Perfection, Algorithms to Optimize Human Existence: SxSw 2013

In this Future 15 session, Byron Reese claimed the widespread proliferation of cheap sensors of all kinds will create a vast "collective memory," a record of every cause and effect. This data will be mined for associations that will be turned into algorithms to optimize every decision we make, from where to eat dinner to what job to apply for.

We learn from our previous experiences, but imagine having the life experience of everyone at your immediate recall. In theory you could make the perfect decision every time. We're not talking about ethical perfection, but technical perfection.

We may not always choose to do those things, it will effectively make every person on the planet vastly wiser than the wisest person who has ever lived. It will be wisdom at processor speed.

This session bordered on the creepy. Our presenter argued that with this sort of technology the point we are at now will be the equivalent of drunken sailors on shore leave. But, isn't it kind of fun to be a drunken sailor on leave?

Textbooks vs. Zombies, a Public Service Announcement

My team at the OSU Library has been busy at work creating video content for a new initiative at the University. They are churning out some great stuff, and I am super proud. Here's the latest PSA, Textbooks vs. Zombies.

Watch on YouTube

Dance Dares! A Finals Week Gift

Finals week on a college campus can be a stressful time for everyone. So each semester, we try to come up with something fun we can offer the students. Something that says, "Here, take a quick break and laugh at us being stupid. And, maybe if you feel like it, take a moment to be stupid with us."

This fall we decided to use our new video initiative and give the gift of dance dares. I think the funniest part is the fact that many of the employees who are getting dance dared are talking about this project as it happens to them.

This is what I do for a living. While shooting, a student from another department stopped me and asked, "Um, what's your job here?" It's awesome that's what it is.

View on Youtube

Does this mean we're rich now? Yes, I think it does.

Every once in a while John and I do something so pretentious and extravagant that we find ourselves asking "Does this mean we're rich now?" It happens each year when we book our "big trip." It happens on our anniversary when we see the triple digits on our dinner bill. And it happened today, when our cleaning service started.

For the next year, someone will come to our house every two weeks and put back what we've spent a fortnight mucking up. I wasn't originally planning to have someone come so often. Really I was just thinking, quarterly would be nice, sort of a spring (winter, fall, summer) deep cleaning. Turns out biweekly cost the same amount, so I figured what the heck.

In theory "having a maid" is something that sounds totally awesome. What could possibly be the down side? But it feels weird to have someone doing something you were raised thinking of as "your job." It feels a little like we're cheating.

I'm not sure why. I pay someone to cut my grass, to fix my car, to paint my nails, to do any number of chores that I just don't want to do myself. So why is cleaning the house any different? Maybe because it feel so extravagant, maybe because it is so intimate having someone in your home, maybe just because it's new.

Regardless, I'm sure I'll get used to it. I mean, how else will we manage the jet setting  the fundraisers, political life and the constant entertaining? Now, where's my butler, I need a martini. 

Show & Smell Marketing: Part 2

5 pm, Friday, March 9, 2012
#SxSmell

Somehow this session was only an hour, but it's going to take me days to recap it. Up today: marketing to your sense of hearing.

Spectra: language translation tool
Spectra is an app that allows you translate written or typed passages into a number of other languages. As of now I could only find it in the iTunes store. No android version just yet.

The session was moving pretty quickly, so I honestly don't remember and didn't note the marketing value of a handheld translator, but you have to admit, it's pretty cool.

Responsive Digital Signage
If you've left the house in the last year, you probably come across some version of digital signage. I've seen them in malls, convention centers, doctors' offices, restaurants and even our very own OSU Student Union. Companies are now working to make the signs interactive. You can ask the interactive digital signs questions and they'll answer you.

It gets even cooler than that. In development they found the signs "got confused" about who was talking to it and when someone was still listening. So developers added a face recognition component. The digital sign scans for faces looking at it, only listens to questions from the person addressing it, and only answers if that person continues to look at it.

Audio Spotlight
We totally need this for our new audio visual displays going in at the library. In fact, libraries and museums were the example the presenter mentioned as ideal locations. This gadget works just like it sounds it might. Imagine a spotlight, one discrete target of light. But instead of being bathed in light, it's sound. When you are in the audio spotlight, it sounds like standing in front of a normal speaker. But two feet away, those not standing in the spotlight can't hear a thing.

Here's the audio spotlight marketing at work:


Turn Any Flat Surface into a Speaker
Huh? I'm not even sure where to start with this one. Our presenter had a tiny sticky pad, when he placed it on a large foam core poster, the poster became a speaker. The tiny stick-able speaker uses the flat surface to amplify the sound vibrations. Um, yeah. You kind of had to be there.

Show & Smell Marketing

5 pm, Friday, March 9, 2012
#SxSmell

This was an awesome SxSW session where our presenters demoed products that targeted each of the five senses. In marketing we tend to focus on sight and hearing, but our presenters managed to find a few new way to appeal to these senses.

Sight:

1 Tweet=1 Gumball
They put this device under sight, but it definitely had a sound component to it as well. At the front of the room was a gumball machine. Every time someone tweeted the session hashtag, a gumball dispensed. It was instant feedback for the presenters. Any time they brought out something really cool, the gumball machine went crazy.

One presenter said he had one at home. When he's away on business, he tweets candy to his daughter, so she knows dad is thinking about her. Awww, so sweet.

Color Change Straw
Color change anything for that matter. Why contain yourself to static images when you can incorporate items that change visually when your audience interacts with them. And, we can't forget, everyone loves fun straws.

Makerbot: 3D Printing
3D Printing, you ask, how could it be? It is, and it's being used for everything from children's make-your-own-jewelery parties to snap-together housing. The presenters proposed letting your audience upload plans for their own personally give-away trinket and printing them out for trade shows or events.
Lytro Camera
This funky-looking little handheld camera takes pictures that allow you to change the focus after the fact. Who's that blurry guy 10 feet behind the person you meant to photo? Just refocus the picture and you can see. Unlike a conventional camera that captures a single plane of light, the Lytro camera captures the entire light field, which is all the light traveling in every direction in every point in space. Don't ask me any more than that. As far as I'm concerned it's magic.

Tomorrow, I tell you about the sound toys, until then if you could have one of these gadgets for yourself which one would be?

A Brand Fights Back through Social Media

Part 2: Example

2 pm, Friday, March 09, 2012
#authenticbrands

The focus of Branding without Bullshit was how to social media proof your brand. How do you maintain your brand reputation and identity when anyone can launch a social media attack on you. Well, sometimes the tables turn and brands fight back using those same social media tools.

When the Alamo Drafthouse kicked out a movie theater texter, the outraged patron called to rip into them. Instead of apologizing or explaining or getting defensive, the Drafthouse took her voicemail rant and turned it into a PSA that runs prior to their screenings. The video went viral and garnered significant traditional media attention, as well.

This video is uncensored and NSFW. You've been warned.

What do you think of this move? Brave? Stupid? Awesome? All of the above?

Professor Bonnie, Doesn't Get Nerdier Than That

No blog posts in two and a half months? Yeah, that's what happens when you take a second job and get cast in a theater production at the same time.

Beginning this fall, I am an adjunct lecturer in OSU's School of Media and Strategic Communications. So in addition to my normal job, I'm teaching two lectures and one writing lab each week.

It's kind of awesome and kind of terrifying a the same time. My co-teacher and I didn't have a lot of time before the semester to prep (hence the terrifying), but it is all kinds of nerdy fun to teach a college class.

Here are just a few of the totally awesome things about my new job:

• Even though I told them they could call me Bonnie, some of the students call me Professor Cain-Wood. It's all I can do to not laugh at them.
• I'm going to be a complete prezi.com pro by the end of the semester.
• I wrote a syllabus. It was so much fun, nerdy, nerdy fun.
• They are actually paying me to do this. (I would have done it for free. Shh, don't tell)
• They are letting me do it again. I'm already scheduled to teach the class again next semester, and it's going to be so much easier the second time.

You Can't Make This Up: Political Doggie Toys

When you are married to a political scientist certain things come along with the territory, like pop quizzes on Constitutional amendments and pre-election briefings on candidates and questions. Evidently, political themed doggie toys are also included in the package.

You wouldn't think there would be such a variety, but surprisingly there is. Right now, Boogie Woogie has both a stuffed Uncle Sam and squeaky (how appropriate) lobbyist. That's right, a squeaky lobbyist. It's one of her favorites.

We got this one when John was working with the Oklahoma Ethic Commission on gift reform. He couldn't resist it and he still gets a good chuckle every time he goads Boogie to "Get the lobbyist! Get him!"

Laser Cats From Outer Spaaaaaace!

This entry is falling under a new category I am calling "You Can't Make this Stuff Up." One of my friends suggested I start a file. I decide to go one better and blog them. Some will come from my personal life, but I think there will be quite a few blog-appropriate items from work as well.

About a year back, we got a request to design a retirement party invitation. Valerie took the request and passed it on to me. After I stopped laughing, I told her to stop pulling my leg. She insisted she was not. Then I had to laugh all over again. Laughter in the work place is good, right?

The instructions: an e-invite (sure ok), using green if possible (no problem), with cats (hum, ok it's for a librarian), cats with green eyes (do, what?), incorporating these 3 phrases (oh. come. on) and can it look kind of like the cats are saying the phrases (sorry, I don't even know what to do with that).


After a long search for creative commons images of cats with green eyes, I put together what I thought was a nice tasteful invite that met the specs. But, I always like to give more than one option, and I have to admit this request brought out the stinker in me. So I decided to give them just what they asked for: a tacky cat card.

They freaking LOVED it. It was a unanimous vote to use Space Cats as the invite. And then we laughed some more. Space Cats, you will always be a fond memory. You can't make this stuff up.