Me and O

It’s been a busy past six weeks – a ton of work projects, a fair amount of traveling and very little personal time. Everyone faces the challenge of the balancing a professional and personal life. It’s become a lot harder now that I’m a father and that I’m still a newbie at work (2 months in), but I’m doing pretty well. The blurriness of work/home life got me thinking though. For a long time, I’ve operated online with the assumption that there is no distinction between me “personally” or “professionally” when it comes to an online persona. I always assume that whatever I place on the web will be seen by friends, family, colleagues and strangers. Not everyone does this, but it has helped me cope with how I want to be perceived, issues of privacy and so on. But for some reason, I’ve started thinking about my use of Twitter and similar issues. I originally used Twitter just so I would understand it. As I understood it, I realized it would be a good opportunity to provide personal updates and share professional projects. Twitter use for me really got going during the launch of ArtBabble. This combo approach for Twitter worked well for me and I noticed my followers increased and represented a healthy balance of friends, museum nerdz, and general tech peeps. Not bad.

I'm a museum nerd

And then I left the museum field. It’s been a couple of months. All of sudden I seemed a little lost. My followers (and we’re not talking that many) had come to expect tweets that were personal and museum themed. Now they were getting just personal updates. I wasn’t sure how to weave in my new professional focus of auto racing related, digital content. I wasn’t sure what their thoughts were on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway or the IndyCar Series? And I certainly didn’t want to ostracize anyone.

My approach was to take it slow. I enjoyed tweeting about my personal stuff – soccer, walks with O, The Mighty Boosh, cooking and so on. And then I started easing into some racing related content – nothing too specific, but tweets about traveling, new websites, P-Diddy, and so on.

The Mighty Boosh - Lester Corncrake and Tony Harrison.

And then I noticed new followers emerging. I had sustained my existing fan-base (and I say that with as little arrogance as possible) and started to attract followers with strong interests in auto racing, the IMS and IndyCar. Cool. I’ve been very selective about my racing tweets. I try to select content that will have mass appeal. Our work Twitter accounts, @IndyTalk – IMS & @IndyCarNation – IndyCar, get tremendous fan interaction on almost every tweet – they don’t need little ‘ol me retweeting everything.

My modest presence on Twitter now has a focus on a more personal distribution of content or storytelling. I guess, looking back on the museum community, we were all trying to reach a smaller, niche audience and we wanted to try and reach everyone, no matter what (and I say that with no disrespect…just fact). I’ve been blown away by the level of fan interaction, passion and opinions of our followers in the new job. It’s incredible. So I’m going to keep using Twitter, keep sharing stuff, and hope I find the right balance of appealing to a strangely diverse collection of followers. If you continue, thank you, If you don’t, I completely get it.

So that’s about it. All this talk of me, me, me! What about the people I’ve started following recently. I’ve added tons of people over the past few months. Here are a just a few -

@TheNaptown – we’re talking Chef James Bryant, new owner of The Naptown Restaurant and Wine Bar. He’s very new to Twitter but he’s given me lots of tips when it comes to BBQing. Follow him or better yet, go eat.

@diorabarid1 – actress Diora Baird. Her tweets are unexpected and surreal. I love surreal…even though she was in an episode of Two and a Half Men…oh well.

@LeilaniMunter - race car driver and passionate environmental advocate. Her recent documentation of the oil spill in Louisiana has been eye opening. Learn more about her, here.

@RoyHobbson – writer of The Silent Pagoda. Funny, witty, edgy and has got his finger firmly on the pulse of the local racing community. Even if you despise racing, you’ll enjoy his writing.

That’s it – there are plenty more people I love following. I’ll feature them in a future post. If you’ve made it this far, thanks so much for reading.

Museum of Robots on Twitter

I love robots. I love robots in movies (especially R2D2). I love collecting robots. I love robot art. And I strongly believe in Isaac Asimov Three Laws of Robotics -

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I love peaceful robots. The violent one’s really freak me out. I especially enjoy cheeky robots.

A small collection of my peaceful robots

So I started following them on Twitter and instantly enjoyed their banter. And for some reason they followed me back. Score! I continued to research and discovered more and more about them. The Museum is actually located in Second Life. A virtual museum that features curated digital robot art (why didn’t I think of that?). If you are a Second Life user, you can find their location, here. I learned about their design firm, their housewares line, their love of Formula One, their niceness, and of course, they adore robots.

Vicki and Richard Küng are Museum of Robots, Küngdesign and all of the other things I mentioned. They are smart, creative and web savvy. That goes without saying. But they’re also the type of people contributing essential online content to an environment thirsty for quality experiences. My goal in this series, “May I present to you -” is to highlight the people contributing meaningful digital content and shaping the web in a transformative way. Museum of Robots does that for me not just through robots, but incredible design, superb content, humor, insight and an un-robotic humanness. I often harp on about story telling, content over technology, or the personality of technology. For me, Museum of Robots are experts in this arena. Why wouldn’t I adore them?

At this point, I will stop and let you hear directly from them. Enjoy their answers and insight. Leave comments, suggestions or questions. Thank you for reading. And a big thank you to Museum of Robots for letting me stalk them…

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Who is Museum of Robots and Küngdesign? The people behind them are Vicki Küng and Richard Küng. Küngdesign is our design and branding agency. We started in the ’90s doing retail store design and permanent exhibits, then the internet came along and we discovered we were geeks, so we moved it all online and work primarily on online branding projects. It’s all still based on our perspective of relating people to their environment, communication and storytelling, just translated to an online or virtual environment.

Museum of Robots is a housewares line we started 2 years ago – after working in pixels for so long we wanted to design things you can touch. The inspiration is robots, which to us are the essence of modern and nostalgic- futuristic and retro, technical and playful, functional and entertaining.

Some of the Museum of Robots housewares line

Museum of Robots is also a museum in the online 3D virtual world of Second Life.

What drives you? Design, communication, technology, fun. All wrapped up in the context of business, as these are commercial, if creative, entities.

What determines good online content? Great storytelling. I think the success has to be evaluated ultimately by the user, but it’s up to content creators to have a vision and be true to it, whatever kind of content they’re making. For commercial content creators it’s about the audience, so making content that resonates with them, rather than a making a commercial disguised as content, is important. BMW did it wonderfully with The Hire in 2001 and Absolut is doing it now with I’m Here. Those are both reflective of what the brands stand for, but are still great stories and content.

Self-expression is different – that comes from passion. You laugh at Chocolate Rain, but you never doubt the commitment of the guy who made that. It’s genuine and that makes it compelling.

Robots are _______. Our friends. Twee and true in equal measure.

What’s with this Second Life thing? Yeah – we get that a lot. It’s an online 3D virtual world and that’s where Museum of Robots exists as a museum. We have exhibits, a permanent collection, visiting artists, art shows, events, lectures, competitions – everything a real life museum does.

We find artists, design exhibits, run a gift shop, experiment with technology within the SL environment, do marketing outreach to attract visitors, and join up with other museum and gallery owners to compare notes, cross-promote and give each other support.

Current exhibits are “‘Bots, Bugs & Beasts: The Art of Joshua Ellingson”, “From Teapot to Robot: The Sculpture of Clayton Bailey”, “‘Robots and Donuts: The Art of Eric Joyner”, and ‘Celebrity Robots Hall of Fame’, featuring famous robots of film and television.

Best robot movie? This question was the source of much discussion – determined by movie era? What’s a robot? Based on script or action? Robot as star or sidekick? Good robots or bad robots?

We were on the verge of over-thinking the entire topic, so we decided to stop with these, and narrowing it down to two is the best we could do – but it’s a consensus answer:

The Terminator (the original)
Wall-e

Best popular culture robot reference? We see robots everywhere – it’s all one big pop culture reference to us – so it’s kinda hard to be objective. Having said that, the most-quoted robot line in this household is by Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet, “That is correct, Sir”. It covers a lot of territory, depending on delivery.

Your favorite robot?
Vicki: Acrobot. He’s a toy robot from the 1960′s, about a foot tall and stands on his head or feet. He makes me laugh every time and I cannot explain the attraction.

Richard: It’s like trying to pick your favorite child but if pressed, Robby for a movie robot and Answer Game Machine for a toy robot. Don’t tell the other robots I said that.

You live in America and like Formula One? Do tell…. It’s what happens when a Los Angeles-born surfer girl who’s always loved cars (cruising in lowriders on Whittier Blvd, weekends at the drag races) marries a Canadian F1 fan. Married, in fact, in a classic car museum on a Memorial Day weekend, celebrating our anniversary at the Indy 500 a number of times.

Needed an excuse to use one of my pics

F1? Nothing beats the drama, sounds and emotion of F1 – and that’s before a wheel ever turns on a track. The locations, the politics, the scandal, the speed, the glamour, and sometimes even the racing, are an incredible blend of entertainment, sports, design, technology, human drama and skill. Although sometimes it is a little lonely being an F1 fan in the States!

Can you tell me about your houseware line? Any new projects on the horizon? The housewares line…the defining principal is that the products are functional and should also have a sense of humor. When you’re called Museum of Robots it’s important not to take yourself too seriously.

The signature piece is our Flying Saucer Bowl, and we sell a lot of Rocket Salt & Pepper sets. Yes – it’s thematic. We also like to experiment with translating industrial materials so we have a line of PET Felt bags made from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic bottles; felt fabric and the products are made in the USA, and the fabric’s original use is the automotive industry.

We’re adding recycled aluminum pieces, working hard on making more products in the US, and the felt fabric is always a source of new ideas. We introduce a range of new pieces every six months so we’re always in development.

Aisle or window seat?
Richard: aisle.
Vicki: aisle. Which means when we travel together he takes the aisle and I take the window. Pick your battles.

If you could ask yourself any question, what would it be? And what’s the answer?
Q: Are we there yet?
A: I hope not.

What’s next for you? “Walter’s Kitchen Nook”. It’s a scripted series filmed entirely in Second Life, and is the story of Walter Sparks and his show “Walter’s Kitchen Nook”: he’s half-human, half-robot, intergalactically famous and ready to share his household style secrets.

The series will consist of 5-minute webisodes, with an overall storyline about Walter – he shares his household secrets, and has a few secrets of his own. Yes – it’s a hybrid-robot soap opera. We hope to have sponsors for each of the episodes and the sponsor’s product will be interwoven into the narrative, so the series is not an infomercial but an integration of sponsor messages into the action: Walter will interview a product each week, for example. It’s a return to the ‘commercial sponsor’ approach that was popular in the early days of TV and is popular again – we’ve taken product placement and worked it into the story. For the pilot we’re using the Museum of Robots Flying Saucer Bowl as a product Walter uses to solve a household dilemma.

Here’s the trailer -

It all circles back to our belief that the best online content hews to the same criteria that offline content does – good storytelling. In this particular case it’s literal, but there is a lot of creative leeway in how to tell a story and we hope we live to be 200 so we can see what people come up with.

Since my first flight (even the one to Newark), I’ve been fascinated by and in awe of flying. I still get apprehensive during take off and landings. I always look up at the sky to identify passing planes. I love the history and panache of Pan Am. I keep up with airline industry. My first “May I present to you…” series was about Harriet Baskas, a wonderful writer about….airports, travel and more. And when I do fly, I spend a lot of the time, looking out the window, 6 miles in the air, zooming at 500 miles per hour.

Looking out the window...

I enjoy the alone time on a flight. I always get a window seat. I listen to music, play video games on my PSP, work and read. But I always have one eye on the window, and my camera handy. It’s amazing what the world looks like at 30,000 feet.

I love my blues

I’ve taken hundreds of these shots. And of course I upload them to Flickr, including contributing to a couple of really cool groups. From the Airplane Window and Window seat please, both include shots from above, from travelers all over the world. It’s amazing what people capture just from an airplane window. It reminds me I have a lot more to see in this world.

In my career, I’ve worked a lot with video, web development and online strategies, but I always find myself coming back to the still image and most of the time, Flickr. Maybe I’m old school or I like the simplicity of a single framed shot. In the case of sitting on a plane, I guess I want to make sure I’m not going to forget a unique experience.

Chunks of ice below

I’ve been slightly inactive on Flickr recently because of the new job, bad weather and lack of travel. In the next month or two, I hope to become more active on Flickr, including some new projects. You’ll still get my standard window shots, views from my hotel room, clouds, and all the other predictable pics I capture. But, I am working on some new things, including video. So stay tuned.

By the way, if you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

The Biltmore

My younger,  brother-in-law also surprised us with a visit. Aside from being hilarious – he also knows technology, I mean knows everything. So he asked what apps I had for my iPhone, and an education began. Here are some of new apps he mentioned to me and some of my favorite oldies but goodies.

CardStar: I’m man that believes in carrying a money clip. This app organizes all of your discount or reward cards for easy scanning at checkouts. CVS, grocery store, the playa ball, Toys r Us, yeah, it’s all stored. You’ll be organized and your money clip will shine.

BigOven: Need to know how to boil water, make lobster bisque, a sunday roast, Chicken marsala? This app will save the day while you’re walking through the grocery store looking for paprika. Unfortunately, it won’t turn you into Gordon Ramsey.

Knocking Live Video: Wow. Turn your iPhone into a streaming web cam. Wanna give someone a home tour? Wanna stream some street racing? Wanna give a live video demonstration of _______? Get to it. Send your video to a buddy, colleague or parent. What are you waiting for? Read their blog posts here or see the demo below - 

These were some of the best apps my b-i-l mentioned, and these don’t include what I already regulary use, such as TweetDeck, Facebook, Flickr, and more recently foursquare.  But, there are a couple of other apps I’m excited to use shortly – RedLaser and Remote – it’s all about scanning barcodes for deals and controling iTunes with my phone.

Some of the apps are incredible. I remember back in November, calling home from New Zealand, using Skype via free wifi – how amazing is that? But really, in closing, can anything top The Mighty Boosh app? I know my life is complete.

I’ve missed a million apps – but I have I overlooked a must have? Let me know.

So, the first of this series focuses on the blog Stuck at the Airport by Harriet Baskas.  I’m a travel junkie and absolutely adore airports. I wasn’t lucky enough to travel through JFK and see the Eero Saarinen TWA terminal during its heyday, but I would have truly appreciated it. To provide a little background, I’ve been fortunate to travel frequently. My favorite airport is Singapore’s Changi and as an Indianapolis resident, I started the the IND Flickr group. Through my work at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, I convinced Patrick Smith, author of Ask the Pilot, to write a beautiful, compelling blog post, The Jetliner as Art. I love airports, traveling and planes.

The beautiful sterile Changi

But enough about me.

I stumbled upon Harriet’s work in the first half of 2009 through some general research about airports and travel. I immediately became a fan of her blog and the many travel, airport and airline related articles she crafts. As it often happens in the online world, we exchanged e-mails, blog comments, and tweets. I remember thinking how cool it was that I could easily connect with someone that I respected. Harriet is a wonderful commentator on the state of modern travel, specifically the culture of airports, airline industry, quirky happenings and the latest in TSA occurrences. Beyond that, Harriet is a pretty big fan of museums, a talented and award winning radio producer, contributor to USA Today & MSNBC, author and much more.  It’s not often I meet someone who shares my passions – travel, airports, airlines, museums and so on. And she’s an expert!

Stuck at the Airport

After some communication, Harriet featured me in one her blog posts – Airport fans: yes, there are some – which made me feel pretty chuffed. Harriet and Stuck at the Airport made this series, because she’s an example of intelligent internet publishing. Harriet is not only active on her blog, online publications and other sites, but synthesizes her content through Twitter (@hbaskas) in a way that is engaging and interesting. Her multiple online methods of communication are fully integrated and connected to reveal her content, her stories. So many people fail at this.

Travel is one of the most rewarding things we can do in life. It’s inspiring, challenging, sometimes life-changing and hard work. Travel helps us understand this world and the beauty of cultural diversity. Harriet has created the perfect job.  So the next time you are planning a trip, in the midst of traveling or stuck at the airport, check out Harriet’s work. She’s totally worth it.

Stuck at the Airport

Her column on USA Today

Her column on MSNBC

And, as part of this “May I present to you…” series, I plan on always asking a series of questions. So here goes -

What drives you? Personally, generally?  General curiosity, mostly.  Oh.. and coffee. That’s what led me to traveling around to visit unusual and offbeat museums for a long running series of radio stories and for books. And that’s what got me stuck at the airport that one day when I decided there needed to be a guide to all the other things (besides waiting) to do at airports.

….Thank you to Harriet for participating in the very first, May I present to you…., series. Stay tuned for the next installment, and if you have someone you think I need to feature, please let me know.

I’ve finally got around to creating danielincandela.com.

I’ve done this as a way of representing myself online, but to also start sharing some of my personal projects. I focus so much on my work projects (which I love) that I often neglect some pretty cool things I do at home from time to time.

So, give me a week or two to get this site in shape and hopefully, start enjoying some new content from yours truly.

Ciao.