Beenovations

Moving To Beehive

2009-11-20T06:13:00.000-08:00

We are closing down this Blogger site and moving our thoughts and ideas to our own domain - you can find our thinking at Think It. Do It.

Google's Super Simple Home Page

2009-11-06T12:43:00.001-08:00

I love simple things. I mean simple functionality and simple visually. Google does some things really right. And other things are not at all as simple as they could be. Sometimes their engineers dominate when their design team should have more influence. (Gmail and AdWords interfaces are both good example of this.) But when Google decided to update its home page, including a version with literally nothing but its logo and a search box, it really worked out well, in my opinion. If I'm going to use Google, I'm going there to do a search. If I want access to my Google Docs or Google Maps or GMail, I'll go directly to docs.google.com or maps.google.com or mail.google.com. One the main google.com page, just give me the search box, man! BTW, if you're not seeing this, just refresh your page and this should be the view, at least for a moment.

My Google Wave Invite Request

2009-10-26T17:06:00.000-07:00

This is the request I just posted to Google. I've already made one request, but thought I'd try again:

I really really really want an invite. I've already filled this form out. And I'm sure this is just putting me at the end of the line. But maybe, just maybe, there's a human who will get this, and feel my sincerity and, in a moment of pure altruistic glee, send me an invite just 'cuz. Please, oh please? If it helps, I will devote my entire life to Google Wave - and possibly sacrifice my second-born child to you. (My first-born is approaching teenager-hood, so she's past prime sacrificing age...)

Restraint

2009-09-30T07:42:00.001-07:00

We're redesigning our web site here at Beehive Media. It will be ready later this fall. As part of that process, we're going to meld this blog into the main site. And I'm going through this content to figure out what pieces of it to bring over to the new site. I'm noticing that I USE ALL CAPS AND EXCLAMATION POINTS TOO MUCH!! I get excited sometimes. I'm passionate about these things, which is why I write about them, even if it's not always that frequent. But I'll take the advice I sometimes give my daughter to "use your words" and describe my excitement rather than show it in CAPS. That is my job as a professional communicator, I suppose. But do forgive me if I sometimes relapse to my old ways.

Time Tracking Bliss

2009-09-22T16:15:00.000-07:00

Do you need to track time for client work? Have you struggled to build your own tools, leverage existing Web 1.0 tools and/or overly complex project management platforms? Have you asked yourself, why can't SOMEONE get this right?!?!?

The time has come to declare a winner, and its name is Harvest. We just converted over to Harvest and I'm loving the web input and reporting, as well as the widget and iPhone app. While the reporting could be more robust and I REALLY wish the estimation was convertible into projects, and that we could estimate jobs using the same task lists as we track projects against, and that reporting showed estimated vs. actual....etc. It is BY FAR the most elegant, simple, quick and complete enough solution out there. Use it!

Poverty is Declining?

2009-09-11T12:45:00.000-07:00

Who knew? World poverty is in decline as a percentage. Does this surprise you?

Simple Screenshot and Image Manipulation Tool

2009-09-04T13:44:00.000-07:00

Here at Beehive Media we love simple solutions. I recently came across a fantastic example of simplicity and needed to share it quickly. If you ever need to create a screenshot of something on your computer, how do you do it? On a Mac, you just hold down CMD-SHIFT-3 or on Windows, you hit "Print Screen" to copy to your clipboard. Then you need to open Photoshop or something, paste, then manipulate the image. Photoshop takes awhile to open, eats up a ton of memory and for a quick and dirty image, is often not worth the trouble. In comes Skitch - a super easy way to take screen shots, mark them up, crop them, highlight things, write text on them, etc. And you can also use photos or any image from your hard drive. You can easily click and drag an image you've made into an email or post it to your personal Skitch page or any other site, via FTP, SFTP or to Flickr, etc. Great tool, easy and fast to use, etc. Thank you @ev for tweeting about it so I could discover this fantastic piece of software!

Europe and Asia-Pacific Forests Growing, Unlike Rest of World

2009-09-02T09:15:00.000-07:00

Map Showing Failed States

2009-09-01T14:12:00.000-07:00

Wow, this is really interesting. Not sure what it means - all of Africa, most of Asia and Latin America are in trouble, according to this. Wonder what this looked like 20 years ago?

Ad Spending Won't Match '08 Till Beyond 2013

2009-09-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

Getting Green Stimulus Right

2009-08-31T14:07:00.000-07:00

Some Great Stats on Cloud Computing, Social Networking & Malicious Threats

2009-08-31T08:29:00.000-07:00

Brand Redemption

2009-08-14T07:04:00.000-07:00

Last night I experienced redemption. Not for myself, but from the other
side of the table...literally. But let me start at the beginning.

My wife and I ate at The White Barn Inn in Kennebunk, Maine, for our anniversary two years ago. The White Barn Inn is the only AAA Five Diamond, Mobil Five Star restaurant in New England. We're talking about the finest of fine dining, top notch service, a refined atmosphere, the works. Needless to say, our expectations were high.

Unfortunately, our expectations could not have been less adequately met. Briefly, the tuna carpaccio was served on a hot plate and was sliced so thin that it pretty much melted and had to be scraped off the plate nano-speck by nano-speck. The lobster bisque tasted bad and had a soggy fritter floating limply at the edge of the bowl. The lobster dinner had an ammonia flavor (a sign of bad lobster) that permeated the entire dish and made every morsel on the plate inedible. This is in Maine, which I have heard is the source of 90% of the world's lobster! We were so disappointed that we left before dessert was served, bringing it back to our hotel with us, where we were equally underwhelmed. My wife and I agreed to never go back, and were not shy about telling people of our experience.

My wife sent a disappointed letter to the White Barn Inn, expressing our dissatisfaction, and we assumed that was the end of it. But someone responded, offering us a gift certificate to come back and try them again. I try to keep an open mind, and even while this was happening, half-assumed their chef must have been on vacation that week and that it couldn't be that bad normally! So we accepted their offer and agreed to come back and try again.

Two years later, we finally had the chance. And our experience couldn't have been more different. Every course was perfectly executed - with sometimes delicate, sometimes kick-you-in-the-face (in a good way) flavors, beautiful presentation, aromas that hit you as soon as the food was delivered, the most perfectly cooked piece of fish I've ever had, etc. I'm no food critic, so I won't even try to describe it, though I will mention the roquefort mousse was indescribably delicious. (That one had a kick-you-in-the-face flavor!)

Anyway, this long post is appropriate here on Beenovation because it's about brand redemption. Beehive Media is a service business. We live and die by our reputation, as do so many of our clients. And we're not the cheapest option out there, like the White Barn Inn, so when we disappoint our clients, I think it stings that much more. This experience has reminded me that you can always accept and admit when things haven't gone well; you can always offer to do something about it; you can always do your best to redeem yourself. And if your audience is open to it, and honest with themselves, they will accept your genuine efforts to change outcomes.

This has also reminded me that at the core, every service business is really at least as much about delivering service as it is about executing on a deliverable. Good execution is assumed. More importantly, you must listen, understand and translate your client's vision, integrate it with your own vision, and make everyone feel as though their problems are being solved, and the experience is a pleasure all along the way. This has helped us for 15 years in business, and I expect that if we live up to these standards, it will help for another 15 years or more.

Browsers, browsers, browsers

2009-06-04T07:20:00.001-07:00

I've written about this before, but with the rise of Chrome and IE8, it deserves another post.

In the course of discussing the difficulties of coding for IE6 (again!), I looked up browser market share statistics.

This table at W3Schools.com is a great resource because it shows a 9 year trend.

Bad news for those tearing their hair out coding for IE6: It took over 4 years for IE5 to move from a 14% share to zero.

Good news for the same folks: IE8 market share is growing much faster than IE7's did (0 to 5.2% within 5 months compared to 0 to 2.5% for IE7 in the same amount of time).

Based on my experience with IE8, it's a much better browser than IE7. I noticed IE7, but I don't notice IE8. My colleague August tells me that "its javascript performance is weak compared to other browsers, but they could easily improve that." Indeed, he'd much "rather be complaining about javascript *SPEED* than rendering bugs and CSS omissions."

Chrome is also growing quickly - not as quickly as IE8, but still a good showing. It's above 5% now, too.

Firefox continues its steady climb (at 47.7% now), Safari holds steady (3%), as does Opera (2%).

The big story, however, is that IE7 and IE6 market share are dropping at the same time that IE8 and Chrome have emerged.

August tells me that Thursday, 13 July 2010 is the last day of support for IE6. I predict it'll be pretty much gone substantially before that.

Are you a Talker or a Listener?

2009-05-14T10:13:00.001-07:00

OK, it's sort of a Sophie's Choice. But I've been thinking a lot about what makes people share things about themselves on Twitter or Facebook that they might not shout across a subway car full of strangers. First, what is the basic personality trait that makes us want to expose ourselves at all? Second, what is the difference between what I might say semi-anonymously on the web vs. what I might say with attribution on the web vs. what I might say in line at Dunkin' Donuts. In fact, it's this last piece that intrigues me the most - the difference between what we share online vs. in the real world, but that's for a later discussion.

If you do a quick review of the Twitter topic #WhyITweet, you get an unsurprisingly large number of people who pretty much admit Tweeting because they like to talk. They are using a legitimate outlet for expression or they are pure narcissists. I won't attempt to assign a reason to it, but am just acknowledging the concept that some people just want to express themselves. But there is a smaller number of people who are doing other things - sharing and listening for trends, conversing with colleagues and strangers, promoting themselves, etc. In the end, though, my own experiences using Twitter seem to suggest that people who like to talk are more likely to use services like this.

OK, you might be thinking, "Duh, Bill, that's no huge insight." But I think it is. In the end, a platform like Twitter will only succeed if there are a lot of people who like to talk (or produce content) AND a lot of people who like to listen (consume content) and that there is a balance between the two. It doesn't have to be 50/50 but if a tree falls in the forest...or if you're Tweeting and no one is listening...

There is a big idea in this seemingly obvious idea and I'm still working on what it means and thinking of the right way to frame the questions to get to good answers. So I've created a poll on PollDaddy to ask this simple question and am curious to see the results. Please take this poll and help me to understand a bit more about the world.

Web 3.0 / Social Web

2009-05-06T14:27:00.000-07:00

Just viewed a very interesting interview with Forrester's Jeremiah Owyang, who just came out with his Social Media Report.

In this interview Owyang talks about 5 eras of social media:

1. Relationships - mature, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.
2. Functionality - nascent, e.g., Facebook apps - but much more to do
3. Colonization - your whole experience is social, e.g, Facebook Connect
4. Context - your social persona provides information to marketers, hopefully a quid pro quo - changes way marketers measure their interaction with you, too.
5. Commerce - power to the people - group-designed products

The list and discussion are here.

Beehive has been thinking hard about issues like this, especially #4 - what happens when your social identity becomes ubiquitous? How do we encourage people to use social media?

Yes, now that Oprah is using Twitter, its visibility is high, but there's still not much return for many potential users.

This relates to browsers, too. Firefox has probably 340 million users. What if it became a social media platform? Click here to see an interesting article. Both Facebook and FF have apps associated with them.

As we design Web 3.0 sites, we'll be able to take advantage of all of this.

How Brands Fail on Twitter - Twiagra Anyone?

2009-03-31T14:22:00.001-07:00

I recently posted a query on Twitter searching for people from a certain company or two or three. I will protect the names here, though it would be easy enough to dig up that information, if you really wanted to look for it. The next morning (no problem there, I posted this in the evening East Coast time, didn't expect an immediate response) I received a tweet back from one of the target companies and two OTHER companies who said they were in the same space. All offered their help. Nice job, guys!

So, I responded to the two competitors outlining the need I have. I am requesting their business. I am describing my need. It's 140 characters, but hey, I'm doing what I can!

Meantime, later that same day, one of the other companies I mentioned in my original post starts to follow me on Twitter. "Hey", I think to myself, "this is good - they're the company that's offering the closest to what I want - can't wait to hear what they have to say!"

I wait and...........nothing. The company that followed me never sent me a message. So I thought, OK, I'll just reach out to them. I already tried emailing them through their web site (they don't list a phone number on their site) and never got a response. I'll try here. So I post three tweets explaining the situation.

The day gets away from me, like it always does, and I find myself checking TweetDeck at 5:30 or so. Lo and behold, of the four companies, all of whom are on Twitter, all of whom took some cursory action to reach out to me in response to a direct request, just one of them replied to my requests for information. And their answer? "Check out our site and let me know if it meets your needs." I asked for them by name. I've probably been to their web site before, no? Maybe it requires some engagement to really find out what I'm looking for.

This is a classic "failure to launch" moment. They're on the right platform, reacting to customers (sort of) but can't close the deal. Talk about Fail Whale!

The old cliche "it happens to everyone" just isn't true. Anyone have some industrial strength Twiagra?

Growing List of Twitter Resources

2009-03-23T13:40:00.001-07:00

Here's a list of Twitter tools and fun things. It is, of course, incomplete, as there are only so many hours in the day, and I do have a day job!

One trend I have noticed is the compilation of tweets by category of tweeter or tweet - executives, expletives, followers, top #followfriday recommendations, etc., etc.

This will be updated!

Download the PDF here. Right-click to save as a file.

IE6

2009-02-24T11:00:00.001-08:00

Here's a great article - and comments - about "The Slow, Lingering Death of IE6."

The first commenter notes that IE6 compatibility can add 25% to the coding budget. I have found this to be too true.

That said, I still use IE6 on one of my computers, so that I can test sites for clients. Only when IE6 is truly dead will I feel that I can move on. Catch-22: then I'm part of the stats saying it's still alive. I wonder how many developers are in the same boat?

So we will continue to advise our clients to upgrade to IE7 (and then 8) and hope that IE6 will soon be a thing of the past.

Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and all that

2009-02-20T11:59:00.000-08:00

I've been diving deep into social networking in the past weeks and learning a lot.

Twitter. The key to Twitter is that to be followed, you have to be informative, helpful or entertaining. Sure, people use it to market themselves, but self-indulgence just leads to "unfollow." I follow Stephen Fry (@stephenfry), who is very witty and tech-savvy. Also Lance Armstrong (@lancearmstrong) because of his cancer survivorship and leadership. He's also witty and informative. My husband wonders why I follow them. Because I can!

Twitter is at its beginnings. So we have opportunities here that we may not have later. To follow celebrities, to be in at the ground floor of something - but most importantly, to shape the community. Already, there are certain standards - like # to signify a topic and @ to signify a tweeter - indeed, the word tweet to signify the 140-character tidbits that are published - that have been generated by the community and adopted by Twitter.

The requirement of being informative, helpful or entertaining is also community-generated. All generate value, as corporations have learned. Twitter is the next generation of customer service (as well as being an example of "flat-earthedness").

Facebook. Okay. I am a baby boomer, and I am on Facebook. I am enjoying it - I'm in touch with old friends, and I get to see what they're up to. We get to have conversations (asynchronous, to be sure), but we're in more communication than we were before we were all on Facebook.

But I, and all my friends, have made Facebook uncool. See Time Magazine's article "Why Facebook is for Old Fogies." As recently as August 2008, blogger Nick O'Neill wondered if Facebook would go the way of Friendster.

The answer is YES. My 16-year-old niece thinks MySpace (which enthralled her for years) and Facebook are booorrrrring. She's moved on to Tumblr.

Tumblr. I'm just starting on Tumblr. And it looks like it's been commodified already. Wine Library's Gary Vaynerchuk is on Tumblr - with an ad asking for followers! But it allows a lot of creativity - not as structured as MySpace or Facebook. You can mash up different media, and so, I think to teenagers, it's a way to creatively express themselves. My brother, who is an artist, has a Tumblr account, too. So even though he's an old fogie, it speaks to his creativity, too.

So it remains - the same as it ever was. People like their friends, they like helpful people, they like useful information, they like to be entertained, they like novelty, and they like to be creative. What a great time we live in, that we have so many avenues for all of this.

Aggregate & Identify Me, Please!

2009-02-13T07:49:00.000-08:00

Remember way back when, when you had to sign up, register, fill out a profile, pick a user name and password and add "friends" and "link in" and.....over and over and over again at every site you visited? Whether a social networking site or an e-commerce site or just a web forum. Everywhere required unique identities and profiles. What a pain! Wait a second, that wasn't way back when, it's still like that now!

Well, OK, there are some solutions floating around out there that do a variety of things such as creating a single sign-on or aggregating your social media profiles or creating an "attention" profile that can be re-used. Here are some of the players:

OpenID
ClaimID
APML
Windows CardSpace
Higgins
Sxipper
FriendFeed
Profilactic
etc.
etc.
etc.

When will someone win this battle already? I need a single place to do my "social media'ing" and I need a single sign-on and a single profile to manage. Where is the innovation - or really, the perfect evolution - for this need? C'mon, it's 2009 already!

Now some of you may say, "OK, Bill, if it's such a need, why don't you fix it, tough guy? All talk and no action, you bum!" Well, that's fair. And all I can say is that we recognize there are some big players out there in the consolidated identity space (like OpenID) and the social media aggregation space (like FriendFeed) and we want ONE of them to win. Because then, our new big idea, which will be announced at a later date, will have a good partner to work with. Yes, this plea is totally self-serving - we have an identity/social media platform we're developing that will be SOOOOOO much better if someone can figure out the other stuff. And we're not interested in being that someone right now.

There you go - my rant for the day. Well, considering how often I write posts here, it could be my rant for the month.

Google Earth...or is it Google Ocean?

2009-02-11T17:16:00.000-08:00

Google innovates. Yes, it's true. They create, or buy companies that have created, some of the coolest things in technology. In case you didn't know.

I first saw the precursor to Google Earth (or maybe it was another company's attempt at something similar) in Davos at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in 2001. Yes, long before Google Earth ever appeared, I saw a mind-blowing application that allowed you to see satellite photography from around the world and zoom in to view just about anyplace on earth at very low altitudes. It was, and remains, one of the most awe-inspiring applications in technology, in my opinion.

And now, with the release of Google Earth 5.0, we get to take a peek at the ocean's depths. It would be silly to try to describe the experience of "flying" along the Mariana Trench when you can just download it and try it yourself.

My company, Beehive Media, created the first-ever Flash integration using the Google Earth API, which incorporated Flash, video and all kinds of rich media and interactivity overlaid on top of AND controlling Google Earth. I can't wait to experiment with 5.0 and start playing in the water!

Picasa for Mac!!!

2009-01-13T17:29:00.000-08:00

Beehive Media used to occupy space in the Boston office of IdeaLab! (the exclamation point was part of their logo - it's not that this sentence is so exciting.) IdeaLab! was an incubator, and one of its companies had created this great software program called Picasa. It was the best digital photo management software I had ever seen, by far. With incredibly intuitive interfaces, slick import management, fantastic and easy to use photo manipulation, for those who aren't Photoshop gods, etc., it blew away the competition.

At the time, I was primarily using PCs. But about three years ago I made the permanent switch to Mac (primarily because I can still run Parallels and run XP when I need to.) But I was so depressed to find that Picasa wasn't available on the Mac. So I tried other programs - free ones, paid ones, etc. I settled on iPhoto because it was free and didn't suck too bad. But I cursed it on a regular basis.

Lo and behold, the company was bought by Google a few years back. I figured, OK, now the Mac version HAS to come, but noooooooooo. But now, with the announcement at MacWorld, I can finally, thrillingly, use Picasa again. This product was an innovation (or an elegant evolution, I guess) at the time it came out and, amazingly, still owns the photo management space - kicking butt over anything I've seen. That is what I call a beenovation!

http://picasa.google.com

Everytweet.com

2008-11-15T19:31:00.001-08:00

I spent my Saturday experimenting with Twitter, JQuery and PHP. I've been feeling the sublime pull of Twitter and was thinking that there was something mesmerizing about the world's thoughts floating through the ether in <140 characters at a time. And I wondered what the experience would be to just sit and watch it pass. While I could easily get to all public tweets at Twitter, I thought that just seeing them one a time for just long enough to read them would be somehow more powerful. And I think I was right.

Go to Everytweet and just sit and watch and read for a few minutes. It will make you think. I think.

Dubai is the Ultimate Innovation

2008-11-04T14:24:00.000-08:00

Beehive Media has been doing business in Dubai for nearly three years. I have worked with real estate developers, the Government, and the foundation established by Sheikh Mohammed himself. I have seen the city grow in that short amount of time and have witnessed at fairly close proximity the strategic vision, targeted initiatives and successful execution of tactics to turn a city in the desert into the center of the world.

While mistakes have been made, and there are problems in Dubai, the amazing thing is that it has started to become what it was envisioned to be. I have not been to anywhere with a more cosmopolitan mix of people, with a vision as grand or with an energy for business that is greater than Dubai. Every time I go, I am impressed with progress, both seen and unseen.

While I don't know that I would want to call Dubai home, it is worthy of the attention and wonder it has received in recent years. Recently I was able to visit Palm Jumeirah - one of the man-made mega-projects rising from the Gulf. It is a wonder to behold and awe-inspiring to see what man can create. Ignoring ecological issues, it is breathtaking. I was even able to witness it being worked on - one rock at a time being placed by a crane on the outer barrier.

Truly remarkable.

Memoires in Dubai

2008-11-04T14:22:00.000-08:00

There is a store in Wafi City, a mall in Dubai, that houses the most bizarre and original retail experience I have ever witnessed. Memoires is like walking into a Pottery Barn if it were designed and stocked by Tim Burton after he had dropped 5 hits of acid. I strongly recommend that if you find yourself in Dubai and you're looking for something new, go there. It is truly unique.

Empires are Bubbles

2008-11-04T14:20:00.000-08:00

OK, this isn't so much an innovation as an observation. I was thinking about why some empires crumble dramatically, leaving failed states and cultures in their wake (sometimes leading to the collapse of the founding state/culture), while others sometimes retract calmly and deliberately without destroying the heart of the empire (think the UK.) So, it seems, empires, are sometimes like bubbles. I have no idea if this is an original observation, but I've been thinking about it for several days and it feels like there's something there.

Mass High Tech Citizenship Award Winner!

2008-10-17T09:26:00.000-07:00

I am extremely proud to announce that Beehive Media is a 2008 Tech Citizenship Award winner. This award, presented by Mass High Tech, recognizes "22 technology companies in New England that have excelled at giving back to their communities." Being one of just a handful of small companies on that list is especially gratifying.

We redesigned, rebuilt and maintain the web site for Project Just Because, a non-profit serving needy families throughout Metro West. This organization is truly a front-lines service organization helping those most in need without barriers and without bureaucracy and we are very proud of our ability to help them succeed. Since launching the web site, they have grown tremendously and attribute a large amount of that growth to the web site.

Hot Drinks, Cool Hands

2008-09-23T17:31:00.000-07:00

I LOVE product design. And I truly love this particular solution to a simple but common and heretofore not well-solved issue.

http://www.stephenreed.net/products_ceramic_cup_2.html

Innovation is Over-Rated

2008-09-23T17:22:00.000-07:00

Despite the title of this blog, I couldn't agree more with this article in the Harvard Business Review:

http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/berkun/2008/07/why-innovation-is-overrated.html

Innovation isn't really the point - solving problems is. So ignore our title, we mean what he means!! :)

Multi-touch display - on a sphere!

2008-08-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

Multi-touch displays are one of the great innovations of the past couple of years. The ability to zoom and/or scale objects by simply pinching or spreading two fingers across a display is an incredibly intuitive and useful feature. I use it constantly on my iPhone and I can't wait till I have a laptop and/or Minority Report-like computer to do the same. When Microsoft announced its Surface tabletop display, it was an exciting moment for us. We have had several clients who we feel can use these displays though we have yet to implement it for anyone. Our real estate clients in Abu Dhabi and Dubai are likely to use them for events or sales centers. And our Knowledge and Innovation clients will use them for conferences and presentations.

And now, along comes something that pushes it all to a new level. Microsoft has announced a multi-touch display in the shape of a sphere!

We built a Google Earth and Flash application (first in the world mashup of Flash and Google Earth, according to Google) for a client in Abu Dhabi for which this would be perfect! Imagine, you see the Earth - on a sphere! You zoom into Abu Dhabi. You see a 3D city being built on an island. You zoom in and fly around and watch videos and.....I think I better hop on the phone now with them!

My External Brain

2008-06-27T12:01:00.000-07:00

Whether it's my reliance on gadgets (iPhone, computer, etc.) or the hyper information overload of our times or the outcome of the activities of my youth ('nuff said) or just a genetic reality....I have a terrible short-term memory. Actually, my long-term memory ain't so hot either. Not for the important things - things that I really KNOW and have to KNOW, I really KNOW. But as I come across interesting things, information, research, helpful tips, etc., if I want to capture them, I have previously relied on my gadgets. But bookmarking a web site, copy/pasteing into a document, using digg or deli.cio.us, etc., have only taken things so far. I just came across the next level.

Evernote!

This is a software application (Windows and Mac) and a web tool that allows you to quickly and easily save snippets of information from your clipboard or entire web pages to a centralized spot. More importantly, all of the info is searchable, including text within images - supposedly even HANDWRITTEN NOTES!! While this all sounds too good to be true, the video demo is inspiring. I've just signed up and am testing it out - so far, so good!

As the founder refers to it, this is like having an external brain - something to keep track of everything you need. Just what the doctor ordered!

Evernote

Seeing Context and Scale in these Sublime Photos

2008-06-12T16:37:00.001-07:00

This is a fascinating set of super high resolution photos from Chris Jordan. They consist of some interesting environmental and political statements using very interesting photos that must be amazing to see in person - one is 10X23 feet in real life. But the interactive zoom feature works pretty well. They do an amazing job making big scale issues understandable in a visual way. This is data visualization done in a compelling and artistic fashion.

Chris Jordan Photos

Copy/Paste/Paste/Paste/Forget/Find/Paste/Paste FOREVER

2008-06-09T15:47:00.001-07:00

As the web site says "Have you ever copied a link to a webpage and couldn't for the life of you remember the link later on?" This tool fixes that - download and install this app and it will remember everything you copy/paste and post it online for retreival and/or sharing. Great idea! And it is a solution to a very specific problem.

controlc.com

Stop Motion Animation of All Kinds Rocks!

2008-06-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

This stop animation created in Buenos Aires and Baden is a mind-blower both in terms of the execution, the artistry and the visual language. Not quite sure what is being said here, but I was mesmerized.

Animation from the Walls of Buenos Aires and Baden

Claymation Rocks!

2008-06-07T10:23:00.001-07:00

This is a fantastic claymation ad - completely captures the imagination and is a fantastic example of claymation and time-lapse.

Claymation Ad

The Power of Wii

2008-06-07T09:35:00.000-07:00

They say "we" are smarter than "me". And Wii is super smarty pants. (They say that, right?)

Multiple cool uses for the Wii remote - incredible hacks - like a Wii whiteboard and Wii head tracking!

Wii Hacks

Browser Testing for Web Development

2008-06-07T08:13:00.000-07:00

You can download and install a million and one different browsers on your various PCs & Macs OR you can run a simulator (how reliable are they) OR you can try this out:

browsershots.org

The Ultimate Time Suckers

2008-06-07T08:11:00.000-07:00

Watch your life tick by.

Timeline
Analog/Digital Clock

Different Interface

2008-06-07T07:19:00.001-07:00

This has been around for awhile but is worth thinking about - interacting around the web without clicking. Not quite the right solution, in my mind, but the problem needing addressing is legitimate. The mouse is outdated!

www.dontclick.it

Clarity in Projects

2008-06-07T06:50:00.000-07:00

What is the biggest problem in every project that goes wrong? Every single time! C'mon people! It's communication, right? I thought you said "this". You were thinking "that". I didn't emphasize "x" strongly enough. Your boss was expecting "y". This cartoon sums this up to a T.

Bad Project Communications

We Love Maps & We Love Information

2008-06-06T15:00:00.000-07:00

Thank you Google for making maps cool again! (Were they ever not cool?) Well, thank you for putting them in front of the world in such a big way!

We have built a mashup of Google Earth and Flash and we're always looking for interesting ways to use maps to tell stories. We built a series of interactive maps for the Arab Strategy Forum in Dubai in 2006 (using Flash.) AND we're working on a video right now for the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Foundation that uses extruded maps to tell data stories.

Here is a great Google Maps mashup:

Wikimapia

Puts EVERYTHING into perspective

2008-06-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

perspective

Visual Thesaurus meets Pandora

2008-06-06T14:41:00.000-07:00

This is a very good idea, with some decently executed Flash but overall I'm a bit disappointed with the user experience. It falls a bit flat and I'm left feeling the visuals are just eye candy, not really serving a purpose. But I want them to serve a purpose like in the Visual Thesaurus. I WANT the lines to join things in a meaningful way, and the related music to be related in an understandable way. Being able to pick "positive" v. "dark" or "energetic" v. "calm" is also interesting. It's a nice place to listen to music but doesn't wow me with the UI.

Musicovery.com

Micro Finance Meets Personal Lending

2008-06-06T14:38:00.001-07:00

If you like Prosper and you like the idea of micro finance.....

Kiva

Seems like a great idea - the kind of thing that can really change the world.

Solid State Drives We Can Live With!

2008-06-06T14:29:00.001-07:00

Finally - another vast leap in hard drives is coming!! This article says we'll have affordable, giant solid state drives SOON! (Like in a couple/few years.) This will make a lot of things we do better and easier - carry an entire small business' worth of data on a thumb drive! Carry massive amounts of video everywhere you go. Can you say 1,000,000 songs in your pocket?

Solid State Drives of the Future

Simple Software

2008-06-05T17:55:00.000-07:00

Many of you have probably read about or used simple software. There is a long-standing debate - would you prefer a simple solution that includes fewer features or bloatware that has 10X what you need? The answer is that everyone wants simple features but the problem is that not everyone agrees on what those features should be, which the software companies then react to, developing bloatware to appeal to everyone. 37Signals has done a great job balancing this need to satisfy the need while delivering simplicity. I use their mini-CRM, Highrise, and their project management tool, Basecamp. Like most users, I have some grips - where is my Entourage Sync?!?!?....and why can't I forward email and assign it to someone OTHER than the original sender's contact info?!?!? But overall, the user experience and feature sets are excellent. And they offer an API, so theoretically, someone could fix the Highrise Entourage sync deficiency. Hell, maybe Beehive Media will look into creating a solution to make Highrise sync with Entourage!

Design and the Elastic Mind at MOMA

2008-03-10T08:54:00.000-07:00

http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/

This is a very interesting website with lots of cool links. To me, though, it is impossible to navigate.

Problems:
How do I actually read what's in each blurb?
How can I get the little bubble to disappear?
Is there any rhyme or reason to the navigation within each section?

This is cool for cool's sake, I think.

Big Ideas for a Small Planet

2007-10-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is a great site. And if you haven’t seen this series, it’s fantastic. You can download any episode for $1.99… Watch the trailers by going to:

http://www.sundancechannel.com/films/500198031

Fulfilling the Promise of the Internet ......

2007-10-01T06:25:00.001-07:00

Did you ever read something on the web that didn't agree with you? Maybe your bank account balance is too low. Perhaps the media is obsessing about Brittany Spears. Or maybe you're sick of looking at the website you're developing. You want to do something about it? Here is your zen:

http://www.netdisaster.com/

The Future of Design

2007-09-06T07:23:00.000-07:00

Interesting issue of HOW Magazine (August 2007) out right now and here are some responses to the future of design and where we're going and how we'll need to rely on where we've been to do so.

Article

Get Inspired! Go TED.

2007-08-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched an inspiring and powerful documentary about the TED conference. What a terrific gathering of amazing minds. The conference brings these people together once a year over 3 days where they share their bold ideas on changing the world. (Yes, far more bold than Eric's audio recordings if you can imagine!) I strongly recommend checking out the conference's website: www.ted.com

While watching this movie, I couldn't help but think that this is the perfect place for Beehive. We need to figure out how we can get involved! Sustainable Cities, Knowledge Concierge, SO many possibilities. You can download (thanks Netlfix!) or rent the movie, here's the link.

Netflix

If you don't want to watch the whole movie, you can download and watch ALL the amazing speakers online thanks to Adobe. For instance, here's one on Virtual Earth:
Virtual Earth

Check it out, I promise you will be inspired!

The Big Dig House

2007-08-21T11:26:00.001-07:00

Check out the design firm that used 600,000 lbs of salvaged materials (steel structures, roadway panels, etc) from the multi million dollar Boston Big Dig Project.

http://www.singlespeeddesign.com/works/residential/bigdighouse/

iPhone, baby!

2007-08-13T07:21:00.000-07:00

Let me say it loudly - I LOVE MY IPHONE!!! I've had several smart-phones - Kyocera and Palm TREOs - and each one had its problems, some of them quite severe. I've also had many computers and various other gadgets over the years. All I can say is that the iPhone is BY FAR the best first-generation product I have ever owned. I've only had the iPhone for a week but I couldn't be happier. The interface and software cannot be beaten and the minor issues I look forward to improvements on (volume, delete process for emails, true exchange sync, copy/paste, etc.) are all FAR OUTWEIGHED by the incredible elegance and reliability of this device. AT&T service is terrible, but if you are already suffering with it (as I was), I highly recommend the iPhone.

WHAT IS GOOD:
-- sensor that disables the touchscreen when the phone is at my ear
-- google maps animate/zoom when going through directions (zooms out to show you perspective, animates to show sections)
-- earphones with built-in mic are simple, elegant and stay in my ear better than other ipod earphones I've had
-- visual navigation of albums in ipod
-- sensor for vertical/horizontal web nav/photos/etc. - auto-rotates display in both directions
-- multitouch for zoom using two fingers (on maps, photos, web, etc.)
-- contacts - click to call/email/google maps automatically
-- scroll - fling for long list scan, slow movement for nudge, built-in letter navigation to get to contacts lower in list
-- keyboard - knows where the center of my fat fingers are, so even though the keys are small, I rarely miss my letter; adjusts keyboard for usage (adds "@" key as option when addressing an email, adds ".com" and "/" keys when putting in URL, etc.)
-- visual voicemail - FINALLY non-linear voicemail that I'm able to prioritize!
-- reordering favorites list works well - didn't know how to do it at first, but figured it out
-- WI-FI works great, if a bit slow
-- form factor & weight are perfection

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT:
-- copy/paste is missing!
-- cannot search the device though finding contacts, for instance, is still faster by flinging through contacts than when I used to search in my treo (that was SLOW)
-- deleting email (multiple delete is needed!)
-- volume (ipod volume is OK, but phone volume is low - only a problem when in noisy environment but STILL)

Peer-to-peer money

2007-08-06T07:43:00.000-07:00

Peer-to-peer online marketplaces for borrowing and lending money that cut out the banks:

http://www.zopa.com (available in the US soon)

http://www.prosper.com

New technology for cooling, social networking, and maps

2007-08-06T07:42:00.000-07:00

This is a multi-part beenovation:

Bee-ing Green
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2004-07-23-kantor_x.htm
http://www.benjerry.com/assets/flash/our_company/sounds_cool/soundsCool.cfm

Social Buzz
http://twitter.com/public_timeline
http://www.flickr.com/map

Map Stuff
http://www.flashearth.com/

Learning
http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/article.asp?SCID=14&CIID=82898&p=1

The 7 (new) Wonders in 3D

2007-07-15T19:44:00.001-07:00

The New 7 Wonders of the Worldwere announced at a ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal on Saturday, July 7, 2007 - 07.07.07

This site includes an archive of hundreds of 360 degree panoramic images which have been stitched together and are streamed via QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR).

I tried to find images like these integrated with Google Earth, but all of the placemark links seem to be 2D! It would be amazing to embed a QTVR inset into GE mapped to each location.

For more info on how these images are created, click here.

Paintjam

2007-07-09T09:22:00.000-07:00

I love portraiture - the ability to capture someone's face and, in the best examples, their spirit, in a single drawing or painting. And to do it as part of a performance - in such a short timeframe - is just cool! This isn't an innovation, per se, just a really interesting experience to sit back and enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIJtKxdRQzY

2007-07-03T06:24:00.000-07:00

Etsy.com has a navigation system with many innovative options for finding products listed on the site. While it has the usual list of product categories, such as "Candles" or "Quilts", it also allows for more right-brained/creative searches by color, user-created and compiled themes (such as "grass" or "hamburger" related items), or by geographical location.

Not to mention most of the search option interfaces are completely mesmerizing.

Michelinman.com attempts a similarly creative navigation. To learn about how Michelin is doing its part to save the environment, users must travel to the amazing 3d online compound of the Michelin men and search around buildings for more information. This makes the interface fun, and the 3d work is amazingly done but it's still overkill when they only have information about tires.

Unique Navigations/Concepts via the Webbys

2007-06-30T23:33:00.000-07:00

I found these Beenovations via The Webby Awards website. The first 2 (IKEA and Peroni) are notable for their creative navigation with a 3D perspective. The other one is interesting navigation and in general an interesting concept in compiling how people around the world are feeling.

http://demo.fb.se/e/ikea/dreamkitchen/site/default.html

http://www.peroniitaly.com/gb/flash.html

http://www.wefeelfine.org/

3D Modeling

2007-06-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

What struck me was the idea that kids are already working in 3D with Cosmic Blobs - and then when you think about 3D printers - wow! There are possible applications for construction - and for our visualization exercises.

http://www.innovateforum.com/innovate/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=431582

http://www.cosmicblobs.com/index.html

http://www.innovateforum.com/innovate/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=428334

http://www.innovateforum.com/innovate/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=424192

Spore

2007-06-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

This is one of many videos of Will Wright's (SimCity, etc.) new game that is slated to be released next year. It shows a demo of the program at E3 and shows you how the program goes from a single-celled organism to an intergalactic sandbox. Pretty amazing and way, way beyond the state of the art.

Anyone finding cooler or higher-res examples please send them to me.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8372603330420559198

The Importance of Color

2007-06-22T08:54:00.000-07:00

As a company where design is central to what we do, we are always considering so many things - user experience, brand, aesthetics, etc. And color is one of those choices that get made no mater how strong a brand direction we begin with. Coming up with a palette that just clicks can be a challenge for those of us who are not color theorists! When I came across this site, I was impressed with the simple idea - trust nature to provide palettes the eye will find pleasing. There are some surprising examples here and it got me thinking about what other ways nature can influence our work.....

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/06/01/colorful-beauty-in-nature-butterflies/

Introducing Beenovations!

2007-06-22T08:51:00.001-07:00

Beehive Media is a company in Boston focused on leveraging technology for knowledge and innovation. We build web applications and creative solutions to help leaders and the world at large solve global problems collaboratively. As part of our internal process, we meet weekly and every week we ask one employee to show off something cool. Whether it's a project we've done, something found on the web or something completely out of left field, it's an opportunity for us to showcase what's on our mind, what's helping us solve problems and address client needs every day.