GE Adds $200 Million “Ecomagination Challenge” to Its $10 Billion Eco-R&D Push
Got a bright idea? How about an energy-saving one? GE announced today a $200 million “open innovation challenge” that invites inventors, entrepreneurs, and startups of all stripes to compete to develop the next-generation of power grid technologies. Called the Ecomagination Challenge, this huge investment comes only weeks after GE announced a $10 billion injection into its own eco-R&D projects.
Along with four VC firms that have …
Large-scale data visualizations examine the American Dream
Craig Stover and Karl Sluis, recent graduates at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, have re-examined what it means to “live the American Dream” through large-scale, physical data visualization of information and statistics that highlight different parts of the everyday American experience.
COMMON SENSE is an art exhibit that examines the American Dream. Through a series of thirteen works, the exhibit questions assumptions about the country’s history while it shows our common goals
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A perfect storm: the social web, storytellers and brands
Entertainment brands.. showing us how transmedia is done
Last week was Pixel Lab, Power to the Pixel‘s (@powertothepixel) cross-media workshop.
I joined a group of tutors and producers, half with film/transmedia projects in development, …
Too Hollyweird for Hollywood? David Lynch asks fans to help fund his movies.
There used to be a time when a filmmaker had a clever idea, took it to a Hollywood studio executive and, by the end of a long lunch, had secured enough money to make their next movie.
For lesser known film directors, this process involved a few more begging bowls being taken to a few more financiers and subsidising bodies. But still it usually worked.
But now in the credit crunched climate …
9 reasons to join the editorial board
13 Jul, 2010 • posts i've written • 1 comment
With 9 days left to back The Bucket Brigade, I thought I’d give you 9 reasons to support the project by highlighting 9 random members of the Editorial Board so far. Over 30 people make up the brain trust to-date, and a donation of $100 or more guarantees you a place among fine folks such as these:
Johnny Vulkan – along with one rad name, Johnny is Partner at Anomaly, where he makes innovative things happen on his dual iPads while criss-crossing the Atlantic Ocean. And like everyone on the Board, Johnny is one seriously nice dude.
Gareth Kay – Gareth is the Director of Brand Strategy at Goodby, incredibly smart, universally loved, and even though I was little more than a random internet person, Gareth took the time to give me some earnest career advice. Oh, and he blogs. And it’s good.
Mel Exon – Mel is the Managing Partner & co-founder @BBHLabs and runs things in London. I finally met Mel in person at SXSW when she brought the whole Made By Many crew to one of Austin’s best cowboy bars, The Broken Spoke. I think Mel should have been born in Texas.
Jamie Wilkinson – Jamie is my go-to professor of all things internet domination; co-founder of Know Your Meme, F.A.T. Lab, and Parson’s Internet Famous Class, Jamie knows how small groups use the web to their advantage. He’s an awesome dude.
Laura Chavoen – Laura is one of the few people that can claim more than a decade of experience focused on strategy and back it up (Razorfish, Scholastic, Yamaha, and now Imagination Publishing). I had the good fortune to work for Laura in Chicago and she brings some serious chops and wisdom to anything she works on. I’m also psyched to also pick the brain of her husband, Bill Shunn who is a much acclaimed science fiction author – perhaps he’ll help me keep this thing interesting (and by that I mean ray gun fights and faster than light space travel).
Len Kendall – Len’s right there with me (or even past me) trying out new publishing experiments, maybe you’ve heard of his massively successful the3six5 project.
Gavin Heaton – aka @servantofchaos, and the publisher of the collaborative publishing book series, The Age of Conversation, Gavin brings some awesome experience having actually sold copies of A.O.C., super glad to have his expertise.
Neil Perkin – founder/blogger/thinker at Only Dead Fish, which is a fantastic blog but will never be truly amazing until I actually win one of his damn post of the month polls (Faris rightly wallops most everyone, most every time).
So what’s the Editorial Board you ask? Well, The Editorial Board is a private digital community (hosted through Basecamp) and members of the community will help to:
- identify experts/case studies to include
- help shape the questions asked or topics covered w/ said experts
- they’ll also receive early transcripts of those interviews b/c it’s awesome
- later the board will see early drafts of chapters, will weigh in on them, etc
- then we get to make the fun decisions about the product itself, does it have to be a book? what should it look like? where should it be distributed? do we charge for it?
Sold? Visit the Kickstarter page!
And be sure to check out all of the supporters of the project. If I had more time, I’d include all of them. Oh, and I want to send a special shout-out to MailChimp for backing the project at $1,000 yesterday. Wow, huh?!
Flowchart shows the startup business cycle
Technology and investment group HackFwd describes what it’s like to work with them in a flowchart. In a nutshell: start with inspiration, work hard, impress people, work hard, and reap the rewards. And then start all over again.
Infographic: Fortune 100 Companies Jump on Social-Media Bandwagon
Corporations are gradually getting wise to the powers of social media. But not all forms of social media are equally favored, as shown by this graphic by Tiffany Farrant for iStrategy: 
Why do companies love Twitter and videos so much, while holding longer forms of communication at a distance? I’d argue that it’s easy to control a message in 140 characters or a …
Daring Fireball: Microsoft sold 503 KINs
John Gruber of Daring Fireball has a “well-placed” source who informed him that Microsoft sold a mere 503 KINs before the handset was given its end-of-life papers on June 30th. Speculative rumors of the devices dismal sales figures have been tossed around willy-nilly over the last several week, and five hundred was a popular guess; others quoting anonymous sources pegged sales at “over 1,000 but under 10,000.” One Microsoft employee …
