Consumer-Generated Generation

Despite the occasional complaint, I still do love the internet for all it’s glory. After all, it’s kind of “complicated”.

I got my first Advertising Age (!) mention in a recent article by Rance Crain, called “Marketers Go for Squeeze Play, but the Basic Rules Still Count”. In case the article doesn’t work, I took the liberty of documenting my little chunk.

Madelin Woods, a former student and now a web-graphic designer, told me she thinks consumer-generated material is “an issue that’s at hand for any industry involving media. In advertising, consumer-generated ads may act as free promotion for brands.

“However, graphic designers are getting frustrated that their work is being undermined by your neighbor’s cousin, who can pop out a logo for $5. Journalists are having to deal with the over-saturation of blogs. Photographers are competing with ‘point-and-click’ technology. … While professionals have earned their way to the top, students are getting jobs and recognition for their 15 minutes of YouTube fame,” she said.

“Perhaps it’s just because I’m still young, but I don’t view the consumer-generated age as a problem. It’s not going away anytime soon, so we should accept it as a positive change.”

What are your thoughts?

The problem with being a new adopter

Hello, world. I am a gen-y internet addict. I haven’t updated my blog in 12 days. (*polite claps*)

I have a gmail, a facebook, a website, a blog, a twitter, a twitpic, a linked in, a google reader, a delicious, a blackberry, and a life.

For people who have just figured out that there is a giant series of tubes buzzing around, congratulations. You have an opportunity to start fresh and utilize all of these wonderfully integrated products efficiently. (maybe.)

“Digital asset management” is starting to become a huge issue… especially when you’ve had data on your computer and on the internet from over 10 years ago. (holy crap.) This is especially a problem if you were in 7th grade when you started and had no concept of file naming or management skills.

So what do you do when you’ve got pictures spread across from facebook, twitpic, uploading to a wordpress.com blog, but also using a wordpress.org CMS for your website, and somehow have to manage uploads from a camera, a phone, and from randos tagging you in pictures you don’t even remember taking? For n00bs, a flickr account is the obvious answer… but how am I supposed to get all 12387461829364 of those pictures in one place without spending hundreds of hours re-uploading or merging those?

Another problem lies in the whole username thing. In 1992, it was really cool to have your aim, livejournal, and email addresses be some combination of “xo”’s, cutesy nicknames, and numbers. Not so much any more. So if you have to transfer 6 years of gmail from one account to another to look more professional… you run into all sorts of issues with the rest of your google applications and contacts. (PS did I mention my frustration at twitter & facebook lists? It’s real hard to go back and group your contacts once you’ve hit a certain point.)

I know there are tons of friend feeds and plugins that are supposed to make your life easier by connecting everything to each other… Maybe I’m just stubborn, and never quite adopted to iphoto or any of these “easily integratable” aggregators… but honestly! I’m an unorganized packrat and the chaos is starting to unfold. *le sigh*

Dear LiveJournal, mood: hopeless.

Ookie October & Moustache Movember

I suppose we’re going with month-themed posts here. Excuse me while I play a little catch up with my blogs and twitpics. This is a dilemma we’ll get to in the next post.

Amelia Earhart & Carol (Wild Things!)

I don’t even know.

Star-struck September

Ok, so maybe a month off, but we all adore alliterations. I’m not usually one to get giddy over a little chunk of fame, but I suppose I have had quite a few run-ins as of late. A quote from AJ sums it up quite nicely:

AJ: “You scare me. I swear you must channel the spirit of FDR or something. How did you manage to get him alone?”
Me: “I just asked.”
AJ: “Of course you did.”

Ryan North, author of Qwantz

Justin Long, star of the “I am a Mac” commercials, and many other fun movies

Richard Dreyfuss, Mr. Holland, also starred in Jaws.

Dick Durbin, Illinois state senator

And I saw Mark Zuckerberg from across the room.

My week is a donut.

Sometimes, mom and I enjoy bagels and caffeine before work. It’s never a consistent day of the week, because neither of us can handle routine very well.

It’s funny how different people view abstract things. And it’s a lot easier if you’re able to attach it to some kind of visual. Much like dreams, you can’t really portray to others what you’re seeing in your mind without using words and images that we can associate with physical things in our real world. The concept of time is much like this as well.

My mom is a mathematician. She sees her weeks like a row of five boxes with two boxes on top. All of the boxes are the same size, but somehow they all perfectly align. There is no color associated with any of these boxes, not even black and white. As she was describing this, I imagined a plastic pill box thing.

My week is a donut. I think that our days are visualized in much the same way, however I used more of a donut shape to describe it. It’s kind of ellipses-like, but as I move through the week, the camera angle changes. Very dynamic, as if I’m in the center of the donut (not the hole!) as it goes around. Though sometimes I can see it from the outside when I’m looking at the week as a whole, if I’m trying to plan something or figure out what’s going on. Somehow, Google Calendars has probably affected this because I do have colors attached with various days and events. There are also lights and darks, sometimes varying with my mood. Either way, they both hold pills.

Our view of months are a lot more similar, both are in ellipses with different colors associated with the seasons. Perhaps the ellipses changes with the sun’s orbits, because there are definite places where it is more or less stretched out. Does everyone visualize time similarly? Or is it just because I’ve learned most of my concept of time from my mom?

Back to routine and circles. The concept of time for me is arbitrary. I don’t go to work every day from 9-5, salsa classes at 7pm every Tuesday and Thursday, or complain if it’s Monday or Friday. This system does not work. I don’t know or care if it is October, Wednesday, or 2:36pm, unless I’m trying to connect with someone else and their concept of time. It is a standardized system, but that’s not how I structure my day. I get done what needs to get done, work as much or as little as necessary, no matter what day or time it is. I think I’m okay with that. Just don’t be upset if I don’t know the time.

I am a thumb, sitting on the nail.
The world is a hand, and most structures that you look at will fit within this system.
It’s okay that I don’t go into further detail with this right now.
It is also okay that I delayed work for three hours this morning to enjoy a bagel and caffeine with my mother.
The Tao of Granny prevails.

Yo ho, yo ho.

October! The most wonderful month of the year. Though I can only speak for the midwest in saying that, since we have been graciously blessed with pumpkin patches, changing colors, and premature frostbite.

June. Another phenomenal month. The onset of summer vacation for students, a popular month for weddings (which really means cake), and celebrating people whose parents must have enjoyed September at least once.

So what happens between June and October? Plenty of things. The weather is warm, the spirits are high, the work is aplenty. In my life, here are just a few highlights:

Started working for Donna Cox, with the eDream Institute. AJ and I have enjoyed baking for our Monday afternoon staff meetings, and learning all about stereoscopic visualization.

Attended the Siggraph Conference 2009. Somehow managed to finagle not just one but two float tickets, a spot on the PSCC SCSC (uhh… basically liason between students and professionals), hung out with some really talented people, and tried our fair share of cajun cookin’ and beignets.

Made a second trip to South America, this time spending a couple weeks in Brazil. Hang gliding was among the less risky activities we tried. Among the more risky, probably included the overall driving experience between cities, enticing random Brazilian locals with our non-portuguese spanglish, and generally the entire stay in Rio.

On the CUDO front, we’ve been gaining momentum and started off the fall with a bang. Helped as the advertising liason for an all day design-a-thon to benefit the Wesley Evening Food Pantry. They are now fully equipped with a hearty set of brochures, website, logo, and materials. Co-coordinated Champaign-Urbana’s very first Pecha Kucha, with a miraculous 350+ turnout and an insane amount of press coverage. Especially for something that is impossible to pronounce.

Built a website, manage a mongologue. Worked on a video for the Morrill Act Land Grant Conference, tried my hand at architecture with a project for MTD, helped behind the scenes for Wolfram | Alpha’s Homework Day, and just for fun designed a logo and a giant check.

I love conferences. They really just make me sing with glee. Aside from the Siggraph and Wolfram’s upcoming user conference next week, I’ve also attended the UIUC College of Media’s Sandage Symposium, and hung out with some fellow inspirational geeky type at the ACM Reflections | Projections conference.

Though it’s been busy, there have also been some scattered road trips. Like visiting my lil bro in Mizzou, and then driving straight to Louisiana to help Kerry move in. Not to mention trips to Chicago to see a couple of Bob’s Cali friends who are studying beer brewing. Though Chicago is cool, they also were able to make it down to Champaign to see RJD2 with me at Pygmalion. On the other concert front, I saw No Doubt in Chicago, and the National at Ellnora.

Oh. Did I mention how I officially graduated? Because I did. And I’ve got two diplomas to prove it.

Hope I didn’t leave anything out in my scattered attempt at summarizing the last few months.

Day 21, Sunday

We caught a cab at 4am, groggy and depressed to leave. From Lima to Miami to Chicago, we slept and reminisced most of the way back.

As one adventure passes, surely another is quick to come.

Day 20, Saturday

Danny woke us up at 5am to catch our flight. I was feeling a bit better, and luckily was able to move. Danny drove us and Javier to the airport, so we could fly back to Lima. We found a nice hotel in the middle of the city, and napped on a bed bigger than a hummer.

awesome architecture

EVE trash bin!

bike carts

what a colorful city

Inca Cola, tastes like bubble gum

We hung out at Plaza Mayor, saw a few sites with sweet architecture, and hung out at another people-watching park. We had a late lunch, and headed over to the movie theater and paid a whopping $6 for 2 tickets and a large popcorn. “Motor y Motivo”, was sort of like Spice World meets Peruvian Jonas Brothers with a Gypsy King vibe.

Day 19, Friday

I spent the entire night miserably hugging the throne.

At first, we weren’t sure what exactly caused this intestinal revolution, but it wasn’t pretty. Turned out it was just food poison from an undercooked burger the night before. Blast.

At least this was the end of our journey and had nothing pressing to see, aside from the Cuzco markets. The room was freezing, so I spent the entire day laying on the couch in the hostel lobby. As usual, I was probably quite a confusing site for all who passed by, including the people who worked there. The entire day was spent attempting to finish a piece of bread.

Day 18, Tuesday

Earliest morning by far, 4am wake up call and were in line for the buses to Machu Picchu by 5am. We were pretty far back in line, but managed to be within the first 150 people, about the 5th out of 12 or so buses. The bus ride was comparable to Lombard Street times a hundred. When we arrived, the line wasn’t incredibly long, but we ran as fast as we could through the park, careful not to stop and get distracted by the marvelous views. We cut it pretty close, but managed to get 2 out of 400 tickets to Waynapicchu.

We enjoyed a gorgeous sunrise over the sun temple, just days before the summer solstice (which is a huge deal, and calls for week-long parties and Incan magic). We met up with another all-spanish tour, and learned about all of the importances within the ruins. A lot of it seemed to be anthropological speculation, and nobody really knows what it was originally called by the Incans, although I suppose that’s why it’s a “wonder” of the world.

Sunrise over the mountains

Sun Temple, built specifically for sunrises at the solstice

BABY LLAMAS!

yah, i live at Machu Picchu… whatever.

It’s a trap!

view of Machu Picchu, from Waynapicchu

steep climb, this was one of the better set of stairs

the mountain in the bg looks like a sideways Incan head

ORLY?

YA RLY.

acting documentarist

our tour guide

i guess this is why they call it “ruins”

wonder what it was like to live here

I’M ON TOP OF THE WORLD!

oh, hai!

little boy truck

After our crash course in Incan history, we wandered around and spent way too much time stalking the llamas. We wandered until it was time to run off to Waynapicchu. It was a steep climb, but we did it in a swift 25 minutes. Unfortunately, that was nothing compared to the 5-10 minutes it took the Incans to scale the slopes. They must have had super long legs. I think I would have liked the Incans. Up we climbed, and wandered all over the boulders, valleys, peaks, and more ruins. We spent a significant amount of time just pondering our insignificance in the world.

When we finally found our way back down, it was pretty late in the afternoon and we were exhausted. We headed back down via bus to Aguas, and ate an insane amount of chinese food and powerade. Not long after, we hopped the train and headed back to Cuzco. It was pretty late, and all we could find was street cheeseburgers to sustain ourselves. The ride back didn’t do much for our stomachs, so we passed out pretty quickly.