Wednesday, December 10, 2003

Wired News: Turning Heads With PowerPoint: "LOS ANGELES -- From televised presidential aircraft carrier visits to the glut of unreal reality TV shows, 'American culture is becoming a culture of pageants,' says David Byrne.
'We're surrounded by show, just as the Roman Empire turned to bread and circuses to hide other things that were taking place.'

Turning Heads With PowerPoint
To examine how the medium shapes the message, the former Talking Head uses Microsoft PowerPoint -- the ubiquitous presentation software -- as a creative tool.
His art presentations make babble of business-speak, and question whether the form of what we communicate can affect its truth: Rebellious flow charts stream backward, screens overflow with clip art gone wild, deliverables and leave-behinds assume surreal new roles, and renegade bullet points assault the viewer in a rapid-fire barrage."
Amazon.com: Books: David Byrne: E.E.E.I. (Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information): "David Byrne is the only rocker who could have imagined turning Microsoft PowerPoint into an art form."

Wednesday, December 03, 2003

Brings back memories of CICA....but also interesting thread re VC & intelectual property rights...
Bootstrapping Start-ups: "Google 'cold calling' and learn the best techniques, on-line -- they do work. Do calls every day! Fill out a spreadsheet with who you're going to call the next day and, just like successful aerobics, get up in the morning and do it without thinking about it. Use a similar spreadsheet to track who you've called and call again the next month. And the month after that."