An interactive video on sign language

I got the mission to make a game for sign language but realized that if there is something that deaf people have loads of on the Internet it is games. The language must be visualized through video as both hands and face are required. So I modified the mission to interactive video production and looked for inspiration. First I found MegaVega who have produced lots of videos with tunes that children like translated by sing language dance moves. I'd love to see them as background dancers in some music children's show.

I liked them, but needed to show them to some deaf eight year olds to know if they would appreciate it. They sure did, but they also showed me what more they like on YouTube. Vanessa Hudges! But they can't here? No, but many music videos are build by short often romantic stories whith no long incomprehensive dialogues. They are very visual, emotional and tell their own short story.

I've further been looking at the Magnum Pleasurehunt game, and a handfull of interactive stories where the classic man from La Linea is my favourite - short sessesions and very simple choices and stories.

I will also further explore the possibilities with web cam games and timing games as Guitarr Hero to see if I can offer a set of signs to use for different purposes - to put a song together in the right order on the right time or to collect items through knowing specific signs. There is not much done so the field is open, but it is also difficult as I don't know the language and the Swedish target group/sign language source is very small. To be continued...

It doesn't have to be broken to need a change

Luke Williams talked about how to be and not to be disruptive. I use to avoid people who have written a book because they tend to market it with a catchy and quotable summerization presented with an attitude and a big sapient smile. Maybe I didn't think that the concept of distruptiveness was possible to summerize well, but I guess Luke proved me wrong.

In a business world of nonstop change, there's only one way to win the game: transform it entirely. This requires a revolution in thinking—a steady stream of disruptive strategies and unexpected solutions. In Disrupt, Luke Williams shows exactly how to generate those strategies and deliver those solutions.

He kept his promise. I feel I can use some of his catchy quotable summerization as a checklist more or less.

- Don’t build what people want, build what they don’t know they want. (Ford said it and Steve Jobs is a master of it.)

- It’s hard to be disruptive because we want people to like us, we don’t want to separate from the flock.

- Disruptive is the opposite of control and stagnation.

- We tend to like and favor ideas we already know - those that fit in to what we know from before.

- Being intentional unreasonable prohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifvoke new ideas.

- Identify clichés and make a contradictory to find something that nobody else does, something surprising and disruptive.

- It doesn’t have to be broken to need a change.

(Socks are sold in pairs of two - no at LittleMissMatched who sell socks in three for mixing and for the one you always loose.)

FourSquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai prolonged the list with
- The more unexpected the higher outcome.
- The more predictive the easier for competitors to copy.

When building Stardoll we have been stuck in and practiced each and everyone of these problems. I just wich that I had had these tweetable oneliners to lean on by then. It never worked very well just saying 'Girls will like it'. On the other hand, it will always be hard to convince everyone, or even anyone, that you are not crazy but the rest of the world is.

Read about crazy genius Steve Mann and Dave Asprey.

I want QR-codes for my bills

While opening 50 envelopes with a sharp pen, transfering hundreds of long numbers from my bills into my online bank account, I'm starting to dream of the day when I get them sent to me by email - all in one - and I grab my phone and just screen the QR-code for them - and it's all done in a second.

Hasbro do a LEGO

Hasbro is according to USA Today about to release a new line that is compatible with Lego. Kre-O starts with Transformers characters Optimus Prime and Bumblebee and is not going for the evident opportunity to catch the huge target group that LEGO has forgotten - everyone who is not into big machines and tough power. I'm still dreaming of a site with building instructions created by users where we would probably see hospitals, schools, nurseries, amusement parcs, alice in wonderland accessories and more and more...


More from me on LEGO...

Eco product development from WWF

Fantastic product development! “Save as WWF, save a tree” is a plug-in enables documents to be disseminated as pdf files that cannot be printed.

No more needed to be said but read about the entire concept on WWF.

Prezi still for early adopters

Now when I've run my presentation at Disruptive Code I can ventilate my thoughts from the hours I've spent with the Prezi tool.

You find and work with this web based tool online on Prezi.com since 1,5 years now. For me who is a really lousy Power Pointer, and who is working on a PC and therefore can't access Keynote, this Prezi tool was a fun option. The presentations look different, more narrative, less bullits, and more fun. Suits me.



You more or less through all the information you've got on one big sheet, more like a mind map, and then place them in the order you want to display them. The effect is as if a camera is screening from one info piece to the next. Makes you kind of sea sick, but is visually different from the power point view which offers an entirely different experience. I'm not completely convinced that it's better, but I had to try it out.

The thing that striked me the most when working with the tool is how poor it is though. There is no functionality, no options. The least you could ask for to not get dizzy yourself is 'align', different fonts or send to the very back/front, or at least 50 templates, or even better - any template shared by any user. It took me a second to learn how to build a presentation, it took me hours to create it.

Then I remembered - I'm still an early adopter, spreading the word, making the hype. The feature is visually fun, it's innovative, surprising, and for free. They can afford to release it with small bugs, and shortages. I can't upload 10 4 kb illustrations without the pres being too big, and yet I will try the tool out for the effect and alternative.

And then they can add and add and add the features that the users ask for, one by one, and live on this for a long time. If they put in all the functionality that Power Point offers, they have a chance to be the best tool for some time... until something new arrives. Then they will have to do some innovations again.

Geoffrey A.Moore 1991 - Crossing the Chasm - from early adopters to slaggers.

In fashion I go for version 1, in tech for version 2