Been thinking a good bit about identity in the digital form… Not as much the personal brand management hocus pocus kind of stuff, but what actually is happening to our identity as human beings as we’re moving into the age of digital everything. 

I recently traveled abroad and had to take my Passport with me to prove I am who I am, which was an interestingly befuddling thing. I use a piece of paper with some numbers to prove who I am. This is how it’s always been done. That social security number. But what is going to/how is going to/why/when the day that all of that information is digitally traced? When my monies/identity/information is stored/sent/shared through the digital realm? Will my identity FEEL different?

I have no idea what the answers to these questions are, but I think it’s a fascinating idea. I know that before I die, I’ll have my drivers license/ID on some sort of digital form that’s also my phone/wallet/etc.. 

Great read about this on Prote.in, where the above image is from, and the below quote. 

Existing online is about adopting a persona. That Twitter account with your chosen name? That’s not you - it’s a projection. All users are simply actors in a system. And the easiest way to describe what we do at Philter Phactory is that we create bots - artificial natural persons; actors that exist solely on that layer of the internet where people participate in Web 2.0.

I’m not all sweet for the fix-myselfness that seems to plague new year times. I do however seem to have found a recipe that fits something more attune to my love for risk and change. Unwell, they are called Resuperiements. A New Years variation to commit to experimenting more. And studying your experiments more to learn more. 

I tried this for the first time last year to some avail. While overall I beleive my 2011 was filled with more dynamic experimenting in life, I really only made one great, intentional attempt and this was for the month of January 2011. I tried to catalogue my daily activitlys in numerical form for one month. The results were indeed interesting. 

In 2012 however I wanted to commit to something a bit more accountable and direct. Something that could be measured and seen. Something that can be traced. Meanwhile, over the last 6 months I’ve been cultivating an idea that seemed to collide perfectly with this exact concept. Futura IO. 

Futura IO
For the year of 2012, on a monthly basis, I am going to try and run hard with one idea at a time, for a month at a time. Deploying as continuously and experimenting as radically as possible.  Some of the ideas are things that have been worked on in the past. Some of the ideas will be brand new things. Each month is a new idea and is based around a new set of hypotheses to test and experiments to conduct. 

This idea is most definitely going to be a off-set growing, proding and picking thing all the year long. My goal is to have more than 10 different people (there are already about 6) included in help develop each of the ideas, many even being lead by others. 

I do believe that by learning how to conduct better experiments, gauge market and user response faster and create experiences that are central to the human experience, by the end of 2012, Futura IO can be making some things that are truly unique and extraordinary. 

dribbble:

Timeouts are lightning-quick interviews. Five questions to help you get to know the players holding court at Dribbble. Many thanks to Justin for being today’s interviewee.

Who are you? Let us know where you hail from and what you do.

I’m a designer/illustrator currently residing in Orlando, Florida but originally from the Golden Coast. I bide my time between Wes Anderson films tending to a puppy, watching nature documentaries, and trying to understand more about space and how to be a husband—which are equally complex and awesome.

What are you working on?

Building a collection of client work, some collaborative projects, an incredible day job working with great friends at Maven Creative (where I do a majority of web and UI/UX design), as well as some self-initiated endeavors for the sake of experimentation.

Choose a favorite shot of yours. Tell us why it’s a favorite.

I’ve always been interested in the concept of graphical narratives that can capture a moment in time and create a window into someone else’s world. With the past few shots, I’ve been experimenting with this idea of the American Dream and how, in reality, it’s a journey into isolated compartmentalism while, in duality, a desperate grab for an empathetic understanding of our universe.

_86 explored this topic the most fully for me as it pulls on an incredible time in history (with the mid-century modern motif) where this idea of retro-futurism ran supreme in terms of the luxurious class. All this was an attempt to peer into the life of a single individual with his one chair, one table, telescopic eye to the sky in a neatly groomed suburban bubble. That and I have a fond love for geometry. Working in the mid-century modern style allows for the use of functional grid-based illustration with hard angles and inspiring violators.

Tell us about your setup. What tools did you use to create the shot(s)? (e.g. hardware, software, pens, paper, blowtorch, etc.)

I move around a lot throughout my workflow so I tend to gravitate between my desktop and a laptop. Usually both are sitting open on my desk and I’m working between both screens in an attempt to navigate frenzied file placement. I’m all Adobe Creative Suite with some hints of handmade textures. The top of my desk is typically coated with a robust collection of empty coffee mugs. I rarely sketch before I start but if/when I do, I use Microns and any sort of flat surface area I can hunt down. Though I’d like to challenge myself to break way from the computer screen and add more tangible assets into my work in the future. As my workspace is fairly underwhelming, this map of it should serve as a necessary replacement.

Choose a favorite shot from another player. Tell us why you dig it.

This will undoubtedly be the most difficult question I answer today but Nate Luetkehans was a recent discovery for me that has been putting out some killer work. Oui 1 is a favorite of mine in its line work and reductionist perfection.

Orlando does not have quite the level of tech entrepreneurial buzz happening as many other places in the country and/or world right now. However, It’s been undergoing a very specific change over the last few months in my own sight - The start of the Orlando chapter of the BuildGuild, news-worthy work being done by startups and incubators, Orlando Tech Meetup getting kicked off.. However - All of this is minor in relation to the potential for a grand slam in energy and movement coming out of this years TechVenture Conference at the Orlando Hard Rock Live. 

TechVenture is happening this Tuesday at the Orlando Hard Rock Live at City Walk. 10 Companies from around the city and the state are demoing their products and some speakers will fill the gaps in-between. 

The event is completely free. If your in the town - Or in the area. Come out!

Tasteful Christmas Compilation organized and championed by the incredibly talented Mr. Greg Perkins, with some delightful cover artwork from Danny Jones.

“It appears that Tumblr built in a day or two what no D.C.-based technology supplier could come up with in the last five years.”

— MediaShift Idea Lab . #DontBreakTheInternet: How The Web Became a Political Force vs. SOPA | PBS (via matthew)

Appreciate what the tech companies I interact with on a daily basis are doing - Very interesting form of “forced” protest that I am being obliged to participate in.

Should Ad Agencies Get Into The VC Business? - Forbes

taylordavidson:

caterpillarcowboy:

evangotlib:

taylordavidson:

I think they can, if it fits their model for innovation within the agency and their investment strategy trues back to that. (Obviously).

I agree.  A trend I’d like to see expanded.

I absolutely hate this idea, sorry. Funding innovation is one thing, I’m all for that. But “the VC business” defines a very specific kind of investing - investing in disruptive technologies that can take an entire decade to mature and requires a very specific range of experience and knowledge. And strategics of any sort (not just advertising, but any corporation) have massive misalignment issues. The only ones that really succeed are the ones so divorced from the parent company that it’s hardly relevant (Intel Capital and Steamboat Ventures [Disney] come to mind).

EDIT: This isn’t a reaction to the story linked above. The kbs+ Ventures guys seem like they are doing what Intel and Steamboat do, which is really think like independent VCs and I think that can work. My main beef is with companies who invest in startups that are in the same industry as the mothership.

I actually agree with you David.  History is littered with poorly executed, underperforming, misaligned strategic investors, and the world doesn’t need more of that. We dug into all of those lessons before we created kbs+ Ventures, and are making sure we stay true to the lessons we’ve picked up from the successes and failures of strategic / corporate VC.  

Can the idea succeed with a larger set of corporations if executed the same way? Not sure; I think you’d hit a limit of people who understand how to navigate a) big corporate / agency world, b) small company / startup and c) investors to the degree it takes to pull it off. And, it’s an idea that will and should always be in the minority of “the VC business”; supporting and building big innovative startups wil always require the type of lead investor who is experienced at funding and supporting disruptive technologies (and has the business model completely aligned to it). As a strategic follow investor, we wouldn’t get involved ourselves without that type of lead investor, the bulwark of the VC business.

EDIT: Interesting timing, with American Express announcing a new $100 MM investment fund to invest in emerging payments and payments services startups. To be clear, there’s a distinct difference between that and us.

Really appreciate this post and insightful follow-ups. I’m definitely curious about the scale of this model moving out from NYC. There was a relative big-bang happening with the extremely established agency presence in New York and the rise of its startup community. It made NY particularly ripe for this kind of business model innovation.

So, did NY create the opportunity for this anomaly? or is there enough room for a decentralized model and it’s only a matter of available capital for the Agency?

In addition - What about the opportunities for Agencys not only to launch separate P&Ls for a spin-out development company (IDEO & ShopWell) but an entire company that focused entirely on startups? e.g. What if an agency launched HiiDef?

Definitely a much different scenario - And more often already being done in the agency Lab world of R&D but rarely every formalized. 

yorco:

We’re super excited and honored to be taking part in demoing at the first Orlando Tech Meetup. We’re also helping get this monthly meetup into moving form and couldn’t be more excited about the vision for catalyzing the Orlando tech community. Just today we came across a really great post on TC from Brenden Mulligan about building the entrepreneurial community in your city and we believe Orlando Tech Meetup is going to be a vital part of making that a reality here in Orlando. 

Please join us this Thursday, Nov 10th 6:30 - 8:30pm at Urban ReThink as we have a Mashup of the Meetup and combine Orlando PHP with ReThink’s Tech Thursdays and launch the Orlando Tech Meetup. We’ll be doing the demo’s near the end of the time and 3 Central Florida tech companies will have 3-5 minutes to demo their product and get feedback for 3-5 minutes. Nothing better. 

Here’s the lineup for the Demo’s - 

Gotootie
Gotootie, founded by Kyle Christian Steele and Himanshu Pagey in 2010, provides a way for people and businesses in the same place to easily communicate through text-based messaging & share documents via their computer or smart phone without having to find a profile, twitter id or hashtag. The free service is currently available for public BETA testing by visiting www.gotootie.com from any Android or iPhone device.

Dropost.it
Dropost.it allows you to drop gifts for friends at any location. Friends can then pick up that gift the next time they are there. Sign up for the beta at http://dropost.it/

Yorco
Yorco is a social productivity app suite founded early 2011. Yorco is currently building it’s first app called Yorco Task, a socially enabled task management application for teams and small groups of people to get more done together. You can signup to be part of the Beta at http://yor.co/

We Can Sell Dreams

Great collection of visual inspiration.

linedandunlined:

Justin Kropp — who writes a blog called One Skinnyj — recently got in touch to ask if I’d be game for an interview and I was happy to oblige. His questions were thoughtful and wide-ranging, but one topic I enjoyed discussing in particular was entrepreneurship, so I thought I’d pull out two pieces of our conversation to share in that vein.

First, Justin asked me to weigh in on the “end of client services” conversation — described thoughtfully here, here, and here — and I tried to add a slightly more historical take on the increasing popularity of this mode of practice:

We’ve always seen designers seek opportunities and models for practice outside of commissioned work — whether it was setting up publishing programs, advocating for cultural resistance, building institutions that centralize and reinforce design’s cultural capital, or finding solace in a world of “self-initiated” projects. In many ways, each of these alternative practice models is a product of their times, and the shift to entrepreneurial endeavors you mention is no different. I think we should, as designers, keep inventing more of these as time goes on. But I think as long as design’s central narrative is one of a problem-solving, analytical discipline, then the need and opportunity for service-driven practice will persist and endure. What’s notable, if anything, is the degree to which a ’90s-era world of self-initiated work has broadened, in the ’00s, and with the help of the internet, to a world far beyond the self — it’s now a whole design culture, large enough to support the careers of certain designers without the need for them to frame their practices through service. But I’ll sound a cautionary note here: while I think it’s good to launch projects that other designers think are great, I think it’s much more essential that designers look beyond the design sphere in framing new opportunities for themselves. These are the projects — self-initiated, entrepreneurial, commissioned, bartered, speculative, or otherwise — that I look forward to most.

Second, Justin asked me to offer some advice to designers getting ready to start their own studio. Since I’ve not yet had a chance to write a “top ten” list, I tried my hand at one here:

1. An untended garden quickly becomes a field: plant what you want to grow.
2. Have partners, but don’t do the same things: make sure you both do something you enjoy.
3. Hire people for what they can teach you, not for what you can teach them.
4. Everyone should be able to take criticism: creative trust is built on critical honesty.
5. Design is only one part of the puzzle: savor the discussion, development, debate, and dissemination of your work just as much as the making of it.
6. Goals may be arbitrary, but not having them will be maddening when there’s no one else to tell you if you’re doing a good job: set 3-month, 6-month, and 1-year goals at the outset.
7. When you take your favorite clients out to lunch, it’s a good time to propose what you’d like to do together next.
8. Knowing more designers doesn’t necessarily translate into having good clients: spend your development time wisely.
9. Be known for something: it helps.
10. You will never work harder than when you’re building something: find balance. Sometimes the best way to solve a creative problem is to take a vacation or read a book.

Read the whole interview here.

“I hate it when people call themselves ‘entrepreneurs’ when what they’re really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public, so they can cash in and move on. They’re unwilling to do the work it takes to build a real company, which is the hardest work in business.”

—

Das Tumblr: Steve Jobs on Startups

eriebasin: Stratus Clouds in Greenland via NationalGeographic

Incredible content coming from Protein, Stefanie Prosavec on Data Visualization