woven collaborations. These newly emerging practices have seen remarkable success in areas as diverse as software development and investigative reporting, avant-garde video and multiplayer online games. Together, they hint at the emergence of a new information environment, one in which individuals are free to take a more active role than was possible in the industrial information economy of the twentieth century. This new freedom holds great practical promise: as a dimension of individual freedom; as a platform for better democratic participation; as a medium to foster a more critical and self-reflective culture; and, in an increasingly information dependent global economy, as a mechanism to achieve improvements in human development everywhere.
Read Yochai Benkler's manuscript online here or download the PDF here.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Choosing The Right CMS for Your Small Business
The web is littered with articles comparing CMS’s and highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each. Though helpful at the time, these articles can quickly become outdated and may, through no fault of their authors, lead you astray. So rather than focus on particular content management systems, this article will highlight some key areas in which you as the webmaster or decision maker should concentrate.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Labs at NMA
The National Museum of Australia is working on a number of experimental projects and they'd like to share them with you for comment.
See also: National Archives Lab (UK)
See also: National Archives Lab (UK)
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Forecasting the Future of Museums
See also: Digital Futures of cultural heritage education
A Guide to Distributed Digital Preservation
Authored by members of the MetaArchive Cooperative, A Guide to Distributed Digital Preservation is the first of a series of volumes describing successful collaborative strategies and articulating specific new models that may help cultural memory organizations work together for their mutual benefit.
Download it here.
Download it here.
DigitalNZ
DigitalNZ is an initiative that aims to make New Zealand digital content easy to find, share and use. This includes content from government departments, publicly funded organisations, the private sector, and community groups.
We test and develop approaches that increase the amount of New Zealand content flowing through the Digital Content Life Cycle. New Zealand is a small place with big ideas, and we need to create and digitise more New Zealand content so we can stay digitally connected to our own stories, creations, knowledge and culture.
We test and develop approaches that increase the amount of New Zealand content flowing through the Digital Content Life Cycle. New Zealand is a small place with big ideas, and we need to create and digitise more New Zealand content so we can stay digitally connected to our own stories, creations, knowledge and culture.
See also: Mix and Mash NZ
Friday, November 5, 2010
PhoneGap
Why is it a common perception that the future will be EITHER native apps OR Web pages? Web apps have the advantages of BOTH. PhoneGap is an open source development framework for building cross-platform mobile apps. Build apps in HTML and JavaScript and still take advantage of core features in iPhone/iPod touch, iPad, Google Android, Palm, Symbian and Blackberry SDKs.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Mobile Design For iPhone & iPad
This e-book presents articles on professional mobile design for the iPhone as well as the iPad, including studies of trends in mobile design and guidelines for the development of mobile web pages. These articles are mostly a selection of the best from Smashing Magazine in 2009 and 2010, dealing with mobile design for the iPhone and iPad, plus an exclusive 90-page study about mobile web design trends.
How Money Follows Attention... Eventually.
There has never been a better time to be a reader, a listener, or a watcher of human creativity. An exhilarating torrent of books, music, movies, games, apps, and interactive media creations rushes before us. Every year the river widens--in volume, diversity, and ease of access. In every dimension, media today is at a high-water mark of glorious plenitude.
But while consumers have never been better served, the publishers, broadcasters, studios, and labels that have been producing this content are worried sick that their end is near. Once masterpieces are digitized by ubiquitous chips, their bits instantly drain into a fast-flowing river of cheap data, removing the distinction between original and copy and destroying the business logic that funded their creation. To make matters worse, these same digitizing chips encourage amateurs to get out of their armchairs and make, sell, and distribute what they themselves want to consume.
Nothing will stop the flow of bits, of course, but there is good reason to believe that some of the traditional intermediaries will survive and thrive again. The secrets to the new business models can be found in the data showing how money follows the only scarce resource we have: our time to pay attention.
Analysis & Metrics at Technology Review
But while consumers have never been better served, the publishers, broadcasters, studios, and labels that have been producing this content are worried sick that their end is near. Once masterpieces are digitized by ubiquitous chips, their bits instantly drain into a fast-flowing river of cheap data, removing the distinction between original and copy and destroying the business logic that funded their creation. To make matters worse, these same digitizing chips encourage amateurs to get out of their armchairs and make, sell, and distribute what they themselves want to consume.
Nothing will stop the flow of bits, of course, but there is good reason to believe that some of the traditional intermediaries will survive and thrive again. The secrets to the new business models can be found in the data showing how money follows the only scarce resource we have: our time to pay attention.
Analysis & Metrics at Technology Review
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Environmental Education for a Sustainable Future: National Action Plan
Read all about it and wonder what role m4D might play in raising the profile of environmental education.
The Meaning Organization
Traditional businesses are struggling to recover from the economic downturn. They'll need to shift their focus from profits to authentic social engagement to have meaningful impact in the world....
The Meaning Organisation by Umair Haque
The Meaning Organisation by Umair Haque
The Mobile Developer Journey from App Design to Monetization
Infographics are great for quickly being able to parse and understand complex data. In this particular infographic, VisionMobile gives you a glance at the journey of the mobile developer from the very beginning with the platform selection process, to the end goal of monetization.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
DomeLab 2010: Immersive Cinema Design
Download the PDF at Production Design for Fulldome « Dome Lab 2010.
See also: Swinburne Uni and Virtual Orchestra in AVIE and iCinema
See also: Swinburne Uni and Virtual Orchestra in AVIE and iCinema
ICH² - 360° Intermedia Dance Performance from Tom Duscher on Vimeo.
ICH² (Me to the power of 2) is an interacitve dance performance especially developed for fulldome planetariums. The performance combines expressive modern dance and 360° interactive motion graphics.
In this way ICH² is a very unique piece of the emerging genre called Digital Theatre, in which digital media technology enables alterable and imersive stage settings. Technical Setup using VVVV Fulldome Renderer.
A Cooperation of Muthesius Academy of Arts, Mediadome Kiel and Ballett Kiel, Germany.
Mobile Technologies for Social Transformation
Technology, in and of itself, doesn’t bring about change and nor do Development Programmes. Ultimately it is people that bring about the transformation they desire and it is relationships that sustain it.
Historically, NGO’s have worked on a project basis, which on the face of it seems a reasonable approach; each project is self contained, it can receive specific donor funding, outcomes can be measured and final reports can be produced. However, this is changing as people do not live their lives on a project basis. Famers cannot delay planting, sick people do not cure themselves, clinics cannot close and trainers should not be released, whilst the ‘programme’ waits for another round of funding. In the past too many projects have delivered training to farmers or encouraged HIV testing with little thought of follow on or follow up. We all know this needs to change and that Sustainable Development means continued engagement.... more at Nimbus
Historically, NGO’s have worked on a project basis, which on the face of it seems a reasonable approach; each project is self contained, it can receive specific donor funding, outcomes can be measured and final reports can be produced. However, this is changing as people do not live their lives on a project basis. Famers cannot delay planting, sick people do not cure themselves, clinics cannot close and trainers should not be released, whilst the ‘programme’ waits for another round of funding. In the past too many projects have delivered training to farmers or encouraged HIV testing with little thought of follow on or follow up. We all know this needs to change and that Sustainable Development means continued engagement.... more at Nimbus
Geek in Residence v2.0 - call for applications
The Geek in Residence initiative was developed in response to the Australia Council's arts organisation community, who have asked for help developing their digital skills and confidence. The process is that those arts organisations can apply for up to $25,000 (which must be matched in cash) to go toward the cost of employing a geek for up to 12 months. The potential host arts organisations need to tell us what outcomes they hope to see in three main areas; artistic programming, audience development and general operations. These applications are reviewed by an internal committee of art form directors who are familiar with the needs of these clients. the successful hosts will be announced at the end of December 2010
More information at artsdigitalera.
More information at artsdigitalera.
Constructive Capitalism
Video of keynote address at Vimeo
So the world is kind of a function of what we do. And when we act in one way, we create one kind of industry, one kind of environment, one kind of world; and when we act in another way, we can create a very different kind of environment, or industry, or world. And so I think the question of “how do we respond to the world”, we have to think about the fact that we are responsible for the actions that we take, because those actions then go on to create the kind of world that then comes back to effect us. And so the challenge in the 21st century is learning to create authentic value, real value.
Apps4D: Smartphone Application Development as ICT4D
The rise of the smartphone has unleashed a wave of excitement and income generation across the software development community. Applications that can run on iPhones, Android phones and Blackberry's, can be written quickly, and on the cheap, and have generated outsized returns for their creators. Even more impressive is that this application revolution is just starting.... cont'd at ICTWorks
Parramatta Becomes Australia's First Digital City
Parramatta, a city in the Australian state of New South Wales, is on the way to becoming a showcase city for the integration of digital services into community life in that country.
The project, Parra Connect, focuses on a suburban community and cover about 50,000 households. It is the first such digital city in the country and one of the first in the world, though it is part of an increasing trend.
Read more here.
The project, Parra Connect, focuses on a suburban community and cover about 50,000 households. It is the first such digital city in the country and one of the first in the world, though it is part of an increasing trend.
Read more here.
Digital Arts Centre @ Parramatta
Switch Digital Arts Centre is a storytelling playground. It’s a space where we will actively encourage dynamic interaction between creative individuals and communities. It’s a creative space that we hope will become a gathering place for communities from all walks of life. Located on 8 Victoria Rd, Parramatta, just a 15-minute walk from Parramatta train station, Switch is a cutting edge warehouse space with commercial-quality digital media hardware and software, industry experts and professional practitioners.
Switch Digital Arts Centre is powered by Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE). It was created to provide a space for the next wave of diverse artists, entrepreneurs and cultural practitioners. Join us here for training and workshops or to seek out our professional development services.
Come and play! Whether you’re an emerging or established artist, or a passionate and creative entrepreneur, we look forward to seeing you soon.
Related article: Paramatta becomes Australia's first Digital City
Digital Public Space
After two years analysing the content, framework and potential of the BBC's archive, Ageh's conclusion is that many of the challenges – not least rights, accessibility and the cost of digitisation – are shared by other public institutions. So his vision is to create a new "digital public space" for publicly owned content.
The Digital Public Space proposal is still being developed with organisations including the British Film Institute and the British Library. Essentially it would be a new layer of the internet in which institutions would make publicly owned content available, free, for non-commercial public use. That content could be used elsewhere for commercial projects at a cost.
"This notion of the public space allows content to be amphibious rather than only commercial or public sector. It would allow the web to be as commercial as it needs to be, but structured in a way that you couldn't retrospectively apply to the web." It would, he claims, stimulate the creative economy, drive digital literacy and maximise public value. The Digital Public Space idea is as brilliant as it is ambitious. "As a nation, we need to decide that we are going to create an environment where every one of our citizens can get value from these technologies," he says. "The BBC should facilitate this, but it is an opportunity for these technologies to remind all our national institutions what they were trying to achieve in the first place."
Tony Ageh on the BBC Archive and how to remake the internet | Media | The Guardian
Related article: A New Digital Presence: The Smithsonian Commons and the Digital Commons Charter
See also an invitation to debate 'paying the cost of making things free'
The Digital Public Space proposal is still being developed with organisations including the British Film Institute and the British Library. Essentially it would be a new layer of the internet in which institutions would make publicly owned content available, free, for non-commercial public use. That content could be used elsewhere for commercial projects at a cost.
"This notion of the public space allows content to be amphibious rather than only commercial or public sector. It would allow the web to be as commercial as it needs to be, but structured in a way that you couldn't retrospectively apply to the web." It would, he claims, stimulate the creative economy, drive digital literacy and maximise public value. The Digital Public Space idea is as brilliant as it is ambitious. "As a nation, we need to decide that we are going to create an environment where every one of our citizens can get value from these technologies," he says. "The BBC should facilitate this, but it is an opportunity for these technologies to remind all our national institutions what they were trying to achieve in the first place."
Tony Ageh on the BBC Archive and how to remake the internet | Media | The Guardian
Related article: A New Digital Presence: The Smithsonian Commons and the Digital Commons Charter
See also an invitation to debate 'paying the cost of making things free'
Monday, November 1, 2010
The Digital Curation Exchange
The Digital Curation Exchange has been created to serve as a space for conversation, sharing and interaction among practitioners, researchers, educators, and students of digital curation. The site has been designed to take advantage of various social networking capabilities.
Introduction to Mobile Phones for Development
This report aspires to provide an overview of studies on mobile telephony in a developing country context.
Case Study: Tailoring Access to Online Collections through Interpretive Resources
To both help audiences learn about our collections and open more pathways to our institutional information and knowledge, the Art Institute sought to improve online access to unique interpretive content such as our growing archive of scholarly lectures, collections-based lesson plans, teacher manuals, videos, digital simulations, classroom activities, maps, etc. To this end, we created tailored landing pages with common navigational elements and search results pages focused on three audiences: the Educator Resource Finder for educators; Multimedia for audiences seeking audio or video content; and Collections for the Online Collections visitor.
Learn more here.
Social learning and radical innovation
When people talk about social learning, there’s often a tendency to act as if providing the technology to bring people together (microblogging, forums, wikis, etc) will necessarily result in knowledge sharing and that knowledge sharing will necessarily result in new, better approaches. But as we all know, the human element of that equation and the complex circumstances of most problems can make things quite a bit more messy.... a roadmap through the quagmire available at Instructional Design Fusions
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