Could This Be You?

Saw this on a friends feed and had to post. Can you relate?

Thanks to: Comics.com | Pearls Before Swine

FoxTrot and iPad

Saw this and had to share. I can relate to the humor of Bill Amend’s FoxTrot.

Play Is Good For You And For Business

I love creativity in all things. As I look for creative ways to educate and train I happened upon this video. Here Tim Brown, from Ideo, discusses creativity in the workplace and how it breeds innovation. Yet, what I think I like best about his entire presentation is the way Tim got the audience involved in his talk. So, set aside 20 minutes and enjoy this TED Talk by Tim Brown.

more about “Presentation Zen: Play is good for yo…“, posted with vodpod

Design Thinking (plus MIT Video)

My friend and co-worker, Craig Dockery, recently posted about an interesting article he read on Harvard Business Online.

Just a couple of weeks ago I read a great article called Design Thinking at Havard Business Online. In that article, Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, says, “Thinking like a designer can transform the way you develop products, services, processes—and even strategy.”
Read more…

This particular article above requires a nominal fee for downloading but there is a video (Real Video format) presentation on the same topic available at MIT World.

Graphic Design, The Beauty of Type, and The Days of U&lc

By E. Brown

I just stumbled upon this site while visiting, Moving at The Speed of Creativity. The site is Wordle. They have created a cool little app that allows you to create word clouds from your delicious tags or blog rss feed. You can then customize the fonts, colors, and layout to your choosing.

Here are my delicious tags in Wordle…

Ah, this reminds me of the days I used to subscribe to U&lc (Upper & lowercase) Magazine. Now you can see the online version. But, the print edition was a thing of beauty. Never had type or the crafting of words looked so sexy. Type designers would draw inspiration and just a little envy from the over-sized newsprint periodical. I loved to look at the use of words and letters to create textures and patterns.

Good times…

It’s hard not to get just a little nostalgic. Here is the blog feed in Wordle. Enjoy!

Airport Terminal Seating With A Tude

I love the simple design of this functional artwork. Also, if you’re working in a terminal and do not want someone sitting next to you, all you need to do is remove the back-rest and –tadaa! — instant work surface :)

By Tomek Rygalik. Posting from designboom.com | Dustbowl

10 Tips For Global Communication

NOTE: This was posted on Communication Nation a little while back, but I loved the drawings and had to share.

By Dave Gray

The difference between local and global markets is like the difference between the fishbowl and the ocean. To understand and engage successfully requires a shift in perspective. Here are a few tips to help you get the most from your global communications efforts:

1. Get outside your fishbowl.
To go global you’ve got to get out from behind your desk. Your culture surrounds you like the air you breathe, and you can’t understand it until you get outside it. Spend some time – an extended period, if possible – completely immersed in another culture. When you return, you’ll be surprised how many things you notice that were previously invisible.

2. Be authentic.
Being global doesn’t mean losing your identity. If you’re a global company that was started in Germany and is headquartered in Germany, it’s perfectly ok to be German. It’s a multicultural world and you are a part of it too. The key is to be respectful of other cultures while being true to your own unique identity.

3. Remember that you are a guest.
When you are visiting another country, or when you open an office there, you are a guest. The same rules apply that would apply if you were visiting a friend’s house. Be polite, respectful, and thoughtful in your communications.

4. Think visually.
There’s a reason why TV is booming while newspapers are going out of business. People understand pictures faster and more easily than words. With pictures you can communicate complex ideas instantly, and virtually nothing is lost in translation. And words need to be translated, while pictures are a universal form of communication.

5. Ask for feedback.
Share your ideas with global teams early, when they are in the napkin-sketch stage, and ask for feedback. When you ask people to participate in defining the message, you build trust. If you build your message globally, then deployment becomes much easier.

See the remaining 5 tips at Communication Nation…

Kevin Kelly of WIRED Talks At TED About The Web’s Next 5000 Days

Kevin Kelly is one of those guys I could listen to for a time and then have to walk away and ponder on all the implications of the information I have just received. He is one of a handful of people I greatly admire. At the “5000 Day” mark, Kevin talks about the next 5000 days of the Worldwide Web and makes some interesting predictions. The clip is about 20 minutes long, but well worth the time. Sit back and listen to what Kevin has to say.

Jaggedsmile Now On WeirdGuy Blog

Had your Jagged Smile today? If not, close friend and illustrator, Jeff Gregory, will be showing up in the side bar on a weekly basis. You’re bound to be captivated and tickled by his mental offspring.

If your day is sour, you need a jagged smile. If your boss has got you down, you need a jagged smile. If you have to get a mid-afternoon pick-me-up, you need a jagged smile. If the doctor just gave you bad news, you need a jagged smile.

Jagged Smile — humorous doodles and ramblings from a mind that no one should dare to get inside of. Venture at your own risk… and have fun! (See side bar for more)

WeirdGuy Blog Needs You!

Message From Eric - a.k.a. the WeirdGuy

As a reader of WeirdGuy blog I’d like to humbly ask you to help me. I have a short 10 question survey running from August 28 – September 7, 2008 on Zoomerang.  The survey should take 2-3 minutes to run through. Your thoughtful responses will aid me in future developments for this blog.

I realize I am asking you to volunteer your time, but I value your opinion. Please follow the link provided today — the survey is only available for 10 days.

And, if the survey takes longer than 2-3 minutes then you can feel free to spam me with your hate mail.

Thank you for your patronage…can I say “patronage”?…whatever, you know what I mean.

By the way, I’ll reveal the findings here on WeirdGuy when the survey is up, so if you want your response to count, now is the time to act…now! If you do not care, then what are you doing here at WeirdGuy blog to begin with?

Visual Literacy – Cool Learning Tools

By E. Brown

If the visual display of content is something that you ponder over on a regular basis (and what good e-Learning developer or Instructional Designer doesn’t?), be sure to visit Visual Literacy today. There are all kinds of fun things to discover. One of my favorites was the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. Check it out!

Intuition vs. Logic

Phil Cooke, Producer/Director, recently posted this on his blog. This applies to many areas of life and work. I thought it was interesting…very interesting. Where do you see application in your life?

When people ask me why I use a Mac, my usual response is that it’s more “intuitive.”  A PC is logical, but a Mac’s interface and software is more like the way I think.  I’ve also noticed it in how quickly young kids adapt to a Mac in contrast to a PC.  They just seem to “get it.”  It’s similar to the GPS systems on my car.  A few years ago I had a Lexus and I loved the GPS.  It just made sense.  It thought the way I did.  But now I have a Land Rover and I hate it.  The Land Rover GPS is good, and it’s very logical – but I find it’s very difficult to use.

Read more…

100 Years Of Animation

Celebrate with me one of the most creative and influential mediums of our time – animation!

One hundred years ago today, the first animated film of all time was released to the public. Fantasmagorie was created over the course of four months by French caricature artist Émile Cohl, who became known as “The Father of the Animated Cartoon”.
(From /film) Read more…

Here’s the original film as seen on YouTube.

Here’s the 2008 Remake of Fantasmagorie with additional animated characters. Fun!

One Semester of Spanish Love Song (Video)

Saw this the other day and had to share. I have to give them an “A” for originality and creativity. So, what does this have to do with WeirdGuy and learning? Well, it certainly fits the creativity bill and, as for learning, the guy should have spent more time learning Spanish if he wanted to woo his Señorita properly.

Watch it for yourself — it’s hilarious!

Amy Tan Talks About Creativity (TED Video)

Here Amy Tan talks about, “Where does creativity hide?” Tell me your thoughts.

Light and Shadow, Shape and Form, Depth of Field – The Power of Images

Light and shadow…

Shape and form…

Depth of field…

…all play and intertwine in the composition of great photos.
They draw the viewer in and beg the questions,
“Who is this?”
“What is happening?”
“What has happened?”
“Where is this?”
“Why?”
And, in so doing draw us into introspection…

…such is the power of great photos.

[Photos from ArTeTeTrA]

Blogged with the Flock Browser

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Time Off WeirdGuy Blog – Just One Week

By E. Brown

I’ll be taking a week off to focus on closing out a project (July 28-August 1). More to come from the lessons learned during this engagement. It’s a really cool online course with custom hooks into a client app. The back-end was designed as “plug and play” so content can quickly and easily be swapped out while still being applicable to the course testing and grading scenarios.

See you in a week.

Simplicity Quotable Quote – Bruce Lee

One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.
–Bruce Lee

Weird Week In Review – June 13

In case you missed last week, here is your one stop review of all things from WeirdGuy blog. Have fun!

Creativity, Cars, And Ninja Cows

Big Buck Bunny – Buy Or Download

Steampunk Sewer Cleaner

Telecommuting: How To Promote It

Related Links
- Weird Week In Review (June 6)
- Weird Week In Review (May 30)
- Weird Week In Review (May 23)

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Steampunk Sewer Cleaner

I really like this genre of art — maybe it’s because of my early love of Anime and Myst. Enjoy!

This piece was built by Alex Holden. Alex says of the project…

The pictured device is a prototype of Joseph Bazalgette’s patent sewer maintenance machine, as demonstrated at the Great Crystal Cyberdrome Exhibition. Its boiler is fired by miasma and it is fitted with a variety of cleaning and pest-control ancillaries. Unfortunately the high manufacturing cost and the temperamental nature of their modified rat brains meant that after the initial batch of fifty had escaped Bazalgette was forced to employ men to maintain London’s sewers. Even today, you can put your ear to a manhole cover in our capital city and hear the distant clanking of brass wheels on brick walkways and the squeal of exterminated rodents.

Related Articles
- Weta® Gets Punk’d
- Steampunk: Old is New Again