TYPE DESIGN INSPIRATION

This is a great collection of innovative and exciting typography in design. More here...

Twitter Feeds at Conferences (madness?)

It seems that in the tech world, presenting a live twitter feed behind the presenter is becoming more common.

The way it works - the presenter presents, the audience listen and what the audience thinks as they listen, they Tweet - then the tweets are presented as a live update on the screen behind the presenter (so if someone tweets something funny, then the audience laugh regardless of how serious a point the presenter is making).

You can read an interesting article by Keir Whittaker which draws together some experiences of this in practice.

From our point of view at corporate events for UK companies, using Twitter 'live' could be a fantastic way draw in questions or comments for a Q&A or to promote interaction during a dedicated session for interaction, but the idea of having the audience accessing their phones and contemplating what to tweet during a presentation will inevitably lead to them not hearing or engaging with the very message that they are attending the conference to hear - which can only be a bad thing.

This is a video monologue from CNNs tech expert Chris Pirillo following an apparently bad experience at the Web09 conference in Paris:

Compelling Tweets from TEDxShekhavati Event

Updated on Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 8:43PM by admin

We just love this! @masarat broadcast these tweets live from her event, a non-profit privately organised conference intended to share ideas to improve the World (www.ted.com - TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.) TEDxShekhavati was apparently set up in rural India to a non-paying audience. Live the excitement of the event through @masarat's tweets - it reminds us of why we love live events so much!

Click to read more ...

BS8901 Brings in changes at Cascade

Cascade have signed up to the 10:10 campaign to reduce emissions by 10% during 2010.

In October The British Standard for sustainable events was republished and at Cascade we have decided to review every aspect of our business using BS8901 as a framework (partly because we found that much of the way we work follows the guidelines already).

Although the British Standard look beyond environmental issues, we felt that the bets way to start off would be to sign up to the nationwide 10:10 campaign to reduce our emissions by 10% during 2010.

We are encouraging all of our clients, suppliers and crew to sign up and at the same time we are setting about changing some of the ways we work - particularly the way we travel.

Twitter, why you should...

I have no interest in what a celebrity is eating right now and I have better ways of communicating with close friends. But Twitter has a number of excellent uses:

Newsfeed. Lots of businesses, publications, newspapers and government departments are tweeting. Find those close to you or that interest you, follow them and you have an instant news wire.

Business News. You can track currency, stocks, tech news, get tips and advice

Broaden Horizons. By following lists or people you don't know you get exposed to news, stories, photos and video you wouldn't otherwise see

Sharing. Twitter works by people sharing information and re-tweeting things they discovered to spread them further.

And as a business tool? The jury's out for me. I'm not sure what benefit there is for business development beyond profile and PR.

As an event support tool it is very interesting. Creating a closed group for an event that delegates or people unable to attend can follow in the lead up to an event and also during an event, with tweets of key content and follow up live discussion.

The thing I like most about Twitter is that you never have to ready anything longer than a text message - so you can read through a lot of information very quickly.

Take a look, follow @Cascade_alan at www.Twitter.com

Foursquare - the future?

Foursquare is being feted as the Twitter of 2010. 

The tie in between location, service and social networking are likely to have consequences for event planners in the future - in many ways the game parts of Foursquare mimmic the type of interactive team builds we have been running for some time.

For an insight into Foursquare and how it's working now...http://mashable.com/2010/01/16/foursquare-world/

Preparation Preparation Preparation

“If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax.” Abraham Lincoln - thanks to (@jwalery): 

Video Game Statistics

Fascinating insight into the video game industry with statistics on consoles, demographics, failures, top games and more.

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Pain is Temporary...

“Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever” Lance Armstrong

Great Animation Sequence

"At the end of Yonge Street" is a sequence taken down the amazingly long Yonge Street in Toronto - the photographers apparently walked 40Km to make it - very effective: