c|change – what's on our mind?

Write an email to your future self and choose when you’ll...

Thu, 09 May 2013 16:53:43 -0500

Write an email to your future self and choose when you’ll receive it. FutureMe.org is pretty cool! (via glotalot)

Send your Future Self an E-Mail

…and it works! Yesterday, I got an email that I wrote myself 5 years ago on April 15th 2008 about what/where I wished I would be right now. Try writing an note to your future self at FutureMe.org. It’s really fun to read what you were thinking, that day, 5 years back.

What I surprise!

I just saw this post about the Felt app on swissmiss and I think...

Tue, 07 May 2013 16:15:42 -0500

I just saw this post about the Felt app on swissmiss and I think it’s such a cool thing.

I just received a ‘handwritten’ card that was sent via an app called Felt. I could not tell that it was written on an iPad. Oddly impressive.

I don’t own an iPad but if I did, I’d be “Feltin” all the time! I love sending handwritten notes to people, but I find that it takes me longer than a week to actually get it in the mail from when I buy the card: Step 1) Buy card. Step 2) Write the card. Step 3) Buy stamp and drop it in the mail.

If the handwriting looks the same as mine and the card selection is quality, I’d be all over it!

Solving Equation of a Hit Film Script, With Data

Mon, 06 May 2013 15:51:40 -0500

Solving Equation of a Hit Film Script, With Data:

“The only people who are resistant are the writers.” Amen—and thank goodness.

An interesting read whatever your opinions on the subject may be.

The MoMa store has the coolest stuff! I need a few of these...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:01:22 -0500

The MoMa store has the coolest stuff! I need a few of these Cable Keeps for my house. Here’s the description from the site:

CableKeeps secure your USB docking cable to your iPhone, iPod or iPad power adaptor for neat and tidy storage. The intuitive design keeps cables organized and tangle-free even when jostled in a bag, pocket, or purse. The tail of the fish-like design can also be used as a charging pedestal for your iPhone or iPod. Made in the USA.

Practical—and a sweet design!

I need this wooden keyboard in my life. Any natural, organic...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:28:05 -0500

I need this wooden keyboard in my life. Any natural, organic aesthetic is welcome in my computer-run work world. And, it just looks good!

As much as I love technology in all its shiny, metallic glory, I will forever be enamored with the natural aesthetic that wood brings. Luckily RAWBKNY decided to combine the two with their wooden keyboards made exclusively for the Macbook Pro and Macbook Air laptops.

Laser cut out of bamboo or rosewood, the individual keys pop out and onto each key on the board giving your laptop more of a clean and natural finish.

(Source: design milk)

I think I’m gonna’ have to go ahead and agree with...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:26:30 -0500

I think I’m gonna’ have to go ahead and agree with FastCompany’s post today, “Why Your iPhone Addiction is Snuffing Your Creativity.” As a writer, unfortunately, there have been too many times where I have found myself browsing Instagram for entirely too long, rather than—you got it—writing. The post also explores the “value of boredom,” which is spot on. It’s those moments when you find yourself without anything to do that, without an iPhone to distract you, you would actually find something creative or productive to do with your time. Perhaps this is a niche market for which I should invent something: a small iPhone safe to keep at home for which only your roommate or spouse have the code?! Lock that baby up until you need to make a call! I’m kidding. Sort of.

This site, PRTLND, is simple to use and very cool! According to...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:05:31 -0500

This site, PRTLND, is simple to use and very cool! According to the site, “PRTLND was built by Chris Kalani in an attempt to collect all the creative powers in Portland, Oregon.”

Any creative living in Portland can upload their photo and link to their website or portfolio for the public to view and search.

I wonder if there’s anything like this for Chicago creatives…

(Source: swissmiss)

Sometimes infographics present complicated data and statistics...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:26:00 -0500

Sometimes infographics present complicated data and statistics in a visually compelling way…and sometimes infographics show us what people in different countries eat to ease a hangover—also in a visually compelling way. Like this one. Check it out; you might even learn a thing or two.

(Source: DesignTaxi)

Whatever your beliefs may be regarding higher learning...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:49:01 -0500

Whatever your beliefs may be regarding higher learning institutions (which can cost upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars these days), this looks like an interesting, thought-provoking read, especially given the fact that the author has done doctoral work at Yale and currently teaches at NYU. Her perspective sounds like it would be an interesting one.

My studiomate Kio Stark just launched her latest ebook titled Don’t Go Back to School. Fact is, schools don’t have a monopoly on learning anymore as more people are declining traditional education and college degrees. Instead they’re getting the knowledge, training, and inspiration they need outside of the classroom.

In Don’t Go Back to School Kio draws on extensive research and over 100 interviews with independent learners, and with that offers the ultimate guide to learning without school. The book provides models and methods for taking a new kind of path through learning, and transforming that alternative education into an exciting career path.

Kio provides concrete strategies and resources for getting started as an independent learner. If you’re debating whether college, trade school, or independent learning will get you where you want to be, Don’t Go Back to School is essential reading.

Buy her ebook here.

(Source: Swiss Miss)

What's the Secret to Great Infographics?

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 17:14:22 -0500

What's the Secret to Great Infographics?:

Interesting piece by fastcodesign.com interviewing Kim Rees, co-founder of Periscopic, on the secret to good data visualization.

Read on to learn what it is.

Congratulations to Rachel, one of c|change’s longtime...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:34:00 -0500

Congratulations to Rachel, one of c|change’s longtime designers. We’re so happy for you, Rachel and Jonathan!

glotalot:

Last week my best friend of 10 years and boyfriend of over 5 years asked me to marry him. It was the happiest moment of my life. Can’t wait for the celebrations to come!

Cesar Kuriyama has been recording one second of every day of his...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:31:15 -0500

Cesar Kuriyama has been recording one second of every day of his life for the past two years. The One Second Project has had a profoundly positive impact on his life, Cesar says, and he’s developed an app so that others can create one-second memories of their lives every day too.

Check it out—-and watch his TED talk too.

(Source: SwissMiss)

Our computer (mad) scientist, Tomas, came back from SXSW in...

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:54:22 -0500

Our computer (mad) scientist, Tomas, came back from SXSW in Austin super energized and excited about what’s going on in the digital universe.

He sat down last week and presented us with his top conference highlights (which includes awesome gadgets and inspiring people), such as:

The OUYA video game console and its founder/CEO Julie Uhrman
Tina Roth Eisenberg, otherwise known as SwissMiss
Leap Motion device
Jawbone UP
The Raspberry Pi computer
Tony Fedell’s Nest Learning Thermostat
Elon Musk (in general!) and his invention, the Hyperloop

Did you go to SXSW? If so, what were some of the coolest people and things you saw?

The first tablet just for women. Check out those apps. Read...

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 12:01:43 -0500

The first tablet just for women. Check out those apps. Read about it here.

Really? I mean, really?

(Source: Mashable.com)

I’m not sure where this photograph was taken, but...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:11:34 -0500

I’m not sure where this photograph was taken, but it’s just gorgeous. As Liz Lemon would say, “I want to go to there.”

If you’d like to go to Paris, but can’t get there...

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 12:02:13 -0500

If you’d like to go to Paris, but can’t get there anytime soon, watch this and get your City of Light fix. It’s better than nothin’, right?

Artist/photographer is Mayeul Akpovi.

Tomas is heading to SXSW!

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:49:40 -0600

Tomas Bulva, a web developer (a.k.a. mad computer scientist) here at c|change, is heading down to Austin, Texas this week for the SXSW Interactive Conference. (In case you’re wondering, that’s him in the photo checking out a food truck. In Austin, actually.)

We’re excited that he’s going so he can come back and school us all about everything we don’t know. No, seriously, he’s not like that. It’ll be awesome for him to come back and share all his new knowledge with the rest of us.

And it looks as if he’ll be learning a lot. Tomas will be attending the conference for nearly five days and will hit up several sessions per day such as Behind the Iron Curtain, Hacker Girls: Why Aren’t There More Women Coders? and Beyond Squishy: The Principles of Adaptive Design. (That’s just three of many.)

Stay tuned and we’ll let you know some cool things he shares with us next week!

Recently at c|change we were discussing how horrible and...

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:55:00 -0600

Recently at c|change we were discussing how horrible and oppressive some commercials can be these days. You know, the ones that literally scream at you during your favorite Wednesday night show. (It also seems to me lately that the commercials are getting more frequent and the shows are getting shorter, but I digress. One day they will try to make us just watch commercials and no shows.)

The point of this post is not, however, to highlight all the terrible commercials produced. Rather, it’s just the opposite. So, check out the 10 winners of TED’s third Ads Worth Spreading challenge. According to the website, “The dream behind this initiative is to find ads that communicate ideas with consumers in the same way that TED wants to communicate with its audience.”

I have to say, the Expedia commercial “Find Your Understanding” reduces me to a weeping mess. Every time. It’s a bit of a tearjerker but the message is one of the most important in the world: acceptance and unconditional love. Just beautiful. Watch it.

Fast Company spoke to Philippe Petit, the subject of the...

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:37:28 -0600

Fast Company spoke to Philippe Petit, the subject of the acclaimed documentary Man on Wire, about his life philosophy. While some may say he’s a little extreme (which could possibly be true), we could probably all stand to be a little more adventurous in our daily lives. Always something to learn from somebody.

His words:

1. Let life be your teacher. How can you achieve greatness if you haven’t experienced the hard lessons of life? To become a great theatrical director, a great actor or a Renaissance man, you have to do all the jobs most people don’t want to do, like washing dishes and shoveling horseshit. When I was young, I did everything myself. I had so much to prepare before my shows I had no time to sleep. If I had twenty-seven minutes before a performance, I had to fall asleep in a minute flat to have twenty-six minutes of sleep before this very important moment in my life. I had to learn to sleep in any position on anything—a bumping bus, a concrete floor. You will never learn that googling “how to” from a comfortable armchair.

2. Court disaster. When I first became a magician, a juggler and a wirewalker, word was out. I was so arrogant that no circus director would hire me. It was as if I made sure that the whole world was against me, which forced me to do things without permission. There is positivity in putting your nose in disaster, in fiasco, in accidents. If you go where trouble is you will find a magnificent transformation. After all, if I had followed the rules, would I have traveled across the ocean to a foreign country and illegally snuck into and then wire-walked across a building a quarter mile above the ground?

3. Make your art a joyful adventure. When I begin a new project, I embark upon an adventure that has many forks in the road. At each one I must decide, “Should I take the left or the right?” This joy of exploration is childlike, though not childish. It carries me along and gives me my energy to fight and succeed. Without this sense of a solitary joyful journey of a child who is free to go where he or she wants, I would not do good work. If I were to sit at a desk, write a list, make a schedule, and go and meet the building and then make a plan to do a high wire walk in the most safe and intelligent way, I would not have that sense of adventure and exploration. And, there would be no point in living. Although today I would add wisdom to my madness!

4. Be a madman of detail. If I go to climb a place that is rocky, I will find out what kind of rock it is. If the rock is rotten, [because then] the rope I’m hanging from will dislodge pebbles that will break my head. I would be a fool to hope that the rock is healthy. Before I walked the Twin Towers, I gathered information with cunning and precision. This door in this place opens to the left this wide with this many steps of a certain thickness, the 450-pound cable must be brought up this way to avoid detection, and so on. There were at least a thousand other details to solve. When it comes to doing my homework, I’m obsessed. I want to live to be very old. A half a millimeter of mistake, a quarter second’s miscalculation, and you lose your life.

5. Improvise. Improvisation is turning away from a well-polished plan within a millisecond because there’s no such thing in life as a well-polished plan. One of my favorite activities is to jump from rock to rock in a running torrent in the bed of a river. When I jump, I do not know where I’ll land. I’m in the air and there are six rocks around me and in a millionth of a second I see that I’d slip on the one to the right because it’s covered with moss, the one to the left is a little too far and I decide to come down on that little flat rock just ahead. But, before landing, I’m planning my next move. Of course, in our twenty-first century full of helmets and knee-pads and “don’t-try-this-at-home,” people will say: “You should go with three people observing you, just in case you fall so they can rush you to a hospital.” But, if you put all your energy, talent and intelligence into an action such as landing on the right rock, then failure is not an option. You cannot slip. You cannot fall. You cannot land in the water.

—Excerpted by arrangement with Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from “The Art of Doing: How Superachievers Do What They Do and How They Do It So Well” by Camille Sweeney and Josh Gosfield. Copyright 2013 by Camille Sweeney and Josh Gosfield.

(Source: Fast Company)

According to Lance Hosey in the article “Why We Love...

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 16:11:06 -0600

According to Lance Hosey in the article “Why We Love Beautiful Things” in The New York Times, there is very much a science—as well as an art—to why we’re drawn to great design.

(Photo credit: Baptiste Alchourroun, The NY Times)