John Morrison - Product Strategy and Brand Identity
My dear friend Laura is having an album release show at the Double Door in Chicago on August 18th. I did the photo and design work for the poster you see above.
Needless to say, I think it’s going to be a great show. If you can make it, you should attend.
You can buy tickets here.
In 2003 Steve Jobs sat down with Walt Mossberg at the first-ever D: All Things Digital conference. The end of the session included a rare open Q&A with Jobs by audience members in which the following question was asked:
“You talk about handwriting and keyboard, how about speech as a human interface?”
Here is Steve’s answer transcribed by an iPhone 4S using iOS 5’s Dictation feature:
“You know that the last part of that question is is exactly right I I I’ve been almost 30 years and it’s speech is always been five years away because I’m trying to completions
But it went most of the really smart people of speech I know have gotten out of Beelitz it’s like nuclear fusion a lot of bright people went into it and and and people now think it’s a ways away you can do what you can do adequate speech today to meet your correcting a lot of stuff if you just have to know even 1% area try cannot as it turns out you can speak a lot of words in a few terrible so it’s got to be very accurate and so far no one’s come up with the technology Apple’s got a very we got to speak working on stuff Microsoft has a group you want GreatWorks be done in academia but it doesn’t look like it’s been a be real anytime soon I wish it was different”
Here is what he actually said:
“Ya know, the last part of that question is exactly right. I’ve been in this industry almost 30 years and speech has always been five years away. It’s been constant time to completion, just moving along 5 years away. Most of the really smart people in speech I know have gotten out of the field. It’s like nuclear fusion a lot of bright people went into it and people now think it’s a ways away. You can do you can do adequate speech today but it means you’re correcting a lot of stuff. If you just have even 1% error it drives you nuts. Because it turns out you can speak a lot of words in a five minute interval. So, it’s gotta be very accurate and so far no ones come up with the technology. Apple’s got a speech group working on stuff. Microsoft has a group. A lot of great work is being done in academia but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be real any time soon. I wish it was different.”
Looks like Steve was right.
I should have posted this much sooner, but I’ve been busy. Perhaps too busy, but it’s never too late:
This weekend I will be riding, with my good friend Laura, in the ILD Bike MS: Tour De Farms 2012 to raise money to fight Multiple Sclerosis.
MS is a cause that is very important to me. Growing up, I saw the disease devastate, and eventually take the life of, my “Aunt” Kathy, my mother’s best friend.
I’ve set a small goal of $400, but I’d like to blow it out of the water; if you’re interested in helping out, you can donate here. It is tax-deductible and goes to a very good cause.
Thanks.
From 2010-2011, I published a photoblog on the Chicago Tribune’s blog network ChicagoNow. Entitled ‘Focal Points,’ the purpose of the blog was to showcase the beauty of Chicago by traveling from neighborhood to neighborhood and publishing photo sets of each.
The idea may, at some point, be resurrected and reworked, but for now, you can find a full archive of the blog and its photos here under the Focal Points category.
In 2010 I decided I was going to try to make a point to create and publish something every day. Whether it was a photograph on Flickr or a blog post here or elsewhere, it would be my own, personal accomplishment.
Unfortunately, I didn’t even come close. I could make excuses, but I simply didn’t succeed.
With the advent of Instagram in 2011, it became increasingly easy to do the “one photograph a day” type of project. As much as I’m a fan of digital photography, it takes very little effort to shoot a single image daily on your phone, and that takes all the fire out of it.
So I thought: “Go big or go home.”
At some point, I heard about the work of Jamie Livingston, who took one Polaroid photo a day from 1979 to his death in 1997.
Unfortunately, Polaroid ceased making new instant film in 2008, which seemingly ruled out that idea. At some point, though, I miraculously stumbled onto a group called The Impossible Project. ‘TIP’ is a group of Polaroid enthusiasts who set out to reverse engineer the good old stuff and are now producing new instant film compatible with Polaroid cameras.
Armed with film and a “new” camera, I have set out to shoot and publish one photograph a day using Impossible Project film. With that in mind, I’ve entitled my experiment “The Impossible Year” for a few reasons. The first and most obvious would be in tribute to the company making this possible. Secondly would be sorta tongue in cheek with myself as 2012 is the year the “world is supposed to end” according to the Mayan calendar, which if the world were actually to end, would certainly mean the end of my project. Lastly, it’s a challenge to myself not to fail, saying that my year would be “impossible” states that at some point, I might drop the ball and fail, thus pushing me to prove myself wrong.
So yeah enough BS. I didn’t write anything about this back in January because I wanted to make sure I’d be able to get at least one month under my belt. Now here we are, March is almost over, so it’s safe to say I’m going to keep at it. Please take a moment to look through the photos and feel free to leave comments or ask questions. Thanks!