On November 20, 2009 I made a presentation at ChangeON, a conference focusing on non-profits internet media, hosted by the Daum Foundation, the charitable arm of the Korean internet portal, Daum Communications. They just posted the video online. My presentation (in Korean) was entitled “UX for Good”, focussing on how internet technologies and social media…
Category: web 2.0
How losing control isn’t that bad
Mister Splashy Pants, a whale named after Greenpeace held a naming competition in 2007 isn’t really news, but Alexis Ohanian, who is a founder of Reddit tells a great story at TED (in 3 minutes no less!) of how social media created a meme, took Greenpeace by surprise, won the competition, Greenpeace ceded control and…
We get our Thursdays from a banana
“We get our Thursdays from a banana” is a quote from a presentation Clay Shirky made at Supernova. In the presentation he also mentions: the Isa Shrine in Japan, Perl, AT&T, community and love. It is also features one of his most famous quote: In the past, we did little things for love and big…
The Geography of UX: Why web user experience in Korea is not about the searchbox
Korean internet culture is unique. Or the internet culture of Northern America is not universal.1 User Experience: my definition If you do an Amazon search for User Experience (UX) you get mostly web design related books. The web has grown so dramatically in the past decade that it is sometimes hard to imagine a time…
The World Bank and Web 2.0
From the World Bank Flickr account Given the size, complexity and issues surrounding the World Bank (not to mention its impossible mandate of “Working for a World Free of Poverty”), it does surprise me how well it does things sometimes. Case in point: the World Bank has a Flickr account! It has over 1,400 photos,…
The Velocity of Web
Last week I was one of 5 speakers invited to an in-house all-day training session at Design House, one of the most prominent design/living publishers in Korea. Design House publishes a variety of well-known Korea magazines titles which include "??? ??? ?" (Korean equivalent of Good Housekeeping), "Design", "Mom & Enfant", "Luxury" and most recently…
Twittering and the Future of Social Networking in Korea
Ever since I moved to Seoul last year, I’ve begun to post to Twitter more regularly. It started as a means to stay in touch and update friends I left behind in the US. I expected people I know to follow my feed, however I really didn’t expect people I didn’t know to become followers….
The Point: Making Things Happen
The Point is a simple website with a clear purpose: making things happen. The way they do it is helping users formulate a campaign statement for action with a clear goal. Users can then choose to participate in the campaign. When the goal is met (or “the point” is tipped), an email is sent to…
The Other Web2.0: Not Business As Usual
Aside from a few companies such as Amazon, Google or Facebook, the value of Web2.0 for the business world is still unclear, and return on investment still seems murky at best. However for the non-profit world, the value of Web2.0 is clear – the more the users are empowered and congregate around interest that they…
Convergence, a defintion
I’ve been struggling to define exactly what “convergence” means in today’s wired world. I think I’ve found the best definition yet. Convergence is sometimes viewed as the consolidation of multiple technologies towards a singular uber-device. I prefer to define convergence as the tendency of technologies, as they grow in complexity and scope, to overlap (and…