Yule Heibel’s Post Studio © 2003-2009

Housekeeping. Breadcrumbs.

My February FOCUS Magazine article has been in print since the end of January, but I haven’t yet posted it as a PDF (above, see masthead). It’s just one of several “loops” I need to close — somehow that GTD thing doesn’t always work for me…

Another potential technical glitch is that my Harvard server hosts allow a limited amount of space for uploads. I’ve exhausted the majority of it with my articles so far, and might need to look for an alternative soon.

On another housekeeping note, I do leave comments from time to time on other blogs (example: this one) — and it didn’t occur to me until today that I should bookmark those posts (using Diigo), so that they appear in my “links”-tagged entries here. D’oh. In addition, I added the category “comments,” so that if a bunch of them eventually fill this blog, there’ll be a handy handle for finding them again. Breadcrumbs.

G. T. D.

G. T. D.

Repeat after me: getting things done. Not always easy.

Finally, I spent an hour or so looking for photos of shop windows designed by Naomi Yamamoto (for Shiseido). Couldn’t find any though, but did get lost on Flickr. Not enough breadcrumbs to find my way back… I did find this beautiful set called The Sublime Color of Northern Italy, by JMichaelSullivan. Beautiful.

I’m looking for brilliant shop window photos because I’m reading a spectacularly clever book by Mary Portas, Windows; The Art of Retail Display. Portas includes many photos of window displays by Yamamoto — I want to write a short article about this, perhaps for Vibrant Victoria’s front page. We could really use some of Portas’s savvy insights in Victoria. A taste in closing:

Your TV show Mary, Queen of Shops is about you saving the high street, one shop at a time. Does it really need saving?

What it does need saving from is becoming the same high street, town after town after town. We have some of the best fashion high-street shopping in the world, and we have some of the worst, and my big concern is that we are becoming a nation that doesn’t know what really superb fashion shopping is about. The codes of supermarket retailing have come onto our fashion high street, as opposed to the codes of fashion retailing going into the supermarkets.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/jun/14/broadcasting.fashion

I like the idea of “the high street” as opposed to any other street, or all the same streets. Difference is good.

Daily Diigo Public Link 02/12/2008

» Toronto Prairie: Our (almost) missing style • Spacing Toronto • understanding the urban landscape

tags: architecture, frank_lloyd_wright, prairie_style, spacing.ca, textile_block_system, toronto

Short post by Spacing Toronto’s Thomas Wicks on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Style, specifically one lone example of same in Deer Park, a suburban T.O. neighbourhood. I added a comment, re. the house’s use of what looks like the textile block system.

» One Book: Natural Light • Spacing Toronto • understanding the urban landscape

tags: adaptability, architecture, lighting, spacing.ca, toronto

Essay reflecting natural light usage in Victorian architecture by Spacing Wire’s Dylan Reid. “Perhaps, in their appreciation for and management of natural light, our Victorian predecessors can remind us of an important consideration in city-building.” I added a comment to his entry.

It probably all comes down to quality

A couple of days ago, I finished reading Walter Kirn’s hilarious article, The Autumn of the Multitaskers, in the current issue of The Atlantic monthly. I suppose part of “successful” multitasking (if you grant that multitasking actually exists successfully in any way shape or form) is having a clear vision of what exactly it is you’re trying to accomplish. And having a clear vision of what the quality of that “way” should be (that’s a bit of a “zen” reference — the way is the goal and all that…)

Today I came across two new online services that promise to customize and micromanage my potential multitasks. In the latest MIT Technology Review, Erica Naone reports on a new start-up: “Maintaining Multiple Personas Online.” Naone’s article describes MOLI, which (as Naone’s subtitle explains), is a “new site [that] lets users create profiles for the different sides of their personality.”

Will this mean that your multiple personalities can multitask independently of one another? Walter Kirn must be doing backflips…

On the other hand, MOLI does seem to offer real help to the chronically (or promiscuously?) connected:

Online social networks have allowed people to easily stay in touch with large groups of friends, but the flip side has been well publicized. Some users have struggled over what to do when certain people–such as a boss or an ex-boyfriend–ask to be listed as a friend on their profile. Adding someone as a friend gives him access to the user’s profile, photos, and daily musings. Worries about privacy were renewed recently when Facebook’s Beacon advertising initiative began broadcasting information about users’ purchasing habits throughout its networks. (See “Evolving Privacy Concerns.”) Now Moli, a recently launched social-networking site, aims to win over concerned users. President and COO Judy Balint says that the site is intended for a more mature audience than the teenagers targeted by many social-networking websites. Directed at users who are trying to balance personal and professional networks, Moli offers multiple profiles–with different privacy settings–within one account.

(…snip…)

Users of Moli can set up as many profiles as they want, and they can choose to make them public, private, or hidden. Anyone, whether he has signed up for Moli or not, can search for and view a public profile. A private profile will show up on searches, but to access it, a user must be a member of Moli and must have approval from the profile’s owner. A hidden profile is invisible in searches and can only be viewed by people invited by the owner. Balint says that users are free to set up multiple profiles of various types, with the requirement that they must designate at least one public profile.

Balint says that the site is also intended to appeal to small-business owners, who can use it to set up an intranet and extranet for free. For a fee, businesses can run a store through Moli.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20183/page1

And as if that weren’t enough, my husband just sent me this press release from a start-up based in Victoria’s own Vancouver Island Technology Park, a new company called Sprout:

MT Mind Technology announced the launch of its first product, Sprout, as a public beta on February 8th, 2008. Sprout is a new platform that sources hyper-personal online content. Sprout learns the user’s likes and dislikes based on simple positive and negative feedback. Designed with no initial set-up and a low cognitive load, users can start cultivating their content immediately.

To try Sprout for yourself, check out www.yoursprout.ca.

Located at the Vancouver Island Technology Park in Victoria, BC, MT Mind Technology was founded in 2006 by Evan Willms and Duncan MacRae. The company is developing solutions for individuals and organizations to effortlessly avoid information overload.

According to Sprout’s webpage, the service aims to personalize web content for all the yous you are:

Can a search engine, blog or newsreader personalize its content to suit your tastes perfectly? The straight answer is “no”. So, we designed Sprout to be everything they’re not; from its ability to pull the freshest content from thousands of sources online, to its ability to learn what you’re into and weed out the rest. That’s right, folks. The future of intelligent online content sourcing is here. And it’s leafy.

A new leaf. A fig leaf, too, perhaps? Could be very interesting.

…Now if only Walter wouldn’t make such a racket, jumping up and down!