Design Thinking Digest

A new LOOK for Twitter

I’m sort of a weird bird in that I’m often a power user of Twitter and love tools like Seesmic Desktop and Tweetdeck but will then shut down and take a social media vacation for weeks at a time. For those of you that have struggled to explain to your Facebook friends, relatives and other technology luddites just what the heck Twitter is the world became a better place for you today with the announcement of Seesmic Look.

Seesmic takes the idea of Twitter and does a few great things.

It proves out the value of Twitter’s business model and how power an API services business can be.

It provides a clear monetization strategy for social media with it’s channels implementation.

It provides an ambient and highly entertaining introduction into the Twittersphere that people can enjoy without even having a Twitter account.

It showcases how apps can create beautiful and emotional experiences that can support, augment and transcend what’s possible with the Standards-based Web alone.

Learn more and download at http://seesmic.com/look.

The next generation of the PhizzPop Design Challenge

One of the events that most dear to my hear during my Microsoft tenure has been our annual PhizzPop Design Challenge. Among the designers and partners I work with it’s been one of our most popular events.

This year PhizzPop actually ran into a few challenge that we needed to address this year.

1.) We had a rule where a team could only enter the event once. Sort of like Survivor, if you were on Season One you couldn’t be on Season Two.

2.) The event was complex to put on and participate in, teams had to pull their strongest talent off the line for a week. If they won a regional event they had to do it all over again. Those that won got the glory at a signature event but were often too exhausted to enjoy it. That and the cost of basically mounting a tour in six cities across North America was a big challenge in this economy.

3.) We wanted PhizzPop to evolve into something more authentic and usable, folks put a lot of time in to this event and often winning solutions never quite get off the ground or go anywhere the way they would for a real customer.

4.) Finally, and this one is sort of nit-picky, many of us always wanted PhizzPop to function more in the realm of a ‘Grand Challenge’. Many of us thought that means we should have a bigger prize and cause that folks could get behind. We’d come close last year with a few events, like supporting Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid in Chicago or focusing on sustainability in Austin but we wanted a national event that was open to everyone.

I’m happy to say that’s exactly what we’re doing with PhizzPop this year.

1.) Anyone in the US can enter.

2.) We’ve got a real challenge for a real client, Boys and Girl’s Club of America.

3.) Participation is virtual

4.) We’ve got a serious prize to get some of the best talent in the business to participate.

5.) We’ve got a great set of partners with The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, the judging body for the Webby Awards.

So, what are you waiting for? Go register at www.phizzpop.com

PS For those of you that are curious about PhizzPop not being at SXSW for 2010 rest assured that we’ll provide updates on the PhizzPop during SxSW and be at SxSW in full force. Look for updates at www.sxsw.com for official events that Microsoft will be hosting or participating in.

Feed Problems?

A few subscribers have told me they are having feed problems on the site. I’m looking into this and should have it resolved shortly.

Design Thinking Digest Updates

Those of you that still maintain subscriptions to this blog—last count there are about 1000 of you, may be curious as to the future of this blog based on the paucity of posts over the past 6 months. Much of my time over the last six months has been focused on collaborating on a book (www.dynamic-prototyping.com) and that task, plus a day job has taken it’s toll on this blog.

As that book is now in production I expect to return to regular blogging in January and pick up where we left off with conversations about business value, innovation and productivity in the enterprise.

Happy New Year!