Tag: linkedin
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Fun in the Snow
Usually my day is filled with similar strategy and branding issues for various companies. But things are slowing down as Christmas approaches even if the snow has yet to fall. For the last two years I have produced a children’s book for my nephew Nathan about the life and times of a snowflake. The first […]
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Strategically speaking
I was asked the other day about strategy and what that meant for client engagements. Obviously an open ended question, with few parameters. There was no use case study to help construct a foundation nor was there any sense of timeline for this imaginary engagement. So I gave my best response at the time but […]
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A layout and design critique
I have never included anyone else’s thoughts on 418QE before but after reading my very good friend and mentor Keith Branscombe’s rant, I could hardly resist. I asked him if I could publish it. His ‘rant’ makes some obviously valid points and it is certainly food for thought – enjoy!
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“nationals” it is!
Showchoir Canada were interested in a name change for their event. 2011 was their inaugural year and they learned a lot from their experience. Show Choir management were surer of themselves and certain of some changes they needed for 2012.
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My Dream Time
Well it’s that time of year again and even if the snow hasn’t fallen, Christmas is around the corner. Last year and around this time I made a children’s book for my nephew Nathan about the life of a snowflake. This was the first time I ever attempted to make a book of this type. […]
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Question what you ask
In life we ask questions to elicit information we need. But the questions we ask may not motivate people to deeply reflect, or inspire a careful response. The idea of exchanging information through questions and answers is something that we take for granted. We don’t always think if the question is the right one or […]
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Show Choir Canada’s Glee
Show Choir Canada’s mission is to play a vital role in the development and support of show choirs in Canada by creating opportunities, including live competition-format presentations, that inspire youth participants to not only work together through song and dance to achieve a common goal of excellence but also grow and develop as individuals while […]
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It has to be Readable
There are so many key phrases in the design industry and for the last decade the technology industry has supplied the design industry with even more jargon. We now talk about sustainability, ROI, stakeholders, experiential design and usability as we have evolved from paper, to screen, to multitouch to gestural… and the list keeps growing. […]
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All this for 30 seconds
For the last three days I have experienced what it is like to have a film crew come into my house for a one day commercial shoot. Over a year ago a friend of mine told me that my place would be perfect for filming, but up until this week, it had not happened. Since […]
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My Snowy Life
A few weeks ago my family and friends gathered together to celebrate my birthday. One of the people in attendance was my friend, Keith Branscombe and with him he brought a book he made about his visit to Cuba. I was immediately intrigued and asked him how it all came about. To make a long […]
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Positive Deviance
On Wednesday, November 10, 2010 I participated in a session that dealt with the practice of Positive Deviance (called PD after this). This conversation was facilitated by Erika Bailey who calls herself a ‘Human Systems Consultant’. I have had the good fortune of talking with her in the past but I never had the opportunity […]
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Appreciative Inquiry
Appreciative Inquiry was first conceived in 1986 by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva while they were studying an organization. In this study they interviewed half the organization looking for “problems to be solved” and the other half looking for “miracles to be embraced”. What they discovered was that the information they collected was significantly different […]
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Help me first – more meaningful ROI
Businesses always want to increase their ROI. This is a pretty straight forward statement and one which no one ever argues against. The question of “How do we, as a company, increase our capital within the confines of our set marketing and advertising budget?” is an issue every company has.
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Family Photo Wall
I have been prodded by several friends to showcase my ‘Family Photo Wall’ but I don’t really like the idea of placing my personal life on display. However a good friend suggested that I write a brief instructional of how I accomplished this task because they knew that I documented the whole procedure. (Actually they […]
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BookCamp Toronto 2010
My initial thoughts about the day were: “Okay so it is supposed to be the first nice day this week and I am going to BookCamp Toronto 2010 to sit inside Robarts Library all day and listen to and participate in various discussions.” I was conflicted, I really needed a sunny day and I wanted […]
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ebook nausea
I am part of an ebook group that began at OCAD about one year ago. We call our ebook the ‘sbook’, short for ‘smart book’. Our goal is simple: to envision the successor to the printed codex – not so simple.
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Uffe Albaek speaks at DwD
Late last year I attended a lecture in which Uffe Elbaek, founder and former Principal of the KAOSPilots – International School of New Business Design & Social Innovation, recounted his time with KAOSPilot and gave a talk on his challenging but satisfying role as the CEO of the World Out Games held in Copenhagen.
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Design and Transformational Change
Presently I am enjoying a informative workshop headed by Peter Jones of reDESIGNreSEARCH. Once a month a diverse group of us discuss how to best organize and assist people and organizations to make positive change using different methods of dialogue to engage them. Most of the time these discussions are limited to a three hour […]
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Spineless eBooks
Ever look at someone’s bookshelf? It is one of the first things I do when I enter a room with lots of books at eye level. I start scanning the spines of the books and reading their titles. But until the other day I had never really noticed all the different logos that represent the […]
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The Seven Laws of Interfaces
On July 28th I attended a talk given by Dr. Carlos Scolari about the Seven Laws of Interfaces. Carlos is a professor at the University of Vic in Spain. He is a media ecologist and a semiotician; he is a teacher and researcher and also holds a position at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. For […]
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Reading the Future
Last week I participated in a sLab Exploration session identified as ‘The Smartbook Project: Rethinking the Book’ at the Ontario College of Art and Design. In attendance were a diverse crowd of people, from students, librarians (information sciences) and user interface specialists to a physics professor from the University of Toronto. And within the hours […]
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Good foundations for eCRM
Ever company talks about eCRM and in the late 90’s it used to be one of the industry’s most favourite buzzwords. Since then the hype has calmed down, possibly because there aren’t as many companies hopping on to the bandwagon. Nevertheless eCRM is just as important today but perhaps better understood. eCRM is basically a […]
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Naming Methodology
There are many theories on how to best structure a site, but it suffices to say that it is best determined from the intent of the product or service and from the type of content. That is why this article will solely deal with a naming methodology for various sections and single content pages within […]
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Pfizer Sales Force Automation Tool
The task at hand was to build Pfizer’s internal sales force application tool for their US sales team of over 45,000. This was a project that grew out of a need for better efficiency in sales within Pfizer and kept Thirst very busy for the next three years.
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Univision moves Online
Univision decided to make their move online. As a result, Univision’s new hispanic portal contains separate channels for content and an online shopping experience specifically designed for their culture. These designs enabled Univision to take new market share and solidify the hispanic market in the United States.
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The New York Daily News Online
This was a very involved online extension of a well respected and time honored print brand. The look and feel of the New York Daily News in its traditional printed medium is unmistakable to every New Yorker and so the task at hand was formidable. The starting point was the clean up of a trusted […]