Geoffrey Gifford: Creative Technologist

The Pivot

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:21:34 GMT

Spatially Aware Interfaces

Fri, 04 May 2012 17:25:08 GMT

Crowd-fund-raising

Fri, 04 May 2012 17:16:36 GMT

Fred Wilson on Equity

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 02:00:43 GMT

Hillman Curtis - Dead at 51

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 17:57:02 GMT

The Future is Cloudy

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 03:47:32 GMT

Object recognition to replace barcodes

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 19:09:24 GMT

Visual Interface for Amazon

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 07:57:49 GMT

Magazine Interface Design

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 07:00:00 GMT

TED Sharable Quotes

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:39:35 GMT

A Trillion Frames a Second

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:46:26 GMT

Moby (hearts) LA

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:15:18 GMT

Inaudible sounds make marketers beg

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:15:01 GMT

Seinfeld for Acura Super Bowl Ad

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:36:13 GMT

L2 5 Trends

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:11:56 GMT

Bespoke Department Stores

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:54:49 GMT

Leveraging the check-out

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:20:50 GMT

Reputation Based Car Sharing

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:03:42 GMT

Twitter Stories

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:06:34 GMT

Google Wallet

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:33:04 GMT

A Smaller Gap

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 17:47:44 GMT

Burberry's Tweetwalk

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 19:48:26 GMT

Get outside the Comfort Zone

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 01:14:01 GMT

Crystalline

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:51:35 GMT

Uncle Walt

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 07:42:35 GMT

Coppola + Schwartzman + iPad = New Yorker

Fri, 13 May 2011 17:31:01 GMT

A Strange and Difficult Path

Fri, 13 May 2011 04:05:14 GMT

Global Mix by Pogo et al

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:15:19 GMT

Three Muscles of Creativity

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:36:18 GMT

Stephen Colbert's Particular Genius

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 18:06:13 GMT

Political comedy writing doesn't get better than this. Here's a transcript so you can catch the nuances...

I know you think this story has no purpose other than keeping Sarah Palin’s name in the headlines for another news cycle. I know you think she has nothing to offer the national dialog and that her speeches are just coded talking points mixed in with words picked up at random from a Thesaurus.

I know you think Sarah Palin is at best a self-promoting ignoramus and at worst a shameless media troll who will abuse any platform to deliver dog-whistle encouragement to a far right base, that may include possible insurrectionists.

I know you think her reality show was pathetically unstatesmanlike and at the same time I know you believe it represents the pinnacle of her potential. And that her transparent desperation to be a celebrity so completely eclipsed her interest in public service so long ago that there would be more journalistic integrity on reporting on of the lesser Kardashians’ ass implants.

I know, i know that when you arrive at the office each day you say a silent prayer that maybe, just maybe, Sarah Palin will at long last just shut up for just ten f*cking minutes. I know because I can see it in your eyes.

Well, guess what, Mika that’s the gig. And it’s only January of 2011, kiddo. And you have a minimum of two more years of this ahead of you. You want to stay in this game? You dig deep. You find another gear. You show up to work every day and get your hair and makeup done. You slap on a smile, get out there on TV and repeat what Sarah Palin said on Hannity last night right into the lens.

I have faith in you, kid. You can do it. See you in New Hampshire. I’ll buy.

Frank Gehry and Me

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 12:41:17 GMT

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the media launch of Frank Gehry's building for the UTC.|

Of course, there was the usual cringe-making questions from the press desparately seeking controversy.
But the fact of the matter is that is a nice building on a small site surrounded by some of the blandest buildings in the world.

Towards the end Frank showed the assembled some of the working models and I asked him if the facade informed the engineering or was it vice versa. I think he felt relieved to be asked a question about architecture and we had a nice little back and forth for a few minutes.

Afterwards, he came over, shook my hand and asked me if I was an architect. That was quite a thrill.

Larry Gagosian and Me

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:44:59 GMT

True story:
I'm doing some work for a client of Gagosian Galleries. I'm on the phone discussing the details to a gallery manager at Gagosian Beverly Hills and I hear her cell phone ring...|

Manager: (to me) Can you hold a sec?
Me: Sure!
Manager: (answers her cell) Larry? I have Geoffrey Gifford on the other phone can I call you back? ... Thanks!
Me: Did you just blow off Larry Gagosian to talk to me?
Manager: Yes, this is important.
Me: Can I tweet this?

TED x Sydney 2011

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 10:03:59 GMT

I'm very proud to say I'll be the Technology Director for TED x Sydney 2011.|
I've been working with my old collaborator and friend, Remo Giuffre, who is the licensee & director. If last year is any indication it's going to be a great day full of interesting ideas worth sharing.
Remo has assembled a fantastic team as usual and I'm looking forward to working with the partners to extend the reach of the TED brand in Australia.

Kindle vs Printing

Wed, 13 May 2009 01:41:05 GMT

This article at The Business Insider does the math on a pretty interesting equation. Is it cheaper to print the NYT or simple buy everyone a Kindle? No prizes for guessing the outcome.

Piracy could be the USP

Sun, 10 May 2009 05:17:02 GMT

Seems like the guys at Tech Crunch think the same as I do about the ridiculous Kindle price point.

They offer up an interesting proposition to make the Kindle price positive - Piracy - of college text books.

Innovate or Die

Sat, 09 May 2009 20:02:09 GMT

Joe Crump from Razorfish gave this presentation recently about, firstly, identifying innovation as opposed to creativity and, secondly, how to nurture innovation.

I was thrilled to hear him pour scorn on focus groups as the death of innovation. Focus groups have their place to refine a existing products but never for ideation. If you consider the great defining products, the ones that disrupted patterns and created new categories, they were never designed by committee or consensus but rather a single person's vision.

Crump's presentation is worth watching especially to the end where he throws down the gauntlet and invites problems that need to be fixed - and then promises to fix at least one of them. I'm working on my list of gripes.

This presentation has the mandatory "We must be better" section in it - one of my personal gripes. More on that later.

Kindling Point

Thu, 07 May 2009 07:06:57 GMT

Amazon launched the new bigger Kindle DX: Amazon's 9.7 today.
I really want one but I'm appalled at the price. $489.00!
And as a coincidence today the NYT went up to $2.00 an issue. Ok, whatever! They should have done that ages ago. But where are the marketing people? Clearly either clueless and/or asleep at the wheel. Bezos is a super smart guy and the NYT didn't build itself but both of them could pay attention to those endless cell phone commercials on TV. "Get this phone free with a two-year agreement"
I may be dating myself here but back in the dark ages I paid almost $1000 for a cell phone! Until some bright spark worked out a better way and everyone - companies, manufacturers and the consumers - all benefited. Let's put two and two together. Here's one guy with an expensive bit of hardware and here's another guy who needs to sell subscriptions. Am I missing something? I think Jeff Bezos should pre-order Free: The Future of a Radical Price from Amazon and come up with a better plan. Maybe he could lend it to Arthur Schulzberger when he's done with it.

You heard it here first

Thu, 07 May 2009 06:37:56 GMT

It seems like the people are finally taking notice of my prognostications.
I have been saying for some time that newspapers need to lose the "paper" bit and concentrate on the "news" part. Now, at last, someone at the New York Times has read my blog, because Scott Heekin-Canedy (GM of NYT) has been quoted as saying exactly that.
Scott, for other pearls of wisdom, contact me.

The Death of Newspapers

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:57:54 GMT

I just read this interesting article at The Nation.
As I work at getting Culture Now up to scale I'm constantly reminded how hard it is to build a relevant content-driven site.
No matter how cool you are (like me) or how connected you are, if you are in the business of content generation you will always be breathing someone else's content exhaust.
Generally the front-runners are the premier news organizations. There's a huge difference between content and opinion about content. And many bloggers may find themselves with a Pyrrhic victory on the hands if people get carried away with the "information needs to be free" mantra.
Make no mistake the days of printed newspapers are over and we are just living through the transition period before another business model can be found.
If Arthur Schulzberger of the New York Times said tomorrow - OK the gig is up! No more printed editions and you have to pay for the inline edition - I for one would have no problem reaching for my credit card.
Newspapers need to drop the "paper" bit from their name and journalists - real, professional, research driven, eloquent journalists need to be paid.

Follow the link to an article at The Nation.

From the article - Washington Post associate editor Robert Kaiser have observed, "A great news organization is difficult to build and tragically easy to disassemble."

All Marketers are Liars

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 06:10:09 GMT

Seth Godin gave this talk to some folks at Google a while back. It's interesting to ses that he has no hesitation telling world's supreme geeks what to do with their products.
This all took place before social media made these viral sharing of ideas part of the daily discourse.

What's the take-away?

Focus on core values

Keep it simple, personal and relevant

Be remarkable