An Inconvenient Truth: A $1,359 Electric Bill

Started to watch An Inconvenient Truth the other day— and as suspected, I fell asleep a third way in. Don't get me wrong, the warming of the orb does grab my attention, but not nearly as much as this did:

Past Vice President Gore's 20 room (8-bath) mansion in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, and in 2006 alone, Gore devoured roughly 221,000 kWh--more than 20 times the national average. His average monthly electric bill topped $1,359, and his natural gas bill averaged $1,080 per month last year. In fact, since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore's energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

Read the rest of this at the brilliant NussbaumOnDesign blog on the Bizweek network.

Concept Share: A Good Concept?

ConceptShare's free version allows you to easily share and review your design ideas, comps, etc., over the web. You invite people into a workspace to add and reply to comments, chat and markup designs. If members are in the workspace at the same time they can even chat and comment real time. Paid accounts can manage multiple workspaces; premium accounts can be branded to your own corporate identity. You can take a tour, which is rather nicely done, or check out the tour video on YouTube.

Let me know if you've tried this. I have not, but am curious to hear from anyone who has. Sounds like a neat idea.

( via computerlove )

Blogger Woes

I've been without the ability to update my blog for several days. Based on the fiasco I've been through, I am nearly certain this will happen again, so I'm taking this opportunity to let you know why the blog's not been posted to recently. Stay tuned and thanks for your readership. In the meantime, I'm experimenting here.

Paprika. A Design Firm That Aims Big.

Impressive is the work of Paprika —a design and strategic marketing firm specializing in business communications. They believe big is the only way to go– as in planetary in scope, because the world is their market. This resonates with me because in my role at a Christian publishing ministry, the word of God is as big as it gets. I invite anyone who shares this vision of bigness to dig deep and consider the consequences of doing it big. Or not.

( via ventilate )

Apple OSX Pro. Mega Tips and Inspiration.

Apple Inc. has a Pro website which you probably knew existed, but you've also never visited. I've discovered a treasure trove of resources there, including a huge archive of tips, profiles of inspiring people way smarter than the rest of us, and way more. Do yourself a favor and check the Apple Pro website. You can thank me later.

New Job Listing: Creative Commons General Council

Not the typical BarryBlog post, but I came upon a new job listing for a new General Counsel at Creative Commons. Apparently current CC GC Mia Garlick, like former CC'er Glenn Brown, has been snatched up by the Google Monster for a likely "not-so non-profit" compensation, among others things.

It seems that if you are a current council in a situation that seems less than perfect, this would be an awesome career transition, as CC's Board of Director member Lawrence Lessig puts it..."to move into a more interesting, remake-the-world kind of practice."

Check out the description on the CC site.

( via Lessig Blog )

Snipshot: The Future of Photoshop?

Though not a bettin' man—if I were, I'd bet on Snipshot. With big boy funding by YCombinator, it just might be a precursor to what Photoshop may look like in the future. I've posted about an online resource called Resizr previously, but this one takes the cake.

Snipshot's a great way to save any photo you have, or one from the web as GIF, JPG, PDF, PNG or TIF, and then you can crop, rotate, resize, and conduct image adjustments like contrast, brightness, saturation, sharpness and hue. It's not limited to tiny web photos either, we're talking photos up to 10 MB, or 25 megapixels (5000x5000 pixels). Like a Mac there are unlimited undo and redo (Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y, or ⌘Z and ⌘Y on your Mac) and you can import PDF (first page only), EPS or SVG. It's also "nondestructive editing" when you consider Snipshot always works from a copy of the original image. Best of all, it's 100% browser based, no plug-ins required, and no downloading software! I've used this, and it really is amazing.

For cheapskates who don't have Photoshop, this is a great junkyard dog solution, and perhaps, a sign of things to come?

( via Christian Science Monitor )

The Web 2.0 Landscape: Why It Matters

There's nothing I could think of to better explain how the entire landscape is changing than if you just watched this video for yourself. It was produced by Michael Wesch–assistant Cultural Anthropology Prof at Kansas State University. This change, often called Web 2.0 is continuing to happen, but understand that it already has happened. This video clearly explains Web 2.0 in whole.


( via Lawrence Lessig )

U2/Greenday: Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda

A testimony to what could have been, compliments of the ubertalented Chris Milk, with the talents of U2 and Greenday.

Apple's Steve Jobs: DRM, Music and options

This letter from Apple Incorporated's President and CEO Steve Jobs isn't what I would have imagined. I see this as a significant document, when you consider this exact moment in history, as well as the source.

Week Hiatus

No posts this week due to a smothering workload. Feel free to take this opportunity and dig deeper into some stuff you've probably not read from BarryBlog's illustrious past. Also, check out the links on the left side of the page. Lots happening there too.

• September 2006
• October 2006
• November 2006
• December 2006
• January 2007
• February 2007

1,000,000 Penguins: Here...Wiki, wiki, wiki.

Here's an idea with traction. The idea? See if open collaboration and contributed content can make a novel, wiki-style. A Million Penguins is an experiment in creative writing and community. Anyone can join in. Anyone can write. Anyone can edit. Who knows what the results will look like. Go Penguin! Big props on thinking outside the package. I wish I had thought of it (right Andres?). For the record, I have posted on Penguin in the past. Here. Here. And here.

( via Bruce Nussbaum )

Innovation and Strategy - Who Manages Manufacturing?

REPOST: I wrote this article a while back, I still find it interesting so I'm reposting it. Sue me.

Through 18 years of professional design experience and from cumulative observation, I’ve discovered a key to finding success in design innovation often lies in looking at and engaging in less-mined and less typical resources. Some of the best brainstorming meetings I’ve been responsible for or party to have included unusual subjects. Such as a warehouse worker. A project manager. Someone in editorial. Anyone less exposed to the day to day creative process.

There are many reasons for this. More than I can discuss here (more than you would be interested in reading about), but most importantly more reasons than I am smart enough to understand. But what I do understand is that design innovation is not particularly formulamatic like some engineering tasks and related design sciences.

Anyway... ...so when I came across this article on the subject of Manufacturing teams, and how some farsighted companies are beginning to understand the value of giving manufacturing teams greater visibility and respect in strategic leadership, I took notice. Told using the analogy of manufacturing as the engine in a ship, this article gives weight to how critical manufacturing is to the success (or failure) of adopting a successful design innovation engine.

( via strategy+business - Illustration by Leigh Wells)

Lounge72: Freebie PDF Calendar

Lounge72 is a design portal and e-zine I frequent for inspiration and general eye candy. As a webzine, it's main claim to fame is a yearly user-contributed and free PDF calendar, offered as a download. It's rather random, and unless you're a designy-type, it may not appeal to you. But if you're interested, remember...it's free (and nicely done). To me, the calendar's yet another barometer I call on for what's fresh and new in the world of illustration. In year's past, some of the artwork (again, user contributors) does not align with my own tastes, but hey– I'm a 40+ middle age guy. There you have it.

A Plethora of PDF Publications

Your one-stop shop for artsy design magazines–PDF-MAGS.com. Some content is, well artsy, and some are obviously more weird than others. For example one is called "Bastard." Now I haven't downloaded that one, as I assume I might find that one a tad bit offensive. Perhaps you might approach your decision making similarly. My favorite is FormandForm, though every once and awhile even they throw in a no-look-confusion-maker objectionable bit of content, but I can work around that. So check them out. There are some choice nuggets in their somewhere for the finding. And oh, I forgot to mention...They're all FREE!

( via swissmiss )