Isabel Walcott Hilborn

Dreams in High Fidelity at 3 Legged Dog

Last Friday was the closing night of my client Scott Draves' exhibition at the 3 Legged Dog Art and Technology Center in downtown Manhattan.  His artwork, which is a high-fidelity rendering of the electric sheep, was projected on the white cylindrical foyer of the gallery. Pretty awesome. 

Dreams in High Fidelity is for sale in a limited edition; more at http://www.hifidreams.com.

Spot's photos of the installation: http://draves.org/pix/2008-07-12-3LD-show/

My snapshots at Flickr: a guest, and two views of the tube.

Video of the tube:

Supernova Interview with Scott Draves

I work with the artist Scott Draves (AKA Spot), who makes art using the network as a medium.  I also work with Kevin Werbach and Jeannie Logozzo (captured by Renee Blodgett) of the Supernova conference, and 2008's theme is Challenges for the Network Age. 

So when the time came to post interesting interviews to Supernova's Conversation Hub blog, it seemed like a no-brainer to pick Scott as my first interview (Esther Dyson is next week).

The interview, "Scott Draves on the Electric Sheep Network" is now up on the Supernova Conversation Hub blog. 

My favorites from the points Scott raised in the interview: 

• that working with a network has its challenges but the reward is beyond compare
• that art and open-source technology, being built upon the concepts that preceded them, are part of a "web of ideas" which is itself a network
• that he is basing his career as an artist on the symbiotic relationship between free products for the crowd and limited-edition fine art for collectors

Scott Draves illustrates what happens when an open-source programmer becomes an artist.  He has brought open-source business models and open-source creative methodology to art, and the combination has stunning results.  (And I'm not saying that because I work with him; I work with him because I think that.  So does Siggraph, apparently, as they chose Draves' artwork as the brand identity for their 2008 conference, "Evolve").

Big Fresh is Good!

So on Friday night Mike and I went to the movies, but first we wanted to get dinner.  So we drove around Fast-food hell near the intersection of 9 and 30 in Framingham, and I saw this sign saying Big Fresh.  I thought it might be something like Fresh City, a fast-food joint which isn't as unhealthy as McDonald's.  (Sorry McDonald's).

We pulled in and there, crammed between cheap Chinese fast food and pizza, we found a beautiful little green gem, an emerald if you will.  A real restaurant, tiny but with a great atmosphere, very fast without being "fast food", all natural food, locally grown organic produce, etc. We ordered spicy thai peanut stir-fry and thai curry chicken and broccoli over jasmine rice, each $8.75 I think, and they were delicious.  For drinks, at the suggestion of the owner I got carbonated maple sap (which is the actual sap as it drips from the tree, carbonated, manufactured by Vermont Sweetwater) and I thought it was out of this world.  Mike had organic pale ale beer which was tasty too.  They have lots of other tasty-sounding entrees as well as sandwiches and falafel, and everything is reasonably priced. What a find!

On top of everything, there was a sign there offering movie passes, which we bought with dinner, and ended up saving $4.50 on movie tickets. Thanks Big Fresh!  They don't appear to have a website, but they got a nice review in the Globe. I can't wait to go there again. It was a really good experience.

More Supernova stuff

I'm having lots of fun at Supernova.  Check out another one of my posts from yesterday, full notes from the session "Virtual Life or Virtual Hype?" .

I've been bumping into all sorts of fun people. I'll talk about them, probably, one at a time here (if at all), because wireless coverage is spotty and I don't want to lose my posts.

Today I ran into the so-wonderful Gary Bolles - I am a huge fan of his.  His company Microcast is running a conference in New Hampshire on 10/3/2007 during which major presidential candidates will be invited to discuss their positions on broadband Internet access in America, particularly in rural america.  Gary's business partner Esme Vos and I spoke yesterday afternoon, and she told me that in Europe rural broadband access is considered a strategic priority to enhance economic development.  In the U.S., rural areas are often overlooked by the commercial access providers because it's too expensive for them, so they are out of luck.

Sounds like an interesting event.  Get more info from Esme's website, MuniWireless, by emailing nbbs2007 at that domain.

Supernova 2007

Just bought my ticket to Kevin Werbach's Supernova 2007, sponsored by Cisco.  I just couldn't pass it up.  If you hurry, you can still buy your ticket from Boston for under $500.  Pricey, but worth it.  Push the power to the edge!

Really Cool!

It's hard to explain, to anyone who has never really worked online with the long tail, how powerful it can be.  At SmartGirl, we learned that collecting a database of whatever our community wanted to tell us turned us all into experts on trends ("hits") and interesting anecdotes ("long tail").  The easier it is to view this kind of data, the more you learn. 

Well, thanks to Web 2.0, slicing and dicing data to show trends and personal anecdotes isn't just for market research companies anymore; it's content in and of itself.  The brilliant Jonathan Harris turns this content into art with his latest installation.  His incredible WeFeelFine.org, made with Sepandar Kamvar, illustrates online emotion, hot off the (blog) presses, in fluorescent colors.  It's also a great way to help people understand the power of blogs, user-generated content, and good filtering mechanisms.

I met Jonathan at an exclusive retreat put on by the sweet and smart Juliette Powell and her colleagues.  Loved The Gathering weekend (my third) and the Inspiration Festival that followed it, where Jonathan also presented.

Friendly Update

Thought I'd take a minute to tell you what my friends are up to.

Bruce Kushnick is at it again; his ebook, briefly summarized in a concise post over at John Paczkowski's blog, explains how AT&T took $2B in government incentives to provide broadband to the home but never delivered. 

Marm Kilpatrick, Auston Marmaduke Kilpatrick for long, has been speaking and writing all over the place.  Dr. Marm is an expert on West Nile virus and in hot demand lately thanks to the bird flu.  Go Mamadou!

Josh Dorf, a friend from Nicolet, cashed in his Internet chips and bought a flour company.  I am curious to see whether his dot-com-savvy word-of-mouth marketing techniques will transfer.  So far, sending flour to Tim O'Reilly has netted him a blog post over there.  I got some too and can't wait to make cookies for Valentine's day.  Who will get the cookies?  Maybe they will blog about Josh too.

Ace Bhattacharjya has a really cool job at the US Tennis Association.  He's creating a do-it-yourself, user-created-content website for them.  He's building a social networking app to help tennis fans find other players, courts, and leagues in their area.

Maybe he can hook up with my buddy Derek Lomas, who has built a great application called Scape that companies and associations can private-label and tweak to make their own Friendster/MySpace type communities.

People who are interested in online communities should check out Diane Hessan's wonderful company Communispace, where big brands like Kraft and Pfizer can have conversations with their customers about products and marketing messages. 

I can't end this post without at least a little WOMM tirade.  EVERY company should have these conversations with customers, and let their customers do the talking for them, but honestly, so few do.  Really.  You would be absolutely shocked how few companies actually listen to their customers talk about what improvements need to be made to their wares.  They think it's "too expensive". What a waste when so many people are willing to share their opinions in the hopes of getting better products and services. 

Software tools like Scape Networks, online communities like Communispace, and just the everyday reality of the many-to-many nature of the web help so much with the cost, that there is really no excuse anymore.  So get conversing, people!  Get on the Cluetrain already, it's been five years since publication!

Uplift Academy

Went to Tom Munnecke's first Boston get-together for Uplift Academy this Monday.  It's an effort to stregthen and extend a network for those who do good on this earth -- a valiant effort still in nascent stages.

Met some great people there doing interesting things.  Charles Mclean showed us pictures of the cohousing community he helped create in Portland, OR.  It's a group of condos where everyone pitches in to help out, they share meals a couple of times a week, and they all get to use the communal toolshed, workbench, lawnmower, laundry, etc. 

Charles has no biological kids of his own and is enjoying "having children" as much as, I'm sure, the kids' biological parents enjoy sending their kids over to Charles' place.  It's not a dream world every day, because having a "family" that big and that close by is a lot of work; but it seems to me that it is a very good solution for growing old gracefully if you don't have family around to visit and take care of you -- and for raising children if you are maxed out with professional and other responsibilities.  Like having a little "village" in the middle of a big city.  Cool.

I also met Darlene Charneco and had a chance to look at pictures of some of her sculptures.  I loved them!  Her latest projects involve taking written work and encrypting it into nails on boards.  The nails are hammered in at different positions according to the text she is following.  People have actually been able to read her "writing" -- fascinating.  See examples of her work on her homepage and her gallery.

Darlene gives 10% of her profits from everything she earns to charity.  So if you buy her work, you're giving money "to help provide opportunity and education in developing countries" - a good extra incentive for would-be buyers!

Everyone else was doing cool stuff as well - thanks to Tom for getting us together.

Cyclotron

Just fell in love with this story of two guys who biked the entire length of Vietnam in a pedicab to raise money for a charity for street kids.  Way to turn a lust for adventure and desire not to go back to work into something of real value!  If you have a chance, check out their story and give a few bucks to their charity of choice, KOTO.

Engagement Photos

Mike and I were extremely lucky to have gotten our engagement portrait done over the weekend by Helene DeLillo of Dancing Icon Studios.  She is a genius at making people feel at home during portraiture.  I just checked out her website and I was incredibly impressed by the breadth of her accomplishments.  I am now convinced that good portrait-taking is all about the rapport you have with your subject.