SO!

SXSW: is a set of interactive, film, and music festivals and conferences that take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States.

CMS: is the acronym for Content Management System. Basically, you can manage the HTML content of your website in this application.

modX: is a Content Management System.

To kick off the presentations, Nathan (@nathanlon) gave us an interesting overview as to what happened at SXSW. The presentation is below:

Next up was Joe Lee (@thiswayup). He gave a great presentation on CMS’s and introduced us to modX. I was very interested in this, as it’s a CMS thats easy for us front-end designers to use.

Here’s the slides from his presentation:

After more? View the video of the presentations so far.

So what is this meet-up group?
Well, this is a meetup where people listen. We cut back the noise and focus on people who can teach us, interact with us, and help us learn from being around other like-minded people. Events often have multiple streams that relate to web design and development.

Who should come?
- web designers and front-end pixel pushers
- back-end developers
- graphic designers involved in designing for the web
- web entrepreneurs
- web investors

So what have been the topics so far?
- SXSW overview
- CMS’s & introduction to ModX
- Accessibility in the days of jQuery, Flash and AJAX (and IE6!)
- Accessibility for vision impaired users (with Accessibility Evangelist Artur Ortega from Yahoo)
- The future of web design in the second internet decade

Want to join our meetup? Then sign up now!

- an Internet of Services, where services are ubiquitous;
- an Internet of Things where in principle every physical object becomes an online addressable resource;
- a Mobile Internet where 24/7 seamless connectivity over multiple devices is the norm; and
- the need for semantics in order to meet the challenges presented by the dramatic increase in the scale of content and users.

Here, Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos new augmented-reality mapping technology from Microsoft. The video shows a vastly powerful piece of software capable of taking a wide variety of images, analyzing them for similarities, and grafting them together into an interactive three-dimensional space. This seamless patchwork of images can be viewed via multiple angles and magnifications, allowing us to look around corners or “fly” in for a (much) closer look. Simply put, it could utterly transform the way we experience digital images.

The possibilities with this are endless. It’s interesting how it looks like Google now has to play catch-up to Microsoft. Keep an eye out for things to come!

If you haven’t already seen it, I urge you to watch it. In fact, if you have already seen it, I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up watching it again!

Here are the examples from the article, and a bit more about each of them:

Nike+

This is basically a gadget you connect to your iPod and running shoes which tracks details about your runs. It tracks things like distance, speed, what music you are listening to etc. When you sync your iPod to your computer, you are able to upload your information to the Nike+ website where you can view your progress, view graphs, analysis, run comparisons, and more.

Where the problem lies with the Nike+ website is that the site is built using Gaia flash framework, and not everyone is that keen to have a flash heavy site to view their information on. Besides the fact it is quite time intensive, you have accessibility issues, accuracy issues (the graphs aren’t very accurate)… even the widgets are flash based.

So what if you want to use their API to create something of your own?

Runner Plus is the third party website for the data analysis that is  used on the Nike+ website. If you want to get your stats up on your WordPress blog, you can head over ear-fung.us where you can get the plugin (note: I do not have this on my blog. Why? Because I’m lazy and don’t run. But should. That’s another story altogether!).

Bit of a nerd, and want to find out how you can connect to the API via C#? Well, there is a way to connect to it, thanks to Eric Wroolie (the man is amazing!). Or alternatively, get those PHP skillz in action, and find out how you can access the API via PHP here.

Sony Space Hoppers

Oh golly, Dare Digital do some amazing campaigns (check out their campaigns here). And this one is of no exception.

Basically, a grid with 49 deflated spacehoppers was created. By having people tweet using hashtags, the spacehoppers would inflate and one lucky hopper was launched into space! (NB: I can’t find any info on anyone being launched into space… anyone got any info?). So, here is the video that explains how the campaign was made using Twitter hashtags.

Mattel and Barbie

For her 50th birthday, Mattel has given Barbie a voice. She’s on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

There are several brand mascots that are utilising social media. By doing this, it essentially give the brand authenticity, and a way of connecting with the consumer on more of a personable level. But what happen’s when things (ahem) don’t go the way you planned? For example, @Shamu was the “killer whale” that represented SeaWorld on Twitter. He might have been instrumental in his trainer’s death… Here’s a great article on what happened.

Blue Dot

When Blue Dot opened their SoHo store in 2008, they were introduced to the resourceful culture of “curb-mining”: the act of finding furniture and art on the street. Now that a year has passed, they decided to conduct a curb-mining experiment of their own to celebrate their one-year anniversary in New York.

On November 4-5, 25 Real Good Chairs were dropped around NYC, free for the take. Many were GPS-enabled. Watch the film to see what happened! (The video is fantastic and leaves you with a really nice feeling. Aww.)
UPDATE: Anyone else think of Stranger Than Fiction when listening to the voiceover for the video?!

Blu Dot Real Good Experiment from Real Good Chair on Vimeo.

FedEx SenseAware

Wow. This is fascinating. Using an in-package sensing device (about the size of a drink coaster) with a web-based information platform, the company can now let users know if a package has been opened or exposed to light, its exact location via GPS coordinates and even if it is too warm or cold. It looks promising for collaborations between supply chain partners, where they can share important information about critical shipments. It uses a combination of GPS and mobile phone signals to give you real time data on the web.

Guiness Area-22

This is a site that hosts data on the rugby team and its players performance, an iPhone app and even a Facebook page. The site boasts in-depth data with excellent visualizations on the key areas like kicking, possession, penalties (“Sin Bin”) defense and performance. It utilises RFID techonology, where a chip is placed in a rugby ball. Sensors are placed around the pitch which then monitors players and the ball starts to log statistics (including accuracy of passes, strengths of tackles etc).

Here’s a nice pretty TV ad for the site:

It’s really amazing what is now possible with today’s technology. It’s interesting how many people are concerned with the ‘noise’ and saturation that is being caused at the moment, but really. Come on. Start thinking about how you can utilise this technology, and combine it with savvy marketing and design to make sure it stands out from the crowd. Stop thinking about the limitations, and start thinking about the possibilities that are now available to us. If we all thought like that, we wouldn’t be where we are at today, huh?

So, how does it work? Basically, they show you a frame from the music video. You then copy the pose with your webcam. And then they add your image to the music video!

Here’s the video so far (yeah, that’s me in the first still!):



Head to One Frame of Fame to get your boofhead on the interwebs!

About Us.

Concep deliver marketing technology and services globally through offices in London, New York and Sydney. Our expert team works with professional organisations helping them build, manage and execute interactive communication programs. Amongst our current clients are Auto Trader, DTZ, Hay Group, Ernst & Young LLP, Clifford Chance LLP, Bank of New York, ABN AMRO, Capgemini and Cushman & Wakefield.

The Opportunity.

You’ll get to work with big global brands, alongside a diverse group of outgoing people, in a great location.  In doing so you’ll gain experience in emerging digital technology and communication strategies – including B2B email campaigns, digital and viral marketing, rich media applications and large-scale web projects.

Experience Level desired: 8+ years (at least 2 in B2B preferred)

Agency experience: Mandatory

Requirements.

• Fantastic online portfolio
• Minimum of 5 years experience, with at least 2 years of agency and B2B experience
• A passion for design is important as well as a keen eye for typography and contemporary design
• Understanding & experience of corporate branding
• Meticulous attention to detail
• Fluent with Adobe design suite
• Standards compliant front-end development
• Strong knowledge of HTML and CSS
• Working knowledge of Javascript
• Cross-browser and version compatibility knowledge and development
• Understanding of designing to accessibility and usability standards
• Experience with working on ecommerce sites
• Ability to work on both PC and Mac
• Strong planning, reporting and project management skills
• Self motivated, assertive and pro-active
• Able to identify problems and find prompt resolutions
• Work well under pressure to meet tight deadlines and support the business objectives to drive profitability
• Fantastic online portfolio
• Experience with working with 3^rd party digital advertisers such as Eyeblaster or Omniture

Desirables.

• Experience with Cinema 4D
• Experience with Adobe Premiere
• Experience with Director

If you think this sounds like you, drop me an email.

A couple of ’small’ projects you may be familiar with that Giraud has worked on include:

• Alien (1979)
• Tron (1982)
• Willow (1988)
• The Abyss (1989)
• The Fifth Element (1997)

George Lucas also used one of Giraud’s designs for the Imperial Probe Droid in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. The later Star Wars films also showed characteristics of Giraud’s influence and style. The film Blade Runner also drew references from Giraud’s short comic “The Long Tomorrow”.

Giraud worked on several comics (ok, that may be an understatement), both French and English. One of the most significant comics was Blueberry.

The man is simply amazing. View the documentary here.

Here is a fantastic article by the WebDesigner Depot that explains how to plan in the absence of JavaScript. Read it, and take note!