Toronto Catastrophe Slam part of Digifest 2008 – Toronto Catastrophe Slam part of Digifest 2008
Toronto Catastrophe Slam part of Digifest 2008 – Toronto Catastrophe Slam part of Digifest 2008:
Archive for March, 2008
1938Media brings us the TechRooster. It’s nice to have another Fowl Mouth around.
I would really love to see more of the Tech Rooster so everyone should go support him at 1938media.
Announcing 30 public slots for the TORONTO CATASTROPHE SLAM – part of Digifest 2008 – Ontario Science Centre – Sunday, March 30, 2008
Hey everyone I just wanted to invite people to participate in the TORONTO CATASTROPHE (design) SLAM "a day of dialogue over Toronto disaster scenarios".
This event is part of Digifest 2008 ( http://www.dx.org/digifest/ )
ONTARIO SCIENCE CENTRE -Sunday, March 30, 2008
THE TORONTO CATASTROPHE SLAM
"a day of dialogue over Toronto disaster
scenarios".
Be part of this unique day of dialogue and challenge for academics, students, professionals, not-for-profit and the public. The purpose of this event is to exchange knowledge and ideas with others on the topic of catastrophe, disaster and emergency. This is a rare multidisciplinary engagement that will include informative keynotes and participatory challenges that will be designed to examine scenarios including a Natural Disaster scenario, a Health Epidemic and a Security Crisis. For more info on the Catastrophe Slam check out http://digifest2008.wik.is/
WHAT IS A DESIGN SLAM
A Design Slam is where we have a fictitious group of stakeholders present a problem to groups "consultants". We will form these groups randomly at the beginning of the event. These ingenious and innovative people will have a set block of time to design and pitch their idea to the stakeholders.
We have 30 slots that we are opening up for free public registration to the Catastrophe Slam but I encourage you to check out the entire 3 day Digifest event for $25.
You can register for digifest here: http://www.dx.org/digifest/register.html
BUT if you want to sign up for the Catastrophe Slam only head over to
http://digifest2008.wik.is/
1. Create an Account on the Wiki.
2. Sign Up for the event on the signup page. No Charge
It should be a really great day we have some great people coming out to this event and it is a unique space to play in.
Mix08 Keynote and my concerns around the effects of Microsoft embracing design
So the keynote at Mix08 was awesome. The demos always impress. Ray Ozzie is kinda dull. Sorry. Dull.
Watch the keynote from the Visit Mix site. It is a great show.
Now for my concerns… :-)
While I really appreciate the desire to enhance the designer’s toolkit with controls that can be used as building blocks in the foundations of our applications I am concerned about potential to abuse. I truly believe that Microsoft is doing it’s best to embrace designers but I wonder if developers will inadvertently take this work and corrupt or commoditize the value that good design can bring to a project.
I am a little fearful of carousel controls and Deep Zoom (Sea Dragon) everywhere when the effort to do these types of interfaces becomes effectively none. They say God is in the details so while I applaud the desire to have people do less grunt work and focus on adding value to a project. Do not lose sight of the details . Developers you can’t always do it all, consult a designer, Business Owners your developers can’t always do it all, consult a designer.
Good design is not a feature it is a pillar of the success of your product.
Oh and here is a picture by Betsy of Bryce singing on the RockBand Stage, sober to boot.
Hereos Happen Here – The big launch in Toronto
So the largest Microsoft Product launch of this year rolled through hogtown last week and I was there to be part of the spectacle. Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s Chief Operating Officer, was there to take us through the exciting news. You know there is nothing like a big product launch and I’m sorry but I still find them exciting .
HEROES HAPPEN {HERE} was not only about Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 it was about celebrating the people who keep things running.
It is often easy to forget about the people that maintain the systems we expect to be running (except when the sky falls) when we are so focused on new and shiny technologies and systems.
Microsoft acknowledges that making maintenance simpler and more agile so that IT staff can focus on solving problems and add real value is what everyone wants whether you are an IT professional or the business that hires IT professionals. They call this strategy Dynamic IT.
Kevin told us a story of two heroes.
Now, let me tell you a story. I want to tell you about a couple of heroes, just to bring this theme of this launch to life. And I want to start by telling you imagine it’s November 12th, 1999, and you’re in Istanbul, Turkey. And it’s the middle of the night, and an earthquake hits, 7.2 on the Richter scale. So you get in a doorway with all your family, buildings are shaking and collapsing around you, and all of a sudden all the lights go out and it’s completely dark. After several hours, the shaking and the crumbling stops. You somehow find a way to make it outside. When you finally get outside, you look around and it’s total devastation all around you.
Now, most of us can only imagine this, but this was the reality for Omer Celik. Along with everyone else in the region, they had to live and eat in the streets for five days before help arrived.
This challenging time, that five-day period, sparked an idea, an idea that Omer said, you know what, there’s got to be something we can do with technology.
So, he wanted to create something that could help tell rescue crews what was going on in the areas that they couldn’t reach or get to, somehow create a tool that would allow them to see just what they were facing and where help was needed right away.
So, over the next 24 months he and a friend partnered, and it’s his childhood friend, Oguz they’ve been friends since they were 10 years old, they partnered and using Microsoft Robotics Studio, Visual Studio 2008, which we’re going to talk about, Virtual Earth, Windows Server 2008, with IIS 7.0 and Silverlight, they’ve created something called RoboTurk a robotic helicopter used in disaster situations to fly into areas that are so badly damaged so that you can stream video back to the rescue crews, so that rescue crews can get real time feedback on who and where they need to provide help.
Now, Omer and Oguz are two developers, but they’re also two developers who decided to make a difference, and they’re heroes, and we’re celebrating them today, because today the Turkish government and Microsoft are investing with Omer and Oguz to bring this technology mainstream.
That is so cool. I need to get more info on that soon. I have been doing a bit of research lately into how technology can help in catastrophic situations and there is some fascinating work being done. I know it sounds cheesy but if anyone has ever worked with a government agency or body you know that they can be a little slow sometimes. Work like RoboTurk and projects like JEPRS from Infusion are like very exciting because in an emergency time is of the essence.
Here are some photos of some Heroes.
