Off Course-On Target

High Resolution Imagery = High Definition Learning?

I am a HUGE fan of public radio, and I listen to it whenever I can. In the US, public radio comes in the form of National Public Radio (NPR) and most countries have a similar form, as well as access to Public Radio International (PRI). Typically these stations are broadcast just about everywhere, so as you’re driving, you can usually pick them up better than most other stations. I find their content to be one of the last sources of balanced and informative broadcasting.

The other day when I was driving in the US, I caught a news story on NPR about a fascinating new joint venture between Google and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) called “Crisis in Darfur”. NPR is very good about posting their content, so you can read more about it and also listen to the original broadcast called “Google Sets Out to Map the Crisis in Darfur”.

If you are a regular reader here at Off Course – On Target, you will recall some previous posts, such as “Mashed up Maps for the Masses” and “Snowflakes Galore at TechFest 2007”, where we looked at ways that maps are benefiting from new technology and techniques that make them highly customized and extremely rich with information. This new initiative between Google and USHMM adds another dimension and is a provocative application of mapping and high-resolution photographic imagery.

Reuters covered this story at “Google to Map Atrocities in Darfur”. As Holocaust Museum director Sara Bloomfield put it:

"The 'Crisis in Darfur' is the first of the museum's 'Genocide Prevention Mapping Initiative' that is aimed at providing information on potential genocides early on in the hope that governments and others can act quickly to prevent them.”

I am interested in this not only for this specific situation but also as a chance to see if this form of “high definition learning” will be able to make more of a difference in moving people to action than previous efforts. Unfortunately, history has shown that simply making people aware of such atrocities has had almost no effect on stopping such acts.

This project will assemble photographs, high resolution satellite imagery, data, and eye witness testimony, and use Google Earth technology to make this accessible to over 200 million people around the world who have downloaded the Google Earth software*. They will be able to zoom in on high-resolution imagery to see the destroyed villages and other evidence of the destruction that, to date, the Sudanese government has denied exists.

* If you have not tried Google Earth or Microsoft’s Live Search (an implementation of their Virtual Earth technology) PLEASE do yourself and others around you a favor by trying it NOW! Google Earth does require a download, but this is truly one of those things you have to see and experience in order to believe and understand. Almost everyone I know who has done so has been completely amazed by its capabilities. And if it has been a while since you used it, you should try it as well, since new capabilities and more imagery and resolution is being added daily.

To check out the Darfur imagery, you just need to “fly” and “zoom” your way over to this region (a good lesson in itself for the many who never knew Darfur existed or where it was on the map). You’ll see how the project has put a colored border around the region to catch your attention. Zooming in from there and exploring the area is what this project is all about, so give it a try.

After these initial experiences, consider the profound impact that this readily available technology will have. We can expect to see a multiplier effect and an exponential increase in the volume of photographic data being produced by literally billions of lenses being aimed 24x7 at almost every place on earth.

Keep in mind that this mapping technology not only includes the photographic images steadily streaming out of orbiting satellites, but also the billions of photographs that individuals like you and me are taking. All of us can contribute images from our digital cameras via web galleries from the likes of Flickr, Google’s Picasa, Kodak EasyShare, SmugMug and hundreds of others. Putting this in the context of maps and using location as an underlying interface and structure is proving to be a VERY powerful way of connecting information and intellect— truly creating new knowledge and learning.

Of course, any powerful capability can be used for both good and bad purposes. However the point for us to remember is that the technology is “stupid” and can only be put to the uses and purposes that WE design and develop. So once again, we are both the problem and the solution. I am both hoping and asking that we make the right choice and take the action to ensure that this power is utilized and leveraged for very positive forward progress and benefits.

It remains to be seen if the “Crisis in Darfur” project and this new combination of content and technology will produce new levels of deep and behavior changing learning. But in my opinion, it is a great form of leadership by example. Let’s learn from this example and begin to design and develop other ways of putting this technology to use for increased effectiveness of learning and performance.

What other applications and projects can YOU think of for using this technology?

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Fido for Finding or just for Fools?

Many of you enjoyed the fun posting I made a few weeks ago called “Piracy Going to the Dogs?”. But many of you also thought my comments about Lucky and Flo (the two black Labrador dogs who have been trained to find illegal CDs and DVDs) was my version of an early April Fool’s Day* joke. Far from it!  I was quite serious and so too are the dogs and the people deploying them.

Last week, they chalked up another big success, which you can check out in Monday’s article from Reuters “DVD-busting Dogs Do It Again”. Once again the dogs were able to find things the human experts could not. In this case, they discovered over 150,000 illegal DVDs that were hidden in a secret room the investigators had missed. Apparently the pirates think the dogs are way too good as well and have "put out a hit” on the dogs to be killed and so Lucky and Flo now have their own security force!

While Lucky and Flo were not quite what I had in mind in my recent posting “The Search for Better Finding”, they none the less provide a great example of the end results (finding) winning out over the time we spend searching. As you can see, I didn't call this site "Off Course - On Target" for nothing!

But whether it is dogs or people or technology, here’s to continued progress in our quest to eliminate piracy and dramatically improve our abilities to actually find what we’re looking for.

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* For those of you unfamiliar with the fun tradition of April Fool’s Day, sometimes called “All Fools Day” (or in France they call it "Poisson d'Avril" or "April Fish"),  here is a quick history and explanation. Believing as I do that laughter is one of the best medicines, you may want to check out:

• “The Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time”
• Elliott Masie’s most recent Learning Trends posting #439 - Updates on Learning, Business & Technology. This is his version of an April Fool’s Day joke for those interested in learning, education, and training. And if you haven't done it already,  I HIGHLY recommend that you subscribe to Elliott’s Trends Email.

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Get out your Snow Shoes—Severe Snowstorms Hitting TV

In the context of television, I remember when the word “snow” meant that you had very poor reception. Under those conditions, the image on the screen looked like a snowstorm. Now, however, there is a whole new type of “snowstorm” hitting TV and this one is causing a MUCH more profound effect. In the past few weeks, I have seen a veritable storm of news showing how the “Snowflake Effect” (mass personalization) is deeply affecting TV.

Today I’m pointing out some examples to help bring the underlying pattern of the Snowflake Effect into focus, and so we can all understand and benefit from this in our current work and planning. In my role as the so-called “Strategic Futurist”, I strive to look much further into the future than is typical. Taking the long view helps all of us make smarter decisions NOW! This approach is more than just fanciful gazing into the future, and it is not purely strategic. Rather it is a very pragmatic and smart approach for providing good “decision support” for our everyday actions, choices, and guidance. By seizing the underlying principles and patterns, we can make significant advances toward mass personalization and a world optimized for each of us as unique individuals experiencing a stream of unique moments and opportunities.

So with this purpose in mind, here are some new directions in TV content—some concrete evidence of extremely telling and important trends that will affect our overall collections of content and our abilities to get content “just right” for each of us as “snowflakes” and for each “snowflake” moment.

Content Convergence

My first example illustrates the convergence of TV and video from multiple content sources. In this case, the combination of services and technology enables the mass personalization of TV viewing with personal or digital video recorders (PVR or DVR) along with the videos available from online outlets such as Amazon.

Last month Amazon and TiVo rolled out their new integrated offering called “Unbox”, which lets you combine the TV content you receive via your cable or satellite sources with access to buy or rent downloadable TV shows and movies available from Amazon. You can get more details from some recent reviews such as:

• “Amazon’s Unbox Marriage to TiVo”  by David Berlin on ZDNet

• “A Hands-On Look at Amazon Unbox on TiVo” by Matthew Moskovciak on Crave.

As these reviewers note, this first offering exhibits many of the shortcomings that most innovations suffer from, such as some awkward interface problems and difficulties displaying wide-screen HD content, but they will surely be addressed as they mature. The Unbox also provides a significant advantage over say, the recent Apple TV or the use of Microsoft Media Centers, because you don’t need a PC running in the background to make this all work. So this solution is a significant step towards making mass personalization of TV content much simpler and more likely to be adopted by the masses. It’s a great example of TV’s transition from a medium to content, something I discussed previously here at Off Course – On Target with “The Old Medium has become the New Content” Part 1 and Part 2 .

TiVo Home Movie Sharing

TiVo also recently rolled out another and perhaps even more significant capability called “TiVo Home Movie Sharing”. By providing you with a “private channel, this service lets you quickly and easily share your own video content (home movies) with other TiVo users. To provide this new service, TiVo joined forces with One True Media, an online service that helps people create video montages or home movies and provides a fast way of uploading your own content. Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection has a more detailed review entitled  “TiVo Home Movie Sharing”.

Obviously this model is limited to those who are TiVo users, but look beyond this and imagine what will happen as this capability becomes more ubiquitous and universally available!  And of course, there would be no need to restrict this to “home movies” since it would work equally as well to share video content of any kind and would have value for businesses, education, and most organizations.

This example may help you understand some of my previous comments about the exponential explosion of “channels” for content (such as music and video). From the hundreds of channels currently available via cable and satellite to literally billions of personal channels, there would be at least as many, if not multiple, channels as people since each individual would want to have many different channels to match many different moods, situations and circumstances—watching alone versus with your family, daytime versus nighttime, news and documentaries versus entertainment, etc.

Google Ads TV (pun intended)

Google has also announced several new initiatives that provide further proof of this trend towards mass personalization of TV and video content. For example, in a continuation of their basic ad-based business model, Google recently entered the television advertising business by striking a deal with the large U.S. satellite TV operator EchoStar. Reuters covered the story in the PC Magazine article “Google Ads Move Onto Direct TV”. I am NOT pointing this out because of the advertising or business model issues, but because this is all being driven by the desire to get more direct connections with viewers and to provide the critical feedback loop component of the Snowflake Effect.

As the PC Magazine article notes, “Viewer feedback is the Holy Grail”. Granted, this is also being driven of course by advertising revenue and the pursuit of personalization of advertising, which can certainly have its dark side. However there is also the significant upside of developing these capabilities for improved “targeting” of information and there is no need for this to be restricted to advertising content or purposes. When it works to our own advantage and benefit, well “targeted” information is simply another example of getting it “just right” as in just the right information to just the right person(s) at just the right time, etc. And as noted in my previous post “JOOST = Juiced TV”, such targeted advertising has the ability to dramatically reduce the volume of advertising we experience by as much as 90%!

Google Engineering the Snowflake Effect

Donna Bogatin on ZDNet recently posted an even more direct example of the Snowflake Effect in her article “Google Television engineering targets mass TV personalization”. She does a nice job of summarizing some of the many benefits of “mass personalization” and notes how...

“The characteristics of mass media contrast sharply with the World Wide Web. Mass media channels typically provide limited content to many people; the Web provides vast amounts of information, most of interest to few. Mass media channels typically beget passive, largely anonymous consumption, while the Web provides many interactive opportunities like chatting, emailing and trading.”

Google’s stated goal is “to combine the best of both worlds: integrating the relaxing and effortless experience of mass media content with the interactive and personalized potential of the Web, providing mass personalization.”

Apple Aiming for TV Breakthrough

Not to be outdone by others and adding even more proof of how large and powerful the Snowflake Effect is, Apple has also made some significant announcements recently (see "Apple Aiming for TV Breakthrough"). Most relevant is their launch of Apple TV, a combination of a hardware device and some services that enable content, especially TV and video content, to be streamed from your PC or Mac to your television screen. More details are available on Wikipedia and in the CNN review “Apple TV best for ITunes addicts”

Of course, this is not a new capability, since many other manufacturers and service providers have been offering this for several years. But Apple hopes to be able to do for TV and video content what it did for music and audio content with the iPod. In fact, Apple TV requires the use of iTunes (running on a PC or Mac) to control the access to video and TV content. Personally I think this is also one of the more vexing limitations of the Apple model including the fact that a computer running iTunes is also required to make the system work. I was also surprised to find that there is currently no way to buy iTunes Store content directly from the Apple TV. You have to go to your PC or Mac to do this. This is why the Amazon/TiVo Unbox example is a potentially better model. But it would be folly to dismiss the “Apple factor” with the “emotional design”, mass appeal, and marketing that Apple is SO good at delivering.

Get out your Snow Shoes! (hey, I’m Canadian what did you expect?)

Some see all this recent activity around television as the “liberation of the living room”, which I agree is happening. However, I think this is missing the much larger trends—the transition of TV from an old medium to the new content, and the progression of mass personalization or the Snowflake Effect.

Consider for example that we are also seeing a serious surge in the migration of video content to many other devices and locations—on digital display screens on cell phones, PDA’s, and inside planes, trains and automobiles. The MUCH larger trend we need to notice is the ability to have any content, anywhere, anytime. And while “any” is the focus, our locus needs to be on how to well we can take on this transformation from “any” to “every” and down to just “one” (the right person/place/time/context etc.)

Now THAT is a snowstorm I want to be a part of!  I’m looking forward to hearing about other examples from you, as well as your observations and reflections after you’ve experienced some of these yourself. Put on your snowshoes and let’s start walking this talk.

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JOOST = Juiced TV

It seems like there is no end to the examples of metaTrends coming at us every day, such as the Snowflake effect of mass personalization, and the convergence and conversion of yesterday’s mediums into today’s media and messages.

In the span of a relatively few years, we have seen the medium of television grow from the TWO channels that I recall as a child, to the 100+ that cable TV brought with it, and then to hundreds of channels that satellite TV now delivers. But as the saying goes “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” 

Today I want to talk about one that promises to be a precursor to the rapid evolution—some would say, “revolution”—of the medium formerly known as television or TV. With the upcoming launch of a new company called Joost (pronounced “juiced”), formerly known as the “Venice Project”, we are about to see a massive mashup of nearly infinite personal choices in TV-based content. I believe this will be yet another example of another theme I’ve talked about—exponential change—because we are about to experience the exponential growth of television content. (Now THERE is a frightening thought for some!)

Joost is being brought to you by the same duo who previously unleashed the explosion of file and music sharing by creating  Kazaa, and then went on to unleash the growth of online phone conversations by creating Skype. Now a bit smarter and armed with a whole lot more resources (eBay bought Skype for a paltry $2.6 billion) Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström appear ready to have the same effect on TV content with the upcoming release their latest brainchild.

If you look closely at some these Joost screenshots, you’ll notice that it provides various options—personalized “smart channels”, search capabilities to find just what you want, a buddy list, IM, recommendations, feedback loops to “Rate It”, chat, and “Share What I’m Watching.

Check out last month’s (Feb 2007) Wired magazine to get Spencer Reiss’ coverage in “Why Joost is Good for TV”. Reiss will give you better insight into the potential power of Joost and the future of video content. As Reiss puts it, their vision may be challenging but it is clear:

“The vision: universal TV, running on a hybrid P2P platform—millions of exquisitely networked PCs fortified with traditional video servers. Free to viewers who download the player app. Friendly to content owners, thanks to industrial-strength encryption. Delightful to advertisers, adding pinpoint targeting to their all-time favorite medium. Everyone’s a winner!”

The “secret” to their past and (they hope) future success is to build systems based on distributed computing, known as Peer to Peer or P2P, where the users/customers become the network. These new forms of P2P actually work better as the demand goes up and more end user computers are added to this dynamic network. This is in stark contrast to the models that the likes of Google, YouTube and iTunes are using, where they have to store and stream the content, so demand typically slows down the overall system. Therefore, the major benefit of this new model that Joost is using is mass scalability. They’ll certainly need it if Joost takes off and billions of people start watching trillions of “channels” of on-demand “just right for you” TV content.

Joost is also another great example of the “mashup” or Lego-block-type approach I’ve long ranted and raved about. As Reiss got from his discussions with Janus and Friis, this is not so much a “skunk works” project as it is a mashup shop for “Lego-style architecture + open standards + existing public code”. Interestingly enough, Joost CTO Dirk-Willem van Gulik doesn’t even like TV, but he has a big thing for Legos. So when he is in CTO mode, he calls it “a big exercise in systems integration” but when he tries to summarize, he simply says “We’re snapping together Legos.”

Currently, for each hour of broadcast TV programming, a viewer watches 12 to 20 minutes of advertising. Joost’s business model also depends primarily on advertising, but the distinct difference is that personalized TV enables highly targeted marketing and therefore MUCH less advertising…like, 90 percent less—as little as one minute per hour of viewing, if projections pan out. “The key in the past (to advertising) was volume and frequency,” says Clark. “Now it’s going to be quality.”

Joost has also made the conscious decision to NOT go after user-generated content. Given the current problems YouTube is having with the recent billion dollar lawsuit from Viacom, this decision is looking to be a very smart move—for now.

As per my previous posting on old media and new content, Joost is transforming the old medium of TV into the new content and is leveraging our current behaviors in terms of TV watching time. Reiss notes this in his Wired article:

“...it’s to migrate television’s mass audience to the Web. 'We want to be in the space where people are doing what they do now with TV, watching four to six hours a day,' says Henrik Werdelin, 30, another MTV defector who spearheads overall product development now at Joost.  He put it a bit more pointedly when he added, 'That’s a lot of YouTube clips.'"

Of course, there is no telling if Joost will itself turn out to be a winner. It may suffer the same fate as Napster, which was taken over by Kazaa. There is no end to formidable competitors and opponents in all of this, and it is just a question of who the big players will be and how soon it will happen. There is NO question in my mind that it WILL happen and will change and shape our behaviors just as the unleashing of other forms of content such as text, music and phone conversations has changed us.

If you’d like to learn more, you can keep up with Joost specifically via the Joost blog and even better, you can do some experiential learning by signing up to be a beta tester.

Even if you don’t see much value in having specific content on TV, don’t dismiss it outright. Instead, begin to imagine what you can do when you can have not just any content, but just the right content for YOU or for those you work with, your friends, or your family. As William Gibson so accurately put it “The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet.”   Hope you will help to even out that distribution in the world.

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Mashed Up Snowflakes?

One of my main objectives here at Off Course – Off Target is to share and explain some of the key concepts and models that I have developed or adopted, and then provide examples that show how these concepts are becoming a reality.

The Snowflake Effect

Those who are familiar with me through my blog, my presentations, or just casual conversations know that I am driven by my passionate belief that personalization at the global level—what I call “the Snowflake Effect”—can now be achieved.  I’ve often described this effect as getting it “just right”, as in just the right content, to just the right person, at just the right time, in just the right context, on just the right medium or device, and any number of other “just rights” that you might imagine.

One of the fundamental enablers that make this Snowflake Effect possible is the universal application of a “Lego block” conceptual model—having a large collection of very small individual components (the Lego blocks), each of which has an equally small set of common standards (such as the common “pin” size of each block), so that it is possible for any block to be “snapped” together with any other block. 

You can choose any combination of blocks and assemble them together to form a unique result matched to a unique purpose and context. A finite set of blocks can be combined together in nearly infinite combinations, providing the potential for massive amounts of personalization. And talk about scalability!  As the number of blocks grows linearly, the number of combinations grows exponentially.

Mashups

This same idea is at the root of “mashups”, a term commonly used to refer to a unique combination of software code. But the notion of mashups is MUCH more universal, and can and will be applied to more purposes. I’ve made several presentations on this idea in the past few years. You can read more about it in my previous post The Future is a Marvelous and Monstrous Mashup. I believe that restricting mash ups to software code is completely arbitrary. When we treat it as a concept and apply it to many other things, it becomes truly powerful and profound. My personal definition of a mash up is simply:

A mash up is a unique assembly of bits and pieces from more than one source into a single integrated whole.

So “mashup” as a concept can and already does apply to almost everything. Some examples previously noted included:

• Music: Pandora.com, Last.FM
• Content: wikis, blogs, rich media
• Events: Mashup Camp, Tim O’Reilly’s Foo Camp
• People: Finding the right ones for a project team via their competencies, preferences, etc.

The Universal Widget API

So I was so intrigued to read the recent announcement from Netvibes.com called  the “Universal widget API”.  I see this as a very significant step towards this more universal application of mashups and an example of the Snowflake Effect.

What is a Universal Widget API? One of their bloggers said:

"It’s simple: Write once. Run everywhere.

• Open source JavaScript runtime
• Netvibes UI library to help make widget building quick and easy
• Connects communities together across all platforms and APIs"

If you are not familiar with this use of the term “widget” it has most recently been used to describe a bit of software code that can be embedded into any Web page and creates a little onscreen element that the user interacts with, such as a YouTube clip. For example, I’ve used the SlideShare viewer “widget” here on Off Course – On Target to embed my slides directly into a posting. You have probably seen and used examples of widgets that display a clock or maps on a page.

If you’d like to check out more examples and start using some of these widgets, you can look at:

• Yahoo widgets
• Konfabulator Widget Gallery
• Apple Dashboard widgets
• Wordpress Widgets
• Google Maps API

API is the acronym for Application Programming Interface, a set of tools that makes it easier for programmers to build a software application by providing all the building blocks (that Lego approach again!). The Webopedia definition of API is:

“Abbreviation of application program interface, a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. A good API makes it easier to develop a program by providing all the building blocks. A programmer puts the blocks together.”

In his recent  “e-Clippings” blog entry about Netvibes Universal Widget API, Mark Oehlert said:

“I do have to wonder though, how one company will develop a universal API....good for Netvibes for taking the lead on this.” 

I certainly agree. Whether Netvibes pulls this off or some other group does so later on, any step toward a more universal and standard API for widgets would be welcomed. A standard would allow for:

• The universal development, sharing, and reuse of such marvelously useful widgets.
• Help make their use much more ubiquitous.
• Shift the focus onto the actual content and usefulness of these widgets.

To learn more about the Netvibes Universal Widget API, check out Niall Kennedy’s detailed explanation “Universality of the web widget”.

What I would ask YOU to think about and comment on, is what widget would you most like to have? If we were to have a giant repository of widgets, what would you want to find there?

Let’s get creative and start building the demand for widgets, so as they become more ubiquitous, the supply will match our demand and real needs. To help you do so, be sure to try out some of the widget libraries I already noted and the many others you can easily find online. They will help you see their underlying power and value. Soon you’ll be saying, "This is great, but if I could only find one that would let me ………."

Happy finding and learning in widget world!

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McLuhan meets Web 2.0?

In some of my recent postings (“The Old Medium has become the New Content” Part 1 and Part 2), I expressed my admiration and respect for the many prescient remarks that the late, great Marshall McLuhan made about the media, including “the medium is the message”. In keeping with this notion that “the old medium becomes the new content”, I thought many of you would enjoy a posting on YouTube which a good friend and colleage, Gerry Lang from Intrepid recently brought to my attention.  This led to some additional exploration and I turned up two others that seemed to have a story that I'd like to relate here.

First, Assistant Professor Michael Wesch at Kansas State University, USA has posted a video clip with the apt title of “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us” (click on the image below to watch) Wesch not only provides a comprehensive explanation of the collection of recent Web-based technologies and the era of the Web popularly known as “Web 2.0”, he does this in less than 5 minutes!  In addition, he uses the medium itself to great advantage to make his points.

If you check out Wesch’s notes about this posting (click  “This …. (more)” to the right of the video), you can see that he matches his work to his message, because he says that this is his 2nd draft and requests that you send him suggestions for improvement.

In fact, his overall treatment of this piece provides a wonderful instance of  “leadership by example”. In addition to those things I’ve already noted, Wesch illustrates some of his points about Web 2.0 by matching the music (to my ears, at least) to the message. His chosen song, "There's Nothing Impossible" by Deus is available for download and distribution for free and as Wesch notes:

“Deus offers music under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license, yet one more example of the interlinking of people sharing and collaborating this video is attempting to illustrate."

This same license covers all the content you find here at Off Course-On Target. If you are interested in using Creative Commons license to distribute some of YOUR content so that everyone can readily use, reuse and repurpose it, check out the new v3.0 of Creative Commons license.

The second part is an example of user-generated content in the form of a follow-up response to Wesch’s clip by “Corey the Raven” that shos how such works can stimulate good responses from others. This is not only a good response but one that again uses the medium to provide part of the message.

And the third part is for those of you who are either new to Web 2.0 or find it all quite confusing.  It's a more "traditional" presentation style simple called “Web 2.0” created and posted on YouTube by Jeff Utecht from Singapore, China. Jeff offers a more factual overview of the history of Web 2.0 and does a good job of providing specific examples to illustrate the difference between Web 1.0 and 2.0.

I enjoy these video formats and think they provide an excellent form of content and medium. They also underline the need to provide additional formats. For example, a text transcript of these videos or perhaps a set of “stills” (such as slides) would be extremely helpful so that you can discuss them later, pick out specific parts, and reference them. Wesch seems to agree and has added the transcript for “The Machine is Us/ing Us”.  Or if you prefer to try out your own version of using alternative mediums to get your message across, you can provide your comments via video and audio.

In my own attempt to “lead by example” and “walk the talk”, I provide a full text transcript with each of my audio podcasts here at Off Course-On Target. Of course, I probably need to provide an audio version of each text-based blog entry as well. I may be able to meet this requirement using some of the new automated text to speech converters. I’m working on that now.

In the interim, as we share and exchange our ideas, we can benefit from having multiple mediums and formats for the same messages in order to achieve maximum transfer and value. While not every message will require this, the availability of such formats as illustrations, video, audio, and text for the same message seems to provide a richer and more provocative experience. This, in turn, tends to stimulate responses in kind and goes a long way toward increasing the creation of new content and knowledge for and by us all.

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Fast, Fresh, and Furious: “Pecha Kucha”...the New Karaoke?

WOW!  Did I ever have a fun evening last night with my first ever Pecha Kucha Night experience. Pecha Kucha, pronounced “peh-chak-cha”  or “pet-shah coot-shah” depending on who you talk to, is a relatively new presentation format that is seeing quite an underground surge of interest. It’s happening in over 50 major cities around the world. Heck, even Tasmania has one now! My company, Autodesk Inc., set up this event at our annual worldwide sales conference for all our thousands of resellers. It’s taking place in Las Vegas, so perhaps that part makes sense. Thanks to Maurice Conti (who came up with the idea) and his talented staff of helpers, it was a huge success. Here was a packed room full of several hundred curious sales people wondering just what this thing that they couldn’t pronounce was all about.

So what is it? As I mentioned earlier, it’s simply an interesting format for “presentations” but it would be better characterized by the Japanese term Pecha Kucha, which it is derived from and reflects the sound of casual conversation ("chit-chat").

As a Pecha Kucha presenter, you come up with 20 different images (photos usually), put them in an order you decide upon, and provide these to the organizers who then put them into a sequenced roll or “slide show”. They set this up with an automated timer to change to the next image every 20 seconds. The timing is automatic and the speaker has NO control over timing of the slide change. As a Pecha Kucha presenter you take the stage, tell the projectionist to “hit it” and you’re off.  Six minutes and 40 seconds later, you’re done! Time for the next person.

Pecha Kucha Nights were started in 2003 by two architects living in Japan: Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham od Klein Dytham Architecture as a venue for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. They were looking for a way to get people who are typically shy or at least busy working behind computer screens or in studios out in public to tell their stories and join in the conversation.  As Moma put it in his Wired article about his Pecha Kucha experience in Wired magazine “The solution: Give them a format, a structure, a parlor game, a chance to talk about their current interests and listen to others doing the same.”

As a forum for designers, it was perfect for myself and for Autodesk since we are both very focused on design. Last night I was honored to be invited to join seven other creative thinkers with VERY different backgrounds.

The roster included:

Carl Bass – CEO of Autodesk Inc.
Ken Bado – Senior VP of WW Sales & Marketing, Autodesk
Bruce Beasley – Internationally renowned sculptor
David Montesino – Visual Journalist, art director and 3-time Pulitzer Prize winner
Johnathan Pickus – Manager, Las Vegas Valley Water District
Sylvain Plourde –  Co-founder of graphics company 3Vis in Montreal Canada
JT Tomlinson –  Head of Automation, Cirque du Soleil

Now THAT is diversity…not only from their job titles and organizations but even more so by the Pecha Kucha “conversations” they provided!

And what did they Pecha Kucha about? Couldn’t really do it justice with just words, but what was common about each of these otherwise wildly different presentations was that each of us talked about a mixture of things we care about and what makes us who we are. So it was a wonderful blend of personal interests and projects and professional pursuits. The commonality that came through loud and clear to me was passion—connections to family, personal interests such as some amazing fine woodwork projects, pursuit of meaning, life and work experiences and an overall exploration of what motivates us.  It was truly an example of “experiential learning” and you really had to be there to understand it and to appreciate one or more of the apparently tasty PechaKutinis that were being served to one and all!
(The sessions may have been videotaped so I am working on being able to upload some for you to look at and I’ll post them here if I’m able to locate them.)

What did I learn and enjoy from the experience that you might find of value and interest? As per the title of this posting,  it was wonderfully and frighteningly fast, fresh, and furious. The tight and simple 20 image/20 second format flipped the tired lecture, PowerPoint presentation on its head and stimulated diversity, connectivity, and cross-discipline conversation and collaboration not only in the presentations themselves, but in the great conversations in between and afterwards. People I’ve run into here since then are still buzzing and talking about it.

I also appreciated how this standard format acted as a great equalizer of presenters and every one of their images since they each got exactly the same time up on the screen. Is this the new way to do all presentations? Absolutely NOT!  As I’ve said many times here at Off Course – On Target, a truly new innovation rarely eliminates or replaces what went before. Instead, it adds to our choices for powerful ways to capture, express and share ideas. I’d recommend it highly for your consideration if you are organizing or participating in events where you or others are trying to share ideas with others. Or you may just want to experience a Pecha K