Well, the Surface technology (sort of a Jetson’s coffee table really) is now becoming more widely available. At Manifest, we’ve been concepting some Surface solutions for clients and figured it was time for us to get one ourselves. Fact of the matter is that it’s difficult for design agencies to get. Then again, Microsoft has never really met the likes of one Manifest Digital. We submitted our order and were told it was “in process”. Last week a couple Microsoft engineers came out to inspect the office. Their main goal - to determine if we were “Surface worthy” or so it seemed like. As a side note, it made me think back to an old episode of Seinfeld, where Elaine determines whether or not her boyfriend is “sponge worthy”. Anyway, the engineers examined the lighting, electrical and flooring to make sure the office environment wouldn’t cause any issues with the table. It makes sense especially given the number of cameras in the table itself. We received the approval and the Surface table arrived yesterday…. and everyone geeky enough to understand the possibilities of this new technology began drooling… literally.

Here are a few first pictures I snapped with my cell phone. It doesn’t look like much at all yet, just a giant box on a pallet. I’ll share more pictures as we unwrap the new beast on Friday.

Anyone have recommendations on great coffee table books?

The PhizzPop Design Challenge - Chicago 2016 Olympics Bid Awareness

An overview of the challenge taken from Microsoft’s UX Evangelist Chris Bernard’s blog:

You’ve been selected by the Chicago 2016 Committee to help provide digital strategies to help Chicago be selected at the site of the 2016 Olympics. Chicago 2016 has less than a year before the International Olympic Committee votes on which of the four competing cities wins the bid. The four competing cities are Chicago, Madrid, Rio, and Tokyo.

One of the key elements to winning the bid for Chicago is getting the city’s youth behind the bid. Teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 will be in their late 20’s to early 30’s if/when the Olympic come to Chicago in 2016. This is the audience that in 2016 will be going to events, and taking their kids to cheer on the next Shawn Johnson or Michael Phelps.

The committee is looking for ways to actively engage and ultimately generate support with the city’s youth in a demonstrable way. It is very important to not just get the youth involved but somehow show their impact/support in a visual/meaningful way. It is also important to somehow find ways to activate those that influence youth, like teachers, coaches, and parents.

Introducing the Manifest PhizzPop Team

We’ve stacked the deck and have three great team members representing Manifest. Here’s a bit about them…

• Brian Henkel - One of Manifest’s wicked-hard-core User Experience Architects, Brian is leading the user experience design charge. Look for him to sketch, wireframe and incorporate plenty of multimedia ideas into the design. He’s a big thinker, so look for a solution with a true “WOW!” effect.
• Kevin Panke - An energetic and exciting interactive designer, Kevin is the team’s visual design magician. Kevin’s drive for creating fresh, bold and simple designs will help the team put the “pop” in their PhizzPop solution.
• Dan Thompson - As the team’s lead developer, Dan has the challenge of getting the solution to actually work (yes, this actually needs to happen). This will be challenge in itself, as Brian and Kevin will likely come up with large, kick-ass creative ideas. This isn’t anything new to Dan though - he’s constantly playing an integral role in developing many of the solutions for Manifest’s clients on a regular basis.

Look for the team to hit a homerun on the challenge. As I write, they’re cooped up in the design room across from me. I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with. Don’t miss out on cheering them on during the showcase and judging event.

Don’t forget to RSVP to attend the showcase and the judging!

Truth be told, we’ve been using Central Desktop for nearly two years now, both for internal projects and company assets and collaboration on client projects. Personally, the five best features of the Central Desktop tool are:

1. Workspaces - the ability to create individual workspaces, comprised of teams, topics or client projects to best manage the work at hand
2. Document Management and Version Tracking - goodbye file server, hello version control, history and comparison
3. Security and Configuration - super simple setup of users and access rights, including the ability to mix internal and external users all in one workspace
4. Discussions and Wikis - Simple, easy to implement and with core features for quickly generating discussion on a topic and documenting processes (even integrated with email!)
5. Quick and Simple Setup - It really wasn’t difficult to hit the ground running, and continuing to do so regularly when using it on client projects

Born on June 17th, 2008, 8 Chocolate Lab puppies came into this world - 6 girls and 2 boys. We took a trip out to the breeder near take a look. If you’ve ever been puppy shopping before, you know exactly how hard it is to not walk away with one that first time you see them. I mean, does it get any cuter than this…

There’s some hidden, to the general masses at least, ideas and products happening being developed at Microsoft. I say hidden, simply because to the general public Microsoft typically comes out looking like a big bully at times, but if they knew about some of the other things that they’ve been working on, they might see them in a different light. For example, a technology that has been in the works for a while and is just nearing a release is Microsoft’s Surface technology. Another product, in its beta stage, is Microsoft’s Photosynth.

Microsoft Surface Technology

Microsoft Surface technology started as a vision created by a couple guys in their research group. From acceptance of the vision at a leadership level, the design iterated to where it is today - an interactive, table-like, product that understands context of its environment along with human touch and gestures. Yes, no mouse, keyboard, application file menu, etc., getting in the way of an individual’s ability to interact with the product. Awesome. Take, for example, a scenario in which you are out at dinner with two friends at a restaurant and what to split the bill three ways - simply touch the screen, place your card on the table and touch and slide your meal and drinks towards your credit card and you’re done. Now, as a designer, start to imagine how this might impact your design process for a product, the way you create the user interface, the interactions, patterns, etc. - quite possibly a whole new way to approach design solutions. There’s a lot here that could possibly even create new specialization within the design and development fields - e.g. gesture specialists, advanced recognition technology experts, etc.

Microsoft Photosynth

Since technology advances have made digital cameras very affordable over the last several years, it has created millions more hobbyist photographers. These hobbyist photographers are producing so many digital photos, they’re sure to need a tool to organize, view and enjoy their collections. Welcome, Photosynth, a software product that creates relationships among digital images, primarily photos, and reconstructs them into a three-dimensional space to show how each relates to the other. The best example that came to mind when I saw a video presentation of this was that of a 360 degree panoramic or a virtual tour of a room of a house. It looks to be truly a social network tool for digial photos. Unlike a tool such as Flickr, where you manually create metadata and group photos together based upon various attributes, this tool uses the metadata you provide, then analyzes the photos’ visual similarities to create the relationships. By doing so, it allows you to do things such as view photos from various angles, zoom-in, etc., using photos that you have taken and basically filling in the missing pieces with others’ photos. I’m imagining that we’re not too far off from a day where anyone can visit a destination virtually and walk away with some of the same breathtaking experiences as-if you visited in person. The way you interact with your digial photo collection will surely be changed.

Wow, Cool, Neato Don’t Really Do Justice Here

Truly these technologies are on the cutting-edge. They are examples of how we may think differently about not only a design approach, but how we interact with technology ourselves and other people through technology. It’s exciting to see examples such as these because they provide an example of the integration of technology into our daily lives without it being an impairment, but rather just something that happens, something we don’t even think about using or doing.