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For your Friday, a few nooks and crannies of the interweb that I found.

MUST READ FOR THE WEEKEND

Washington, We Have A Problem. A day in the life of the president reveals that Barack Obama’s job would be almost unrecognizable to most of his predecessors—thanks to the enormous bureaucracy, congressional paralysis, systemic corruption, and disintegrating media. Inside the West Wing, the author talks toObama’s top advisers about the challenge of playing the Washington game, ugly as it has become, even while their boss insists they find a way to transcend it. Go.

TO READ

5 Huge Trends in Social Media Right Now. Go.

Skip the check-out lines with your iPhone. Go.

How Do You Win Users with Gadgets? Go.

QR Codes Help Consumers Shop for Wines. Go.

82% of shoppers use their phone in the store. Go.

McDonald’s Netherlands ceases operations on its digital signage network. Go.

Will rebranding baby carrots get kids to eat them like junk food? Go.

TO ENJOY

Stamps of Disapproval Go.

Greatest Invention of The Week: Song stuck in your head? Unstickify it. Go.

The cell phone camera stroboscopic effect, or, a glitch in The Matrix. Go.

Google fun of the day: Google Realtime Go.

Google Fun of the Day part 2: Go to Google, type in elgoog, and hit “I’m feeling lucky.” Go.

The Solar System. To Scale on your browser. Go.

Emotionally intelligent invoice. Go.

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Welcome. Here are your tickets. Line forms to the left.

Recently, Adobe announced the creation of a Museum of Digital Media, “A modern museum committed exclusively to the exploration and preservation of digital media.” It’s a virtual museum, all online, open 24/7, and available for all to see. The virtual space is designed by architect Filippo Innocenti.

From the site, the first exhibit “will feature work by Tony Oursler, a New York artist whose explorations in moving images and digital communications have been featured in museums on both U.S. coasts, as well as in Spain and New Zealand.”

"Number 7, Plus or Minus 2" in your program, Number 1 in your heart.

Traveling through the museum is aided by a “virtual viewing device” (oh man does this thing need a name), a creation by Adobe designers that sought inspiration from jellyfish and flowers.

Or maybe they got their inspiration from Halo.

I hear Guilty Spark is looking for work.

I can see this being a bit of a game-changer. Be being completely online, they have the freedom to do just about anything they want. I hope we see this grow into an exposition of digital media in all its forms, and not simply a place for artists to strut their stuff. Imagine a place where you could wander through the past 20 years of digital media, from 8-bit video games to first generation iPods to HD video streaming through every device that can hold a screen. That would be superdy-dooperdy cool.

You can see a video about the museum and Tony Oursler here. It opens in August. I’ll be in line, wearing my walking shoes.

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Would you like a six foot-long with your two liter?

Starbucks Formula For Social Media Success
“…a social media plan that works beautifully to create millions of fans for the brand and keep them involved in the brand’s doings.” I have said this so many times: Companies do not build brands. Customers build brands. This is a perfect example of how a major brand allows its users to define and shape its place in their life.

Jim Mitchum provides a nice piece on how to be more proactive in social media. At the end of the piece, he links to an article about Pepsi skipping the Super Bowl to focus more on online marketing efforts. Last year, Best Buy’s network did as well as it had ever done while I was there, even in the wake of bad economic news. Why? For this very reason. When an advertiser says they’re skipping the Super Bowl, everyone believes that the advertiser is just not spending money. Not true. It may be that they are spending the money somewhere else, for a more targeted audience with a higher ROI. Pepsi just made my argument. And if you think that Coca-Cola has the run of the roost now with the big game, think about this: Pepsi drinkers will still be watching the Super Bowl. Is Coke really going to be taking advantage of a competitor’s absence?

How To Run A Meeting Like Google
I know too many people who need to read this. Read it.

Alex Lundry Chart Wars: The Political Power of Data Visualization
“Pictures are a superior and more efficient delivery mechanism for information.” Sounds like a good reason for digital signage. 5:00 video, but watch the first 2:30 where he shows some examples and talks about data visualization. The last half of dos/don’ts are stuff we all should know anyway.

An Augmented Building
Scroll down the page for the english translation and video. Very cool.

Projection on Buildings
Another version of an augmented building. More for the visual art, but I can see museums all over this.

First Person Tetris
Make sure you haven’t been drinking. I got about 45 seconds into this and realized I was laying on the floor. And I wasn’t drinking.

Card Flourishes in Advertising
Dan & Dave have teamed up with Christopher Wicks to create advertising for Wicks’s shirt collection. I love card flourishes. This spot had me completely mesmerized for 60 seconds. Watched it once. Did not even see the shirts. Oops. My first thought, when considering how this type of content works, is that it is so cool that the producers and advertiser completely forgot why they made the ad – to promote the shirts. A good example of content that should work but doesn’t.

Coke Happiness Machine
Interactive? Check. Engaging? Check. Customer retention and brand loyalty? Yep. Digital? Ummm…not really. Much ado has been made lately about Coke’s interactive machines, but I can say with some confidence that a customer would remember this interactivity more than with a digital interface. Especially when the coke comes with a pizza. Very clever.

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Does he do daylight savings time?

Hermes Window Display – Japan
The window is designed with an image of woman projected on to a monitor. The scarf softly sways in the air in response to the woman’s blow.
Article & Video

BMW Augmented Reality
Now this is cool augmented reality.
Video 2:00

Marketers: Shift Your Paradigms
Suddenly, they were seeing the world as a customer, not as a marketer.
I have been saying this for 10 years. Every time I go in a store or venue, I am a customer. I look at things like a customer, and I almost always find reasons to make things better.
Article

10 Clever Ads on Buildings
Because not everything is digital yet.

Right Brain Versus Left Brain
I can make the silhouette turn both ways. Yep. I’m “gifted.”
Article

Coolest Clock Ever…?
I can only imagine what the alarm would sound like.
Video 1:27

100 (Really) Creative Business Cards
Some inspiration to spruce up your card for 2010.

100 Extraordinary Examples of Paper Art
Pure eye-candy.

Traveling? Bring Your Own Food
or, “You can’t take the flyer out of Denver, but you can’t take Denver out of the flyer…”

Tape Measure Tricks
I used to work in construction. Had I known these tricks, I might have stayed there. (Oh, and I’m going to get out my tape measure and start practicing.)
Video :30

Picturing the Past Ten Years
nytimes.com

Play the Piano on YouTube
Click on the video to play the piano.

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I have never wanted 400-foot arms so bad in my life.

The World’s Largest Multi-Touch Wall
The massive, 425 square meter ring°wall uses laser light plane illumination to capture user’s input and can supply up to 80 people at a time with information. Holy reach-out-and-touch-something, Batman.
Video included, but start at :50.

Digital Signage Fail
Of course, what strikes me is the location. Is anyone really watching a digital sign in Key Largo anyway?
Picture
@NEOCAST

Made To Stick: Writing a Mission Statement
If you have ever worked in a big brand, you’ll shake your head and think, “Been there, done that.” Then you’ll look at your mission statement and ask if it’s really what it should be.
Video 3:50

The Preset Group – Logo
I got a lot of nice compliments on our business card a couple weeks back at KioskCom. Mike Jaszewski designed our logo, business card, and letterhead. We could not be happier.

NZ Book Council – Going West
An absolutely beautiful animation illustrating a book’s world. Gorgeous.
Video 2:10

Transparent Glass Pool Table
This is so awesome that I would TOTALLY drop the 39K on this sucker…
Photos/Video

I Gotta Feeling – LipDub
Student video done in one take. I dare you to watch this and not be amused.
Video 5:00

Scroll Clock
Exactly.

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