the measure of our work
17 Jan, 2012 • posts i've written • 4 comments
Our new Like Sign – visit our livestream, click the Facebook Like at the bottom right corner, wait for 3-5 seconds, and see the sign trigger.
In addition to our shiny new dot-com, a small team here at Deutsch has just finished creating what we call our Like Sign. For every Facebook Like we receive on our new site, this sign lights up in the office.
For now, we’ve installed the sign directly in front of the office of our Chief Digital Officer, Winston Binch, where it nearly blinds him with every click.
Why we built the sign:
As advertisers, our mission is to engage networks of consumers, connected by shared interests, to accomplish a measurable business objective on behalf of our client.
Or, in other words, we try to make people do things while influencing their friends.
We do this, largely, by creating cultural currency – things that can be passed on and shared. These were once solely passive experiences, but now we build products, services, and utilities in addition to media.
The first challenge for all of our work, interactive or not, is how far our reach can extend beyond our paid placement. If we can’t create experiences that are actively passed along through networks of consumers, we likely won’t be successful in achieving business results.
We built this sign to be a reminder to ourselves that the measure of our work begins at how it’s passed along. It’s a physical manifestation of our goals. We thought it would be a nice touch to put the sign in front of our webcam for curious visitors to see, but the sign is really for ourselves. The idea is to build a sign for every client team in the building, to host in their section of the office (we sit in teams now, not by discipline) so that we’ll all think more consciously about designing things that people want to share. If the signs create a bit of internal competition, that wouldn’t be a bad thing either.
It even looks like our signs will travel beyond our building. The first client to get a sneak peek at the sign has already asked for their own Like Sign for their office.
Admittedly, sharing is but the first step toward achieving a business objective – but it’s a crucial one. Perhaps we need a physical manifestation of business results right next to the sign. If only sales metrics were as easily accessible as Facebook’s Open Graph … but that’s another project.
How the sign was made:
The hardware: Arduino Uno + Ethernet Shield, and a PowerSwitch Tail II.
The code: We used the Arduino development environment to create a simple web server. And then we used Javascript and Facebook to interpret the “Like” event.
The physical sign:
Frame: 3-1/2 x 3/4 pine, 1/8″ plexiglass, Wood Screws
Electrical: 18 gauge wire, 6 – plastic light socket (for standard household lamps), 6 – 25w refrigerator bulbs
Finally, a huge thank you to Mary Toves, Dan Cluff, and Bernie Santos for pulling this off so quickly.
Kit turns any netbook into a telepresence robot
The robotic innovations are coming fast and furious! No sooner did we report on the VGo robot now being tested at Boston Children’s Hospital than we came across Oculus, a motorized frame and software kit that instantly converts any netbook into a telerobotic, remotely operated vehicle.
The brainchild of Vancouver, B.C.-based Xaxxon, Oculus consists of an adjustable frame that holds a variety of small laptops, along with
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Wiki Dependency of the Day
Wiki Dependency of the Day: Katie Notopoulos is using her Twitter account to catalog the complaints emanating from Millennials worried about how the Great Wikipedia Blackout of 2012 is going to affect their school projects.
Great Moments in Manhood, Astronaut Edition
NASA leaked their full catalog of Gemini photos earlier today, and we thought we’d pass along this one of test pilot Thomas Stafford on Gemini IX, gazing out into the wild blue yonder. Legendary stuff.
Designer kitchens
Carl Kleiner photographed the ingredients for Ikea’s Homebaked is Best recipe book in 2010. His latest work for the brand’s kitchenware revisits the same minimalist, if slightly obsessive, aesthetic…
Hembakat Är Bäst, Ikea’s 140 page coffee-table baking book (see our post here), was created by agency Forsman & Bodenfors and art directed by Staffan Lamm and Christopher Persson.
Persson’s meticulous approach also seems in evidence in
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Onepager
Onepager lets small business owners setup a simple website in minutes. The Onepager interface allows you to easily update and maintain your website on your own. No need for a developer.
Here are a few examples built with Onepager: Northport Golfclub and Landmark Diner.
what is beautiful design?
16 Jan, 2012 • posts i've written • No comments
Daisey interviews dozens of (former) workers who are secretly supporting a union. One group talked about using “hexane,” an iPhone screen cleaner. Hexane evaporates faster than other screen cleaners, which allows the production line to go faster. Hexane is also a neuro-toxin. The hands of the workers who tell him about it shake uncontrollably.
- Your iPhone Was Built, In Part, By 13 Year-Olds Working 16 Hours A Day For 70 Cents An Hour
I own an iPhone because I value design – but perhaps all of us, myself first of course, should question where beautiful design begins. In this case, it begins in the hands of children, working under conditions we would never condone in our own society. I believe in trade, and I understand that the issue is complex, but I know that holding this device in my hand, knowing what I know now, being confronted with it more than ever, that I wouldn’t feel right asking that worker to work in those conditions, for that wage.
My hope is that services like Kickstarter make us more conscious of how our products are made, that journalists keep asking difficult questions of complex systems, and competitors deliver products that don’t require such human sacrifice, near or long term.
Food For Thought of the Day
Food For Thought of the Day: McDonald’s UK has announced that it will be temporarily replacing the toy commonly found in the company’s familiar “Happy Meal” with a book.
The fast food chain will thus become — at least for the duration of the giveaway — Britain’s biggest retailer of children’s books, as distributes nine million copies of War Horse author Michael Morpurgo‘s Mudpuddle Farm titles.
Morpurgo
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