Tag: user experience

Shift 2010 – Day 2

Posted by Pedro Santos – 17/05/2010

Well, first of all yes, I’m still alive! And now let’s continue…

The second day started with Paulo Markun’s talk –  TV Radio and Web convergence – where he talked about the state of art technology of television, radio and web in Brazil. He showed examples of services that really put the power on its users, as a radio station program that is filled with user generated content, from podcasts to interview, music playlists and tv programs that connect all the platforms (on line with portuguese program ’5 para a meita noite’).

Next presentation was Deconstructing DIY by Elmine Wijnia. Was a nice presentation where she confronted the old DIY vs the new DIY – Fix stuff in your house vs Personal education & professional life – and I have to agree that the DIY is converging into doing what we really like and making a life out of it. Another highlight of the talk was ‘You need to give people space so they can discover what they’re really passionate about’.

Afterwards Simone Cortesi talked about OpenStreepMap. Quoting Simone: “OSM is for maps what wikipedia is for encyclopedias” & “All the maps are free of use by creative commons” (cc-by-sa). The main focus of OSM is to make geodata free, open and current, which in real life is expensive, very restrictive (if available) and not up to date.
One GREAT example he gave about up to date information was the map they made after haiti disaster. With OSM they could track every information on site and make it available to everyone there. You could find where was the nearby shelter, where you could get food and other provisions. Really amazing stuff and all for free.
He also gave some examples of user generated content with public API’s (yay!) such as filters for cycle and walk paths.

Next on the schedule was Work like the network: six ways organizations are fundamentally reorganizing since the advent of the internet by Lane Becker. Lane talked about the way that organization must look at their own businesses to find and create value on the core surroundings and not be afraid of the competition.
Nowadays every company needs to understand that theirs customers are out there and find out the best way to reach them. Every part of the organization value chain is now aware of the costumer and the impact that can have on their piece of the business.

The next two talks were done by skype video conference.

The first one was Undercover user experience by Cennydd Bowles. He started the talk by saying we should always put people first presenting the amazing undercover manifesto:

  • Going undercover;
  • Design ground up, not top down;
  • Delivery, not deliverables;
  • Good today is better than great next year;
  • Working with people, not against them;
  • Actions, not words.

The following talk was Huffdufer: A personal projec by Jeremy Keith. I came late to this one and only got one highlight: use API’s to enhance your website.

Last talk of Shift was Maker households by Ton Zylstra. The mantra here was DIY as literacy and the importance of making connections throughout your personal and professional life. We all need to have/gain empathy with connections.

After the last talk, all the Shift team went up on the stage and gave the final speech about the difficulties they had this year and the importance to never give up and stay focus in your objectives.

It were 2 great days and I have to congratulate the organization for all the efforts to overcome all the problems. Great work guys!

You can always see some presentations on the official website. They are updating the website so stay tuned.

Kattia Hernandez made a great video and uploaded it on Vimeo

You can see some photos on my flickr set.

Shift 2010 – Day 1

Posted by Pedro Santos – 17/04/2010

Today was the first day of Shift 2010 at Teatro Aberto in Praça de Espanha, Lisboa.

This year’s theme is DIY – Do It Yourself, quoting shift’s website, with a single purpose: to empower you, so that you can empower others.

We were welcomed with the following pack:

Shift 2010 welcome pack

I started the conference by attending to an amazing workshop given by Yasmina Haryono and Rui Madeira – Staying soft in a world gone hard.

This workshop really broke some ice between those who attend. We created a PlayDoh version of our interests with various colors, Orange corresponded to  technology, green design, red research, blue business and yellow other interests (you can look for my version on my flickr). After going back in time with the PlayDoh, we were divided in groups of 3 and 4 and had one of four problems to solve. My team and I chose ‘Clear the European sky from the volcano ashes’ and we came up with the really cool idea of creating a RedBull ‘Volcano’ Race to clear up the sky. This was a really amazing workshop (repeating I know!) with lots of good ideas and laughts.

After the the workshop it was time for the opening keynote, where it was proven that Murphy Laws really do exists – some speakers couldn’t come to Portugal because of the volcano ashes and, to keep it up, the projector broke down. Tough luck for the organization :(

Next was time for Christoph Fahle‘s talk, for those who don’t know him he’s one of the founders of Betahaus. He talked about his experience of starting a coworking space and evolving it into a business. He also gave THE 2 best definitions for a coworking space: ‘café and office payed as a fitnessstudio’ and ‘like an internet platform on the real life’.

Next on schedule was João Guerra Santos with ‘Fitness Yourself’.  João gave a nice talk about what it takes to have the commitment of practicing a sport and he give various tips and how to’s like a running for dummies book. In the end he gave a piece of paper with some sites that can motivate you to start running.

After all that exercise, Joshua Sierles from 37 signals came to talk about ‘Working on road’ and his nomad lifestyle. He pointed out that the most important collaboration tool is trust and awareness is the key for everything and then he gave some tips that help him ‘survive’ his lifestyle, shed, discover(y), look (everywhere), stay (stick around somewhere), scope (your work), reward yourself, exercise (key point!), packing and resources (try couch surfing). Maybe this was the most expected keynote of the day and it didn’t disappointed, but everyone has to admit that not everyone can have that kind of lifestyle.

And last but not least I attended to ’5 para a meia noite: how the first cross-platform show in Portugal made us rethink all’ by Ricardo Tomé and Bruno Lima Santos. They explained to the audience all the re-thinking of a new production process, all the assets needed, the approach taken to make it a reality and the importance of connecting to the public. They ended the presentation impressing everyone on the room with the real audience numbers.

First day was great, hoping tomorrow will be the same. See you there!

SHiFT - Social and Human Ideas For Technology

Cross-Eye 3D

Posted by Pedro Santos – 07/02/2010

Have you seen Avatar yet? Were you amazed by the 3d tech used on the movie?
It made you dizzy? Well, if so you can close this tab/browser window, if not continue reading.

Recently I found a technique – Cross-Eye 3D – that allow us to see (specific) 3d content using only your eyes without the need of 3d glasses.

Watch the following video:

This will probably make your eyes hurt for a bit and give you some headaches, but in the end it’ll worth it.

You can find more images and info in these sites:

And you can always perform a google or youtube search for more.

It would be a nice experiment developing a website with this on mind, don’t you think? ;)