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Author Archive

Mar
15
Creative
The Garbage Can.
by Megan Mally, Digital Media Art Director

I’ve attended several sessions here at SXSW about design, designing for good and how simple design and communication can and should play a larger role in facilitating change.  And how a simple word, or illustration, or small interactive action can resonate with someone when a long-winded, over explanation is forgotten.

I’d like to try another little experiment and find out if you see the same thing that I saw and that I found so compelling about (yes!) the garbage cans littered about the convention center.

And when you see it, what did you think about or visualize even if it was for 2 seconds?

(The first one to answer wins the copyrights to all of my photos of garbage cans I’ve been shooting … kidding, kidding. Actually I’m not. If you want them, they’re yours!)

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Mar
12
South by Southwest 2010
The Great South by Southwest Local Food Experiment.
by Megan Mally, Digital Media Art Director

Twitter 2, Google 0

I’m curious, Austin… Where can I get faster and better quality local food recommendations: From google or through twitter? Or by some new mind reading technology yet to be revealed at a SXSW Keynote?

This morning I spent several minutes googling ‘local food in austin’, ‘eating local in austin’ and a few others so I could start making a good list. I got a few articles, some decent directory websites and several sites that pointed me to other directory websites which in the end felt like a wild goose chase. I gave up quickly because I wasn’t finding what I was looking for. I also wasn’t in the mood to sift through Yelp reviews or anything like that, I just wanted someone to tell me what wanted to know. And right now with very little effort.

While I was sitting here thinking of other clever ways to reword ‘where to eat local food in austin’ the little annoying black twitter box caught my eye and I thought: aha! That’s what I rely on for good Pittsburgh info: The Tweet Deck. While I don’t care so much what twitter-ers are doing every 5 minutes (sorry) I have found some of the best Pittsburgh restaurant reco’s, events, and resources through twitter and actually find the app less of a fad and more of a legitimate way to connect people to the information they want, faster. I can ask people (who’s opinion I might trust based on the links they provide through twitter) to give me recommendations instantaneously. If I tag the right words I might snag some random person who can just answer my question. Or I might stumble upon someone with a great blog whose google entry would be on page 27 had I done a google search for ‘local austin food’.

For me, as a user, blogger and digital art director, this question is bigger than ‘where it the best locally sourced vegetarian burrito’ but more about understanding how to get people legitimate, quality information in a non-time wasting fashion. And trust me, I HATE wasting time so that one counts a lot. And just as a blogger (and I suppose as user as well) its incredibly frustrating to see the layers of dead blogs, mis-informed directories, and just crummy content float to the top on a typical google search, especially if you think you might have something better to offer but can’t reach the searchers.

So now I’m just curious. Which is it? Can google read my mind or will Twitter present me with a better information path to the best locally sourced vegetarian burrito. Inquiring minds, man. Inquiring minds want to know.

Here’s my tally so far. I’m keeping one during my stay.

Twitter 2, Google 0

DM me at @meganmally  if you have any fantastic suggestions and you found this through twitter.

Email me: mmally@brunnerworks.com if you found this through a site search.

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Apr
17
Customer Service, General, Usability
Please don’t hesitate to reply to this blog.
by Megan Mally, Digital Media Art Director

Here’s why I like Nordstrom’s online Customer Service. One simple line. ‘please don’t hesitate to reply to this email’

nordstom2

How often do you see that on a computer generated response? Ummm…. Never? But isn’t clicking ‘Reply’ a natural response when you have a comment, question or concern? I think so. Additionally you’re not spending annoying time tracking down the correct support or contact us email, the right 1-800 number, deciding on the correct menu choice in the complicated phone tree, or locating the most efficient department to handle your issue — they’ll do that for you.

Smart, simple and doing something small but effective to make it easier for the customer rather than the company.

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Mar
26
South by Southwest 2009
SXSW By Moleskine Pocket Notebook
by Megan Mally, Digital Media Art Director

moleskin_sxsw

If the podcasts, vidcasts, slideshows and tweet-a-thons aren’t doing it for you then you perhaps you can capture the essence of SXSW 2009 via Moleskine Sketchbook … via Flickr! I guess it’s hard to resist staying purely analog.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rohdesign/sets/72157615703262704/

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Mar
23
South by Southwest 2009
Meg’s Post SXSW Round Up
by Megan Mally, Digital Media Art Director

While they are still fresh in my brain I thought I’d post some podcasts and videocasts of a few of my favorite talks of SXSW.

You can find a bunch of the SXSW Podcasts here: http://sxsw.com/interactive/

My personal favorites from this list are:
–Opening Remarks: Tony Hsieh; CEO of Zappos.com
–Tips For Making Ideas Happen

And you can find a bunch of SXSW Videos here: http://www.youtube.com/sxsw

My personal favorites from this list are:
–SXSW 2009 - Opening Remarks: Tony Hsieh pt.1
–SXSW 2009 - Opening Remarks: Tony Hsieh pt.2  (This  is the same as the podcast but maybe you like video better!)
–SXSW 2009 - Design for the Wisdom of Crowds

This is the website for Derek Powazek who gave the ‘Design for the Wisdom of Crowds’ talk.  Besides having neat-o things to say he’s just an awesome presenter so its definitely worth watching.

AND If you have an insane amount of time you can follow every single thought of everyone attending in 140 characters or less: The SXSW Tweet-a-thon

As I find more I’ll post them!

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Mar
17
South by Southwest 2009
My Lack of Efficient Technology. Liberating or Debilitating?
by Megan Mally, Digital Media Art Director

My 17″ Powerbook will turn 6 years old this October.  It has 3 layers of scotch tape where the clasp has been broken for the last 4 and the battery runs out after 3 minutes.  I left my power cord in the hotel room this past Saturday so I walked around SXSW all day with an 8 pound mistake.  My camera, while very nice and I love it, is …… gigantic.  I can’t really take both with me. I have neither an iPhone nor a Blackberry.  I feel like *gasp* ‘I’m so 2003′!  Clearly I’m way, WAY behind but I really can’t tell if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.

I’m an interactive art director so half of my job is to encourage people not to spend so much time with technology (the other half is to encourage people to spend more time, but that’s a different day, different blog).  As Interactive Art Directors or Interaction Designers we try to design things simpler, easier to find, quicker to download, have less of a learning curve so that the reach their goal quicker and aren’t frustrated with our product. In that respect I have no problem at all not knowing how to text very well or keep up with the latest tweetdeck app thing or be the last person I know to get a Facebook account or have a 6 year old laptop. I don’t feel contradictory creating things for the internet but not necessarily promoting folks to spend all there time there.  I don’t want to spend all of my free time learning the latest shortcut or keeping up with the latest gadget-tech-thing. I want to spend my free time learning the latest cheesecake recipe or how to grow my own basil (while being able to find it fast on Food and Wine or the Food Network!) I want technology to enhance the things I already like to do, not take it over. And that’s where I like to focus a lot of my work. Making things easy for people so they can do other stuff.

So that said, is it easier to carry on blindly and happily with your 8 pound, low battery, unclasping computer or is it easier to spend more time keeping up with the latest technology in order to make your life more efficient? There is an oxymoron in there somewhere.  Another part of the reason I find myself not diving right into the newest of everything is because of how quickly I can ‘go there’ to the scary, obsessive-compulsive tech place.  I could very easily spend all of my time keeping up with the latest ‘thing’ but would I be happy?  Within the space of one day (yesterday) I found myself tweeting myself to death, racing to find a plug for my dinosaur computer for each panel, and actually considering registering at Apple for my wedding this may. I was FINE on Friday. I brought ‘books’ to read on the plane.  I do have an iPod and I like it. But by yesterday I had actually upgraded to tweetdeck. Not that I know how to actually ‘tweet’ effectively but that’s okay, I have the latest twitter app.

Anyway. Here’s my question:  How do you find the balance?  Is it actually more efficient to take the time to learn all the quick shortcuts, know what just launched, what’s about to launch and what might launch someday or is technological ignorance really a little bit of bliss in this day and age of over-stimulation?

(BTW –You can find my wedding registry at apple.com)

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