Why Steve Jobbs hates flash

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/04/why-steve-jobs-hates-flash.html

View photographs of Google head offices around the world

Catalogue Designs: Profile Page

PRP:Artefact#5_Newby Integration

Previous artefacts have provided me with evidence to prove that people are much more willing to participate in Knowledge Management Initiatives when they know the people in the group and have a social support network. This teamed with being a new starter in a creative company myself, has lead me to think about the integration of new starters.

Being new anywhere provides problems such as learning colleagues names, understanding their job roles and the running of the company as a whole. In small companies where there are less than 10 employees this may not be such an issue, but more than this can become 'information overload'.

For my Final Artefact I am proposing to make an online application/website that addresses these issues. Currently I see this as a list of pictures, along with names, job roles and internal contacts such as telephone extensions and email addresses.

A version of this could be added to a company's website for a more personal approach and useful for clients to put a face to a name when in correspondance. I am looking at ways that this could be useful for existing staff and this could shape my 5th Artefact as I have skipped ahead!

PRP: Base Camp

BaseCamp is a online Project Management tool that enables a group of individuals to achieve a understanding of what stage a project is at quickly and efficiently. This is a really good tool for any project, allowing you to share files, set milestones and make to do lists. This could be a much more efficient way of running any project and potentially a more successful alternative to the forum we are currently using to plan our exhibition.

A focus on communication and collaboration. Basecamp brings people together.

Click here for tour

Some free alternatives:

BaseCamp (30 day free trial)

Copper Project(30 day free trial)

Teamwork (free forever) 5MB 2Projects unlimited users

Comindwork 20MB 1 Project

More information available at PM Sherpa

PRP: Artefact4_online chat room

My previous artefact looked into the communication that occurs between people with varying knowledge of one another in a face-to-face scenario.

For Artefact 4 I am interested in how people are much more likely to talk to strangers online compared to face-to-face. Online communication provides a safer, more familiar environment, which can evoking more honesty and also interaction between people that may not know one another.

Currently meetings and an online forum have been set up to facilitate discussion concerning our course exhibition and limited involvement from many of the course members has proved to be an issue.

Combining both of these factors I am curious to see whether staging a exhibition meeting online would help this problem. I found Campfire through participating in a Chat Room set up by Erskine Design.

WHAT IS CAMPFIRE?
Campfire is a web-based group chat tool that lets you set up password-protected chat rooms in just seconds. Invite a client, colleague, or vendor to chat, collaborate, and make decisions. Link to a room on your intranet for internal communications.

Live image previews
Upload a GIF, JPG, or PNG, and it shows up right in the chat room.
(Quite handy when discussing catalogue and website designs)

Jump back in time
Read past chat transcripts anytime you want. Campfire keeps a history.
(This will allow me to analyse the communications that occur)

Basecamp integration
Use Campfire with Basecamp, the leading web-based project collaboration tool.

(If we were to Use BaseCamp this could encourage more participation)

Light box alternative

I have used Lightbox for some time but it does have some limitations. One major one that has caused issues with my Wilder and Wilder website is how its is viewed on smaller screens. This application uses padding at the top of each image. This can be seen as wasted space and to make images accesible to all, they would have to be reduced in size to accomodate the padding.

Lightview provides an alternative. Similar to Lightbox, Lightview allows you to scroll through a gallery of images using previous and next buttons. However, unlike Lightbox, the padding (top/bottom and left/right) is reduced in correlation the the reduction of browser window. It also supports other media such as Flash, Quicktime etc.

Pop Eye
Fancy box

(E)2 Gallery Pro

Catalogue Designs:Front Cover

PRP: Artefact#4

Project innovation through effective Internal Communications

View more presentations from Knowledge Solutions.

This presentaion theorises that more successful and efficient communication can occur using online technologies such as Instant Chat Software. They use an example from a work environment where a group of colleagues have an idea that they think will benefit the company and want to present this to their boss. The online Chat system allows them to share links to articles, video's etc that could be useful to the presentation instantantly rather than waiting for the next day.

Following my 3rd artefact I am going to utilise our Exhibition Meetings to test the theory put forward by this presentation.

Exhibition Meetings are currently being carried out face-to-face in the standardised meeting format. These have been working okay but there have been problems with involving everyone on the course and also getting constructive critism of ideas put forward.

With this in mind I am interested in using online technologies (Chat Room) for our next Exhibition meeting. I am hoping that this will be successfull as all members are affected by this topic of discussion and also by achieving a more detached environment, more honest comments will occur.

PRP: Artefact#3 Research

Today I have read Communication and innovation Implementation by L.A. Fidler and J.D. Johnson. This paper states one main reason for employee's not participating in knowledge management initiatives is due to their own inhibitions: their ideas are 'wrong', could be rejected or misused/exploited.

It suggests that a solution to this problem is in achieving good relationships which act as a social support network.

"Often, the capacity of interpersonal channels to provide social support and enhanced confidence in the outcomes of the innovation can be crucial in innovation implementation."

(L.A. Fidler and J.D. Johnson, 1984)

This is very true and I can draw on this from personal experience. People are more willing to divulge ideas to people they know and trust.

Another paper entitled Stimulating the Potential: Creative Performance and Communication in Innovation Teams by J Kratzer, R Leenders and JML Engelen states that although levels of communication can have a positive affect on team innovation; like most things too it has an optimum and:

"high frequency of communication (more than the necessary minimum) tends to decrease the creative performance of innovative teams"
(J Kratzer, R Leenders and JML Engelen, 2004)

They also suggest that for innovation to be at its peak in a team, all members need to have the same levels of knowledge.

"for each team member it is equally important to be provided with sufficient information."
(.ibid)

Taking into account all these points I am going to select two groups of people. The first: a group of acquaintances and the second: a group strangers. I will set them the same task were possible distractions could occur.

I will time and record both using a video camera. I won't be in the room either but close by to answer any questions and guidance if needed.

My aim is to see if the group of acquaintances get easily distracted or instead want to complete the task quickly so they can get it out of the way. I will also analyse the footage measuring levels of interaction.