According to Wired (@wired), Make Your Franklin (@MakeFranklin) is an online project asking artists and designers to put their own creative stamp on the very staid and familiar $100 bill. Yes, that’s still Ben Franklin above, but he’s been given a postmodern makeover. Interesting how new design elements jazz up products that have become commonplace. Something to consider in the publishing world!
The Henry Ford (@OnInnovation) asks “Who’d think of putting ground walnut shells in tires? None other than Bobby Unser.” With a Championship Auto Racing Team record of 35 career wins, Unser recognizes that every performance advantage, even a small one, can spell the difference between winning and losing. In this interview he reveals his passion to win while inspiring one innovation after another. As you watch, consider ways in which you can adapt his auto racing innovative principles to innovative thinking for the future of publishing.
Somersault was invited to attend the recent TEDxGrandRapids (@TEDxGrandRapids) (#TEDxGR), a local event inspired by the internationally known TED talks (@TEDTalks & @TEDNews). On May 12, 16 Innovators from diverse fields and from all over the world came to Grand Rapids, MI to share their personal stories of innovation with over 500 local thinkers and doers.
An insightful summary of the day’s speakers is provided by Sharon Oleniczak, strategist at Peopledesign (@peopledesign). For example, she writes: Robert Fuller: Innovate Wonder. Professor of Religious Studies at Bradley University (@bradleyu). Robert Fuller wants all of us to live in a state of wonder every day. “A life shaped by wonder is much different than a life shaped by fear or guilt,” he said.
If you have a chance to participate in a TED or TEDx event, you’ll want to prepare for it by reading these helpful tips from Ben Brousch (@brousch).
One of the videos shown at the event was this one, a life lesson presented by Mark Bezos, a volunteer firefighter:
How are you going to innovate today? Let Somersault help. And remember to daily use the SomersaultNOW online dashboard to read inspiring articles of innovation.
While at Apple, Mike Matas (@mike_matas) helped write the user interface for the iPhone and iPad. Now, co-founder of Push Pop Press (@pushpoppress), he's helping to rewrite the electronic book. In the above video he demos the first full-length interactive book for the iPad – with clever, swipeable video and graphics, and some cool data visualizations to play with. The book is Our Choice, Al Gore’s sequel to An Inconvenient Truth.
Be sure to read the discussion started by David Wees (@davidwees) titled “What is this ‘ebook’ missing?”
I'd have to argue that this ebook is missing some of the most important features of the interactive Web.... [W]hat I see is interactivity with static content, which in my mind is a dead concept.
...Most importantly, how is this book integrated with social media? How can we comment on the book, annotate it, share passages of the book with other people? If I want to share the book, like we can do easily and all the time with print text, do I need to share my entire iPad? How do we tag content? How do we set multiple bookmarks, so we can go back and reread our favourite sections? Can I read the same book on my laptop? Is it possible to make edits to the book when I see errors or omissions, or just want to play with the text?
In today’s digital age, we should be very suspicious of any ebook which doesn't offer all of the features listed above.
Let Somersault help you publish meaningful enhanced ebooks.
According to Sympatico.ca News (@Sympatico), a plastic smartphone as thin and flexible as a credit card has been invented by researchers from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
Roel Vertegaal, director of the Human Media Lab at Queen's University, first came up with the idea of using “bend gestures” as a new way of interacting with computers. He envisioned a device that would feel and behave like a sheet of interactive paper, so he named it the PaperPhone.
He expects consumer devices similar to the PaperPhone to hit the market in 5 to 10 years.
Vertegaal will demonstrate the prototype - and the bend gestures used to control it - at the Computer Human Interaction conference in Vancouver May 10 (#chi2011).
Read the BBC News story.
Read the news release at Human Media Lab.
What are you doing today to prepare for the continuous changes in publishing so that you’ll be ready for the new book formats of the future?
Harvard Business School (@HBSNews) professor Lynda Applegate says one of the forces that threatens established companies — disruptive change — can also be a source of salvation. She encourages executives to leverage disruptive change as a platform for innovation.
Disruptions in the business environment cause economic shifts that destabilize industries, companies, and even countries. They allow new entrants or forward-thinking established players to introduce innovations — in products, markets, or processes — that transform the way companies do business and consumers behave.
These disruptive innovations are not just novel inventions. Successful innovators take ideas and turn them into opportunities by adding a business model that creates sustainable economic value for all stakeholders. They then go one step further and exploit the opportunity by creating a sustainable business.
She lists the following guidelines to positively leverage disruption to create value:
Let Somersault help you turn the revolutionary changes occurring in the publishing world into a playground of possibilities for your brand.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.
NPR News featured a report on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. Reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty says the King James Bible is the poetry that inspired Handel's oratorio Messiah, as well as modern musicians:
The Byrds sang from Ecclesiastes in Turn Turn Turn: proclaiming that there is “A time to be born, a time to die, A time to plant, a time to reap, A time to kill, a time to heal.” Simon and Garfunkel echoed the Gospels when they sang, “Like a bridge over troubled waters, I will lay me down.” And when Kansas voiced its existential angst — “All we are is dust in the wind” — it was inspired by the Psalms.
Listen to and read this report in full.
A national expo is being held in Washington, DC, where a congressional resolution honoring the KJV Bible will be read. Here’s an excerpt:
Whereas the King James Bible’s relevance and contributions continue to formatively influence the United States: Now, therefore, be it resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress--
(1) recognizes the 400th anniversary of the Authorized King James Version of the Bible being published;
(2) recognizes its lasting influence on countless families, individuals, and institutions in the United States; and
(3) expresses its gratitude for the influence it has bestowed upon the United States.
You may want to see photos of Thomas Nelson’s (@ThomasNelson & @NelsonBibles) historic Bible exhibit shown at the NRB convention this year. The exhibit was part of KJV400.
Also see Somersault’s Infographic of 2011, the year to celebrate the significant and life-changing milestones achieved in the areas of publishing, technology, and innovation.
Sony is creating a flexible screen that’s thin and sturdy enough to be rolled while still showing video images. Samsung also has created a flexible OLED screen display:
Another application of a lithe monitor is the Rolltop notebook computer:
Acer has launched the Iconia-6120 Dual-Screen Touchbook, which USA TODAY says offers two touch-enabled 14-inch high-definition widescreen LED backlit LCDs:
And the two-screen Kno tablet is yet to come, as reported by Digital Trends:
Update (8/10/11): Kno is now software, not its own tablet. See "Kno Rolls Out New Features for Textbook App."
What will flexible screens and dual monitors mean for publishing innovation? And how will you start preparing for it today? Write your comments below.
At MIT, Cynthia Breazeal and her team are building robots with social intelligence that communicate and learn the same way people do. Watch this 14-minute TED talk (@tedtalks & @TEDNews) to discover that when the infants of today become adults in 20 years, they’ll be interacting with robots as naturally as they do their peers.
What are the consumer and product implications of these technological advances on the future of the publishing industry? How far beyond ebooks will these innovations go?
As you know, our free online dashboard SomersaultNOW includes a tab for RSS feeds that focus on the future; articles trying to discern (and predict) what tomorrow will bring. We also "publish" the paper.li "newspaper" Somersault Futurist Daily News, to which you can subscribe. We include these because one of Somersault’s distinctives is to scan the horizon for coming trends and innovations to help publishers and marketers prepare for the possibilities ahead. The above video is just such an example. As you watch it, be thinking how the delivery of published content in the future will need to adapt and change, and what you should do today to get ready for it (and let Somersault help).