Fall 2009 iMedia Portfolio by linda misiura

linda misiura

Fall 2009 - iMedia portfolio linda.misiura@gmail.com w w w. l i n d a m i s i u r a . c o m

(570) 430 9993

l contents COM 530: Theory & audience 8 26 48 68 76 78

Blog Entries from: The Interactive Edition: A Conversation about Media, the Internet & All Things Interactive Theory & Audience Syntheses: Past & Future: An Interactive Media Chronology An Introduction to Interactive Media Theory Reaching Interactive Media Audiences Back to the Future: Learning Like Cavemen (The Past, Present, Future of Infographics) Who’s Who and What’s What in iMedia Choosing the Right Medium for Your Message On the Future: One Lady’s Perspective of Where We’re All Heading

Com 564: public opinion through new media 84 88 92 96 106

RSS Primer SecondLife: A Cutting Edge Educational Tool A Glimpse at the SecondLife Classroom on Elon Island The Emergence of New Media in 2008 Barack Obama Election Campaign: ARE WE ENTERING THE ERA OF POLITICS 2.0? Interactive Mini-Site on the Obama Campaign Strategies

com 550: producing interactive media 112 Baking Tiny Morsels of Heaven: Chocolate Toffee Cookies 116 Interactive Flash Banners for Water.Org 120 Infographic Framework Tutorial 128 Portfolio Site: www. Linda Misiura .com

com 540: writing & interactive design

132 Photo Sharing Sites: The Lowdown (with an emphasis on Flickr) 138 Project Illumine 148 Team Ice Cream Design Project

boldface denotes author’s favorite projects

COM 530: Theory & audience

Blog Entries from: The Interactive Edition: A Conversation about Media, the Internet & All Things Interactive

Are You My Audience? via The Interactive Edition by lindaclaire03 on 9/14/09

Hello there! I’d like to pose a few questions today, if you’d be so kind as to oblige… --To start off, would you agree that you are my audience? You do? Okay. Good. On to the fleshier questions: --First, where are you? What else are you doing right now, if anything? --Second, why are you here? Are you interested in me, in what I have to say, in both? --Third, do you intend to participate in some way in response to this blog? Might you post a comment to me, or maybe share the information with a friend or colleague?

I ask these questions because, like many things we took for granted in the past, the nature of the audience is changing. And I wanted to know if you, my audience, were indeed aware of this fact. So, how exactly is this happening?

And if you’re here reading this blog, then you are already a part of the new, interactive audience, even if you didn’t realize it. You chose when to look at this blog, and whether or not to read it all at once, or to divide your attention to it with something else. That choice is something that is inherently interactive. But interactivity is not limited to choice. Choice has always existed, exempting the element of time. If you choose to leave a comment, that sparks another whole level of interactivity. Your response could kick-off a feedback cycle, which could influence what I write about next. Now, you’re not only choosing when to read, but you’re also stimulating conversation and influencing content. That’s what I call power… And power is exactly what interactive audiences have. They have the power to choose when and where and for how long. They have to power to respond and the power to influence. I affect you, but you also affect me. It’s that two-way line of communication, the one that spurs conversation. It’s what the Web is about and it’s what the new audience is about, too. So now that you know you have the power, just what will you do with it? The possibilities are endless…

The answer lies within the realm of the World Wide Web and the effect that it is having on audiences around the globe. The change has been gradually creeping up on us: audiences have been transforming from passive viewers to active participants with high levels of control. This is the very core of interactivity. There is no one specific definition for interactivity. It falls most often under the category of “I know it when I see it.” But the questions that I posed above were my attempt to get at whether you fall into this new category of audience, or the old. 10

Emotion Is Always Key via The Interactive Edition by lindaclaire03 on 9/16/09

Books first captured my head in my heart around the third grade. I got my very first pair of glasses and would take three different novels to school every day, just in case I finished one while on the bus or surreptitiously during math class. It was the narratives, the stories, that captured my imagination and allowed me to live a life that was far more exciting than my own, without the dangers and embarrassment that comes with being a fictional character in a book written for 8 year olds. I remember crying hysterically on the bus over a book. I loved the characters that much. Stories evoke emotion. Stories are about experiencing a feeling; stories are about the connection you can make when you hear someone tell you a story in their own voice. For generations, we have done this through various print forms: the novel, the magazine, the newspaper. Now, interactivity is changing the way that we tell stories, as we gain the capabilities to share not only words, but also images and sound. In a way, we are combining media that people have used for entertainment for decades (think movies, books, and newspapers) and are now gathering the elements (pictures, words and sound) and putting them in short form to ascribe to the current micro trend. We then set these stories loose on the world so that people can feel human connection on a global scale.

The New York Times did an excellent piece (linked to in the image above) this past spring that ascribed to do just that. Entitled, “One, in 8 Million” it comprised “the passions and problems, relationships and routines, vocations and obsessions” of the people of the city. The city of New York is unique, but it is the characters in the city that makes it so. Each person that you walk by every day has a story, has a reason why they are there at that very moment. In profiling these individuals, the Times restored a sense of community through stories. Stories aren’t going away. They are too ingrained in our culture. The future will be one of stories, multimedia and probably interactive. In this way, we can continue to strive towards the innocent goal of the World Wide Web: a sprawling, global community of conversation that spans every nation.

It’s All About the Transition

via The Interactive Edition by lindaclaire03 on 9/18/09

Some days, I think I may be in the wrong program. In case you didn’t know, I’m studying iMedia, short for Interactive Media, at Elon University in Elon, NC. In an essence, I am currently a scholar of what could be considered the future. That’s where my skepticism enters the equation. Here is my evidence: I am not usually a part of the Early Adopters, that group of people who like to sign onto the beta versions of new innovations. Nope, I’m the skeptical one. In fact, I just purchased my very first iPod — please just don’t remind me that two weeks after I did so, Apple released the new version of the Nano with video and radio capabilities. I waited EIGHT YEARS and then they upgrade on me? Please. Don’t. Mention. This. To. My. Face. Another piece of evidence? My rather violent reaction to the Kindle. And a similar reaction to Twitter and Facebook before being peer-pressured or forced-by-assignment to join. I like to stand back and watch things happen first, test the waters, get a feel for the concept and purpose of a device, and also make sure I’m not wasting resources, whether it be time or money, on something that will be absolutely inconsequential in a month. Or a year. Get where I’m coming from? Good.

help me transition from being an Execution Person into a bit of an Idea Person. Or I can just employ others for that. And now, to demonstrate how transition can be a good thing, I give you a look at a new piece of technology: The Espresso Book Machine. The Espresso Book Machine is a printer, publisher, and book vendor all in one neat compact machine. It was first conceptualized over 10 years ago, and then brought to life by Jason Epstein in 2007. It has access to the 2 million books in the Google archives and can print, trim, and bind a 300 page book in less than for minutes for $8. Imagine the possibilities! In multi-lingual areas, books can be printed in multiple languages. In academic settings, books can be printed on demand. Conference manuals can be printed and bound, projects can be printed and bound… and on and on. Small titles will no longer struggle to find publishers, as the Espresso will ensure that the right audience will find the product it is looking for. And maybe, just maybe, the Espresso is acting as a transition for humans from a world dominated by print to the now-dawning Digital Age.

But! I think that studying the future is actually going to be a positive thing for me, as it will force me to consider my motivations early. This can hopefully

You Have the Power.

Let’s Party!

Did you know that? Power is what Web 2.0 is all about, and it just so happens that the power is being returned to the people.

(I’d like to take the time to sincerely thank WordPress for telling me that my post was published yesterday. Turns out, WordPress lied. So, here you go: Celebrating OneWebDay, Version 2.)

via The Interactive Edition by lindaclaire03 on 9/19/09

If you’re not convinced, maybe it’s because you’re not quite sure what Web 2.0 means, though you’ve heard it thrown around time and again. Here it is: Web 2.0 is Facebook. It’s Twitter, it’s YouTube, it’s LinkedIn. It’s MySpace and Flickr and any other site where you can upload content, comment on content, or even edit content. Web 2.0 is the web where you are in control. Does the Power Trip make sense now? So, if you’re in control and I’m in control, what happens to the people who used to be in control of media? We’re forcing them to adapt, by tapping into our collective knowledge and power, known as the Groundswell. An excellent application of new nomenclature, if I do say so myself, having studied linguistics in the past. The groundswell is you, and it is me; it’s the way we’re communicating, and in turn, affecting businesses. We’re taking control from the “ground” up, and the swell part of the term refers to the wavelike action we’re having: our numbers are growing and growing and so too, grows our reach. Just like a wave, we cannot be stopped. We know now what power tastes like. We know what it is like to have our voices heard. We have formed connections and friendships and had real conversations with people across continents. Our span of influence reaches farther than it ever has before, so what each one of us thinks and says does matter. Truly. Remember that next time you make a purchase online or read a column you feel particularly strongly about. Remember, your voice can be heard, and it’s due in part to a little movement we’re calling Web 2.0 Of course, things may look a little different in the future. But we’re talking about talking here, about interaction and the two-way channel of communication. If it’s the future you’re interested in… well, stick around. We’ll get there eventually. :) Until Monday…

via The Interactive Edition by lindaclaire03 on 9/23/09

It’s OneWebDay, (Think, Happy Birthday Earth Day!) so have a piece of cake. Or a cupcake. Or maybe even a whole cake! If you’re reading this right now, you should be celebrating: you’re one of 25% of the world population that has internet access. Because access in America is much much higher, around 70%, it may be difficult to imagine that only 1 out of every 4 people in the world is able to hop on the web whenever they want. Many of us take for granted that we can tap into the collective knowledge of the web at any given time, but we should recognize that not every individual has this ability. Even in North Carolina, only 61% of the population over the age of 3 has access to the Internet at home. It’s something to treasure, truly. Sadly, I cannot remember the first time I accessed the Internet, and I am left wondering if this lack of memory is a hallmark of my generation. Do you remember the first web page you visited? I do remember that my first email account was at excite.com, and solely for this reason: you could change the colors of your home page, which I thought was the Coolest Thing Ever when I was in eighth grade. Do you remember your first account? Do you still have access to it? I digress… you should be celebrating! Really, you should be celebrating the World Wide Web everyday, because it is a privilege to have access to the wealth of knowledge. But before you leave, tell me about your first World Wide Web experience? I’d love to hear your story, and maybe it’ll help trigger mine…

The “Me” Model

via The Interactive Edition by lindaclaire03 on 9/23/09

Your world is about you, no? You choose what you want to watch, what blogs you want to read, what products you want to buy and whether or not you want to leave a review about something you purchased or watched or read. You’re in control of your world. In an effort to demonstrate this graphically, we’re throwing out the old communication model. Forget the “who said what to whom with what effect” nonsense. There’s so much more to communication these days! The me-centric media model, what we’re calling the ME Model addresses interactive communication from the perspective of you.

The third concentric circle represents you, the audience. As pointed out before, you can take many roles when you receive a message, and what response you have determines where you fall on the wheel. * Audience: You receive the message, but there is no interaction. * Lurker: You receive the message and there is little interaction by means of the medium, such as Twitter or a Blog. * Responder: You receive the message and leave a response. * Creator: You receive a message and create another message. The circles ideally spin so that the participation of you changes to fit the media. There you have it, the new “me-centric” model of interactive communication, the ME Model.

Presented as the Interactive Wheel of Message Processing, the ME Model is comprised of 3 concentric circles as shown below. The innermost circle represents the messages that are dispersed. These messages are then divided into their respective media in the next circle, and defined as such by Marshall McLuhan and edited by Team Shelley: *

Cold Media: a message that has a large amount of content and interaction * Cool Media: a message that has a large amount of content but little interaction * Hot Media: a message that has little content and little to no interaction * Warm Media: a message that has little content but a lot of interaction

Flick and Swish and Gathering the Future

via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 9/25/09

Before I give you all some links to some very cool up-andcoming technology, I have a confession to make: I am a Harry Potter addict. I’m willing to admit to you all right now that I’ve read the first 6 books about 7 times each, and Book 7? Well, only a measly three times, but I did pre-order it months in advance and have it in my hands the very morning it was released. Please, don’t judge. As a former English major, I also enjoy writers that can be said to have more literary value as well. Anyway, because of this said mini-obsession (which could perhaps be more accurately described as a historic obsession, as my copies of HP have been sitting on the shelf, untouched, for a few years…) I love the idea of owning my own wand. And The Wand Company makes it completely possible! You can purchase your very own Kymera Magic Wand that you can program to control your devices with a flick and a swish of your hand. Totally better than a remote control, no? Okay, on to a few other highlights in the world of the Web:

You can make your very own interactive timelines here with a service called Dipity. It would be fantastic for school projects, group projects or maybe even a really intense form of scheduling. This new service allows for learning on the go. iMinds is chockful of education podcasts that you can purchase and download for on the go listening. Learn about the Magna Carta on the way to work, about the Bay of Pigs invasion over lunch, and about the Lehman Brothers on your way home. You can download individual podcasts or a series of miscellaneous ones to brush up on your conversation skills. Looking for an in at a company or just a quick $100? Head over to GrouperEye and submit a proposal and you might be looking at some cash and your next job… Here, you can keep track of the future of music! No more keeping you own list of CD releases and upcoming concerts, the iCalConcert app will do it all for you. It’s kind of like gathering the future, right?

finding yourself elsewhere.

via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 9/25/09

I’m not about to get all “self-help” or existentialist on you, so not to worry. Promise. I’m not talking about elsewhere in the vague sense of being somewhere other than you currently are… The “elsewhere” to which I am referring is the coolest place I’ve been to date in Greensboro. I’m really not kidding about just how cool this place is. From the moment I stepped into the warehouse, I felt that I had been transported to elsewhere, a place where sheer numbers of miscellaneous intrigue reign supreme and color jumps out and bites you around every corner. Overwhelming to some because of this very feeling, elsewhere immediately drew me into eclectic atmosphere and played the keys of my short attention span. I love thrift stores and old things and fabric and notions and collecting miscellaney in jars, so elsewhere felt like home to me. elsewhere also very much felt like my grandmother, whom I call Babci (Polish for grandmother), was standing right there with me, giving me ideas and showing me the collection as her own. In a way, elsewhere transported me to the small town of Moscow, Pennsylvania, a place my Babci and Dzadzi (Did you guess it? Polish for grandfather!) have called home for the past 35 years. The colors, the smells, the puzzles, the fabric, the toys, the sense that everything had the chance to be used for a purpose other than for which it was made followed me

around the rooms of elsewhere. You’re lost, aren’t you, those of you who haven’t been to elsewhere? Let me step back a moment, and give you a little context. In essence, elsewhere is a living museum. It began in the 1930s as a general store, and over the years the widow who owned it became something of an eclectic hoarder. You can visit the website for more history, but as the place was excavated begining in 2003, the grandson had a vision of turning the warehouse of things into a living residency program for artists. Totally amazing and awesome, like wow, right? The story is fascinating as is the process and the guy who runs elsewhere. I encourage you to visit! Or return, if you’ve been there before, as the place is always changing. I want to share with you some of the images I processed from my visit to elsewhere, from which I most certainly did not want to return… These will be used as the starting point for an interactive self-discovery project to be launched later in the semester. Enjoy! You can visit my flickr page if you’d like to see more images. Just click on the elsewhere collection. And, have a great weekend!

Just Say No… to Video Games?

via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 9/28/09

Have You Googled You Lately?

via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 9/30/09

Your friends might do it. Your dates probably do it. Your future employers are definitely doing it. But are you? Have you Googled yourself lately?

If only my parents had known that video games would be my portal into the future, perhaps they wouldn’t have dismissed them entirely. In the not-so-distant future when people are hired based upon their leadership skills in World of Warcraft and Second Life, I might find myself behind in the times because of my lack of exposure. I’m sure, at the time, my mother and father thought that they were doing the right thing, so really I can’t blame them for failing me. My father probably still thinks he did the right thing, as adamant as he is about things of this nature. And really, blaming my parents is just an excuse: I never wanted to play video games in the first place. It was my brother who was denied the Nintendo 64 and Playstation experiences. The jury is still out on whether or not this was a beneficial deprivation. At the time, I thought nothing of it. I learned how to type, how to command programs in MS-DOS, how to research on the Internet, and how to chat, email and download music. I never was interested in gaming online, unless you count Lemonade Tycoon, of which many, many hours of my freshman semester at Cedar Crest were devoted. Perhaps it is why I now have an aversion to social media. People are saying that World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs (stands for Massively MultiPlayer Online Role-Playing Games, and no, I did not know that three weeks ago) are the new golf: a social activity that sporty and relaxing. Then again, I don’t really like golf either. Would you hire someone based on his or her online gaming presence? It’s one thing to Google an interviewee, its another thing entirely to interact with them without them knowing through a medium such as Second Life. Oh future, do I like where you going?

People are doing it, and you should too. Yes, it may seem a little egotistical, and people who do it obsessively are known as “ego-surfers.” But your web presence is just as important as your physical presence these days, especially in a field like interactive media. So go ahead. Take a look at what’s out there. In fact, if you haven’t lately, go. Go. Google. Right. Now. And if you don’t like it, do something about it. Start a blog about something related to you career passion. Create a web portfolio for yourself. Contribute to an online collaborative project. But for goodness sakes, get your name out there! Your Facebook page isn’t going to be able to tell your future employer what skills you have and what you excel at. And they certainly don’t need to see pictures of you at that party last weekend before they learn what talents you can bring to your company. If they do, you’re out before the game has even started. know, I know, common sense, right? You wouldn’t wear a vest sewn of drunken photos of yourself to an interview, so why put that out there on the web for companies to see? You might know this information, but does your younger brother or sister? How about your cousin who’s a freshman at college this Fall? Having grown up amidst the digital age, it’s often more difficult for the younger generation to determine just what’s okay. So be nice. Let them know that people are looking, and it’s not just their friends. And then you can set up your very own Google profile, a good investment of time for those unlucky enough to have one of the world’s most common names.

“Hey Mabel! Check this out!”

I Care. Do You?

via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 10/5/09

via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 10/2/09

Mabel was Don Hewitt’s wife. Don Hewitt was the executive producer for 60 Minutes. Mabel helped Don decide if a story was interesting or not… in a phrase that is legendary still to the 60 Minutes staff, Don would know a story “had it” if he wanted to yell, “Hey Mabel! Check this out!” Adorable, right? And accurate to boot. You have to be in touch with your audience, always. That little anecdote came from a chat with Michael Radutzky this morning. Mr. Radutzky is one of two senior producers for 60 Minutes and has produced shows on Michael Jackson at the Neverland Ranch and the Duke Lacrosse case. He also was the only individual to interview Timothy McVeigh, the OK City bomber. He was even invited personally, by Timothy, to the execution. How? By offering up a whole lotta empathy. The story matters. And so does your audience. So you do what you have to do to get the story. Radutzky did just that with McVeigh: he treated him like he mattered, like he was any other person, and he nailed the story. With today’s technology and the emphasis on multimedia, we have the do the same thing, only more concisely and more episodic. It is imperative to boil the story down to its very essence, pique interest for more, and then provide the opportunities for access. YouTube, Twitter, and websites allow news organizations like 60 Minutes to do just that: they provide a platform where a short snippet can be used to pique interest and then link to a secondary platform that can provide access to the rest of the content. Now more than ever before, writers much be top notch to catch viewers and the audience across this broad range of platforms and draw them into the meatier content. But still, the story matters. Without the story, you’ve got nothing.

case you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of passionate. Or emphatic. Some might even say manaical… Anyway, what this means is that when I find something to support, I do so wholeheartedly. One cause I am crazy intense about is the environment, and that involves doing my part to keep this world a little cleaner and a little safer. You might think that rinsing out plastic bags and reusing them is a little extreme, but it’s just one of the things I do, on top of obsessing about recycling every piece of plastic and every piece of paper than I can. Clothing is one sector of my life that is difficult to deal with in terms of my ecological footprint. I would love to donate my entire wardrobe and start over, replacing my sweaters with ones made from organic alpaca wool and jeans of eco-friendly dyed cotton, but this is less than practical and far from economically feasible on the bank account of a grad student. So what am I to do? Start the New Year’s resolution season a little early, and vow to purchase clothing from environmentally conscious companies in the future. Like Patagonia. The new feature on their website, called The Footprint Chronicles, is what inspired me to write this post in the first place. If you haven’t seen it yet, go check it out. It’s one of the coolest interactive websites I’ve seen. Through an interactive map, photos, video, and a beautiful design interface, the Chronicles aim to tell the story of the garments Patagonia produces. With the stories, you can see where the material was made, where the garment was sewn and how it was transported to you. Patagonia has been looking out for the world almost since its inception with their innovative programs and focus on quality and sustainability. You can read more about their amazing mission statement here. They even have a program to recycle clothing that can no longer be worn, saving all those hole-y t-shirts from the dump. It’s pricey, but worth it, from my perspective. I care about the environment. Do you?

That’s So Amazingly Delicious!

It’s All Visual These Days. via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 10/11/09

via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 10/7/09

With so much information to absorb (I wrote about another solution to this problem last week, a nifty little tool called Delicious.) it’s integral to get your message across quickly or risk losing your audience before they even get the information you wanted to give them. One way to do this is through short sentences. What is an iMedia grad student to do when she becomes overwhelmed? Join Delicious, of course. At least, I think that may be my answer to the ever growing collection of links and information of which I must keep track. It may be my anxious nature, but I find it increasingly terrifying that I might need a site that I visited once and not be able to locate it in the future. I’m told that the answer to this anxiety is to join a social bookmarking site, like Delicious or StumbleUpon. If you’ve been following me since the beginning, I’ll need not tell you that I have great difficulties in jumping into new technologies. If you haven’t been following, well, I have great difficulties in jumping into new technologies. But! This one has A Purpose. It should Make My Life Easier, or so I’m told. It can eliminate my anxiety and keep track of the myriad of sites that I visit each day. I’m trying to convince myself that joining Delicious will be akin to the life-altering experience I had when i used GoogleReader for the first time, clearing out my bookmark toolbar and collecting my hundred blogs I follow. In one place. To read. Whenever I liked. Oh, the time saver! I think I talked about it, with a religious fervor, for weeks afterward. So, on the To Do list, I have added “Start Using Delicious.” And not just the word, as its already one of my favorites. I’ll be sure to keep you updated on the progress. I’ll leave you with the Top Five Ways to Find Informative Sites: StumbleUpon Delicious Digg Twitter – Search Google Happy Wednesday! 19

Another way is through graphical representations, often called infographics. If you’ve visited the NYT website in the past year, chances are you’ve seen one of these beauties. If you still have no idea what I am talking about, check out this link on the job market (yes its depressing, but it confirms what you’ve been thinking) or this link on housing and poverty. Not only are they beautiful to look at, but they help provide you with a guide as to how to interpret the information. This is exactly what one of my classes will be trying to do in the upcoming weeks: take a slew of information and make an interactive and graphical representation of it that helps the user make sense and navigate the information. From Brian Solis’ conversation prism, we will be expanding the content of each of his petals and reorganizing in a way that makes more interpretive sense. At least, that is the plan. We’re looking along the lines of an interactive subway map to present the info, which has been done before for other types of information (Best Movies of All Time, Web Trends of 2007), but might suit our needs perfectly. I’ll leave you with a link that helps you interpret how the web sees you, your visual web DNA if you will. Check it out, and try all variations of your name to see who you are on the web. That’s me at the top there!

Life Option: Freelance

via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 10/12/09

I am a Mac Fan. I am a Mac Fan. I am a Mac Fan. via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 10/21/09

Amy Gahran is a really lousy employee. And she knows it. So after leaving j school in Pennsylvania and a brief stint at a small news company, Amy did the only thing she could do, knowing full well she doesn’t deal well with other people’s stupid systems (her words, not mine): she started freelancing. We chatted for a bit over Skype today with Amy, and gained some insight into just how we might approach news and the media. Jumping into the Internet when it was still in its infancy, Amy scooped up contentious.com in 1992. When you get started that early, it’s easy to have an awesome URL, which still seems to please Amy to no end. Since then, she’s delved into all sorts of media endeavors, both journalistic and not. A few pieces of advice from Amy: 1. In media, there is plenty of room to create your own career. 2. Just because no one is talking about it doesn’t mean that no one cares. Maybe, just maybe, no one else has thought about it yet, and you’ve got the next big thing! Hey. It could happen. 3. Something of a warning: Traditional journalism keeps the reporter separate from the readers. It’s mjre helpful today to do some background info to get to know what the traditionalists are doing and believe what you’re working with, but then take it and run the other direction. 4. All journalism should be collaborative. End of discussion. 5. We need to find a way to aggregate the conversations happening in social media spheres, because that is where the best content is coming from. As an aside, Amy’s bright and infectious nature was one of the highlights of my day. Thanks, Amy!

Verizon has a new phone, and it just might have stolen my Macstricken heart. It’s called the Droid. I first saw the video promoting it on Monday, and have been thinking about it ever since. Since I’m not really one to show devotion for an inanimate object (though I suppose some would argue that smartphones are a step in the animate object direction), it was an exceptionally odd feeling of pure delight that washed over me as I watched the clip on DroidDoes.com. I say exceptionally odd for two reasons: * one, the marketing is essentially a direct hit at Apple, one of the few companies I do wholeheartedly support * two, the piece ends with a weird futuristic vibe that I somehow reconciled with the message: Everything iDon’t, Droid Does. If you haven’t yet seen the advertisement, take 20 seconds and visit the site, as I don’t want to spoil the experience by merely telling you about it. Though you won’t get an immediate view of what the phone looks like or how much it costs, you will know that it can do a lot of things that the iPhone can’t. And it moves away from that silly phase of using capital letters in silly places… Verizon got me. They set out to target the Mac Fans and may have just won me over. I’d have to see about pricing… and there’s that one little detail I’d have to navigate: a mobile service contract with att… But those things can be changed! “Don’t you wish you had a robot sidekick that moved at lightspeed, could get you out of any problem and lived in your pocket?” I do.

Using Visuals Instead of Words

via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 10/26/09

Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems, of Course. via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 10/29/09

The

beginnings of the web were anything but visual. From the people (the self-proclaimed nerds) to the information being exchanged (oh the horror of the contrast! those green words! that black screen!), the internet at its infancy was Pretty Ugly.

My research paper is coming along nicely. For today’s post, I thought I’d share with you all the very best part of my day, creating this lovely chart about things that are important to consider when creating an infographic. The original information came from a really handy piece put together in 2005 by Venjatesh Rajamanickam as part of a course called Information Graphics. I’m going to tell you in sentence form the things you should think about including, and then, instead of scratching your head and trying to figure it all out, you can have a gander at the chart I put together that explains things a little more cohesively, or so I’d like to think. According to Mr. Rajamanickan, an infographic must address what type of information is trying to be communicated (spatial, chronological, or quantitative), develop a metaphor or organizing structure that is cohesive (through diagrams, maps, and charts) and must be presented in the appropriate medium in consideration to the audience (static, motion, or interactive). The replica of Rajamanickam’s diagram on the next page organizes this information with consideration to the three goals of infographics, with added information, that I hope will help any one of you attempting to create any sort of visual graphic from data you’ve gathered for your research papers. Good night… and good luck!

Nowadays sites are anything but, and as a fabulous professor told us this morning, you really need to have the design skills first: anyone can learn how to do the technical part once he or she has a vision. Another part of making the web visual is the rising interest in infographics and information visualization. While the former can be found quite easily and are creative in their own right, it is the latter that take abstract data and turn it into works of art. Take Nick Hardeman. A graduate of the Parsons School of Design in NYC, Hardeman recently analyzed the 1997 music video “Mo Money Mo Problems” from the first disc of the Notorious B.I.G. album, Life After Death. He then created the fascinating visualization above. I could try and explain it to you, but I’ll let him do it in his own words instead: “The algorithm detects edges in the image and attempts to trace motion from frame to frame, using the initial frame as their starting point. The output is rendered as a vector image, the curves represent the motion. The points represent the pixels detected in the edge, their size determined by the distance from their previous location, the further, the larger the circle. The color and location of the points are determined by the corresponding pixel in that frame. The bright colored track suits worn by Puff Daddy and Mase in the dark backgrounds make for good tracking and nice color combinations. The only imagery added manually is the background color. You can check out some more renders in the Mo Money Mo Problems photoset on flickr.”

Get Social. Be Liked!

via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 10/30/09

Go On. Throw Away the Map.

via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 11/2/09 Maps are the All the Rage right now. But what if you throw the map away? Leave the road already traveled behind? What happens then? Part of the whole wanting to be social or actually being social is the concept of liking, right? It doesn’t matter if I’m talking about you trying to fit in with the cool kids at school or about a company that’s trying to attract a new target audience. It’s still All The Same. It’s All About Liking. And from there: Listening. Sadly, it seems that even 10 years after The Cluetrain Manifesto was published (read it here, free — it’s about breaking down the barriers between companies and their consumers and reactivating the feedback loop), companies still aren’t getting the concept of listening and liking. Sad, right? It’s pretty basic, after all. We learn this stuff in kindergarten! I listen to you, you listen to me. I like you, you like me. We have the tools at our disposal. (Think twitter, facebook, ning, myspace). We have the books that tell us what to do. (Groundswell, The Social Media Bible, anything by Seth Godin and countless others) And you have your ears. Turns out, they’re what’s most important: you have to listen to your audience, really listen, and not be afraid of what they will say. Because whatever feedback you get, whether good or bad, it’s feedback! You can take it, run with it, and make some changes. In today’s world of interconnectivity, everything is changing all of the time, and if you’re not, then you’re already behind. So get with the program! If you’re thinking “Hey, I’m a company that should be utilizing those tools!,” you have 36 bright future thinkers in Elon’s iMedia program who will be ready to show you the way and help you with that ROI. Think about it. Be open to change. Get Social. Be Liked! ...Speaking of liking, I have found my new favorite site, hands down, Slideshow Press. From the menu (how fabulous are those roll overs?!) to the super clean interface, to the gorgeous photography that pulls you right in, Slideshow Press has won the web award for the week for me, hitting on all those things I like: clean, simple, attractive design with a little bit of creative flair and consistently beautiful. I could go on, but go drool for yourself.

Magic. Unfortunately, I’m not talking about an escape to the muddied back lanes of England and Scotland, as that might be a very nice place to throw away the map, indeed. I’m talking about website navigation, and lobbying for doing it a whole new way. Websites evolved in the static environment that was Web 1.0. In that nurturing atmosphere, they provided a place to store information, but little room for feedback and interaction. But then Web 2.0 came along, and with it, the necessity that people communicate and engage interactively. I think that in order to start mixing things up, we need to change the way we navigate websites, giving the user an experience that reflects the person, business or product. Visit these. If you’re a web design fan, you won’t be disappointed. * NO CLICKS HERE: Really. No clicks allowed. Or you can click it just to satisfy your curiosity… * SANS MENU: a simple, clean site that eliminates the need for a menu, but still encompasses contact info, a blog, articles, and portfolio work. It’s impressive, to say the least. * EXCITE!: I know! I’ve already linked to this! But I love it That Much. So if you didn’t check it out last time, now’s your chance! The little bit of excitement on the rollovers of the links + the slide show transitions are inspiring. * ROLLOVER meets LIGHTBOX: simplify and engage. This site aims to give you what you need with a super clean interface. There is still a place for traditional navigation menus, as e-commerce sites and more complicated ventures could not function without them. But think about getting creative on your next venture… throwing away the map might just lead to a brilliantly unexpected design.

GoogleReader, How I Love Thee…

Give ‘Em What They Need. via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 11/6/09

via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 11/4/09 Once upon a time, I used to work in a office. And in that office, I had a Lot of Time in Which to Do Nothing. And that is when I discovered the Blog. Once upon a time was really only about 10 months ago, and day after day I discovered new blog after new blog. My favorites were Smitten Kitchen and Apartment Therapy, DesignSponge and The Sartorialist, among countless others. I began reorganizing my bookmark bar to compensate for the loads of links I would add every day, carefully dividing up my distractions in to Food, Design, Photography, and Crafty. I was vigilant (or at least on the days when I had no work) about checking my blogs to see who had posted new content. It was a bit of an obsession. Okay, it was a full blown obsession, to the point where I became anxious and irritated if someone who’s blog I really liked didn’t post that day. Perhaps, addiction wouldn’t have been an inappropriate term to use. This was before I knew what RSS was, and how it could change my working life. So One Fine Day, I clicked on the link in my gmail inbox that said Reader. And from there I was transported into a whole other world, where blog after blog came right to me, every day, without me having to do a single thing other than click the Reader button. Addiction defeated! Not exactly. The cycle started all over again. I was obsessed with going through each and every entry in my Reader the day that arrived, so that I could start with a clean slate the following morning. Soon, the obsession grew to convenience, and now, though I am not faithful to my Reader daily, I am thankful that I always have a Lovely Window of Distraction and Inspiration waiting for me, anytime I care to pull up my Reader. Which is still mostly every day. :)

It’s hard to be the generation in charge right now. They didn’t grow up with computers, are completely lost when it comes to Facebook, and really don’t see the value of Twitter. So that’s where we come in, the next generation, the one’s who cut their teeth on the early versions of aol instant messanger and signed on to Facebook when it was still for college’s only. We have the knowledge, so we must be the guides. We must show others the way. In an effort to help companies target their messages through new media, a group of students and myself put together the chart below. It runs through the pros and cons of four types of new media that can be used to spread marketing and advertising messages. Where should you spend your valuable dollars? You can find the right medium for your messages right here:

You Need to Know This. Seriously. via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 11/9/09

A few months ago, Forrester released a study on the future of the social web. If it weren’t for the $499 price tag, I would be downloading this PDF to study it further. In interviewing 24 companies and vendors, the authors have gathered content on the current and future states of social media and extracted 5 Eras of the social web. Thankfully, Brian Solis wrote about the 5 Eras in more depth on his blog last week. These are explained more fully in the chart below, and I’ve summed them up, albeit a bit briefly… RELATIONSHIPS: 1995-2007: AOL was the start of the connections in online communities, where people with similar profiles connected with eachother. FUNCTIONALITY: 2007-2012: We are in the era currently, and as we all know, the focus is on the activity within social networks, and the content that we share. Through 2010, how we connect to people will continue to evolve.

COLONIZATION: 2009-2011: Again, are in the midst of this era, where communities are beginning to traverse the internet with applications like Facebook Connect and OpenID. In time, people will take their identities with them across platforms. CONTEXT: 2010-2012: Sites are already being customized (think about your suggestions that appear for sites like Amazon. com and Barnes and Noble) and the internet will continue to evolve to deliver personalized experiences, based not only on your actions, but on the actions and recommendations of your friends. COMMERCE: 2011-2013: Social networks will gain power over brands As the 5th era is ushered in, Solis believes that CRM will evolve into SRM, with a full focus on people, and that all people are equal. Most importantly, a portable online identity will be crucial.

Free. Open. Beautiful.

via The Interactive Edition by Linda on 11/13/09

I have a thing for fonts. As in, I really like fonts. Really, really like fonts. I obsesses over the perfect combination of serif cum sans. My design projects always, always start with a perusal of font faces. Always. It might actually be one of my favorite parts of my projects, trying to find the exact right type or two to pin down the character and feel for the project. I was prompted to write about my love of fonts by my discovery of a really beautifully designed font site this morning. Because if there is one thing I love more than a plethora of font choices, it’s a site that is delicious to look at while providing excellent content. Plus! They have a manifesto! How can you not love that?! The League of Moveable Type was created by a small design firm that’s done some really fantastic work I admire. Basically, they are working to provide a free library of open source fonts that are available for designers to use, especially on the web. Check it out! You won’t be disapointed… The opposite is true too: I’m the kind of person who also passionately despises certain fonts (ahem, Zapfino, Papyrus, Comic Sans… ) to the point where I will exclaim my hatred at the site of them. Or take pictures of them in foreign countries, marveling over how bad design can cross continents. See below… :) Oh, Zapfino, How I hate thee… Have a great weekend everyone!

Theory & Audience Syntheses: Past & Future: An Interactive Media Chronology An Introduction to Interactive Media Theory Reaching Interactive Media Audiences

Past & Future: An Interactive Media Chronology Looking Back: Interactivity from Gutenberg to Berners-Lee Ever since the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg, humans have been living in a world of interactive media. At first glance, this statement may seem like one of hyperbole, but assuredly it is not and for this very reason: the printing press allowed for the easy dissemination of information to the masses and created the very first feedback loop and thus, interactivity. As information spread, people interacted with the material, though in a vastly different way than what could truly be considered interactive today, as the time constraints stretched across days, weeks and even months. Nevertheless, it changed the way a society could and did relate to one another, establishing a feedback loop, and setting the groundwork for how we cope with interactivity today. It has been said that the printing press made the world a smaller place. Flash forward to the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The same can be said of the interactive mediums invented then: the telegraph, the telephone, the radio, television, and the internet each successively made the world a smaller place. With the compression of the globe, they also brought a hope of cultural acceptance, free information, and ultimately world peace. Unfortunately, these overly optimistic hopes for the human race that were pinned upon new media have yet to be realized, though this is not something we can blame on the media itself, but rather on how humans have failed to use it for the ultimate good. The rapid development of these technologies— starting in the 1850s with the telegraph, through the end of the 20th century with the invention of the internet—has been possible because of several factors and characteristics of the American way of life, including: the competitive atmosphere of the free-market economy, the laid-back role of the government, and the spirit of invention and entrepreneurship. As a result, we have become a society that is more open to change, and perhaps even expectant of a rapid rate of change. These inventions and technologies, more so than ever before, have created a futures-driven society that is often one step ahead of reality.

Three steps in the overall timeline of interactive media made the invention of these technologies possible: the inventors themselves who developed the ideas to conception, the addition of entrepreneurs and political backers who brought the connections, the power, and the money to fund and distribute the work of the inventors, and the establishment of structures, rules and governing bodies that helped to shape they way the technology interacted with and served the public through standardization. A closer look at the history of interactive media will allow for a better understanding of the current media and also where interactivity can and will lead in the future. The following is a discussion on this history that leads into how we can attempt to approach the future through the means of technology today.

The Telegraph “Tomorrow the hearts of the civilized world will beat in a single pulse, and from that time forth forevermore the continental division of the earth will, in a measure, lose those conditions of time and distance which now mark their relations.” The Times of London, 1858 Perhaps the first truly interactive technology was that of the telegraph in the 1800s, an interactive medium that was in development by several inventors of the time, though only one had the foresight to patent his invention and gain government backing: Samuel Morse. On May 24, 1844, the first telegraph message was sent from Washinton, D.C. to Baltimore, “What hath God wrought?” The use of the telegraph progressed slowly, as the current leadership in Congress was unable to see of any possible use for the citizenry at large. Morse believed strongly in his invention (or perhaps in the economic gain) and continued to spread knowledge and create interest. In 1861, Western Union built its first transcontinental telegraph line and over the next 50 years, built a wired empire across the United States, eventually leading to the Mann-Elkins Act of 1910, which called for regulating rates on the telegraph giant. In 1934, the newly created Federal Communications Commission was given oversight of the company and those that followed. While most people alive today think of the telegraph in terms similar to that of the Pony

Express, for a nation of future thinkers of the time, the telegraph was much, much more than a simple mode of communication. These hopes are summed up nicely in the 1863 book, “The Story of the Telegraph” by Charles F. Briggs and Augustus Maverick: “It is impossible that the old prejudices and hostilities should longer exist, while such an instrument has been created for an exchange of thought between all the nations of the earth.”

The Telephone The telephone would: help further democracy, allow social decentralization, result in more flexible work arrangements, make the world smaller, decrease loneliness, increase crime and aid criminals, inspire a decline in the art of writing… Alexander Graham Bell was granted the first patent for the telephone in the United States in 1876, though Antonio Meucci is credited with inventing the first telephone in 1849. Though there was similar outcry to the telephone as to the telegraph, it was accepted much more quickly into the American culture and by 1881, there were 49,000 telephones in use across the country. Bell sold his company in 1885 and resulting in the formation of American Telegraph & Telephone Company, better known as AT&T. After the purchase of Western Union in 1907, AT&T had a near monopoly on phone and telegraph service, which caused turmoil in the industry for the next 100 years. From the divestment of Western Union, to the nationalization of phone service for one year under during WWI, through the official act of allowing AT&T to operate as a regulated monopoly in 1934, AT&T remained the main service provider for telephone service. The parent company was split into 7 Regional Bell Operating Companies in 1984 and made the transition to cellular service in the 90s before before being changed to Cingular and then back to AT&T. While privacy was a major concern in the early days with the use of party lines, it can be argued more readily that the telephone worked to increase privacy by eliminating the need for written conversation and unexpected visitors.

The Radio

In the age of radio “government will be a living thing to its citizens instead of an abstract and unseen force.” 1922 Radio Broadcast Radio was no different than the telegraph in the fact that it had naysayers. The Boston Post printed the following quote in an editorial from 1865: “ Wellinformed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value.” Forty years later, Guglielmo Marconi created the impossible: the wireless telegraph. Through the work of the U.S. government, AT&T, General Electric and Westinghouse, the transmission of voice over a wireless system was realized and in 1919 the Radio Corporation of America was formed, and rang the bell for the Golden Age of Radio that was to come in the 1930s. For the first time since the dawn of the newspaper age, politicians had a medium with which to influence public opinion. Franklin D. Roosevelt began broadcasting his weekly fireside chats to the nation, and Winston Churchill and Hitler also used the medium to their advantage, spreading their messages to their constituents. War and government became more tangible to the American people through the reporting of Edward R. Murrow and H.V. Kaltenborn, who held their audiences captivated with their broadcasts of the battles and victories of World War II.

The Television “The problem with television is that people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen; the average American family doesn’t have time for it.” The New York Times, 1939 “Television won’t be able to hold onto any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” Daryl F. Zannuck of 20th Century Fox, 1946 Charles Francis Jenkins transmitted the first picture image from Washington to Philadelphia in 1923. Through the 1920s, various picture transmittal systems were experimented with. Drama arrived in the late 20s, when RCA President David Sarnoff sends an engineer to pay a visit to Philo Taylor Farnsworth, who had recently developed the image dissector. In 1933, RCA had in its hand the “iconoscope,” and invention that was almost an exact replica of Farnsworth’s image dissector, leading to a patent battle that lasted for years.

As we have come to expect by now, there were those who could not see past the present into a time when images would be transmitted from place to place similar to the way sound was being moved in the early 1900s. In 1926, radio visionary Lee De Forest claimed he considered television “an impossibility… a development of which we need waste little time dreaming.” And as with the quotes above, even those who believed that television was possible, their futurevision was blocked because of one simple factor: no one was considering the impact of how the medium could change the viewer.

The Internet “We’re going to have to look at information as though we’d never seen the stuff before… The economy of the future will be based on relationship rather than possession. It will be continuous rather than sequential. And finally, in the years to come, most human exchange will be virtual rather than physical, consisting not of stuff but the stuff of which dreams are made. Our future business will be conducted in world made more of verbs than nouns. “ John Perry Barlow, “The Economy of Ideas”, Wired magazine, 1994 Ah. The internet. The epitome of interactivity, the place where dreams are left behind and the future is in your hands. And to think it began as a government project… Sometimes, our elected officials do get things right. The internet began as a project called ARPANET (Advanced Projects Research Agency Network) in 1969. Four computers were hooked up to a basic network that was used to study connectivity. The first email program was written in 1972 and by 1973, the Internet was used mostly for email communication. Internet Protocol (IP) was developed in the late 1970s, when the network had grown to approximately 188 computers, and in 1984 the domain name system of .com, .org, and .edu was created. This basic organization system still dominates the Web today. The two names to remember for the 1990s are Tim Berners-Lee and Marc Andreessen. Berners-Lee is the visionary who developed the World Wide Web so people everywhere could communicate easily and share information over the internet. Andreessen developed the first browser, Mosaic, which enabled people to access the Web. Mosaic was later renamed Netscape. With the creation of hypertext, it was no longer necessary to download

all information for viewing; instead photos and text were now instantly available and made possible for viewing through hypertext. Initially, there were concerns over how the web would negatively affect society and that it would limit creativity and freedom of speech. However, it can be argued that the opposite is in fact true: because of the World Wide Web, people have access to more information than ever before, and more information than one can possibly process in a lifetime. There are certain events regarding the creation of the Internet and the World Wide Web that gain interesting perspective when viewed through the lens of time. The timeline below highlights major events that led to the Web we know today.

A BRIEF INTERNET TIMELINE 1957: ARPA initiated by Dwight D. Eisenhower 1962: Under J.C. Licklider ARPA begins investigating the idea of networked computers, jokingly refered to as the Intergalactic Computer Network. 1964: some computers used to trade information, in an effort of efficiency. 1969: RFCs for Requests for Comments are developed as a way of sharing ideas 1969: ARPANET goes online with 4 computers 1970: 8 more computers added to the ARPA network 1972: FTP proposed, first email program by Ray Tomlinson, first email sent 1970: Internet Protocol developed 1976: Ethernet is developed to allow data to be rapidly transferred over coaxial cables; Jimmy Carter is the first “computer-driven candidate” 1983: Computer Science Research Network from the NSF has < 80 sites online 1987: GIF image introduced 1989: Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher at CERN in Geneva, proposed the WWW 1990: Berners-Lee brings World Wide Web to life with html code; ARPANET is decommissioned and NSFNET takes over as the backbone; MP3 file patented 1993: Mosaic is launched by Andreessen, later called Netscape; The Tech (first online school newspaper) is published at MIT 1994: The White House launches its first web page 1995: Apache is launched as an open source server software; first internet phone; eBay launched as AuctionWeb; JavaScript developed 1996: Flash 1.0 introduced; Hotmail is born; ICQ released

1997: RSS created; weblog coined, shortened to Blog not weeblog 1999: Napster started in 1999; Blogger is born

Now… on to the Future! The future thinkers of the times are often those who write fiction. Fiction writers often possess minds that know no boundaries when it comes to thinking creatively, whether about the past, the present, or the future. Think George Orwell, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Aldous Huxley. Looking to books written in the past about our current lifetime, we can find examples where authors had too great of expectations for the year 2000 and beyond, along with those who had too little, whose dreamworlds have come and gone. It is good to keep this in mind when attempting future thinking: we must always be thinking and preparing for what might lie ahead, but we must also be prepared for the fact that what we dream might never come to pass. In general, “think big” is the important concept to grab a hold of for the ride. After all, it is better to be overprepared… What is proposed for the future still resonates of science fiction to many. Teleportation, a single consciousness, AI… what seems like the impossible could very well be probable in the future. After all, telegraphs and telephones and television all had their nonbelievers, and this gives a good frame of mind on how we can think forwardly and openly. Anything is possible. One this is inevitable: Change. The technologies of the future will affect every aspect of our lives, creating a more integrated and networked specie of human. We can expect that that our way of life, the way we think, the things we use, and our approach to privacy will all vastly change with the technology in the coming decades. William Gibson said in an interview with Maclean magazine in 1995 that “the Internet may be important because we are seeing something akin to what we did when we invented cities.” If this is truly what we are doing with the forward progression of the Internet, think of the implications! To be involved in the creation of the next societal construct will be something for the history books…or the historynet. Changing the Way We Think and Relate There is talk among certain circles of a collective consciousness, a community that possess a godmind, what can only be described as an

2001: Wikipedia created 2004: Gmail started with 1 GB storage 2005: YouTube launched unlocatable, omnipresent entity. Through advanced networking capabilities, the Internet may just be that collective conscious in the future, wherein everything we do would be networked— the only caveat being that the human-computer interface would disappear and we would be reacting at the sensory level. Because of this possibility, many scientists today consider the Web a living, breathing organism, one that we can interact with and that can, in a sense, respond. Phillip Tetlow proposes this theory in a 2007 book titled “The Web’s Awake: An Introduction to the Field of Webscience and the Concept of Web Life.” Web 3.0 is the first step in this collective conscious. The new Web will be able to answer questions, and intelligently at that, taking into consideration facts such as the weather, the time of day, traffic and even personal preferences. Mike Elgan, a columnist for ComputerWorld says that “Web 3.0 will function a little bit more like a human being.” Changing Interaction We interact with objects everyday. Change the temperature on the thermostat? Interaction. Open a door? Interaction. Commute to work? Interaction. In the future, more thought will be put into these physical interactions as well as to the interaction one has with experiences on the Web. Mitch Kapor wrote his Software Design Manifesto in 1990 about Roman architecture principles that were applicable to software design, and as an extension, interactive design. “Well designed buildings were those which exhibited firmness, commodity, and delight. “ In that sense, interaction should be an easy intuitive experience, should work well for its intended purpose, and should be a pleasurable experience. WEB 3.0—In this respect, the internet and the web will be shaped by the ways we use it. This is one reason that Web 2.0 is about the social experience and connection of the web: we chose it to be that way. As the American way becomes more and more about the workweek and more and more connected through technology, the Internet has allowed us to meet our social needs in an interactive form that still, somehow, seems personal. In fact, it can probably be argued that we know more about our friends today than ever before. We know things that are integral and important, but through Twitter and Facebook we are also informed of the mundane, like “I had meatloaf for dinner” or “Sitting in the café, waiting for a client.” It is only when these social mediums are

used to spread information that other people care about that they can actually be deemed successful. Research by firms like Gartner have confirmed that online networking does fulfill key needs, including that of feeling effective and capable. CONNECTIVITY—As the technology to connect progresses, we can expect it to become easier to go online from anywhere, at anytime. Televisions and automobiles are expected to be equipped with online capabilities within the next year. Other devices, developed in the field of wearable computing, will tap into the power of the web without being portals to enter the online community themselves. This will eventually lead to the “Internet of Things,” also known as “ubiquitous computing.” Within this sector, any thing that could possibly benefit from an extension of information will be equipped with sensors that can provide data from sensors. Breakthroughs are coming in the form of newly interactive touch screens and tools like the Wii-mote, a sensitive remote that uses an accelerometer and optics to read human movement. In the way that we respond with computers, smart pens and smart ink will replace the current point and click desktop model. Perfecting voice recognition software will enable another realm of connectivity. Eventually, the pervasive use of ubiquitous computing could be the very thing that leads the collective conscious of augmented reality. For now, mobile devices and smartphones will continue to fuel the connectivity revolution, bringing people as close to always on as possible. Due to this constant connectivity, there will be a struggle to separate the work life from the personal life, which at the moment can go one of two ways: either the personal will be integrated with the work life, or some set of boundaries will be created to enable a person to have some personal, uninterrupted time. When asked about the future of the Internet, William Gibson, an early proponent said, “In the future… the distinction between cyberspace and that which isn’t cyberspace is going to be unimaginable.” This is where we are heading. VR and AR—Virtual Reality worlds also fall into the category of changing interaction. Though these worlds are currently cumbersome and require a long learning curve, people have embraced them as a form of reality. In the future, with improving interfaces, it is not unthinkable that people will live out dual lives in both reality and virtual reality.

Another more readily acceptable version of a virtual reality are virtual maps and globes, such as Microsoft’s Virtual Earth and GoogleEarth. With the precise mapping of the entire world, geotagging is becoming more prevalent, as is geotracking. Some devices already allow one to track where on Earth their friends are located, and this is expected to become more common. WEB 4.0—Two words: Always on. In the Web 4.0 generation, there will be a blurring between the real and virtual that is difficult to detect. Self-upgrades will be available for both technology and people, and this will lead to exponential forward movement. Privacy and Concerns As with all new mediums of communication, there is a certain danger. Studies have shown links between virtual violence and real world violence, that gaming can be addictive and leave little time for other healthy activities, and that social networking can affect suicides in young people. There is the concern of everyware, of which we are educated about by Adam Greenfield, the author of “Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing.” As we network everything and create a system of “everyware,” Greenfield reminds us that we don’t really know exactly what will happen as a result. “We can only hope that those engineering the ubiquitous systems weigh their decisions with the same consciousness of repercussion reflected in the design of the original Internet Protocols.” In this, we can only hope that those who are intelligent enough to imagine and develop the technologies of the future adhere to the two principles set forth by Mark Weiser in his 1995 article “The Technologist’s Responsibilities and Social Change”: 1). Build it as safe as you can, and build into it all the safeguards to personal values that you can imagine; 2) Tell the world at large that you are doing something dangerous. Through the Next Century The promise of technology is to simplify our lives. While many might consider that at the moment, this is not the case and that technology has failed, it may be wiser to acknowledge that we are in a transitory period in which some technological advances have not been used to their highest potential. Here’s what’s on the horizon, according to the British Telecom Technology Timeline compiled in 2005: 2010:

GPS to track anything, IP on everything, including toys for tracking Interactive guidebooks to educate

2011:

2012:

The advent of supercomputers that will operate at the speed of 10 petaflops, close to the computing power of the human brain. Food will be used to distribute vitamins, vaccines, antibiotics, and medicines. There is the possibility that allergens will be bred out of things like nuts Intelligent fabrics that can communicate with thermostats eInk and ePaper may be available for widespread use

Things that Seem Credible before 2015 AI units as classroom assistants Virtual friends that you don’t know are virtual Addiction to online games as a major health issue Bacteria in toothpaste to attack plaque Chips on food for expiration dates 1 billion Internet users Frequent use of multiple net identities causes personality disorders Data loss because of format changes Single address for all communication 2015:

Teleportation of atoms begins to develop, dependent on development of the quantum computer Genetic profiling in use for security purposes Human cloning in fringe groups Autopilot vehicles are common Reactive materials could possibly render one invisible

Things that Seem Possible by 2015 25% of celebrities are synthetic Highspeed supersonic jets GPS systems used to limit speed Hotel in orbit Use of mutant insects for attack purposes An anti-technology sub-culture Academic learning is argued to be unnecessary Worldwide taxation Use of human tissue to grow organs Synthetic viruses created Things that Seem Possible by 2025 2020: Immersive virtual reality worlds that people work, socialize and relax in, wherein virtual reality may become more important than reality. Robots to take over physical work, and as a result society will develop into a “care economy.” 2025: Paint-on power generation, where nanotechnology will yield incredibly small

cells that can be painted onto surfaces for power generation. Holographic television that will be projected into a room Computers write their own software Electronic pets outnumber organic pets Police force privatized Life expectancy reaches 100 Beyond 2025 The British Telecom Technology Timeline compiled in 2005 goes beyond 2025. They take readers through biostasis in space in 2035 and the founding of a space elevator around 2045. They theorize that there is a distinct possibility that a Mars colony could be formed by 2050 and that sometime after 2050, time travel will be a distinct possibility. Frankly, I cannot fathom many of these things. Perhaps it is because I have little training in physics and none in the inanities of quarks and nanoparticles, or perhaps it is because I am only equipped to be able to fathom the future to a certain point. While I can see the benefit in being a futurethinker, for my purposes, going past 2025 for the time being is a little bit counterproductive. There are other people out there with greater intelligence and imagination than I, and I will leave the future to them… for now. But I will be looking for updates, every chance I get. Or so I thought before coming to the Guide for Future Thinking. In Pursuit of Future from Today First, we must mentally prepare ourselves now if we are to greet the future with arms wide open. A good place to start is recognizing what has already changed and what has remained the same through the recent test of time. Next, we must ask ourselves the important questions of: how will the future be different? What if (fill in the blank) happened today? What does it mean for me and for others? Leadership must then be put into place, which can be accomplished through looking closely at emerging issues and patterns and discussing which strategies to approach the changing landscape. Considering the possible and the probably before they occur can be the difference between survival and death of a company. We must learn to continually search for emerging trends, tipping points, and weak signals to help provide new direction for companies. It is not an attempt to predict the future but to put in place a plan that will help anticipate the future and thus ready a response. To be competent in the future, one must follow five practices: trend assessment,

pattern recognition, systems analysis, anticipatory planning, and instinct & logic. When combined with the actions of horizon scanning, strategic thinking, action planning, and networking, a company can, in effect, futureproof itself, or at least insulate from complete failure. Strategic thinking will be essential, in that it encompasses a future that is intent driven and focuses on goals over a long period of time. It often includes where a company is today, a chosen strategy, an approach to how to get where they might be, and probable, possible, and plausible outcomes of that given path. Stakeholders will be important in the future of companies and getting them on board will require horizon scanning, which looks for better understand the nature and pace of an environment and seek out potential challenges; and different forms of seeing, which can include looking to the future, understanding the past, taking a helicopter view, removing the blinkers, questioning what’s beyond the horizon, and thinking through the action. Trends must also be examined and presented, paying attention for countertrends and wildcards as well. These often encompass the larger though of “what if?”. If a company is to survive the coming future, where business and marketing practices will be turned on end, where economies will change from servicebased to care, where technology has the ability to replace human brain power, it must employ each of these tactics of future thinking. They must be ready. They must have a plan. They must be vigilant. And in the end… It is best to keep in mind that the future cannot be predicted and is not pre-determined. We can learn from companies who have dealt with change in the past, as long as we remember that change is different in every round of the game. In order to arrive at the future in good health, we must be prepared for what might be waiting.

Reaching Interactive Media Audiences From Infection to Spreadibility Information is being shared differently today than it was twenty years ago, ten years ago, even five years ago. One could argue that the nature of shared information has even changed rapidly over the past year, what with the newly pervasive use of smart phones. Because of the rapidly changing technology, the media are being forced to adapt to new methods of distribution. The problem therein lies in understanding just how the information is being shared, which is attempted through such biological descriptions as “viral” and “meme” which are limiting in their definitions: Viral: limiting in that it follows the “infection” scenario and reduces consumers to inactive hosts who have no control over the message or the content. It also asserts that the media have ultimate control over what content is given to the consumer. Meme: the information embedded in a viral campaign that isn’t central to the storyline but is essential to the ubiquitous marketing. In more technical terms, a meme is “a unit of information in a mind who existence influences events such that more copies of itself get created in other minds” (Brodie, 1996. P. 32). The viral nature of the meme plays on rules of the human condition, purporting that we are all susceptible to the messages the media distributes, with no direction from ourselves on how the message affects the individual. But this cannot be true if we look at viral media from the consumer side: the audience does matter, the audience has more than a modicum of control. Much of this control that an audience inherently owns is due to the fact that messages are spread based on cultural values, and cultural values are created and not selfreplicating, as the meme theory would have us believe.

The idea of the meme has slowly been stripped apart, and with the progression of the Internet, can be argued to be partially obsolete. Of the three characteristics of memes (fidelity: the ability to retain information; fecundity: the power to copy themselves; and longevity: longer life has a better chance of being copied) fidelity and fecundity no longer hold the truth of their basic definitions, at least in terms of the Internet. The very power of viral Web campaigns is often the power that consumers have to change the content, which would strike out the notion of fidelity. Also, it is the consumers that have the ability to replicate the message, not the meme itself. Looking at how information is transferred through the lens of the virus and the meme is an interesting concept; however, it doesn’t hold up in the age of the Internet and interactivity.

The Next Frontier? Spreadability Memes and viruses are no longer applicable because they put too much control in the hands of the media companies and underestimate the contributive role that the consumer plays. In this, the definitions do not allow for the development of media and marketing campaigns that will actually work with the new media. The consumers, the groundswell, are in control, and the companies must realize this in order to distribute a message. The consumer no longer simply absorbs information or the message. After absorption, edits are performed, and then the information is passed on, in effect, multiplying the message. Here, then, we can throw away yet another term that is essentially outdated and ineffectual in its definition: consumer. Instead, consumers can be seen as ‘multipliers’ as they edit and pass on the message, in essence, demonstrating the idea of spreadability. Spreadability has developed out of the notion of stickiness, another term that was developed with the beginnings of the Internet revolution. The inherent problem with stickiness is that it is used in terms of a single person and does not take into effect the multiplier role of the consumer. This is the core difference between stickiness and spreadability, though others stemming from this are illustrated below:

STICKINESS

SPREADABILITY

seeks to attract and hold the attention of site visitors

seeks to motivate and facilitate the efforts of fans and enthusiasts to "spread" the word

depends on concentrating the attention of all interested parties on a specific site or through a specific channel depends on creating a unified consumer experience as consumers enter into branded spaces

seeks to expand consumer awareness by dispersing the content across many potential points of contact

depends on prestructured interactivity to shape visitor experiences

typically tracks the migrations of individual consumers within a site a sales force markets to consumers a logical outgrowth of the shift from broadcasting's push model to the web's pull model

depends on creating a diversified experience as brands enter into the spaces where people already live and interact relies on open-ended participation as diversely motivated but deeply engaged consumers retrofit content to the contours of different niche communities maps the flow of ideas through social networks grassroots intermediaries become advocates for brands restores some aspects of the push model through relying on consumers to circulate the content within their own communities

producers, marketers, and consumers are separate and distinct roles

depends on increased collaboration across and even a blurring of the distinction between these roles

depends on a finite number of channels for communicating with consumers

takes for granted an almost infinite number of often localized and many times temporary networks through which media content circulates

The Gift Economy vs. the Commodity Culture Throw the old model away! We can no longer focus on the individual and we can no longer focus on what media does to people. The focus must be placed on what consumers are doing with the media. Because of this shift, we are experiencing a crisis in our moral economy, which can be viewed most readily in the music industry. To understand this more fully, it is necessary to examine the two cultures that reside within our moral economy: the commodity culture and the gift enconomy. Because these two worlds exist side-by-side in our lives, we must live within both simultaneously. This causes problems, as the commodity culture inherently operates on economic motives whereas the gift economy operates on a social order of giving and receiving. These two cultures meet head to head within the music industry: music sharing is illegal within the commodity culture, yet it is damaging socially should one refuse to share music

in the gift economy. These ethics and goals of these two worlds must be synthesized for the music industry to move forward. The music industry is the one that is going to have to adapt, as the internet was founded on the gift economy and continues to evolve as a market of collaboration built on giveand-take and not monetary benefits. Below are a the core values and concepts that form the gift economy: o The purchase transaction does not shared the circulation of materials o Gift-giving is socially motivated o Gift economies are dynamic in the fluid circulation of goods o Status, prestige, or esteem take the place as payment in driving a social interaction o Gifts have worth in comparison to the â&#x20AC;&#x153;valueâ&#x20AC;? a commodity has

o o

The gift economy translates into a community Not all gifts can be accepted, motives must sometimes be examined

Spreadable media can then be described as the content that passes through the commodity culture and the gift economy. In order for this to happen, the priced must be able to be transformed into the priceless, and value must be transformed into intrinsic worth. In order to create spreadable messages, it is essential to understand how these transformations can occur. Grant McCracken argues that this transformation occurs when goods are purchased. At the time of the initial transaction, the good is simply a commodity. It is only when the good is taken home and given a place within the culture of the consumers life that it takes on the worth in comparison to value. Audience Like other things we took for granted, such as the definition of viral media and the meme and even the term consumer, the nature of the audience is changing. This change has been gradually creeping up on us: audiences have been transforming from passive viewers to active participants with high levels of control. This is the very core of interactivity and the Internet has been the main enabler of the movement. This interactivity allows for choice and control, which is exactly the power that audiences now have, and the very reason why the old term for audience may very well not apply any longer. The old defines the audience as passive; after making a choice to view a play or television program or listen to the radio, one sits and listens or watches. They receive information but give nothing back. This is simply no longer the case, so do we look to redefine the term audience, or simply create a new term that actually defines what the consumers (ahem, multipliers) are doing? It certainly seems like we should just throw out the old and get started on the new lexicon. Communities Returning to the notion that media companies should not just target the individual, we now have the evidence that they should be targeting communities, which are a core concept of the new

audience. Communities are forming in different ways, almost the antithesis to the old exclusivity model, in that people join “affinity spaces” or communities where they find others with their same common interests. These sort of communities form in three ways: Pools: where there is a strong association with a brand; Webs: organized through social connections; and Hubs: where loose associations are formed around a central figure. The structure of any of these communities can be broken down as such: Open: no registration required; Free registration: most common, good for data collection; Purchase: function under the sticky model that anything with value costs money; and Outside selection: function like the old exclusive country clubs— you need an invitation. These communities, which all have different interests, must be courted in a variety of ways and this is the ultimate argument for a move towards a model of spreadability and away from stickiness. Content Content must has social value or worth in order to be spread. In order to determine this, it is essential to know why the content has worth and how it will be spread within a specific community. This is difficult because oftentimes community ties are not clear cut and the members of the communities, having a common interest in one thing, may have competing views on other ideals. In this, companies must recognize that brands and messages take on different forms in terms of personalization and localization. Content from mass culture becomes popular culture when we make it personal. When we make it personal, we give it worth and launch it into the gift economy. Marketers can break into the gift economy, then, by getting people to react and create and respond to a message so that it is transformed into popular culture. The trick is that the message must be able to be added to or transformed to fit the needs of the viewer or consumer. Unless it is open enough for the consumer to add their own value, the message will be quickly discarded and has no hope for being spread. When a message has this, whether it is text or video or web, it is defined as “producerly.”

Strategy Yes, a message must be open, or producerly, but it must also follow the inherent aesthetics of the culture. Let’s take look at a few of these strategies. o Humor, amusement, parody o Information seeking, crowdsourcing, collective intelligence o Homemade, re-enactment, search for authenticity o Unfinished content, ambiguity o Nostalgia, community, solidarity In the coming years, video is going to be an increasingly important strategy for all companies, and many are already building this into their marketing plans. Looking ahead to 2012, four out of five people online will be watching videos, as projected by eMarketer from previous statistics. Value The internet may have inherent value at deeper level, saturating the culture for a more permanent run, where as television is still perfect for the here and now. However, there are risks with “viral” marketing, in that there is no guarantee that your message will speak to the broader communities and stimulate them to spread it. Traditionally branded companies have the most to lose from this type of marketing: if they go out on this limb they very well could lose control of their brand. But the Groundswell authors argue that this has already happened. Even if a company makes no effort to join the spreadibility medium, consumers are still talking. Why not listen? You’ve got nothing to lose. Examining Your Audience We join social networks to fend of information overload, as a low threshold of participation (read, favorite, tag, link) forms a collective collaborative intelligence that allows us to access more information than we could on our own. It is essential to take a look at these communities and your audience, and using the tools the web provides is an excellent place to start: o Visitor loyalty, bounce rate, recency, time on site: measure the level of engagement, a gauge of enthusiasm. o Visitor Location: allows you to make cultural and linguistic assumptions of your visitors. o Visitor search terms/keywords: where data collection gets specific o Traffic source: includes search engines, referrer sites, type-in/bookmark traffic and ad campaigns

The key is to find the analytics tool that works for your company and to stick with it. Research, know the terms, and if you don’t, find someone who does. You can also find site stats on Alexa, ComScore, Nielsen, and Google. More active ways to solicit information about your audience can be through things like polls, surveys, on-site user features, and audience feedback. Using Personas Another way to examine your audience is through personas, or archetypal representations of an segment of your audience. By using the tools described above along with ethnographic research, interviews and contextual inquiries, one can create persona for marketing and information purposes that will Determine what a product should do and how it should behave. Communicate with stakeholders, developers, and other designers. Build consensus and commitment to the design. Measure the design’s effectiveness. Contribute to other product-related efforts such as marketing and sales plans. (Alan Cooper, author of About Face 3.0 with Robert Riemann and David Cronin) This type of information can also be displayed in mental models and experience lifecycles. From these visual representations stems the field of information visualization. Infovis wizards must excel not only in design, but also in statistics, data collection, and analysis.

Interaction Studies Looking at statistics is a great way to analyze an audience. However, it is also important to know how your audience is responding to your website or video. For that, it is necessary to set up interaction studies. The key here is finding out about the user experience, as the experience is everything. If the consumer likes your product and had a good interaction, they’re likely to tell someone else, sending messages for you through the groundswell. It is imperative to have good design and emotional design; both of these elicit the most postive reactions from consumer, time and again.

Interaction Design on the Web Good design is the number one factor in determining credibility. It relates back to authority: you always trust the man in the uniform, don’t you? The same goes for good web design; people choose what’s attractive. People process input at three levels, and this is how they determine a good experience from the bad. From Don Norman: o

The visceral level is preconsciousness, prethought. It’s where appearance matters first and first impressions are formed. The initial impact of a product, appearance, touch, feel. The behavioral level is about use, experience with a product. It is about function, performance and usability. The reflective level is the level at which the full impact of thought and emotions are experienced. It is all about message, about culture, meaning of the product and its use.

Because of these three processes, good design is not the only thing that matters. How the information is presented is also key. The user does not need to see the inner workings of the site, but only the information that they are interested in. Let’s take a look at some of the elements to keep in mind, from Bruce Tognazzini, principal with the Nielsen Norman Group, formerly lead designer at WebMD and founder of the Apple Human Interface Group: Anticipation: Applications should attempt to anticipate the user’s wants and needs. Autonomy: Don’t abandon rules, but give users a chance to discover and change things Use status mechanisms to keep users aware and informed: vital to supplying the information necessary and helps ease frustration and confusion. Keep status information up to date and within easy view Consistency: without it, users can easily become confused. Consider these as well: o Inconsistency: It is just important to be visually inconsistent when things must act differently as it is to be visually consistent when things act the same. o Avoid uniformity. Make objects consistent with their behavior. Make objects that act differently look different.

The most important consistency is consistency with user expectations.The only way to ascertain user expectations is to do user testing. No amount of study and debate will substitute.

Defaults: should be easy, intelligent and responsive to use Efficiency of the User: make things as efficient as possible or the user will leave Keep the user occupied: if you make them wait, keep them occupied. Explorable Interfaces: give them the roads and then landmarks, then give them control. Make Actions reversible, always allow "Undo" and always allow a way out. However, make it easier to stay in. Learnability: make the learning curve adaptable if possible

Tagging Tagging is necessary today to deal with the plethora of information on the Web. Tags are used as identifiers and to show people what is most popular. Tagging falls into one of five basic categories: Managing personal information, social bookmarking (del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia), collecting and sharing digital objects (Flickr, SlideShare), improving the e-commerce experience, and the ubiquitous other. Tagging is essential for organization because it helps bring information architecture, social software, and personal information management together. SEO Search engine optimization can be viewed as a form of tagging. Page titles, meta descriptions, URL structure, website navigation, unique content, anchor tags, heading tags, alt tag optimazation, and robots.txt. files all affect how your site is ranked on a search engine.

Becoming an Interactive Professional Read this paper. Retain this paper. Read the blogs. Write a blog. Get on twitter. Follow important people on twitter. Focus on your audience. Recognize that interaction is an experience. Experience is important. Remember clean design signals professionalism. Engage others. Engage yourself. Become a future thinker.

An Introduction to Interactive Media Theory Defining Interactivity: Delving into the Heart of New Media Communication Interactivity has a simple definition when applied to everyday life: people meet and as a result of that meeting, influence each other in some way. A lunch meeting is interactive, two children playing trying to figure out the game of Jenga is interactive, adults working out together at the gym is interactive. Whenever we come into contact with another individual, the result is usually interactivity. We take something and we give something, and hopefully the transaction is beneficial to all parties. Defining interactivity on the Web, on computers, can be just as deceptively simple, while also being complex at the same time. This duality exists because interactivity can be examined at a very basic level and again at more complex levels that more clearly define a user experience. At that basic level, interactivity on the Internet is as simple as the definition we put forth for everyday life: people meet and as a result of that meeting, influence each other in some way. Instead of meeting in person, however, these people are meeting in virtual spaces on the web, whether it be through chat, email, or a usenet group. Complexity enters the equation with the suggestion that getting on a computer is, in and of itself, interactive. We then must examine not only the influence of people on each other, but also of the computer or interface on the user. Theorists from across several fields have taken an interest in interactivity, and what could be proposed as the ultimate goal of the Internet. Through their thoughts, we can examine more specifically what interactivity is in this global age and also where interactivity has been and where it is going. Downes and McMillian purport that there are two categories that can be used to assess interactivity: the message direction, in which direction, time and place are examined; and the participant dimensions, where we look at the levels of control and responsiveness along with perceived goals.

We know by now, as the World Wide Web approaches a celebration of two decades, that interactivity is a good thing. Studies have shown that interactivity enhances information seeking and boosts the ratings of websites. Research has proposed that electronic groups work just as efficiently, if not more so, than groups that meet face to face. Interactivity helps build audiences on blogs. And interactivity provides for a more satisfying user experience. To bring the definition to professional level, Koolstra and Bos describe “interactivity [as] the degree to which two or more communication parties, human or computer, act on each other in an interrelated manner.” They have proven, through systematic research, that interactivity of a website can be determined by looking at the following: synchronicity, timing flexibility, control over content, number of additional participants, physical presence of additional participants, use of sight, use of hearing, and use of other senses. The participatory elements of control and timing flexibility offer the greatest perceived amount of interactivity by users, over that of the other senses, mostly because we already have control over our own senses. Interactivity is important to users. Nathan Shedroff insists that we must create “valuable, empowering, and compelling information and experiences for others” in order to put the information into the hands of the people. Through channels of feedback, and offering control over content, the option creativity & co-creativity, giving opportunity for productivity, increased communications, and room for adaptivity, we can do just that. The new media must include interactive content if they are going to keep their audience, let along drive new users to their sight. The New York Times has done an excellent job of integrating video, visual information like interactive graphs and charts, slideshows that incorporate sound, along with roving reporter type features that focus on sound bites, all the while managing to keep their clean, classic style where the news itself is the most important element. The New York Times has succeeded at transitioning into the new media outlet. The print version is still important, but the power lies in the online version of the media giant. Lev Manovich suggests there are five principles of new media, these being: numerical representation

(think digital coding), modularity (independent elements combined to make new ones), automation (software allows time for creativity), variability (not fixed, and exist in infinite versions), and transcoding (media & culture are shaped by the technology). Other new media attributes are developing as follows: Demassification: control by individual over the medium Asynchroneity: participation at any time convenient Interactivity: the degree of control the participants have Interactivity can further be separated into five differing dimensions: playfulness, choice, connectedness, information collection, and reciprocal communications. Web 2.0 didn’t exist when these studies were conducted and as a result, connectedness was seen as a lower form of interactivity, where now it can be viewed as the epitome. Some children may be online so much that it seems they are living in isolation. However, online they are super social, connected beings. Media must become interactive in order to survive the digital transition. This can be accomplished through defining and incorporating interactivity into their business models.

Designing Interaction: What Sort of Person Does It Take? Every time we open a door or change the temperature on a thermostat, we are interacting with objects. Much like interpersonal interaction, we influence the object and the object influences us. Creators and innovators have always been cognizant of the functionality of products; only recently has the human interaction interface is been recognized as increasingly important. This is where the field of interaction design comes into play. Interaction designers must be multidisciplinary and encompass a broad range of skills and knowledge precisely because they are expected to oversee the innovation from conception through production. They must conceive, communicate, and analyze. They must have “soft-skills” or people skills. They must have a learning temperament. From process to creation,

interaction designers follow a certain chart flow, starting with design research, research analysis and concept generation, alternative design and evaluation, through prototyping and usability testing, implementation, and finally, system testing. In order to create interfaces that are successful, interaction designers must consider both the social and the affective elements. Knowledge of interpersonal communication is key here, as are attention to speech, writing, and listening habits. The affective theory considered includes details like color, text and icons, all of which can make a break a user experience, depending on the emotion they elicit. A combination of these elements can create effective design, which is described by Don Norman as visceral, behavioral, and reflective.

Interactivity and Theory: At the Crossroads of Sociology, Communication and Psychology All basic research, whether the results lead to a theory or not, can be categorized as quantitative, which is systematic and scientific, often focusing on statistics, or qualitative where investigation focuses on underlying meanings, using content study and observation: ethnography, content analysis, focus groups, and case studies. The study of communication theories is essential when thinking about user interactivity. If communication networks are not implemented, a group will fail to function, whether in real life or in virtual settings. It is crucial to understand how a message travels, as all forms of interaction are at their most simple, messages. There are two models that serve as the cornerstone of all basic communication theory. Harold Lasswell’s asks the following: Who, said/did what, to whom, with what effect? It is often looked at in equation form, like this: WHO + WHAT + WHOM = EFFECT The Shannon-Weaver model demonstrates the same channel, but with a few additions. Their model presents as such: SOURCE  TRANSMITTER noise noise noise SIGNAL  RECEIVER  DESTINATION In recognizing that noise exists and effects how the message is received, if at all, Shannon and Weaver

discuss how redundancy is necessary when sending a message, as it helps to reduce entropy. When we examine the flow chart from the perspective of interactive communication, it is clear that the line between the sender and the receiver is blurred. Just who is affecting whom, and to what end? Interactivity may turn these basic models of communication upside-down and sideways. These communication theories, while they form the basic building blocks for attempting to understand interactivity and what is necessary to think about when constructing an interactive platform, are by no means the only theories to take into consideration. The following overview of theories comes from a broad range of disciplines. This is the sort of knowledge one is expected to know in the world of interactive design, which is, essentially, human centered.

--Activity Theory For a formal definition, activity theory is “a way to assess the developmental processes by which a person is shaped and shapes experiences through his or her actions.” Basically, people take action. These actions support the goals of their personal expectations and ideals. The theory makes an attempt at understanding how society at large influences the way that new tools are created and used, accepted, or rejected. It also is used to classify social, physical, and cognitive processes involved in tasks and takes into account the personal motivation of the individual. --Symbolic Interactionism Brought to the study of interaction from the field of Sociology. Basically, as simple as it seems, people interact by defining and interpreting the actions of others, not just reaction and any response is based on the meaning it gives to another’s actions. There are three important things to consider in regard to symbolic interactionism: 1. Human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings they ascribe to those things 2. The meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with others and the society. 3. These meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretive process used by the person in dealing with the things he/she encounters.

--Social Network Theory Also from Sociology, social network theory has been around for decades, not just since the advent of Facebook and Twitter in the early 21st century. The theory states that smaller networks with close ties can often be less helpful than broad networks with weak ties. These broad networks can introduce more ideas and opportunities. Researchers study how ties develop and how the ties affect the norm through their structure and composition. One example of this is the “small world phenomenon,” where everything in the world can be connected to another by fewer steps than really imagined, like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon in which every other actor in the community can be connected to Mr. Bacon in six steps or less. This does, of course, depend on the criteria that define connection. This is an example of a scale-free network, which means connectivity is uneven. These are mostly large networks in which certain people or sites act as hubs that connect the weaker ties. It is important to look at how networks are formed and function so that we can understand how information is transmitted. In this, network has become just as important as a noun as when it is used as a verb. Social network analysis “is more than a method. It is a perspective on the world armed with tools and a body of applications ranging from questions of social isolation to the structure of international relations and the web.” --Online Communities Theory Online communities existed in simpler forms prior to today’s Linked In and Facebook. These communities are described as being composed of people who communicate mainly through online media rather than face-to-face. Through this theory, we can examine and challenge what it takes to produce a sense of community, dismissing the previous requirements of occupying the same physical space at some point in time. There are three reasons that people join online communities. Some people join or are active for one reason or another, and some are there for multiple reasons. These reasons are: anticipated reciprocity, wherein the users are looking for feedback; increased recognition, as everybody wants a little piece of fame, and even the anonymous want for this recognition; a sense of

efficacy, in that they are contributing to a cause at large, like Wikipedia. Is this increased sense of community found online the reason that the sense of community has been lost in the real world? Or are people creating communities online in response to the loss of community in the real world? --Uses and Gratifications This theory attempts to decipher what people do with the media and why they do it, along with how they are motivated to use communications tools to meet particular needs. The theory looks at the possible functions that mass media provides for the people, even to a point of reaching selfactualization: the top tier on Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. All media users have one of five needs they are looking to meet by using a medium: Cognitive, Affective, Personal integrative, social integrative, and escapist. These needs can overlap for certain mediums for certain people and also hold exclusivity. It is important to understand these needs in order to develop content that can help the audience make sense of their world and answer questions they might have. It has purported that gratification can be obtained from content, the familiarity of the genre, general exposure to the medium, and from the social context. --Knowledge Gap Theory With each new medium, the gap between the information rich and the information poor increases. This is also known as the digital divide. --Cultivation Theory The influence of television from the 50s through the 90s contributed to a common worldview, common values, and common roles from the media. For example, people watching more crime on television thought the world was a more dangerous place. Beliefs stemming from this effect are divided into two categories: first order, which correspond to actual news facts and numbers, and second order, which correspond to extrapolation of the facts into general theories about the state of something. --Technological Determinism Technological advances are a crucial contributory element in processes of social change. Technologies alter our habits of perception and thinking, making possible the changes in society

such as democracy, Protestantism, and nationalism. Famously, Marshall McLuan preached, “the medium is the message.” --Diffusions of Innovations Theory This theory assesses the processes in the final state of the adoption or rejection of an innovation. With the idea that innovation creates uncertainty, the theory of social proof (that people inherently look to others for social cues on how to act) plays a role in how quickly an innovation is accepted or rejected. For an innovation to be fully diffused, it must be communicated through certain channels, over a period time, and distributed among the members of a social system. The rate of adoption is affected by: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, and observability. An innovation follows this process of adoption: acquirement of knowledge, persuasion or definition of a position, a decision to accept or reject, implementation of decision, confirmation of use. Those that choose to adopt the innovation fall into one of the following categories: the innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and the laggards. --Spiral of Silence Theory People’s willingness to speak out depends on the perception of the climate of opinion. If you think your opinion is different than that of the norm, you tend to keep quiet. --Powerful Effects Theory To have a powerful effect, a campaign must, as presented by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann: spell out extremely specific, reasonable campaign objectives clearly, pinpoint the target audience, work to overcome indifference of the audience to a particular issue, and find relevant themes to stress in the messages. Studies also found that people who are forced to see inconsistencies in their belief systems may re-evaluate, and as a result, change. Interactivity on multiple levels produces more of response. --Power Law Effect Being high gets you higher. --Agenda Setting and Media Framing The news media can change how a community views itself. The media tell us what to thing about and how to think about it. Framing is subtler. What is becoming more common today is what is referred to as “intermedia agenda setting”, a

reference of how one form of media affects another. For instance, big name news sources have an affect on the online discussions and blogs, and things that go viral in the blogosphere can sometimes end up on the nightly news. We still don’t really know how agenda setting functions online, as selective perception and wide array of sources affect how information is received and processed. --Perception Theory The process of interpreting messages is complex, as it is a process that is both physical and psychological and can be influenced by past experiences, cultural expectations, motivations, moods and attitudes. The process of receiving and interpreting a message is known, from the basic communication model, as decoding. We know that people react to the same messages in different ways. This is because people are influenced by their needs, wants, attitudes, needs and other psychological factors that put a filter on the message that they are being sent. People who choose to expose themselves to messages that are concurrent with their belief processes are making use of what is known as Selective Exposure. With Selective Attention, people only pay attention to that which agrees with their belief system. Selective Retention is the tendency of people to recall information that confirms their ideals. Basically, selective perception theory says that humans seek out and retain messages that are similar to their current beliefs. --Schema Theory This theory is helpful in comprehending how people process information, a critical skill in determining how to present information through interactive mediums. According to Graber (1998), a schema is “a cognitive structure consisting of organized knowledge about situations and individuals that has been abstracted from prior experiences. It is used for processing new information and retrieving stored information.” One way people deal with the influx of information is to create a kind of cognitive economy, in which simple mental models are used to sort and discard information, much like one sorts and discards mail on a daily basis. Research has also found people tend to store conclusions, but not the evidence that led to the conclusion.

--Image Perception Theory Linda Scott argued for the need of visual rhetoric to help us understand how people process images. Visual elements are crucial in that they can be combined to create complex arguments, but the perception of the simplistic images must be understood before combining them into phrases of visualization. Scott categorized images in the media as transparent representations of reality, as conveyors of affective or emotional appeal, and as complex combination of symbols put together to make up rhetorical arguments. Through those, it is obvious that images can add value to messages from mass media. --Persuasion Theory Persuasion theory demonstrates “an attitude change resulting from the exposure to information from others” from Olson and Zanna. It also purports that attitudes are learned, and that humans are intelligent, but they are easily influenced. What has been demonstrated through research is that a single mass communication message is unlikely to change strongly held attitudes. Persuasive methods include visuals, humor, sexual appeals, and repetition. While it is commonly thought that fear is a great motivator and persuader, it depends on these three factors whether or not it will have an effect on someone’s attitude: the magnitude of noxiousness of a particular event, the probably of that event’s occurrence, the efficacy of recommended response. Though all information is processed in this way, McGuire’s 8 steps of Information processing can help assess why persuasion does or does not work: exposure, perception, comprehension, agreement, retention, retrieval, decision making, and action. --Propaganda Lasswell defines propaganda, narrowly, as “the technique of influencing human action by the manipulation of representations.” He describes the four major goals of propaganda as such: to mobilize hatred against the enemy, to preserve the friendship of allies, to preserve friendship and cooperation of neutrals, and to demoralize the enemy. It wasn’t until 1958 that Roger Brown differentiated between propaganda and persuasion, in that propaganda does not have the best interests of the persuadee.

It is important to remember that propaganda only reaches some people, some of the time. Persuasion techniques identified as propaganda are: name calling, glittering generality, transfer, testimonial, plain folks, card stacking and bandwagon.

Attempts to decipher how the media impedes or upholds our chance of survival through its effect on our environment. Also, media should not cancel one another out, but add up to something greater.

--Media Richness Richer media is more effective at communicating a message, as it carries more content. Traditional examples of rich media include face-to-face and videoconferencing. Interactive media has been described as a rich medium as it encompasses much of the same feedback loop that face-to-face offers.

Of course, none of these theories can be conclusively proven, mostly on the basis that they take their cue from humans, not the most steady of Earthly inhabitants. Many of the questions proposed by communication theory can be started with two simple words, pointed out by Werner Severin and James Tankard: It depends…

--Human Action Cycle This theory describes how humans go about achieving a goal. They often follow this process: form a goal, translate it into tasks, plan an action sequence, execute the action sequence, perceive what happened, interpret the outcome according to user expectation, and then evaluate what happened against what was intended.

A New Media Timeline: 1969-2008 In recognizing that new media exist, it can be interesting and important to examine the relationships between innovations and how they are put to use within the mass media. The following is an attempt to briefly overview the highlights of the past 40 years of new media.

--Media Ecology

1969-1975 1969:

1970:

1971:

1972:

ARPANET goes online with 4 computers New York Times Info Bank is created to collect story abstracts “Man Walks on the Moon.” The first wireless computer network is created at the University of Hawaii First use of data transmission in journalism from an AP bureau in South Carolina to Atlanta “4 Kent State Students Killed by Troops” IBM introduces 8-inch floppy disks Ray Tomlinson sends the first email Introduction of computers into newsrooms Videotex system in use by NSF

First public demonstration of ARPANET Texas Instruments releases calculator, 4 functions 9 Israelis on Olympic Team Killed 1973: 2 computers in Europe hook up to ARPANET UPI and AP announce installation of computer terminals “First (Vietnam American War) Prisoner Release Completed” 1974: IP protocol developed

1975:

Part of the Wall Street Journal is successfully transmitted by satellite NYT begins to add computers Nixon Resigns First home computer, the Altair, is distributed, with the option of “do-ityourself” BASIC language is written “The Fall of Saigon”

1976-1980 1976:

1977:

1978:

1979:

Apple is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak Cray-1 supercomputer announced 5 ¼ inch floppy disks introduced “Bicentennial” Apple II personal computer introduced Electronic mail system is developed at the University of Wisconsin Warner Communications launches QUBE, and interactive cable system “Power Failure Blacks Out New York” First bulletin board software written The Source, an early online service for the public, is launched “Polish Cardinal Elected Pope” WordStar, a word processing software, is released

1980:

First Sony Walkman was sold “Radiation is Released in Accident at Nuclear Plant in PA” LAN software to be developed by Novell Apple goes public First virus spreads, by accident NYT Info Bank begins offering stories in full form “Reagan Easily Beats Carter”

1990:

1991-1995 1991:

1981-1985 1981:

1982:

1983:

1984:

1985:

IBM introduces its first successful computer PC-DOS is also market as MS-DOS “Reagan Takes Oath” and Iran Hostages are released Lotus 1-2-3, spreadsheet software, released Adobe Systems is founded Commodore 64 released Emoticons put to use Teletex and videotex Time names Computer Man of the Year Apple introduces mouse and graphical interface Viewtron is experimented with Mac is introduced 3 ½ inch floppy introduced 15 newspapers offer full-text databases of their stories Windows operating system released First home printers introduced, Apple LaserWriter and HP LaserJet Nintendo released 50 newspapers offer full-text databases of their stories

1986-1990 1986:

1987:

1988:

1989:

Microsoft goes public LISTSERV developed Viewtron ended “Challenger Space Shuttle Explodes” NSFNET is formed to connect 5 supercomputers, will support the Internet until 1995 “Stocks Plunge 508 Points” Prodigy dial-up is launched, serves as a bridge from videotex “Bombing of Pan Am 103” NSFNET replaces ARPANET Tim Berners-Lee writes original proposal for the World Wide Web Game Boy released The Quantum Co is renamed as America Online

“Beijing Death toll at Least 300” WWW prototype is created at the CERN lab in France Windows 3.0 is released “Two Germany’s Unite”

1992:

1993:

1994:

Gopher Internet browser released WWW released Early version of Linux developed “Kuwait Freed, Iraqis Crushed” Michelangelo virus threatens computers 65 million computers in homes Mobile phone in Britain sends first SMS message Delphi dial-up offers text only access to the Internet CNN Newsroom launched online AOL has 200,000 subscribers 150 newspapers off full-text databases of their stories Mosaic is released Intel introduces the Pentium chip First MS site is launched NPR goes online Yahoo is started Netscape Communications is founded JPEG standard approved Netscape Navigator released Official White House site launched “Southern California Earthquake” AOL has 1,000,000

1995-2000 1995:

1996:

1997:

1998:

Java is introduced Amazon is founded eBay is founded DVD specifications are finalized “Oklahoma City Bombing” USA Today goes online Palm Pilot is first successful personal organizer ICQ released Nintendo 64 released “AOL Goes Offline for 18 Hours” First blog TiVo incorporated “Heaven’s Gate” “England Mourns Princess Diana” CompuServe sold to AOL AOL has 10 million subscribers 2,600 newspapers with Internet sites Development of Internet 2 begins

1999:

US Gov’t sues Microsoft for monopolistic practices Bluetooth group formed Windows 98 released iMac released Google opens office, still in beta testing Monica Lewinsky scandal broke on the Drudge Report Video comes to the WWW AOL has 15 million subscribers 3,250 newspapers with Internet sites Melissa computer virus spreads Final Cut Pro developed Craigslist founded Napster is released Beta testing of Google is finished “JFK Jr Plane Crash” The Y2K problem

2007:

2008:

Time’s Person of the Year: You “Saddam Hussein Executed” Apple iPhone released Google News becomes a publisher One Web Day is started Kindle is introduced The Royal Family launches YouTube channel AOL discontinues Netscape CNN and YouTube cover presidential debates HD DVD hits a dead end Google Chrome released Tim Russert’s death broken by Wikipedia

2000-2005 2000:

2001:

2002:

2003:

2004:

2005:

Love letter worm runs viral CueCat is a commercial failure AOL and Time Warner to merge AOL has 25 million subscribers Wikipedia formally begins iPod is released “9/11 Terrorist Attacks” Public demonstration of Second Life Friendster is founded “The Enron Scandal” “Serial Sniper Attacks” MySpace is launched Skype network is founded Apple iTunes store opens LinkedIn is launched “Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster” Google releases Orkut Flickr is launched Facebook founded Google goes public Mozilla Firefox browser released “South Asia Earthquake and Tsunami” YouTube is founded Google Earth is launched Soundslides released iTunes store offers video “London Bombing” “Hurricane Katrina”

2006-2008 2006:

Twitter is founded Reuters opens a virtual newsroom in Second Life

Back to the Future: Learning Like Cavemen (The Past, Present, Future of Infographics)

back TO THE FUTURE learning

cavemen

Visual Language in the Past, Present, Future Linda Misiura Masters Candidate, Interactive Media 2009 Elon University, Elon, NC

where are we now?

introduction

The people who are trying to communicate a message with others realize that. In a seminar on information graphics in 2005, A. Rajamanickam wrote, “in the attention-scarce world of today, designers, educators, journalists, and communicators in general have embraced infographics to help audiences understand their intent in a swifter and smarter way” (p. 7)

a world without pictures Imagine living your life inside of your calculus textbook: numbers and words arranged neatly in columns on page after page. Black serif based type, size 12 or smaller on thin white pages. Morning after morning, night after night, all information in your life is presented to you in this harsh, black and white world.

One place were there exists a direct need to combat information overload is the Internet. As computer screens still do not afford the optimal display for reading and comprehending large amounts of text, images and visuals are becoming even more important for comprehension and also for workplace productivity.

Or imagine this: living inside a permanent Power Point presentation, filled with gradients, dark backgrounds and bright text and clipart, clipart everywhere… How much of the content do you think you would absorb? Do you think you would be able to understand and retain the concepts? Would you feel inspired to learn about the world around you? Would you feel compelled to explore the data further?

In an article on the visualization in business, Brath and Peters expressed the that “visual information can significantly improve productivity. Users can explore large amounts of data, rapidly assimilate information from many sources, reason with it, understand it, and create new knowledge based on it. With the right visual picture, people can make better decisions, faster, backed with more information.” (2005, p. 1)

Welcome to a world where the potential of visual information has not yet been realized. This is, of course, an extreme example. The world in which we live in today is not merely text based and far from black and white. We are just beginning to delve into all of the possibilities that visualizing information has to offer. Because there is so much information accessible by not only the Web but also through the vast array of print materials and the bombardment of advertising, it is, quite simply, too overwhelming to try and absorb it all in text-based manner.

The key here is the need to embrace the visual revolution and accept that it can improve workflow and expand comprehension. “Your brain is hardwired to process visually first and then verbally,” said Nancy Duarte of Duarte Design, the firm that developed the visuals used in Al Gore’s awardwinning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Artists, data analysts, communicators, others are now making attempts to solve

the problem of information overload by presenting information in a graphic way, as opposed to mere sequences of letters and numbers. In this way, humans are able to absorb more information because the combination of text and images helps aide in comprehension.

Word clouds (shown below is one for this paper) are another example of how text can be visualized. Though this visualization example uses no images, the variation of size, color, and placement helps to add meaning with just a glance, where it is difficult to discern much of anything about the entirety of this paper by just glancing over it. Thus, by displaying the text of this paper in a more visual way, it may be easier to draw relationships and see trends quickly, as Brath and Peters assert.

The ultimate goal of visualizing information is to reveal the intricacy of the world in uncomplicated terms that are simple to comprehend. On top of that, information design seeks to add knowledge to the information it displays through spatial, quantitative, and chronological relationships. As Brath and Peters point out, “one of the most obvious benefits of visualization is helping people see trends and anomalies in data, which can be particularly valuable in realtime environments” (Brath, Peters, 2005, p. 1).

http://wordle.net

As hinted at above, the idea of using graphics to convey information is not contained within any specific field. While this competition is healthy in terms of productivity, complications in terms of definitions and goals have been presented. One of the main divides, and the issue that will be addressed in this paper, is the distinction between information visualization and infographics. I will work to define the differences between the two so that the goals and futures of each may be further examined.

http://thisisindexed.com/category/communication/

I’ve included the venn diagram above because it is one of the simplest visual information techniques. A combination of images and text, no matter the complexity, helps others to absorb information both quickly and accurately. The visualizations can be as simple as this diagram or as complex as a multilayer illustration encompassing maps, numbers, text, and other images.

where are we heading? This paper will briefly examine the history of visual information, then delve into the definitions and current uses of both information visualization and infographics

before theorizing about the future of both fields through conversations with several experts. As cultures merge and languages continue to disappear, there exists the extreme possibility that all communication will be graphically based in the future.

contact spirits(Visocky-O’Grady, 2008, p. 27). Yet one thing is certain: pictures came before words and whatever the reason for their original creation, the images played an important role at that time. As babies, humans rely on their vision in order to discover things about the world. This too, is how the first upright humans discovered meaning in their world. “The first images were found rather than made. People looking into the night sky saw human figures, animals, and magic symbols in the stars. They did not realize that they were creating these images from scattered points of light, but felt that they were discovered what was already there. So real and so awesome were these celestial apparitions that they were sometimes taken to be gods” (Freidhoff, 1988, p. 12). From these found images, humans began to record stories in image form.

imagery through time visual info from a historical perspective As a species, humans have been writing down histories and accounts of daily life for centuries, though the reasons for this documentation vary depending on which social anthropologist is quoted. Some assert that the drawings were driven by an inherently human need to document, while others purport that shamans created the images to use as tools to Development of mesopotamian cuneiform script

Around 3000 BCE, pictographic alphabets wherein the images that stood for words became common, though these images still very much resembled their counterparts. Developed in Sumer, Mesopotamia, part of what is known as “The Cradle of Civilization,” a written language emerged where a head looked like a head, barley looked like a stalk of grain, and water looked like waves. Over thousands of years, these images transformed into common repetitive strokes that are known as cuneiform script, which bares little resemblance to any written alphabet today but is considerably sophisticated in comparison to the original iconic markings. (VisockyO’Grady, 2008, p. 28-29) Something triggered a change in the way people were communicating, and this change drew attention to the connection between phonetic sounds and the constructed alphabets. This

http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~chazelle/courses/BIB/semio2_files/cuneiform.gif

JOHN SNOW’S CHOLERA MAP

divergence allowed alphabets and languages to grow into living lexicons that provided humans with a flexible means of communication and expression, along with the ability to record and interpret. (Visocky-O’Grady, 2008, p. 29). Along the way, printing techniques also changed the way people communicated with others. Because the early printing press was built only to handle words, images and words, which had been paired for centuries, were broken apart into separate entities. As new printing methods were developed, images were incorporated into textual documents. (Rajamanickam, 2005, p. 8)

http://epi.univet.hu/portal/sn/Snowcholeramap.jpg

1932 LONDON UNDERGROUND MAP

charts and mapmaking From maps of celestial bodies, to maps of the flat world, to the maps of now, visual representations of geography of the heavens and the earth have guided humans for centuries and are considered to be the most primitive form of information design. The earliest town plans were used as references for fortifications, and many a map was made to guide soldiers along newly conquered territories. These documents were important because they included three key factors of information interpreted visually: orientation, notation, and scale. (Visocky-O’Grady, 2008, p. 32)

http://www.clarksbury.com/cdl/maps.html

One of the earliest examples of an infographic, produced by Dr. John Snow is a map that shows the number of cholera deaths and their location in London, which then enabled authorities to pinpoint the contaminated well(Rajamanickam, 2005, p. 1)

WILLIAM PLAYFAIR GRAPH

Many of the largest cities around the world now use a map that is similar to London’s Tube map, originally created in the early 1930s by Henry Beck. Beck http://www.economist.com/images/20071222/5107CR1B.jpg

redesigned the map using only vertical, horizontal, and lines at 45 degree angles, producing a version of the current map that reads cleanly and resembles an electrical circuit board, apropos of his background in engineering drafting. By simplifying the information available and emphasizing function over geography, the map of London’s Underground became easier of navigate and Londoners embraced it as the image of their city. The only above-ground topography that was included on the map was the River Thames, another symbol of the city( Rajamanickam, 2005, p. 7). In the most recent printing of the Tube map, the Thames was left off to simplify the map further, but Londoners balked at the exclusion of their beloved river (The Telegraph, September 19, 2009).

ISOTYPE

Charts and graphs are not nearly as old maps, and most historians concur that a single man was the originator: Scottish Engineer, William Playfair. Publishing books on economics in the late 1700s, Playfair believed that people could learn more readily from visual representations of material than from stacks of numbers, and felt that charts and graphs could show relationships in ways that mere numbers on a page could not. Using bar charts and line graphs, Playfair made boatloads of information accessible to those who were not trained in the field, enabling a wider dissemination of his information. (Visocky-O’Grady, 2008, p. 33 & Rajamanickam, 2005, p. 6)

http://9.media.tumblr.com/WXCapTL7F5i2pm5vI1OBnDkh_400. jpg

reminders of it exist today in the forms of transportation and mapping symbols, such as the universal signs for men and women that are found on bathrooms round the world. ISOTYPE also had ambitions to provide information that was “generally accessible independent of individual educational backgrounds. (Visocky-O’Grady, 2008, p. 34 & Rajamanickam, 2005, p. 7)

In the 1940s, a man by the name of Otto Neurath, an Austrian political anthropologist, believing that “words make divisions, pictures make connections” worked to create a visual language, termed ISOTYPE, short for International System of Typographic Picture Education. Comprised of over 1,000 separate images, ISOTYPE was used extensively through 1965. Residual

the world wide web As web use becomes part of everyday life for many people in America and other developed countries, more studies have focused on the most effective way

to display information on websites. A good portion of this research is done for marketing purposes, which really has little effect on the data itself. What is important is that the more visually pleasing a webpage is, the more likely a visitor is to stay and even more likely to return.

The experts believe that there are subtle differences, however, and by using their standards, a pattern of hierarchy and definition begins to develop.

INFORMATION +design

Prior to the application of the Web, the Internet existed in words only, and the only people who were using it were the scientists who found the use of the tool itself and information too valuable to be dismissed. It wasn’t until Marc Andreessen developed the first browser, Mosaic, that could display images, that the potential of the Web and the Internet began to come to realization. (Visocky-O’Grady, 2008, p. 50).

visualization

graphics

aesthetics

art

For the purposes of this paper then, information design will be the genus which encompasses both visualization and infographics, with info-aesthetics and info-art falling below these two broad categories that can also be used to described the higher level info visualizations and infographics.

The amount of data in the world multiplies exponentially each year. Information visualization can heed the call and create insightful visuals from which trends and meaning can be ascertained.

Ultimately, however, “both seek to display the relationship between pieces of information in a visual manner that adds knowledge to the information. The goal is to reduce complexity while losing the least amount of information.” (Fayyad, Grinstein & Wierse, 2002, p. 4)

building vi s ual s defining information design

defining infoVis

Graphics are graphics, right? Wrong. In the highly visual world that is the 21st century, disciplines are all clamoring to be a part of the design revolution and because of this there is mass confusion over definitions of information visuals.

In 1988, The Second Computer Revolution: VISUALIZATION was published with an eye on the future. It described visualization as a “new world where technology and science intermingle into a sublime art.” (4)

Below are the terms used most and often interchangeably.

There is a debate as to what constitutes “real” infoVis, and though the above definition is interesting, it is by no means wholly accurate. A sampling of definitions from high level scientists in the visualzation field demonstrates that there is no single

INFORMATION graphics design aesthetics visualization

art

definition: “… a process that transforms data, information and knowledge into a form that relies on the human visual system to perceive its embedded information.” (Nashum, 2001, p. 33)

while allowing the user to query the data in real time.

This definition still lacks the ability to help one determine whether a visual is an information visualization or another creature entirely. Manuel Lima’s Information Visualization Manifesto, as published on the blog VisualComplexity. com, provides a working list that can help provide clarity on the matter. He suggests, through 9 directives, why information visualization differs from information art or infographics. Because these are some of the best recommendations for industry standards, they have been examined below:

“… a computer-aided process that aims to reveal insights into an abstract phenomenon by transforming abstract data into visual-spatial forms.” (Chen, 2002, p.1)

“…traditionally focuses on finding meaningful and intuitive ways to represent non-spatial and non-numerical information to people.” (Chen, 2002, p.1)

1. Form Follows Function: “the purpose should always be centered on the explanation, which in turn leads to insight.” Start with a Question: Your work should always be driven by a query

“…visual representations of semantics.” (Chen, 2005, p.1)

“… an attempt to communicate complex ideas with clarity, precision, and accuracy.” (Moere, 2007, p.1)

2. Interactivity is Key: allows for investigation and learning through discovery

“… a way of letting the user query the data in real time— not by changing the data, but by digging into the data and changing its representation.” (Shirky, 2001, p. 3)

3. Cite Your Source: always disclose where your data originated

“…the use of computer supported, interactive, visual representations of abstract data to amplify cognition.” (As defined by Ben Schneiderman, Stuart K. Card and Jock D. Mackinlay)

4. The Power of Narrative: Humans love stories 5. Do Not Glorify Aesthetics: “should always be a consequence and never a goal”

By taking the dominant words from those definitions, the most comprehensive definition should be something to the manner of:

6. Look for Relevancy: why are you visualizing the information?

Information visualization is a process that transforms abstract data into visual representations of semantics that attempt to communicate complex ideas clearly,

7. Embrace Time: Time is difficult to work with but rich

informative. Infographic creator and award-winning journalist Alberto Cairo said in an interview that “infographics are difficult to define precisely because of their multiple and flexible nature. Almost any informative representation where verbal and visual elements are combined… can be considered an infographic” (2007).

and rewarding when included 8. Aspire for Knowledge: “A core ability of Information Visualization is to translate information into knowledge. It’s also to facilitate understanding and aid cognition.” 9. Avoid Gratuitous Visualizations: “should respond as a cognitive filter, an empowered lens of insight, and should never add more noise to the flow”

What is it that an infographic seeks to do that differs from that of an information visualization? Rajamanickam tells us that “information graphics reveal the hidden, explain the complex, and illuminate the obscure. Constructing visual representation of information is not mere translation of what can be read to what can be seen. It entails the filtering of information, establishing relationships, discerning patterns and representing then in a manner that enables a consumer of that information to construct meaningful knowledge. (2005, p. 2)

If we accept the fact that there is in fact two distinct fields, then we are able to use Lima’s Manifesto as a checklist to which we can compare all visuals against, thus firmly putting a visual in either the infoVis category or the infographic category.

defining infographics

This sounds suspiciously similar to information visualization, except for one detail: infographics do not seek to visualize mass quantities of data. They are much better suited for telling visual stories. In this way, infographics are much more intensely complex than information visualizations are because they seek to provide an explanation and background on information.

Words become muddled and confusing when one tries to talk about graphics and pictures using them. The old saying is there for a reason: a picture really is worth a thousand words. Humans are capable of understanding more information in less time when presented in a graphical manner. “Infographics, because they use a combination of images, words, and numbers operate in a hybrid system of both the verbal and visual. Consequently, they offer us the greatest opportunity to increase the effectiveness of our communication” (Rajamanickam, 2005, p. 4).

An infographic must address what type of information is trying to be communicated (spatial, chronological, or quantitative), develop a metaphor or organizing structure that is cohesive (through diagrams, maps, and charts) and must be presented in the appropriate medium in consideration to the audience (static, motion, or interactive) The replica of Rajamanickam’s diagram on the next page organizes this information

This is why infographics are so popular in newspapers in magazines today: people actually look at them, even when pressed for time, because they are interesting and

INFORMATION TYPE spatial

chronological

Information that describes relative positions and the spatial relationships in a physical or conceptual location

Information that describes sequential positions and the causal relationships in a physical or conceptual timeline.

WHICH RELATIONSHIP SHOULD YOU CONVEY?

quantitative Information that describes scale, proportion, change and organization of quantities in space, time or both.

WHAT TYPE OF DATA DO YOU HAVE?

INFOGRAPHIC DESIGN FRAMEWORK

INFOGRAPHIC DEVICE diagrams ICON: shows visually simplified reality SEQUENCE: shows succession of events, actions, and causal relationships PROCESS: Shows step-bystep interactions across both space and time TIMELINE: Shows chronological progression

maps LOCATOR: Shows location of something in relation to something else. DATA: Shows quantitative information in relation to its geographic location SCHEMATIC: shows abstracted representation of geography, process, or sequence

EXPOSITION: Shows details or points of view not normally available to the human eye, such as cutaways, axonometric views, etc.

charts FLOW: shows magnitude changes over time BAR: Shows proportionate comparison of magnitude PIE: shows distribution of parts of a whole ORGANIZATION: Shows parts in a structure and their relationships with each other

GROUP CONTENT BY

LATCH /

pyramid

Location Alphabet Time Category Hierarchy

Most important information comes at the beginning of the story, followed by supporting content. Limited time? Stick to the facts.

literacy VISUAL: the ability to appreciate, analyze, create, and utilize visuals for learning SEMIOTICS: encompass icons (literal visual representations), symbols (represent things that are not physical), indexes (create connections between objects)

familiarity LEAST EFFORT: results sought from most accessible source UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION: If uncertain, we actively seek info; certainty is enhanced by similarities & minimized by differences; that of which we are uncertain is less favorable.

THINK ABOUT YOUR AUDIENCE.

ORGANIZATION PRINCIPLES

AESTHETIC PRINCIPLES grid systems

color

Provide a canvas for content, repetition increases usability

Consider visual deficiencies, aging eyes, and color blindness. Avoid eye strain.

Create movement, a sense of space, and establish relationships; grouping affects perception

70 contrast between object and background; go grayscale to check this

Think vertically & horizontally and CONSIDER focal points

Consider cultural color interpretations.

contrast

type

Hue, value, & saturation

Consider shape, style, size, spacing, kerning, alignment

Complementary colors of the same value cause eyestrain

Pair serifs with san-serifs

Orientation, position, shape, size, texture and weight can all provide contrast. Pick one!

Don’t yell! Use two-step differentiation and headers

CONSIDER

COGNITIVE PRINCIPLES learning styles VISUAL: learn best from images, think in terms of pictures, posses a strong aesthetic sense AUDITORY/VERBAL: learn best from using language, think in terms of words, possess strong written and verbal skills KINESTHETIC/TACTILE: learn best by doing, work well with their hands, possess good physical coordination

memory

process

perception

MEMORY: use contrast/ color to attract immediate notice (sensory input), create associations with familiar objects (short-term), and provide parsed chunks for easy recall (long-term)

PROXIMITY: adjacent objects are processed as a group and have like meaning

EYE TRACKING: humans scan information in a rapid series of movements. The top left corner grabs attention first.

MAGIC NUMBER: 7 +/- 2 think phone numbers and ROY G BIV, CHUNKS make content easier to recall

SIMILARITY: objects with similar attributes (size, color, shape direction) are treated as a group

GRAPHS: Pattern Reception (recognition of overall trends) & Table Lookup (focused on specific data, seeking detail)

PRAGNANZ: dominant objects are perceived as figures, recessive objects are seen as background

WAYFINDING: route-based (signage & landmarks) & survey knowledge (map reading)

COMMUNICATION METHOD static

motion

interactive

Information presented in its entirety in one glance

Information presented progressively in a linear sequence

Information presented selectively based on viewer choice

Newspaper graphics, map foldouts, product manuals, expository diagrams.

Animation or graphic overlays on live action video

Usually web-based, can be: narrative, instructive, simulative or explorative

re-designed from Venkatesh Rajamanickam’s Infographics Seminar Handout and The information design handbook by jen + ken visocky o’grady

HOW SHOULD YOU PRESENT THE GRAPHIC?

OVERLOAD: don’t decorate, design; provide an opt-out of detail, use structure to create meaning

with consideration to the three goals of inforgraphics.

concept, strategy, metaphor and compound visualizations, describing each briefly at the top of the chart and then use the table to display examples of the methods within the tiles.

Rajamanickam offers these 9 principles to follow when creating an infographic: 1. Organize: attention to detail and correct emphasis

They then created symbols that contribute added meaning to the table, similar to the information about electrons and protons that is available on the Periodic Table of the Elements. The Table of Visualization Methods instead includes whether the visualization is structure or process based, whether it provides lots or little detail and/or overview, and also whether the thinking is convergent or divergent. Finding the tool that fits your visualization needs seems downright simple after looking at this chart, whereas without it, intensive research on each of the methods might have to be performed. This is an inforgraphic at its best, condensing information into an intensely informative graphic that is easy to interpret and readily understandable to most by the use of the common Table of Elements metaphor.

2. Make Visible: others must be able to see it/ use it! 3. Establish Context: make sure the viewer can get their bearings 4. Simplify: colors and textual elements should not be dominant 5. Add Redundancy: adds little to know information but increases clarity 6. Show Cause and Effect: show causality through relationships 7. Compare and Contrast: as compared to what?

on the future

8. Create Multiple Dimensions: this is the whole purpose of infographics

the Internet, of course

9. Integrate: tell a coherent story

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Online infographics are a very young craftâ&#x20AC;Ś most of its rules are still to be discovered. There is a huge jungle out there that keeps secrets no one has even thought about yet. There are several fields of exploration, from the use of data-based infographics to more sophisticated animations (2D or 3D), from the improvement of interactivity and user-based explanations to the real multimedia integration of audio and video

an excellent example Visual-Literacy.org takes an excellent approach to defining the different categories of visualization through an infographic called A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. To define the visual methods of conveying information, they divide the table into data, information,

in our explanations. We need to find out how to tell visual stores better in the new media.” Cairo, 2009, p.51)

alberto cairo assistant professor, UNC-CH

Both infoVis and infographics are integral to communication information right now, and will be into the future as data storage and acquisition continues to expand at exponential rates. However, because the Internet is still relatively new, in historic terms, we are still learning how to adapt our learning and communication skills to these new technologies. Gershon puts it best when he said:

award winning journalist, elmundo.es Madrid

ON DEFINITIONS Technically, Information Visualization deals mostly with the visual display of (quantitative and qualitative) data. Infographics is a hybrid discipline that brings together communication skills (journalism, in my case), information visualization, cartography, cognitive psychology, animation, programming, usability, interaction, art, graphic design... whatever it has to do with the visual display of information in general. Also, infoVis is usually focused on specialized audiences (scientific, engineers...), while infographics is usually more oriented to the general reader. And that affects the kind of graphic forms we use.

“Many designers and users alike view these new media and genres as replicas of the paper-based media and genres we’ve grown accustomed to over the past thousand years. However, these new technologies truly allow us t do things we never could with paper, so we should expect it to take a while to gain sufficient understanding of them before we can apply them as effectively as we would like.” (Gershon, 2001, p. 33). Another problem that we are dealing with today is that the tools are available for everyone to use, regardless of what they use them for, and the result is the electronic form of what Edward Tufte refers to as “chartjunk.” As summarized by Shirky, “Tufte argues that the essence of good graphical presentation is the encoding of multiple variables into a single display of information in a way that rewards the user for spending time looking, rather than confusing or distracting him.” (Shirky, 2002, p. 5)

ON CHANGING HUMAN PERCEPTION Infographics will not change anything in the sense that we are all visual processors and thinkers (a huge portion of the brain, after all, is devoted to this). What might happen (and I would like to see it more) is that the media, the people in general, authorities at Universities and Schools, will eventually acknowledge that there’re more ways of learning than just reading. I AM a reader, and I love to read, but many times it is better to learn through a map, a chart, a diagram. You get the message through, the patterns, the trends faster. And infographics should not be a secondary language, always depending on a text which they “complement”, which is what happens in many cases.

A few experts in the field have weighed in on their own personal definitions and the future of information design. Their fascinating words are intact below; a summary of their predictions for the future follows.

used should clearly, accurately, and truthfully convey the desired information. Infographics frequently contain data visualizations within them. They tend to include more design elements.

ON THE FUTURE: In the technical side, I foresee more interaction and reader participation. I envision infographics professionals understanding that we are not visual presenters anymore, but more and more we should become developers who create tools that the readers can explore to uncover hidden realities. Experiences like the NYTimes visualization lab and others go in that direction. We should think more as software developers and communicators, rather than as “artists” (I hate that word applied to infographics: I have never been and never be an “artist”; as much as I respect artists, that’s not what I do).

ON THE FUTURE Graphic capabilities will increase. New techniques of displaying extremely large data sets will emerge. I think the key need is educating people to effectively consume quantitative information. Many people in the current work world do not have deep skills in this. ON THE WEB I’m not sure that infographics have a particular impact on the future of the web. If anything the opposite might be true. The visual nature of the web, provide an increased forum for infographics. I do think that well constructed infographics aid in the ability of people to extract information from data.

ON THE IMPACT OF THE EVOLUTION ON SOCIAL,POLITICAL & ECONOMIC REALMS Huge. And it will be positive in the sense that, if well used, infographics can be extremely strong communication devices. Try to understand the patterns in the electoral vote without a map. More and more, people in every realm of research, economics, politics, are embracing visual communication for this reason. I just gave a lecture on this to the City Planning Department here at UNC the other day, and they are already using visualization and graphics software in very sophisticated ways!

todd holloway search team in applied research at author of the blog, A Beautiful WWW

neal levene

A VISUALIZATION WITH BROAD APPEAL I’ll make a boring pick...Google Maps. Its really well designed, and I think its a nice place to begin the discussion with a broad audience of what info viz is and its potential. Also, sadly, not many visualizations ever make it past version 1.0, and so have flaws and open to criticism. Google maps, obviously, has been in continuous development.

ceo, Innovatech author of the blog, Simple Complexity

ON DEFINITIONS There is some blurriness in how these words are used. I’m not sure what you mean by division. I think the standard that should apply is that the techniques

ON DEFINITIONS I don’t know that boxing in a visualization as ‘art’ or ‘functional’ is necessary. InfoVis plays many roles. One might have a particular insight about data already in mind, and want to communicate it visually. Or one might be doing data mining, with visualization used for exploration. Or one might be doing some conceptual work, and create a more ‘artistic’ visualization to inspire. And so on.

in conclusion

The problem with information visualization is that the variables are always different, with the resulting issue being that there is not one method of visualization that works for all data. Visualizations are most effective when the data follows …

ON THE FUTURE Its place in both academia and industry is really ill-defined right now. And I think how it gets organized is perhaps the biggest issue over the next decade. If a company wants to produce some visualizations, whom should they hire? In the tech world, infoVis work often overlaps with HCI, which is a much more well defined field. Who should work in visualization? What should their training be like? Should the visualization community promote people who use the language of statisticians? Of artists? Or something else?

Information visualization is only as good as its imput. Get the story or the data right first, good solid information, and only then do you have the makings of a good visualization or infographic. It follows then, that we acquire more data and more accurate data, we will be able to process it more eloquently into the information visualizations and infographics of tomorrow.

all together now... According to these experts, the future should trend toward more interaction with the audience, striving to provide a more interactive experience, similar to what the New York Times is trying to do right now, but on a broader scale. It will be essential that the people who are creating information visualizations and infographics come to realize that they are no longer presenters but communicators, and purveyors of knowledge creations through experience. The audience will also need to be taught to effectively consume the mass quantities of quantitative information that will be presented with the new emerging technologies.

The Future of Infographics An Interactive Presentaion

The slides below live in a housing online that includes the research paper, sources, the infographic design tool and links.

Who’s Who and What’s What in iMedia

Top 10 iMedia Thinkers

Top 10 iMedia Readings

Chris Anderson: editor in chief of Wired magazine, wrote about The Long Tail Theory, wherein marketing to many small groups is seen as highly beneficial.

Information Visualization Manifesto, Ultimate rules for creating useful visualizations

Brian Solis: a social media PR specialist, developed the Conversation Prism which fleshes out the different uses of social media on the web. Bill Buxton: ran his own design and consulting firm prior to becoming a reseacher at Microsoft; has written a book on the Sketching the User Experience which he believes is the ultimate goal for any product. Chris Carfi: author of the Social Customer Manifesto; works with companies to connect with customers at a real, base levels; runs cerado.com, which creates mobile web tools. Edward Tufte: father of information design; has written numerous books on the subject; believes that PowerPoint makes people dumb. Lev Manovich: wrote the Language of New Media which has been compared, in magnitude of importance, to the works of Marshall McLuhan.

Tim O'Reilly: has written extensively on Web 2.0 and is a source for all things and ideas in new media. Marc Andreessen: creator of the first browser, Mosaic; continues to be a game changer today with the founding of Ning.com Mari Smith: social media business coach, dubbed the “Pied Piper of the Online World” Jakob Nielsen: has written extensively on usability and web design. Daniel Pink: is a writer on changing the the world of work, which is especially relevant in the new media field.

The Design of Everyday Things, A book about usability This Is My Process Follow along in the design process and develop your own along the way Socialnomics There is a reason social media works. Read about it here The Cluetrain Manifesto Connecting to your customers is imperative. Find out how and why here. Groundswell The new media is not going anywhere. Lessons on why and how to get in on the social train A Whole New Mind Thinking about the workplace in a new way Free: A future of a radical price How does a company make money when it’s product/service is free? Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable The future is coming. And newspapers might be going…

Top 10 iMedia Theories Activity Theory :The theory makes an attempt at understanding how society at large influences the way that new tools are created and used, accepted, or rejected. It also is used to classify social, physical, and cognitive processes involved in tasks and takes into account the personal motivation of the individual. Social Network Theory : The theory states that smaller networks with close ties can often be less helpful than broad networks with weak ties. These broad networks can introduce more ideas and opportunities. Researchers study

how ties develop and how the ties affect the norm through their structure and composition.

innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and the laggards.

Online Communities Theory: Online communities existed in simpler forms prior to today’s Linked In and Facebook. These communities are described as being composed of people who communicate mainly through online media rather than face-to-face. Through this theory, we can examine and challenge what it takes to produce a sense of community, dismissing the previous requirements of occupying the same physical space at some point in time.

Spiral of Silence Theory: People’s willingness to speak out depends on the perception of the climate of opinion. If you think your opinion is different than that of the norm, you tend to keep quiet.

Uses and Gratifications: The theory looks at the possible functions that mass media provides for the people, even to a point of reaching selfactualization: the top tier on Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. All media users have one of five needs they are looking to meet by using a medium: Cognitive, Affective, Personal integrative, social integrative, and escapist. These needs can overlap for certain mediums for certain people and also hold exclusivity. Knowledge Gap Theory: With each new medium, the gap between the information rich and the information poor increases. This is also known as the digital divide. Cultivation Theory: The influence of television from the 50s through the 90s contributed to a common worldview, common values, and common roles from the media. For example, people watching more crime on television thought the world was a more dangerous place. Technological Determinism: Technological advances are a crucial contributory element in processes of social change. Technologies alter our habits of perception and thinking, making possible the changes in society such as democracy, Protestantism, and nationalism. Famously, Marshall McLuan preached, “the medium is the message.” Diffusions of Innovations Theory: This theory assesses the processes in the final state of the adoption or rejection of an innovation. Those that choose to adopt the innovation fall into one of the following categories: the

Powerful Effects Theory: To have a powerful effect, a campaign must, as presented by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann: spell out extremely specific, reasonable campaign objectives clearly, pinpoint the target audience, work to overcome indifference of the audience to a particular issue, and find relevant themes to stress in the messages. Studies also found that people who are forced to see inconsistencies in their belief systems may re-evaluate, and as a result, change. Interactivity on multiple levels produces more of response. Perception Theory: The process of interpreting messages is complex, as it is a process that is both physical and psychological and can be influenced by past experiences, cultural expectations, motivations, moods and attitudes. The process of receiving and interpreting a message is known, from the basic communication model, as decoding. Schema Theory: This theory is helpful in comprehending how people process information, a critical skill in determining how to present information through interactive mediums. Image Perception Theory: Linda Scott argued for the need of visual rhetoric to help us understand how people process images. Visual elements are crucial in that they can be combined to create complex arguments, but the perception of the simplistic images must be understood before combining them into phrases of visualization. Scott categorized images in the media as transparent representations of reality, as conveyors of affective or emotional appeal, and as complex combination of symbols put together to make up rhetorical arguments. Through those, it is obvious that images can add value to messages from mass media.

Top 10 iMedia Issues What exactly defines interactive media? Interactive media currently has many definitions that overlap eachother. How to capture social media conversations: No one has figured out how to do this effectively yet. GoogleWave may help. Best ways to engage with your users: Still being tested and will continue to be as technologies change.

mashable.com the place to find whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s up with new media iMedia Connection an educational forum that provides thoughts on new media TED.com Conferences, talks, and expert views on interactivity

Net security - an issue for everyone on the web

Wired.com Excellent resource for up-and-coming products and research

When Virtual Becomes Reality: This is going to happen, but when?

mediabistro.com Be hip with whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going on in the indie world

User control: Just how much control do users want?

scientificamerican.com the future of science is interactive. Find out more here.

Spreadability/stickiness: make things stick. Citizen journalism: can they be trusted? Are they really part of the media?

Techcrunch.com All of the latest gadgets and news in blog form innovativeinteractivity.com keep up with the interactive research!

Energy: how will be continue to power up? Identity: privacy issues here, as well has the ability to carry your online identity with you in the future. Accessibility: there is still a very big divide over who has access and who does not.

Top 10 iMedia Resources remap: Visual Complexity find all of the hip and cool visualizations on the web in this visualization

10000words.com A blog about the future of the interactive news

Top 10 iMedia Tools VuVox: incorporate video, still and audio in a rotating slide show Slide.com: create presentations Wordle.org: simple infographics here ManyEyes: create info visualizations with your data or the data of others LovelyCharts: flow charts and org charts netvibes.com: organize your social media! twitter: micro-blogging tool wordpress: get a blog here animoto: an auto video editor issuu: post print documents online for free

THE INTERACTIVE WHEEL OF MESSAGE PROCESSING

ss me a

HOT MEDIA

COOL MEDIA

ience ud

WARM MEDIA

COLD MEDIA

onder p s re

creator lurker

the ‘Me’ Model

s me s

Brian Solis’s Conversation Prism The Hierarchy of Digital Distractions Media Diet Pyramid The Me Model Twitterverse DiggLabs Internet Meme Timeline Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Google Earth Who Rules the Social Web

age

Top 10 iMedia Visualizations

©Team Shelley iMedia 2010

Choosing the Right Medium for Your Message

MEDIUM for your

E-mail Newsletters:

Targets motivated users --> Subscribers can opt-in, opt out. Tracks users’ responses --> Software enables Web page-like analytics. Requires little extra effort --> Management can be outsourced. Puts new customers a click away --> E-mail lists can be gathered or purchased.

May not render consistently across e-mail clients --> Formatting subject to software, user-defined settings. May not render properly on mobile devices --> Graphics might be too large. May never be read --> Users may scroll past, instantly delete messages. Requires a lot of upkeep --> Managing in-house can be a big commitment. Collects private customer data that must be protected --> Security breaches can carry seriously harm a brand.

Targets motivated users --> Subscribers can opt-in, opt out. Fosters a personal connection --> Many users view mobile devices as extensions of themselves. Can collect customer feedback --> In some cases SMS alerts enable user replies. Demand attention --> Customers are much less likely to ignore a text message than a call or e-mail. Can be geographically targeted --> GPS-enabled devices allow for location-specific messages.

Humanizes larger companies --> Two-way communication allows for closer customer relationships. Have their own culture --> Audiences can be targeted on a more personal level. Promotes Groundswell thinking --> Lurking/listening on social networks provides valuable feedback. Spreads content --> Large audiences + easy sharing allows for messages spread exponentially.

Limited to 160 characters -->Some details, context must be omitted. Potentially intrusive -->Text messages are primary used socially. Users may not appreciate business appeals. Sleep/Home time should be respected --> Make communicating with travelers, customers across multiple time zones complex. No obvious way to opt-out --> Having users reply “STOP” has emerged as a standard, but many aren’t aware of this.

Text/SMS Alerts:

MESSAGE

PROS

Always on --> Accessing the Internet with a mobile device allows users to be connected at all times. Forces a cleaner design interface --> Designers must develop sites with less clutter and condensed content. Reaches wide demographic --> Mobiles w/ Internet access can be purchased for much less than a computer. Eliminates excessive advertising --> Most Web sites designed for mobile devices only have one banner ad. Benefits advertisers --> Limited ad space decreases competition with other ads or companies. Enables real-time searches --> GPS function allows users to find info about the area.

M. brown s. earley A. kreitman l. misiura s. russell

compiled by

May not be appropriate for all audiences --> Users with little/no experience with social network sites may have difficulty viewing content/navigating. Communication may not be effective --> More research/time may be needed to understand the language/culture of social networking members. Perceived barriers to entry --> Not all generations understand the uses of social media or relate to the concept. Incompatibility with some mobile devices --> Not all social media tools are mobile-device friendly.

Social Media:

a helpful guide to the pros and cons of the new media marketing tools that can help your company decide where, when and how to spend valuable marketing & advertising dollars NOV. 2009

PROS

CONS PROS

CONS

May not provide as many resources as the World Wide Web --> Some sites aren’t accessible via the mobile Web. Has a limited audience --> Not all phones have Web access, and not all customers enable the feature. Has an undecided browser platform --> It is unsure which browser is going to become the leading mobile Web browser. Can be difficult to search on some mobile devices --> Searching the Web can be tedious with devices that don’t have a full keyboard. May be expensive --> Some mobile plans that include Internet access can be costly. Can quickly drain mobile device batteries --> Current phone batteries only allow for short Web searches before the phone must be re-charged.

PROS

CONS The Mobile Web:

CONS

On the Future: One Lady’s Perspective of Where We’re All Heading

On the Future One Lady’s Perspective of Where We’re All Headed (And no, I’m not talking about any afterworlds here…) The future of information is the future of humanity. We have become a culture of information over the last two decades and for the foreseeable future, this is not going to change, barring some sort of world-wide cataclysmic event. The way that we use information and receive information will be changing, however, and quickly too. For the generation that grew up with cell phone (which were/are integral to pretty much anyone born after 1980), neither the speed nor the magnitude of these changes will surprise. In fact, we have already come to expect it and are on the verge of demanding more of technological devices. In the near future, the mobile device will play the central role for communications, and with this social networking and infographics will become ubiquitous in everyday life, as discussed by myself, Shelley Russell and Alex Kreitman. Because cell phones are used by more people in the world than computers and provide easier to access the network, millions more people will be able to view the mobile web in the coming years. This will work towards solving a small part of the digital divide, as discussed by Brook Corwin. We need to ready and adapt for this now so that sites are available in mobile form when the time comes for it to be absolutely necessary. When Internet capable mobile devices truly are a key tool for every person in the world, social networking will become an instant, automatic part of everyday life. Think those who check Facebook every when they get up are too connected? In the future, social media won’t be something you log onto, but something that exists with you, as normal as you being awake or breathing. With this constant connection to others and to the digital world, infographics will become more and more important to relay information clearly and concisely, in a manner that adds value to the content being displayed. Other ways of spreading information in the future? Through augmented reality via virtual worlds as discussed by Will Campbell, in interactive forms of advertising that will target consumers for exactly who they are as discussed by Cory Morrison, through micro-vocal messages, as dicussed by Alex Traboulsi, and by ebooks in the distant future, as discussed by Melissa Spencer. Information is changing, and quickly. We can’t stop it, so why not just contribute to making it better and easier? Let’s start predicting the future now and working towards ways to make it reality, faster.

Com 564: public opinion through new media RSS Primer SecondLife: A Cutting Edge Educational Tool A Glimpse at the SecondLife Classroom on Elon Island The Emergence of New Media in 2008 Barack Obama Election Campaign: ARE WE ENTERING THE ERA OF POLITICS 2.0? Interactive Mini-Site on the Obama Campaign Strategies

RSS Primer

COM 564 // Gaither // New Technology Backgrounder // Linda Misiura // Application: RSS Feed

RSS Feeds The acronym stands for one of two definitions: Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. The format was developed in the late 90s, though it didn’t come into popular use until 2006/07, when the major browsers agreed on the icon on the left. RSS is an XML format that syndicates web content. To explain better what that means, let’s use an analogy:

RSS Feeds : Web Content :: Netflix : Videos

Like Netflix delivers the latest movies to your doorstep, RSS Feeds deliver the newest web content to you so that you don’t have to go looking for it. There is one requirement: a Feed Reader, also known as an Aggregator. Google and Yahoo offer free readers, as does Bloglines. You can also sign up for services such as Amphetadesk and Newsgator. Find a full list of readers at www.rss-specifications.com. (collected from Wikipedia, WhatIsRSS.com, http://www.rss-specifications.com/what-is-rss.htm & http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english)

Who offers RSS? Who uses RSS? Why? Most websites today that update content regular offer an RSS feed subscription, like the major news websites and all blogs. Many radio sites also have RSS options, some that send a song a day to your reader. Recently, Twitter has launched an app that will feed your stream directly into your Reader so you don’t have to check your Twitter. With the advent of lists on Twitter, I can see this becoming a popular option. RSS feeds are for anyone who doesn’t have a lot of time. And that’s everyone nowadays, right? By gathering the latest content in one place for you to view where and when you want (GoogleReader even offers an offline version so you can access new material even when you’re not connected to the internet), RSS feeds save time and enable you to scan through more content, more quickly. Strengths: No learning curve! Get a reader, copy and paste the URL into your reader, and you’re good to go! Weaknesses: Content doesn’t look as nice in your reader as it does on the site, in most cases. If you’re visiting a site for the whole experience of the site and not just the content, adding that site to your reader is probably a waste.

How to: Excellent tutorial at CommonCraft. (a bit hokey, but gets the basics across quickly) http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english Or, visit Google and sign up for their reader. If you already have Gmail, it is easily accessible through your inbox! They’ll walk you through the process.

What do you see in the future for this media? RSS Feeds are just beginning to be used by large portions of the web-using population. Many people read several blogs a day, still by visiting each site individually. In the future, I can only see the use of RSS feeds increasing steadily. Perhaps there will be developments in design so that the user can better control how the content appears in the Readers. I also think that companies will begin to see more value in them as the ultimate opt-in. 86

SecondLife: A Cutting Edge Educational Tool

Second Life:

A Cutting Edge Educational Tool A game for many and a mystery to most, Second Life users often fail move beyond the gaming reward to recognize its usefulness as a tool. Providing the ability to meet virtually with anyone, anytime, at any place, Second Life is close to obliterating the concept of travel and time for those willing to embrace that which is digital. By allowing for the creation of digital selves that can be replicas of the real life you or an alter ego, it can be used as a tool to examine perception and psychology. As an educational tool, Second Life provides room for group interaction and collaboration, content creation, cultural and language expansion, and experiments. Because of the flexibility of the platform the applications vary from field to field. In terms of classroom education, Second Life provides the basis for an “anything goes” scenario that not only provides an outlet for imagination but also for application in a virtual setting, without the cost and time commitment of the real world. In this manner, it allows students to experience building skills, marketing skills, and communication skills, depending on the scope of the project that is created by a teacher or a professor. Projects could be created to help students build on teamwork skills or on more specific skills, like marketing and communication. While I don’t see Second Life being used extensively in advanced educational settings, I do think it could help engage students in middle and high school, bringing a bit of their virtual life to the classroom, and helping to bridge the gap between the tech savvy world and the static environment they enter at school. Second Life can also be utilized as a cultural awareness platform. Because of the interaction with real people, any time, all over the globe, the virtual world offers something to all that many will never experience: world travel. With the ability to travel to other countries during a class period, students can immerse themselves in other cultures without moving from their seat. Some might argue (myself included) that the whole point of travel is to experience the world first hand. Visiting the Statue of Liberty or the Eiffel Towel in Second Life does not bring the same tangible experience, but it does afford students who might not have the money the opportunity to experience other cultures and learn from and about them. Languages could also be learned within Second Life; the world’s best selling language software, Rosetta Stone, now offers an immersive online experience in which to practice the desired language. Second Life could be a vehicle for such learning, without the cost and with the added benefit of being able to learn local lingo and speak directly with natives.

There are limitations to Second Life, no matter what the application of it. The virtual nature of Second Life offers the ability for people to live anonymously or to start their lives anew. The separation that can exist between real life and Second Life can serve as an educational or an escapist experience. While Second Life is available as an educational tool and a means of global communication, its primary use is still to escape the life that one has in real world, in essence facilitating the creation of a dual life. Whether this life is beneficial remains to be seen; there have been addiction issues dealt with in recent years regarding gaming, though not specifically for Second Life. For some, their virtual life has more value than their real life, thus being more “real.” Whether this distinction will become a problem and increase mental instability within the population is viewed as a concern by some mental health professionals. For me, the intangibility of the world combined with the uncertain duality prohibits me from fully engaging in the virtuality of the world, though I do accept its educational uses. It remains to be seen whether or not Second Life will be recognized for the teaching tool it can be. While the positives do seem to outweigh the negatives for now, addiction and personality disorders, not to mention withdrawal from the real world will be ever-present, no matter how a student is initially introduced to the platform. Will we see a future where we as humans sit back, plug in, and get fat? The locovore movement says no, but gaming console sales and the rise in obesity tip the scale toward yes. In the hands of the right educator, I believe that Second Life is a strong educational tool that can help provide essential experiences for students.

Possibly the single most important aspect of what Second Life has to offer is its cost. Each of the applications examined above offer a more tangible and arguably more memorable or valuable experience in real life than in Second Life. However, when we factor in the cost of taking 36 students to Normandy and teaching them French from a native speaker, the benefits of Second Life begin to shine through. 90

A Glimpse at the SecondLife Classroom on Elon Island

SecondLife Virtual Classroom Elon Island, part of the SciLands

SecondLife holds potential for simulating face-to-face interaction in a virtual environment. In exploring the space for educational purposes, the class discovered that while it is better than conference calls, there simply is no substitute for in-person discussion. The building and classroom below were built from the ground up and are available for the public good for any and all educational purposes in SecondLife.

The Emergence of New Media in 2008 Barack Obama Election Campaign: ARE WE ENTERING THE ERA OF POLITICS 2.0?

The Emergence of New Media in 2008 Barack Obama Election Campaign: ARE WE ENTERING THE ERA OF POLITICS 2.0? LINDA MISIURA, PUBLIC OPINION THROUGH NEW MEDIA, T.K. GAITHER

As each new technology emerged in the twentieth century, the cry of “new politics” could be heard throughout Washington. It was said that radio would bring about a new era of politics, that television would bring a new era of politics, that the Internet would bring a new era of politics. Each technology brought changes, surely, but none solely held the power to change the game completely. Instead, these new technologies acted as tools to bring about change, at least for those who knew, and in the case of the internet, know how to use them. In an article for the New York Times, author David Carr quotes money manager blogger, Ranjit Mathoda: “Thomas Jefferson used newspapers to win the presidency, F.D.R. used radio to change the way he governed, J.F.K. was the first president to understand television, and Howard Dean saw the value of the Web for raising money. But Senator Barack Obama understood that you could use the Web to lower the cost of building a political brand, create a sense of connection and engagement, and dispense with the command and control method of governing to allow people to self-organize to do the work” (Carr 1). In knowing how to use the new media, Obama had a leg up over the other candidates who failed to refine their use of new media sources. The latest transition, from television to the web, has been slowly escalating over the past twenty years, since the birth of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. The first computer candidate is considered to be McDade in 1996, as the first to have a website built for the election. Clinton utilized email in the ‘92 election, but since the public at large was not yet using email, it was not viewed as an integral piece of his campaign strategy. The real power of the web, however, was demonstrated in the 2000 election when Senator McCain raised $2.7 million in just three days. Money speaks, and suddenly the web was the place where everyone wanted (and needed) to be. (Frantzich 141).

organized parties to raise funds, and money was raised for all of the candidates via the web. When the blogosphere blew up in 2005 and ‘06 with the widespread adoption of RSS, the climate was ripe for political hack: it seemed the ‘08 election was going to be fought in the New Media Arena. Without further inspection, that is exactly what happened: Obama embraced the web, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and the bloggers , while McCain did not and consequently lost the election. “Like a lot of Web innovators, the Obama campaign did not invent anything completely new. Instead, by bolting together social networking applications under the banner of a movement, they created an unforeseen force to raise money, organize locally, fight smear campaigns and get out the vote that helped them topple the Clinton machine and then John McCain and the Republicans” (Carr 1). Upon further scrutiny, there were other greater forces at play during this campaign; new media simply was the glamorous star that got all of the attention. It was not merely because Obama brought the new media to the forefront of his campaign that he won. After all, McCain also had a presence on the social media sites mentioned above and yet still lost. The statistics alone tell this story: “On social networks, Obama also held a clear lead, with 844,927 MySpace friends compared to McCain's 219,404. Just between November 3rd and November 4th (election day), Obama gained over 10,000 new friends, while McCain only gained about 964. On Twitter, Obama gained 2865 new followers between the 3rd and 4th (for a total of 118,107), while John McCain's Twitter account only has a paltry 4942 followers in total” (Lardinois 1). It was, as addressed previously, how the Obama team used the tools to convey a consistent message that won him the election. This consistency coupled with a two-way conversation and the creation of usergenerated content drove citizens to embrace a candidate with a funny name who was mostly unknown prior to 2006.

Soon after, in the 2004 election, Howard Dean’s scream was heard round the world, Bushites

The tools of new media, including social media, are available for anyone to use. Moreover, “the technology is easy. If you provide people with the technology tools and there is excitement, then people will make it successful,” according to Kevin Flynn, who worked with the Obama’s New Media Blogging Team based out of Chicago (WebInkNow 1). However, measurable success comes only when these tools are used for specific purposes: simply being on Facebook or MySpace isn’t enough. There must be a reason to have a presence on these sites, one that is consistent with the overarching goal of the campaign. For Obama, this was the connection to the people and the effort to draw in millions of small donations to fund his campaign. “The campaign’s new-media strategy, inspired by popular social networks like MySpace and Facebook, has revolutionized the use of the Web as a political tool, helping the candidate raise more than two million donations of less than $200 each and swiftly mobilize hundreds of thousands of supporters before various primaries” (Stelter 1). Obama’s team jumped on the Social and New Media Bandwagon, but they knew why there were there. By maintaining a clear, consistent message across all platforms, using the tools as a means to an end and integrating new media with traditional media, the ’08 Obama Campaign Team successfully used new media to generate support and pull votes.

A Clear, Consistent Message The message of the Obama Campaign rang loud, clear and true in the hearts of millions: change, coupled with a message of hope. Whether one logged onto MySpace, Facebook, www.BarackObama.com or any of the places the team advertised, such as the NewYorkTimes.com, the message was consistent along with the design. A post in the Guardian.co.uk pointed out “evidently, Obama’s marketing team believes that visual consistency matters. They’re not wrong” (Guardian). The brilliantly designed logo (along with the ever elusive message of hope, change) is being copied across the globe for new political campaigns because of the attention to detail that was paid. Visit Benjamin Netanyahu’s site to see something close to being called an exact replica (D’Aprile 27).

Even the typeface, Gotham, contributes to the way we feel about the logo and by proxy, how we think about it: Gotham emerged to document old building signage in New York City. “It is…rooted in an American vernacular tradition. To cultivate such grassroots associations is politically useful, and goes some way to explaining why Obama’s branding seems reassuringly family, credible and sincere, and at the same time fresh, bold and friendly” (Guardian.) By employing this consistency, Obama adhered to many psychological principles, as described by Cialdini, an eminent scholar in explaining human behavior to the masses, whose principles will be explored along with their connections to the new media tools in the next section.

A Means to An End The new media tools are, for the most, part free or very inexpensive as compared to traditional media. Estimates for expenditure on the Internet prior to the campaign were as high as $100 million per candidate, when the total was closer to $17 (Fenn 216). This may have been because new media was not used to its fullest, but more likely is simply a demonstration on how budget-friendly new media can be. The Obama team took full advantage of all of the tools out there on the web and it was at the insistence of the candidate himself: ““One of my fundamental beliefs from my days as a community organizer is that real change comes from the bottom up,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “And there’s no more powerful tool for grass-roots organizing than the Internet”” (Stelter 1). A quick stop at BarackObama.com (which re-directs to My.BarackObama.com, a social networking site that will be discussed shortly) shows just how far and wide the campaign spread itself: under the heading OBAMA EVERYWHERE, links to every major new media site can be found. Find Obama on Twitter, on Facebook, on MySpace, on Flickr, on YouTube… and on and on. A closer inspection of three categories of tools reveals how and why it was important for the campaign to have a presence on these sites.

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES: Facebook, MySpace, My.BarackObama.com There is not much in the way of political discourse on these sites because there is such a diverse range of people who use the sites. That’s the key here: the gargantuan number of users. Though people aren’t talking politics, there is a definite sphere of influence that can be tapped. The information for these people, however, isn’t readily available. Scott Goodstein, manager of the Obama SMS and mobile communication team expounds: “The problem with MySpace or Facebook (which are examples of external organizing) is that you as a campaign don't own all of the data. You may not have the person's e-mail address or you may not have the person's phone number -- if the person opts out of that social network, you have no way of getting in touch with them. But they are useful because there are hundreds of millions of people that use these social networks as a daily part of their life” (Linthicum). For these reasons, the Obama campaign used the social networking sites as a directional in order to point would-be voters to the core content on My.BarackObama.com My.BarackObama.com was set up to have the functionality of a social network. Once a potential donator/voter/volunteer visited the site, they could access any information they might need into order to donate, vote or volunteer, create a profile, and then connect with others in their locality. The younger generation, being less skeptical of entering their personal information online than giving it out to a door-to-door campaigner, embraced the sort of networking that they were used to. In an interview with EurActive.com, OligivyOne Worldwide’s CEO Brian Fetherstonhaugh says that “Early engagement and gaining support and permission of enthusiasts at the beginning allows supporters to pass on their enthusiasm to others” via My.BarackObama.com, while the “self-governing aspect” of tools like blogs creates content that is constantly refreshed by users at no cost for the campaign team” (EurActive). These tools worked because they played nicely with principles of human interaction defined as liking, social proof, and consistency by Cialdini. The principle of liking states that we like others who are similar to ourselves and who share something of themselves. Obama’s Facebook profile used this extensively, by sharing with his public that he likes to read Toni Morrison, listen to John Coltrane and watch SportsCenter. Because Obama employed a

profile that was very much like yours or mine, people had a personal connection to him and were more apt to like him. Hilary Clinton chose to insert a portion of her political history, instead missing the liking principle of social media entirely. “If the candidates are going to employ social networking as part of their campaign, it is imperative that they adapt to the environment and mimic its style and tone – and this all requires a more casual and personal approach.” (Slotnick 260). In regard to social proof, Facebook and MySpace worked something like campaign buttons used to: they acted as signals of support. And according to the principle of social proof, if you see someone else doing something, you’re more likely to do it yourself. In this way, someone who sees a friend supporting Barack Obama on Facebook is more likely to support him as well. The last principle supported by the campaign’s use of social media is consistency, which says that humans are more likely to act in accordance to previous behavior to which they have committed. In this manner, if someone supports Obama on Facebook or donates on My.BarackObama.com, they would be more likely to vote on election day in order to maintain consistency.

BLOGGING & MICROBLOGGING TOOLS: Blogs, Twitter By the time the 2008 campaign was fully underway, blogs and bloggers were beginning to gain more and more credibility as new sources. Among 19-29 year olds, 42% reported using blogs as a main online news source (Sabato183). The reading momentum of the political blogs that came into existence just prior to or during the campaign, including DailyKos.com, HuffingtonPost.com and Politico.com was escalating by the day. These tools were important because they nurtured the two-way conversation that new media users demand in order to identify authenticity. According to Jen Pskai, Obama’s transition spokeswoman, “In addition to pushing information out, though, the internet offers an exciting new opportunity to bring voices in – and it is that conversation about America’s future that we are starting to have through Change.gov” (Lee). This conversation made listening integral and comments on blogs allowed the team to listen in on what people were saying about Obama. Flynn agrees: “With blogging, it creates a conversation and the campaign gets

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feedback. IF there is interest in a topic, then the campaign can change quickly. People can get involved because it is two-way instead of just onedirectional. You can grow when there is a dialogue” (WebInkNow). Though the campaign could not control what the bloggers were blogging about, they did not limit access and included them in press conferences. This lead to some negativity, especially in regard to an incident in Pennsylvania when Obama said that it wasn’t surprising that working-class voters “cling to their guns or religion or antipathy for people who aren’t like them.” A blogger from OffTheBus, the Huffington Post’s team on the ground was, in attendance and brought the comment nationwide, bringing new meaning and importance to the term “citizen journalism” (Michel 1). Bloggers were making a difference, bloggers were telling a story, bloggers were having their voice heard. The team also employed the medium within the strategy, blogging and Tweeting daily. For instance, when donations came in, a manager would immediately call the donator, ask why they donated, and then post it on the blog. “An official campaign blog wasn't an informal diary of some dude's views on the news of the day. What was the point of that? Instead, it was a tool for harvesting useful information from supporters—and shaping their perceptions of the race with a steady stream of positive press releases, videos and news articles” (Romano 1). The tool itself brought into the question the validity of the Agenda Setting Theory, written about extensively in the 1970s by McCombs, Shaw & Weaver, wherein the media tell the public not what to think, but what to think about. But are bloggers the media? Are they intermediaries? Where do they fit into the cycle? Do they destroy it? As the medium continues to develop, the theory may very well adapt to include bloggers, or perhaps bloggers will become more and more a part of the mainstream media.

SOCIAL CONTENT NETWORKS: Flickr, YouTube Like social networking sites, social content networks gave the campaign access to millions of users and eyes. They also provided a free tool for disseminating information to masses, in essence,

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providing free advertising, and also acted as a gateway to other social networking sites. The visual mediums were especially compelling on the Internet, where video and images dominate over text. “The importance of digital video cannot be understated; it is at the forefront of new media campaign strategies and can make or break a candidate. The online audience is vast and with video on demand users have a sense of viewing freedom that regular tv has yet to offer. Clips can be viewed and easily spread” (Panagopulous 5). These networks worked well for the campaign because of the classic communication theory of Uses and Gratifications, developed by Katz and Rubin in the 1970s.. People are visiting these sites for information purposes, or for entertainment purposes but only looking at the content that gratifies their needs. It wasn’t enough for the team to be on YouTube, they had to have content that people wanted to see. This is where user-generated content comes is, as people are more like to believe what is created by other than content created by the campaign. It tends to be more compelling as well, from emotional pieces like will.i.am’s Yes We Can video (a mashup of Obama’s speech on race, music, and celebrity images) to Paris Hilton’s Paris for President comedic ad for president, in which she lounges in a bikini and takes a mini break to read a magazine before continuing her speech. Social content sites have their downsides as well, however, in terms of public opinion. Because the campaign had ultimate control over the content of these sites, the videos and images placed there acted very much like propaganda: we were being shown exactly what to think. “Where a YouTube search for “George Bush” turns up mostly parody, news clips, and gotchas, a comparable search for “Barack Obama” is stacked with videos approved and uploaded by the campaign or the administration. Users of YouTube may not recognize this. In the elective YouTube interface, all videos—the parodies and the propaganda alike— can simply look like news” (Heffernan). The usergenerated content went a long way to counteract this downfall because it was viewed as more valid because of its amateur source. Ultimately, all of these tools worked in conjunction with each other to support the campaign and prop up the traditional media, which will be discussed next. Each tool relied on another the manner that “videos motivated supporters to work harder, while

the blog, email list and social networking outreach helped drive video viewership, fundraising and recruitment. Email drove fundraising, encouraged volunteer work and maintained the long-term relationships that kept supporters by the millions attached to the campaign” (Delany 1).

them in conjunction, instead, allowed team Obama to reach the widest audience and spur movement of volunteers.

Has 2.0 Arrived? Integration: New + Traditional Media As demonstrated before, the budget for new media was hardly significant, much less so than the overall media budget. What the new media strategy really came down to was collaboration and integration with traditional, legacy media. Just as social networks were used as directionals to send people to the content they needed via my.barackobama.com, new media as a whole were used as directionals for more information within legacy media. Television and radio ads all pointed to follow Team Obama on Twitter, to sign up for SMS updates on a mobile, or to log onto my.barackobama.com for more information. This push to use new media in conjunction with the old brought the new media to the forefront of the campaign, rallying young voters while captivating the middle bracket through the more traditional means. We found ourselves, still, “between the communication vortexes of television and the Internet, seen most clearly in the CNN-YouTube debates, where netizens asked the questions but CNN producers selected among them and then framed them on a screen that a television camera shot for the viewers to see” (Gronbeck 241).

We may very well be heading into the Era of Politics 2.0, if we’re not already entrenched in it. One thing is certain: politics is still about the people. While the new tools made it easier for Obama to tap the groundswell and create an army of dedicated campaigners and volunteers, in the end, it was those people on the ground that elected Obama. “Obama may benefit from unprecedented online enthusiasm--four to eight million email addresses, 1.5 million donors, 800,000 registered users of my.barackobama.com, his social networking platform, and hundreds of commenters on every post--but his team's greatest innovation has been its relentless focus on converting that energy into favorable offline outcomes: registration drives, caucus turnout, et cetera” (Romano). As for the future, we may be in the midst of it now. But whether or not we are, “future candidates will need to participate in social media, not just use it as a marketing channel” (Brooks 1). Get ready to really know your next president. Or at least what he thinks you want to hear…

In this climate, with technology as important and integral as it is, especially in the lives of the younger generation, leaving the Internet by the wayside would have been a destructive decision for any campaign. However, abandoning traditional media would have had just as negative an impact. Using

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Resources Brooks, R. 19 January 2009. What Businesses Can learn from Barack Obama’s Social Media Strategy. Retrieved November 15, 2009 from http://www.FastCompany.com. Carr, D. 9 November 2008. How Obama Tapped Into Social Network’s Power. Retrieved November 15, 2009 from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html?_r=1 Cialdini, R. (2009). Influence: Science and Practice. New York: Pearson. Delany, C. 5 March 2009. Learning from Obama’s Campaign Structure: How to Organize for Success. Retrieved November 15, 2009 from http://techPresident.com EurActive.com. 4 November 2008. Interview: New Media Key to Obama Campaign. Retrieved November 15, 2009 from http://www.euractive.com Fenn, P. (2009). Communication Wars: Televsion vs. New Media. In D. Johnson (Ed.). Campaigning for President 2008: Strategy & Tactics, New Voices & New Techniques. (pp. 210-21). New York: Routledge. Frantzich, S. (2009). “E-Politics and the 2008 Presidential Campaign.” In W. Crotty (Ed.). Winning the Presidency 2008. (135-168). Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Gronbeck, B. (2009). The Web, Campaign 07-08, and Engaged Citizens: Political, Social & Moral Consequences. In R. Denton (Ed.). The 2008 Presidential Campaign: A Communication Perspective.(pp. 228-42). New York: Roman & Littlefield. Guardian Art&Design Blog. 10 July 2008Obama’s Media Campaign – Branding Our Consciousness. Retrieved November 15, 2009 from http://guardian.co.uk Heffernan, V. 10 April 2009. The YouTube Presidency. Retrived November 15, 2009 from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/magazine/12wwin-medium-t.html Lardinois, F. 5 November 2008. Obama’s Social Media Advantage. Retrieved November 15, 2009 from http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_media_obama_mccain_comparison.p hp Lee, C. E. 29 November 2008. How Will Obama Use New Media?. Retrieved November 15, 2009 from http://www/Politico.com

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Linthicum, K. 11 January 2009. Obama Campaign Manager Talks New Media. Retrieved November 15, 2009 from http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/11/nation/na-ticket11 Michel, A. (2009, March/April). Get Off the Bus: The Future of Pro-Am Journalism. Columbia Journalism Review. Miller, C.C. 7 November 2008. How Obama’s Internet Campaign Changed Politics Retrieved November 15, 2009 from http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/how-obamasinternet-campaign-changed-politics/ Owen, D. (2010). Media in the 2008 Election: 21st Century Campaign, Same Old Story. In L. Sabato (Ed.). The Year of Obama: How Barack Obama Won the White House. (pp.16786). Nw York: Pearson. Panagopolous, C. (2009). Technology and the Modern Political Campaign: The Digital Pulse of the 2008 Campaigns. In C. Panagopolous (Ed.). Politicking Online. (pp. 1-18). New Jersey: Rutgers. Romano, A. 9 June 2008. Obama's Official Blog is Boring. McCain's is Enjoyable. Why That's Bad News for the GOP. Retrieved November 15, 2009 from http://www.Newsweek.com Stelter, B. 7 July 2008. The Facebooker Who Friended Obama. Retrieved November 15, 2009 from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/technology/07hughes.html Slotnick, A. (2009). ’Friend’ the President. In C. Panagopolous (Ed.). Politicking Online. (pp. 24971). New Jersey: Rutgers. WebInkNow. 8 October 2009. How the Obama Campaign Worked with Bloggers. Retrieved November 15, 2009 from http://webinknow.com

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Interactive Mini-Site on the Obama Campaign Strategies

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Interactive Presentation:

Team Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Media Strategies

The live version of this site acts as a self-guided presentation where one can learn more about media in the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;08 campaign

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com 550: producing interactive media Baking Tiny Morsels of Heaven: Chocolate Toffee Cookies Interactive Flash Banners for Water.Org Infographic Framework Tutorial Portfolio Site: www. Linda Misiura .com

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Baking Tiny Morsels of Heaven: Chocolate Toffee Cookies

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Baking Tiny Morsels of Heaven: Chocolate Toffee Cookies

In itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interactive Flash version, this piece exists as a self-guided, click through tutorial on how to make these delectable cookies.

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Baking Tiny Morsels of Heaven:

continued

Chocolate Toffee Cookies

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Interactive Flash Banners for Water.Org

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Interactive Flash Banners Client: Water.org

The interactive versions of these banners incorporate animation and motion that add life and interest to the piece.

vertical concept 1

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Interactive Flash Banners Client: Water.org

The interactive versions of these banners incorporate animation and motion that add life and interest to the piece.

vertical concept 2

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Interactive Flash Banners Client: Water.org

The interactive versions of these banners incorporate animation and motion that add life and interest to the piece.

horizontal concept 1

horizontal concept 2 119

Inforgraphic Framework Tutorial

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Infographic Framework Interactive Site & Tutorial

This site houses my research, sources, and infographic tutorial, which includes reference frames in addition to the tutorial.

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Infographic Framework Interactive Site & Tutorial

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This site houses my research, sources, and infographic tutorial, which includes reference frames in addition to the tutorial.

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Portfolio Site: www. Linda Misiura .com

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Portfolio Site

www. Linda Misiura .org

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I wanted my site to scream CLEAN and FRESH while showing my personality at the same time, so I stuck to my favorite colors: navy & white.

com 540: writing & interactive design Photo Sharing Sites: The Lowdown (with an emphasis on Flickr) Project Illumine Team Ice Cream Design Project

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Photo Sharing Sites: The Lowdown (with an emphasis on Flickr)

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Photo Sharing Sites:

The Lowdown (with an emphasis on Flickr)

FLICKR

LEARNING CURVE: Most sites are created to be user friendly and provide easy stepby-step instructions on how to get started. For most, a profile is required, and for that a valid email address. Photo sharing sites are mostly simplistic in nature so that everyone can use them. WEB 2.0 FEATURES: tagging, AJAX, RSS and geotagging

KEY PLAYERS: Flickr --“Flickr is the WD-40 that makes it easy to get photos or video from one person to another in whatever way they want.”

Picasa -- “Picasa 3 has more powerful features, including a retouching tool and new Sync functionality to make uploading and sharing photos faster and easier. You can CONS also create custom collages, improve your slideshows, and turn your photos into movies with YouTube integration.” Photobucket -- “Photobucket is the premier site on the Internet for uploading, sharing, linking and finding photos, videos and graphics. Your free Photobucket account can store thousands of photos and hours of video.”

SmugMug -- “We dream of an independent company devoted to nothing but your priceless photos. A company that backs up your precious memories so they’re safe and sound. A profitable, debt-free company. That earns your fanatical loyalty. We’re living that dream.”

PICASA

PHOTOBUCKET

Free acccount

Paid:$25/ year for unlimited

Intui;ve

Paid: $25/ year for 25 GB

CONs PROs

WHAT: Provide a space where users can upload photographs, either for a free or with a paid account. Photo sharing sites are popular with amateur, professional, and family photographers. By acting as a PROS platform to share photos more easily with others than email, these sites create a conversation space that engages users around the photography of others.

This piece was created as part of a larger collaboration to expand upon the content in Brian Solis’ Conversation Prism 2.0

Excellent use of metadata Crea;ve Commons Licenses available create a custom RSS feed

uses keywords that can be read by other soEware Online version oﬀers web albums fast interface Google can use your images for promo;on

Albums can be hard to navigate once uploaded

uses a lot of memory

no oﬃcial batch tool

slow import

no keyboard naviga;on

few edi;ng tools

lots of edi;ed features online for "mini photoshop" eﬀects excellent hub for storing photos to link to from other SNS

SMUGMUG

Paid: $39 for standard, $59 for power variety of ways to upload order prints and have them mailed directly to you Excellent for professionals custom storefront upload MPEGs

Can't cancel your membership early

PRICE! Paid: $39 for standard, $59 for power

folders are diﬃcult to use

Certain countries censor photos

poten;al for theE

Zooomr -- “Document, explore, lather, rinse, repeat. Photography for me then becomes a kind of hyperactive life documentary, loosely arranged and presented.”

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BEST PRACTICES & BEST USES Linda Misiura

Business Marketing & Promotion Post photos of recent events or big events so that clients can get a feel for your business Business promotion is easy to do on Flickr. By uploading photos, you can tag images with your website and brand yourself through images that are easily accessible and searchable through Google. Case 1 is for the Cranky Pressman, who does design for letterpress and thermography. He uses Flickr to promote his designs and also to show clients options for color and such.

Case 2 features the Art Institute of Portland which uses Flickr to promote the students at the school as well as the school itself. By uploading images that show off student profiles and where the students are showing their work, the Art Institute takes advantage of Flickrâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s excellent SEo while showing the fact that they are connected to new media.

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flickr.indd 1

12/4/09 3:17 PM

Professional Photography Portfolio post photos for potential clients to see your work

Flickr is excellent as a portfolio site because it does not compress any of the images you upload. This way, clients who are viewing your work can see it at a high resolution. And, if your willing to put your work out there, you can allow others to download and use it through the Creative Commons licensing. Case 1 is the portfolio for portraits of photography Cignonero. Flickr is an excellent tool to tag photos with so that potential clients can find you through Google or other search engines.

Design Portfolio post images for potential clients to see your work

Case 2 features the design portfolio for KVWilliams, an aspiring designer looking for yet another place to put her work. Though she has a personal site, Flickr offers the great SEO advantages and another place for people to stumble upon her great work.

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flickr.indd 2

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Social Life Stream Post photos of your day to day life for friends or for yourself. Join a group, too, and share!

Flickr is great for everyday users too! Keep in touch with your family or friends or simply use it as an online place to store your photos indefinitely so that you can access them from anywhere. Case 1 is for the Wardrobe Remix group where users post photos of what they are wearing that day and where it came from. It is an excellent example of the social use of the tool because it brings people with a common interest together.

Family Sharing Keep your relatives near and far up to date on your activites and allow them to download and print photos from the site.

Case 2 features OntarioMommyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s photosite where she uploads family photos. Sharing is so easy, and prints are too! Plus, you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to worry about accidents to ruin your photos, as they are all stored on the web.

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Project illumine

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Project illumine

exploring memories though interactivity ABOUT PROJECT: ILLUMINE Hi there. I’m Linda. Have you enjoyed your visit? What you’ve experienced here is a mini journey through select memories of my 25 years here on earth. Among the stories, you’ll find, if looking carefully, tales that correspond to family, ancestry, community, career, nature, and entertainment. The stars and constellations that run throughout Illumine were chosen because of my affinity for light, sparkle, dreams, and grandeur. The title of the project stems from a version of the word “illuminate” that is found most frequently in classic literature and just plain sounds nice. Or so I’d like to think… I chose words to take you deeper into the site, as they are one of my dearest friends in the world, and paired them with images to complement and delight. So, what do you think? Thoughts? Feelings? Reactions? Questions? . Email me at linda [dot] misiura [at] gmail [dot] com Linda Misiura is a self-taught freelance designer. Visit her site at www.aSmallbrightIdea.com. Project: Illumine was produced in part during her studies as a masters student at Elon University. FAMILY : FOOD : SURPLUS : tomatoes For most of my childhood, my life was rather idyllic. Of course, I neither fully recognized nor fully appreciated the fine things in my life at age 8; instead, I was secretly harboring an intense desire for the Nike sneakers that were all the rage, sneakers my parents most certainly could not afford with three children. Hence, the secret. But that is not the story I wanted to tell you. This story is about longing, taste, the freshest of fruit and a high state of living. Summertime was about surplus in the big house in the woods (I told you: idyllic. We didn’t have a cow or chicken, but we did have a chocolate Labrador Retriever named Grizzley. He weighed 110 pounds.). Surplus mean that the fruits on the trees and the vegetables from the ground were in high abundance, and according to the economic principle of supply and demand, were cheap. With three kids living on my dad’s veterans benefits, my mom jumped at the chance to save, which meant canning everything and anything like it was 1956. Of course, my brother and sister and I were coerced into helping (as if there was even a choice in the matter!). We canned peaches. We canned pears. We picked blueberries and strawberries. We peeled apples. We blanched and peeled tomatoes. We poached plums, picked peppers, and stewed berries to make jams and jellies. And we grumbled through it all. 139

Criteria: take six images at an interactive art installation that trigger memories in six categories: family, ancestry, nature, entertainment, community & career. Then! take images and use them as portals to bring users to your content while allowing them to be lost in your memories. Find the stories here; the images of the interactive version follow.

Now, though, close to 20 years later, I experience intense longings for these summers spent laboring in a hot kitchen, saving up the good surplus of summer for later. The jams in the store just don’t taste quite as bright, and the peaches from the can are always mouth-puckering in their sweetness. I miss all of those things. But most of all, I look back at the surplus of summer with a mixture of regret and nostalgia; the nostalgia for the moments of making with my mother, who is no longer here, and the regret for not enjoying the memories more in the making. This story is a happy story. It’s happy because I can store it in my mind and return to it upon scent of fresh berries, sight of Ball jars, or whispers of the word ‘pectin.’ Happiness is in the recall, much like the taste of the tomatoes and pears were all that much more satisfying when eaten in the winter, summoned from the surplus of summer.

COMMUNITY : CEDAR CREST : ADVENTURES : hartzel hall The night before I was to visit Cedar Crest College, my best friend Holly called me with some news. The conversation went something like this: Holly: “Lin, did you know that Cedar Crest is an all girl’s school?” Me: “Um, no. Really? Do you still want to go?” Holly: “Well, I’m not sure. Ernie said he doesn’t want to go though, of course.” (Holly’s mom calling from the background) “You two are still going tomorrow! It’s an excellent school!” Me: “I guess that settles it. What’s the harm?” The next day we drove to Allentown, reservations in mind, both of us certain that we were attending the open house simply to satisfy her mother. Once I arrived on campus, I never wanted to leave. Holly decided on the Crest as well, and we roomed together for four years. I never regretted my choice for a moment, because it was there, at last, that I had finally found a community. The professors, the administration, and the president, Ms. Dorothy Blaney, were all committed to transcending education and promoting leadership for the fairer gender. The students made the school come alive, and rose to the task.

I met my future best friend, officemate, and Editor-in-Chief on the first day of June orientation for my freshman year. Of course, the best friend part took the better part of few years and Editor-in-Chief didn’t come right away either. But Jennifer and I took place by storm on campus, and that place was Hartzel Hall. I love Hartzel Hall. One of the older buildings on campus dating back to 1915 , its charms follow in its creaky stairs and small rooms with multi-pane windows painted thrice over. Floors are crooked, ceilings are slanted and it’s never really warm. But for four delicious years, I found home and comfort there, working to redesign the school newspaper and writing papers until 3 in the morning when the cleaning crew would arrive. If I were to choose one place to work in for the rest of my life, it would be room 204, Hartzel Hall, second floor. The light within is ever inspiring. Like Miss Congeniality, I was one of those girls who thought that an all girl’s school wasn’t for me. In high school, I was dead set against it, though more for the fact that I had this vision of it being too much like a boarding school, closed, restricted, unchallenging. What I discovered that late spring day when I first set foot on campus was that I had found a place where I was free to be whoever it was I was going to become. I couldn’t tell you what exactly happened during those few hours in May, but between eating a very bad wrap and picking up materials on dance and communication in the gym, I came to realization that this all women’s college was exactly where I needed to be. Most days, I wish I could return, if only for the ever-present sense of possibility…

Even though I had little design experience (I had laid out 15 issues of The Crestiad as features editor) I went to her office and told her that I could do it. And just like that, I became a graphic designer. It did, of course, take a lot more work than just that. I had to teach myself the Adobe programs (not an easy feat I can assure you) and then I had to drum up more clients, which was just as challenging, if not more so. But! Lesson learned? If you think you can do something, you should at least try. I cringe to think of where I would be right now if I hadn’t taken a chance and said, “I can.” NATURE : STORMS : RAIN : storm/clouds Nature has a way of shooting me in the heart. I mean that in the best way possible, in the way that the colors of a sunset wound, how the breath of the first 32 degree morning impairs, how sideways light that slants through clouds can be just so beautiful it hurts. Rainstorms especially, however, have the ability to stop and start my heart, in an emotional capacity that never fails to astound, as well as genuinely affect my moods. Of this I can be both grateful and hateful of simultaneously, for although the rain can fill my heart with energy bursting with positive energy to the point where I just sit and watch and breathe in wonder, it can just as relentlessly tear down every protective wall I’ve built, slashing my wonder to tears and forcing me inside myself to hide from the melancholy. The dichotomy is, quite simply, delicious.

CAREER : DESIGN/NINA : CLUE : threads I graduated with a dual degree in English and Communication. Unfortunately, I was left asking myself the question that everyone had asked me for four years when I named my major: “What are you going to do with a BA in English?” My canned response, that I could do anything I wanted and that many of the CEOs at major companies held the same degree, wasn’t helping me find jobs once I was out alone in the Big Scary World. Most of the complications in the job search stemmed from my lack of experience. Just how do you get those 3-5 years? I took a job as Front Desk Concierge at La Therapie Spa at Preston, in Cary, NC. Not exactly related to my major, but I was using my communication skills to answer the phone politely, upwards of 25 times an hour. With nothing better to do, I learned the menu of services using similar studying habits as I had in college, which impressed the owner, Nina, an intensely liberal Croation, who asked me doing her marketing part time. Then one fine day, her graphic designer called it quits on her, as Nina had missed a deadline for content submission, yet again.

ENTERTAINMENT : READING : books I consider myself a voracious reader. Perhaps it is my need to be constantly entertained, or the ever-present thirst for knowledge: whatever is behind the drive doesn’t change the fact that I want to read whatever is around me: brochures, programs, maps, cereal boxes… and books of course. Book after book and magazines too. I love magazines. Give me a cup of chai, and a stack of my favorites (Vanity Fair, National Geographic, ReadyMade, Bon Appetit!) and I’ll busy myself for hours. Reading and I didn’t start out as the best of friends we are now. An early memory of mine, from kindergarten I think, stars my best friend at the time, Erin, and myself, swinging on a swing under her porch. She tells me that when she has a baby, she is going to name it Bridget (I am secretly thinking “Ew. Bridget sounds like bridge. What a yucky name.”) which I quickly push aside when she tells me of the book she read last night. I couldn’t read yet, and this made me terribly, horribly jealous. Enough that I still remember this moment, 20 something years later… 140

When I finally got around to reading, it was a bit of an ordeal for me. In particular, one afterschool afternoon stands out, one where my mother wasn’t home to do my homework with me, for some reason or other. And so the task fell to my father, whom my friends referred to as The General when I was in high school, which should be enough to give you an adequate picture in your mind of his sternness and authority. I’ll spare you the details, but the memory clearly consists of me trying valiantly to read through one of the Spot books (we’re talking 3 words on a page, here…) while attempting to suppress sobs, hiccups, and gasping to the tune of my father yelling, “Sound it out!” Traumatizing, certainly. “See Spot run!” just shouldn’t be that hard. I got through it though. And adopted as my motto: tough it out.

ANCESTRY : STORIES : TIME : Britannica Between my last name and my semi-angled eyes, people often think I am of Japanese descent. I’m not, I assure you. The with the exception of one, all of my great-grandparents immigrated to the United States from Poland. The odd ball out was my great-grandfather on my mother’s side, my mother’s father’s father, who was Italian, making me close to 98% Polish, minus the seemingly ubiquitous surname ending in “ski.” My four grandparents, all of whom identify as Polish, grew up in the small mining town of Dickson City, Pennsylvania, just a few streets away from one another. When the daughter of Tony and Theresa Pappas (Italian, not Greek…) and the son of Tony and Theresa Misiura met in 1983, the parents were delighted to discover that they had known of each other growing up. Other than the location of their youth, my grandparents all had another trait in common: they all spoke a little Polish. This delighted me to no end as a child, and I would always ask how to say this or how to say that in Polish. In the end, there is just one phrase that I remember, one that can cross generations in leaps and bounds: Ja cie kocham. I love you. I am Polish. I love pierogies, halushki, and goumpki. You can pronounce my last name more easily if you pretend the second ‘I’ is an ‘h’: MISHURA. Perhaps it might have been easier if they had kept the “ski” at Ellis Island…

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Team Ice Cream Design Project

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Team: Ice Cream 6 0 J7 7 < 6

Bahar Rostami, Conor Britain, Jonathon Choi, Linda Misiura, Alex Traboulsi

Proposal and Project Details: Client goals for the site: Amy has been wanting to commission a website for a number of years; however, with the down economy, it has not been economically feasible. Amy is open to new design elements & changing the color palate. Main goal: to have a web presence that will bring in new customers.

Audience/ Demographics: Ice cream appeals to a wide range of people, of all ages. Because of this, the new presence will target both the web and print, so that we can target younger and older audiences that don’t have access to the web. Information/ web browser, speed: We will be creating a site that is based in basic HTML in Dreamweaver with some Flash elements. We are trying to keep the information in the Flash piece as basic as possible, so that the information that is most important is contained with the HTML so as not to limit information from people who have slow connection speeds. Clients wish list: A web presence, some sort of marketing/advertising to draw people to the store Competitors: TCBY and Coldstone. TCBY is entrenched in Burlington history, so many people keep going out of habit. Coldstone pulls the young crowd, and most Elon students go there. In bringing Smitty’s to the web, we are focusing on increasing awareness of the homemade ice cream shop. Technical: We will be researching hosting options and viable URLS and presenting them to Amy. As they don’t have to pay for design, they are more than able to pay for the hosting of the site. Elements that are already effective: Smitty’s has numerous print pieces that are not cohesive. They are enthusiastic and involved in the community. By connecting the website with redesigned print media, we will present a more cohesive image of Smitty’s in the hopes of drawing loyal customers who identify with the homemade, community feel of the shop. Updating: The site should need minimal updating. An embedded Twitter feed will provide updated content from day to day. Effectively drive traffic: A plan to implement promotions through Twitter is in the making. By handing out printed minicards with the twitter name, we will drive traffic through twitter to the site, which should in turn, bring more traffic to the shop.

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Deliverables: o o o o

Website Personalized twitter account and page Facebook profile Redesigned print pieces: o Catering Menu o Party Plans o History of Smitty’s o Flavor Menu o Twitter cards

Style: We’re aiming to alter the logo of Smitty’s while keeping the general feeling. A vintage, homespun feel is what we’re aiming for. In that, we will be keeping the colors that are prominent within the shop: primary orange and blue with a minty green.

Mockup:

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Smitty's Flavors

Visit us on the Web!

become a Fan!

We’re on FaCebook too!

smittysicecream

We tweet specials!!

www.smittyshomemadeiceCream.com

For Fun & Games,

Questions? emaiL us!

smittyshomemadeicecream@gmail.com

fax: (336) 226-4073

phone: (336) 221-9090

2306 S. ChurCh St, burlington

homemade ice cream

S M iT TY ' S

available

certif icate to smitty’s. they come in $5 booklets.

employees, students & guests will love a gift

($50 Cart fee, minimum 75 peOple)

simple sundae $3.75

Original sundae $4.25

perfect for small to mid-sized gatherings.

give a treat!

small Cup or Cone $2.75

Cups, cones & sundaes available

Custom scooping with choice of 8 flavors

event and serve customers individually

We’ll bring the smitty’s card to your

perfect for company outings and customer appreciation!

Ice Cream CART

SMITTY's

fOr grOups Over 100)

(disCOunts

$3.75 / person + tax

HOt Caramel, pineapple

OreO, CHOCOlate syrup,

HOt fudge, fresH straWberry,

guests can choose from:

Choice of 2 extra toppings that your

and a Cherry!

Homemade Whipped Cream

Wet Walnuts

large Cup or Cone $3.25

$50.00

40 spoons

40 bowls

(you choose the f lavor)

One tub of ice cream!

& off ice celebrations!

“the Original”

1 scoop of ice cream

a mini version of

let us host your gathering! the party room is

bring your party to the store!

party tub

(336)221-9090

2306 S. ChurCh St, burlington

homemade ice cream

S M iT TY ' S

the party to you!

Let us bring

catering menu

Simple sundae bar

all you need for perfect home

serve 6 to 40, depending on your custom order

Choose an ice cream cake!

other options

Smitty's

clean-up, and all paper products.

toppings. all prices include complete set-up,

your guests to quickly get their ice cream and

eff icient pre-scooping of smitty’s ice Cream allows

(disCOunts available fOr grOups Over 100)

$4.25 / person + tax

HOt Caramel, pineapple

OreO, CHOCOlate syrup,

HOt fudge, fresH straWberry,

guests can choose from:

Choice of 3 extra toppings that your

and a Cherry!

Homemade Whipped Cream

Wet Walnuts

2 scoops of ice cream

“the Original”

Ice cream sundae bar

Smitty's

No Mess. No Fuss. Leave it to Smitty’s and leave it behind!

Smitty's

the

for cream the st p eopl e

nice

ice

mak ing

best

homemade ice cream

Smitty's smittysicecream

$1.25

$2.95

$2.75

$2.50

$1.25

$1.50

$3.80

Whipped Cream 30 cents

Flavored Syrup 30 cents

Frozen Blasts

Hot Chocolate $2.25

Mocha

Latte

Cappuccino

Espresso

Large Coffee

Small Coffee

CoFFee dRInKs

dry nuts

gummy bears

Reese’s Pieces

Skittles

M&Ms

Reeses

Oreos

35 cents

dRY ToppInGs

whipped cream

wet walnuts

marshmallow

pineapple

chocolate syrup

strawberry

caramel

hot fudge hot

WeT ToppInGs 60 cents

e g th

m crea ice he best for t ople pe est nic kin

TWITTER!

75 cents

$1.95

$3.15

$265

$3.35

$2.25

& Orangeade

Lemonade

perfectly tasty!

We’d love to make your party

us about our catering services.

bring the party to you! Ask

Smitty's Party Room or let us

$29.95

$21.95

$19.95

$1.75

$7.75

$5.25

$8.75

$4.35

Have your next party in the

9x12” Sheet Cake

9” Round Cake

7” Round Cake

1/2 Pint Toppings

Hand-packed Quarts

Hand-packed Pints

Pre-Packed 1/2 Ga.

ICe CReaM To Go

(try any 4 flavors)

Ice cream sampler

$6.25

$4.25

$1.95

$2.65

$2.30

Fresh Squeezed

Quart

Pint

Kiddie

Large

(with chocolate chip cookies!)

Ice cream sandwich

35 cents

$3.80

$3.65

Small

(no fat, no sugar, only 8 calories per ounce!)

$4.95

$4.25

$395

$3.65

onLY 8 YoGuRT

Banana Split

Brownie

Simple

Original

sundaes

oTHeR ICe CReaM TReaTs

add booster

Smoothie

Milkshake

Ice Cream Soda $3.35

$1.00

sodas & sHaKes

waffle add

Chocolate dipped

Waffle Cone

Kiddie

Large

Small

Cups & Cones

homemade ice cream

smitty's

smittysicecream

We Tweet Specials!!

phone: (336) 221-9090 fax: (336) 226-4073

2306 S. ChurCh St, burlington

homemade ice cream

S M iT T Y ' S

homemade ice cream

We Tweet Specials!!

Smitty's

Smitty's CATering options

...and more!

strawberry sorbet

strawberry

rocky road

raspberry sorbet

pumpkin pie

pistachio

peppermint stick

oreo

orange sherbet

orange pineapple

mocha Chip

mint oreo

mint Chip

maple Walnut

mango sorbet

madagascar Vanilla

key Lime sorbet

kahlua Chip

Dulce de Leche

Cookie Dough

Coffee oreo

Coffee

Coconut almond Chip

Chocolate Walnut Fudge

Chocolate peanut butter

Chocolate Chip

Cake bater

butter pecan

bubble Gum

black Cherry

banana pudding

banana

amaretto Cherry Chip

We make over 100 flavors of ice cream! Check out the favorites below.

es t

75 cents

$1.95

$3.15

$265

Smoothie

Milkshake

$3.80

$3.65

Ice Cream Soda $3.35

$1.00

sodas & sHaKes

waffle add

Chocolate dipped

Waffle Cone

Kiddie

Large

Small

Cups & Cones

$3.35

Cappuccino

$1.25

$2.50

$2.95

$2.75

$3.80

Whipped Cream 30 cents

Flavored Syrup 30 cents

Frozen Blasts

Hot Chocolate $2.25

Mocha

Latte

$1.25

$1.50

$5.25

$29.95

$21.95

$19.95

$1.75

$7.75

$8.75

$4.35

By using fun fonts and bright your next party i colors, along with Have sketched Smitty's Party Room or bring images, we created athe party to you! us about our catering s brand that is fun, fresh We’d love to make yo and says welcomeperfectly to thetasty! neighborhood! Espresso

Large Coffee

Small Coffee

CoFFee dRInKs

9x12” Sheet Cake

9” Round Cake

7” Round Cake

1/2 Pint Toppings

Hand-packed Quarts

Hand-packed Pints

Pre-Packed 1/2 Ga.

Plan: Bright fun ICe colors that CReaM To Go echo the orange and blue in the shop. We wanted the materials to scream Smitty’s, the way people scream for Smitty’s Ice Scream! dry nuts

gummy bears

Reese’s Pieces

(try any 4 flavors)

Ice cream sampler

(with chocolate chip cookies!)

Ice cream sandwich

Quar

Pint

Kiddie

oTHeR ICe CReaM TReaTs

35 cents

homemade ice cream

Skittles

M&Ms

Reeses

Oreos

35 cents

dRY ToppInGs

add booster

Larg

Small

(no fat calori

onL

Banan

Brow

Simple

Origin

sund

homemade ice c

smitt

Smitty's whipped cream

wet walnuts

marshmallow

pineapple

chocolate syrup

strawberry

caramel

hot fudge hot

WeT ToppInGs 60 cents

ple peo

the for

ice

nic

best

e g th kin eam ma

for more information, email me or visit my website

linda misiura

print & interactive design l i n d a.misiura@gmail.com w w w. l i n d a m i s i u r a . c o m

(570) 430 9993

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