From romance to thrillers, and all for free, available from your local library right now!

Great piece I heard on my favourite radio show (BBC Radio 4 The Today Programme) demonstrating how writers have responded to changing reader attitudes towards romance and crime. It points to the freemium model used by libraries which, as the writer James Patterson believes, actually encourages book sales. Listen to the 5 minute piece.

Moments not movements.

I remember Andrew Marr decribing the shift in political and social activisim from being about 'movements to moments'. Our (digital) ability to connect quicky in such numbers means it doesn't take years for influence to spread, rather facebook accounts and twitter feeds. A spike in political will contains the same volume as previous ground swells. So it was with particularl interest that I listened to BBC's Sue MacGregor bringing together some of the founding members of Comic Relief, Richard Curtis, Lenny Henry, Helen Fielding, Griff Rhys Jones and Paddy Coulter. Apart from the mutual back-slapping, it's a fascinating insight into how a group of commedians attempted to change our attitudes to reaching into our pockets. Listen to the piece here.

A shift of focus.

Saw this win an award at the Goldener Spazt 2011 German Children's Media Festival last week. Had to share. With magic, one often wants to reveal the slight-of-hand, find the join. Love it, so watch it here. Reminds me of another clever man who prefers little people Slinkachu

Storytelling is in fact technology.

That's my conclusion after having watched Keven Kelly explain that technology is the natural order of things. Stories are our way to understand the universe as much as law is there to govern it. Kelly argues that the tools of society are just as much part of technology as are hammers and cars.

Smart people remember your names...

Columnist David Brooks, a smart guy who tends to repeat his own jokes (there's hope for me yet) talks about his new book ‘The Social Animal’. Here he gives hope for people that put value on emotional intelligence, seeing the importance of what goes on below the surface, within our subconscious minds.

So David in triplicate:

First a brief interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme (which led me to the man - although subconsciously I'm sure I've read him in the International Herald Tribune, the freebie one gets on European flights which is in fact the global edition of the New York Times)

Secondly a TED talk given on the same subject (note the repeating jokes)

And lastly, a piece also on the BBC, to which I'm about to listen, but my gut tells will probably be good.

On the move, whilst standing still (at Malmö train station)

Train _station_at_Malmo_1 from Paul Tyler on Vimeo.

Train _station_at_Malmo_2 from Paul Tyler on Vimeo.

Train _station_at_Malmo_3 from Paul Tyler on Vimeo.

Saw this when travelling back from Malmö to Copenhagen last week. It's so beautiful and reminded me of the story of the guy who put mirrors next to the lifts in his huge New York skyscrapper to give people waiting, something to do. Supposedly it reduced the number of people complaining of having to wait for the lifts and was a fraction of a cost to what a new elevator would have been. As my friends remarked at Malmö, maybe these projections give you the sense of getting somewhere, even when standing still.

Two different approaches to becoming a warrior, for kids.

Raven was a BBC Scotland production for CBBC. It takes the theme of mythology and weaves it into an entertainment gameshow. Barda for Danish broadcaster DR, takes a more documentary storytelling approach to capturing the reactions of children working together with strangers to combat inner and outer fears.

The power of little people

Inspired by the work of Slinkachu little People in big surroundings, I captured my daughter's Sunday afternoon imagination on camera.

10 Web trends to watch in 2010 by Pete Cashmore, Mashable

Real-time ramps up, Location, location, location, Augmented reality, Content 'curation', Cloud computing, Internet TV and movies, Convergence conundrum, Social gaming, Mobile payments & Fame abundance, privacy scarcity.....read more

An animation studio bets on the iPhone [CNN Money]

Whilst IO feel "a bit nervous about the iPhone market" (see post below) "the man behind SpongeBob SquarePants is testing out a new business model: launching an animated franchise on the iPhone - instead of TV or film." Watch the clip to hear Albie Hecht explain the significance of 'Transmedia DNA'  Read more...

Scandinavian Games Developer IO Interactive move from Hitmen to targetting kids.

"We wanted to reach a broader demographic, but we have toyed with the idea of entering the children's games market for years. The market is mature enough for a game that is not based on an animated movie or on an old traditional IP that's been around for years." Read more...

Play for Free (and then spend some money)

Play for Free event hosted by DK MEDIA Desk Denmark and DADIU, explored the potential of the 'free lunch' within the business of selling computer games. Started brilliantly, although I'm not too sure if developer Simon Jon Andreasen or games magazine journalist Morten Skovgaard would agree. Simon's push to open up the platforms (XBox, PS etc.) felt sincere and forward thinking, but possibly a little niave. Would he also insist that LEGO and Tivoli allow 3rd parties to setup shop and operate within their walls without operating under license_ Morten held the arguement until it was suggested that the market needed his skills in order to know what it should like. A little like asking turkeys vote for Christmas.

Best quotes of the day.

"We've done this event before, but this is the first time we've charged and it's the most popular yet." ...Ene Katrine Rasmussen DFI

"The user can always leave bad games." ...Teut Weidemann.

Photos of some of the slides can be viewed here.

And... according to some within the music industry, the games industry has  it covered. Listen to this 11 minute item on the BBC Radio Art's Programme 'Front Row' exploring the issues over illegal music sharing and how it could learn from the emerging service culture generated by some games. Ironic really that this piece is coming from a BBC radio programme, a free service provided by the UK television license fee - something you haven't had to pay if you simply own a radio...of course global access to this content via the web has thrown up a whole host of other questions.

Neat combination of navigation and graphics

Nip along to this site, run your cursor along the top (horizontal) navigation and enjoy! Effective use of graphics to reinforce your selection as well as a visual representation of the sub categoreis.

The Fun Theory

Utter genius... go there now http://www.thefuntheory.com/

"Og i hans øjne så jeg døden"

It's truly something when a painting stops you in your tracks. Saw this haunting picture in Copenhagen's state museum for art 28.10.09. It still affects me even when reduced to an image online.

"Og i hans øjne så jeg døden"
(And in his eyes I saw death) Ejnar Nielsen
1897, Statens Museum for Kunst.

Tatort-Eifel - Germany Crime Writing Conference - Cologne

19.9.09 Presentation available to view through Prezi

Mario Giordano and I presentated at Germany's Crime writing conference, Tatort-Eifel, 19/9/09. The spiel..."The term 'interactive drama' has been banded around for so long that it feels like a fish past its sell-by-date. The notion that users can contribute to a drama without breaking the sacred bit, the 'story' has yet to be proved. And yet attempts are being made and crime fiction appears to be a likely area to be exploited. Especially children do use the so called "new media" objectively and naturally. So what’s happening inside and outside Germany? What new genres are emerging? How can writers exploit new technologies, develop new forms of story and benefit in the process?

This session - focused on content for young users - =provides an overview and will also challenge the audience to start creating. Sadly I left out a very strong example of how branching narratives can sit within the seemingly limitless options of a video serviing portal, such as YouTube "

Scheduling content or scheduling choice?

Whilst listening to the BBC's Media show [episode 26/08/2009) on my bicycle this morning (actually through my iPod and not the bike itself) I found myself challenging the distinctions made by a guest on the show. Patrick Barwise, Professor of Management and Marketing at the London was responding to the question of whether he thought that once video on demand (VOD) could be delivered through a television, whilst delivering the same picture and sound quality, it becomes a revolutionary development. He felt no, on the basis that all the evidence points toward people predominantly watching live television.

By use of the term ‘live’, he’s making the distinction between VOD and scheduled broadcast television output, not ‘live event’ television in the old sense, i.e. it’s being shot right now. However clear his distinction was, it still conceals a fundamental point. The majority of television is scheduled, and at the moment, that is the prerogative of the broadcaster. When the BBC only operated on one channel, it couldn’t provide choice, but once BBC2 came along, the continuity announcer could suggest an option to the viewer. That meant a shift from forward scheduling (telling me what’s happening later on) to include sideways scheduling (what’s happening on other channels). An easy shift one might think, but something that channel managers have continued to redefine. What’s to say that this mechanism for delivering choice won’t be extended to the choice of seemingly infinite channels of content, where the continuity announcer (or even visual interface/EPG) simply offers up a choice selection of the best that’s (constantly) available, thereby highlighting the wealth of other (always available) content provided by the broadcaster. As a viewer I won’t question when the announcer suggested the choice, rather I will simply be conscious of the fact that the choice is ‘live’.

So I agree that people will continue to hit the TV on button and expect to be able to consume content there and then, but to suggest that this can’t offer up VOD misses the point. The majority of broadcast content is already scheduled and to enable the user to self-schedule is more a challenge of the way you present that choice, not a distinction between live and VOD. I don’t question whether YouTube is live, I question how fresh it is. Where the innovation needs to happen is in the way broadcasters couch user choice, whilst maintaining the values of the Broadcaster, i.e. to maintain the sense of continual live editorial presence but at the same time offering choice to the viewer. The iPlayer is clearly on the way to making that evolutionary step.

Gaining consensus through images - effective brainstorming and solution capturing

I took part in a seminar which uses an interesting technique involving using images and pictures to capture group thoughts and process. Visionpool has created a tool which is like playing a board game on a table littered with hundreds of abstract images and key words. The structured process forces you to define issues, challenges, identities through the use of these small picture snippets. It forces dialogue and enables groups, people who've never worked together before to share a common, collaborative work space, very quickly and very effectively.

It could be applied to all sorts of different situations – we applied it (with the help of Danish Standards) to workshop on the theme of how one expresses ‘corporate social responsibility’ in large organizations. We looked at ways to define CSR, the dilemmas and also the goals. We came out with some valuable stuff.

To me, one could go further with the tool and capture the benefits to the organisation, i.e. how you prove value-add (or ROI) – so if anyone is interested I can introduce you to the guy that originated the tool and go from there. I'm hoping to join forces and bring some of the work I do on driving innovation and creative development to add to the pot.

Counter-intuitive sightings

Grab images of situations that don't work. Ever get the feeling of counter-intuitiveness? More>>>

Guest My Banner

My site is a broucher setting out what I can do and have done. Aside from the trimmings, it's an online CV. Should it contain 'user generated content'? My initial stabs allowed people to add comment, against posts I've held. The reaction I got was strong but useful. Whether or not it demonstrates openess on my part, it smelt of 'I'm seeking confirmation' or worse still, the sense of false modesty. So I whipped it out. However you can still design me a banner.

So make me a banner and if it doesn't offend my mother, I'll host it next month.

01.08.09 Banner #1

 20.8.09. Banner #2 - Hernan Huergo (hph design)

 12.9.09. Banner #3 - Hernan Huergo (hph design)