Category Archives: Concept

First steps with ‘Levelling up my PM skills’

I’m on a mission to ‘level up my PM skills’. The first step is to find out more about current thinking and approaches towards product, which is why I made my way through the product-led fundamentals course by ProductLed.

My experience of the course

It’s an interesting mini-course that does what it says (on the can), which is introducing the fundamentals of product-led approach to selling stuff in a series of less than 10 minute videos bookended by a quiz and certificate at the end.

It feels somewhat like a classic-MOOC format you’d find on digital learning platform like Coursera, EdX, or even FutureLearn where you get to taste before you choose to order the main meal.

The course practised what it preached: Try before you buy (coaching and other products and services by Product-led) and show not tell, and more.

Why so fast?

As a side note, I found the production style of the videos interesting. Although the play controls listed playback speed as ‘normal’, the videos felt like they were playing at an increased speed which gave the videos a slightly jilted and jumpy feel, especially to the video.

This may have been an intentional design decision (like YouTube creators) or a configuration on the video platform used to stream the video. Also noting that ‘skim watching lecture videos’ is a thing.

Not quite “One Dollar” DIY Amazon Fuzz, but close enuff.

Like many others, I was enamoured with the offering of a “One Dollar DIY Amazon Fuzz” after watching the video, and then ordering the components through the affiliate links.

I made the ‘pedal’ and although I haven’t been able to troubleshoot the ’60hz hum’ and low output volume in the two I made, they actually work as described in the video. Awesome.

THEME FROM DEATH // ADMIN (DEMO)

DEATH //ADMIN IS WHERE LIFE,DEATH AND ADMINISTRATION COLLIDE.

DEATH // ADMIN IS A HEAVY FUZZ GROOVE MUSICAL PROJECT.

THEME FROM DEATH // ADMIN IS THE FIRST RELEASE BY THE PROJECT – THIS IS THE DEMO.

DEATH // ADMIN IS INSPIRED BY SLOWED DOWN SABBATH, GODFLESH, LARRY GRAHAM, PORTER RICKS, THE RITA, HARSH WALL NOISE, MARVIN GAYE, UNHOLY KNIFING RITUALS OF BARRIER KULT’S DEER MAN OF DARK WOODS, AND THE HEAVINESS OF LIFE ITSELF.

Everyday King

♔ Everyday King ♔ is a clumsy and well-meaning experiment with HTML, CSS and Javascript that features Kerry King of Slayer.

In its current form, the images for ♔ Everyday King ♔ are drawn from a manually defined list and then displayed randomly over a specified duration. The Javascript and CSS is a hodgepodge and probably isn’t the most efficient way of doing things.

In a more ideal and enhanced form, the images for ♔ Everyday King ♔ would be drawn from the infinite source of Kerry King photographs on the web, possibly through web scraping or similar dynamic techniques, and then more seamlessly displayed in the browser. Something fun to learn.

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<title>&#9812; Everyday King &#9812;</title>
<meta name="description" content="Everyday King. Non-stop random photographs of Kerry King all day, every day. Forever.">
<meta name="keywords" content="Kerry King, Kerry, King, Slayer, Every, Day, All day, Forever">

<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com">
<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.gstatic.com" crossorigin>
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Bebas+Neue&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">

<style type="text/css">
/* HTML Colour Shades https://www.w3schools.com/colors/colors_shades.asp */
	body {
	margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
	font-family: 'Bebas Neue', sans-serif;
    box-sizing: border-box;
	/* color: #F5F5F5; */
    /* color: #fff; */
    color: #c00000;
    background-color: #333;
}
/* Sourced from 'Change Background Image Every Second with CSS & JavaScript | Random background image' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTqmimXu1XM */
section {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    width: 100%;
    height: 100vh;
    background-color: #383838;
    background: url(images/kk_00001.png);
    display: flex;
    /*justify-content: center; */
    background-size: cover; 
    background-position: center center;
    /* background-size: auto 100%; */
}
/* css approach to alignment courtesy of https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47456137/center-text-in-screen-when-resize-browser */

#container {
    display: table;
    height: 90%;
    width: 90%;
    position: absolute;
    padding-left: 1em;
}
#text {
	text-align: center;
    display: table-cell;
    vertical-align: middle;
    font-weight: bold;
    font-size: 5.5em;
    /* CSS text spacing https://www.w3schools.com/css/css_text_spacing.asp */
    line-height: 0.7;
    letter-spacing:-2px;
    opacity: 0.7;
    /* -webkit-text-stroke: 0.001em black; */
    /* -webkit-text-fill-color: #c00000; */
    /* Other stuff about text opacity from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10835500/how-to-change-text-transparency-in-html-css */
}
</style>	
</head>
<body>

<!-- style the 'section' and then hit it with javascript --> 
<section>&nbsp;</section>

<!-- 'Change Background Image Every Second with CSS & JavaScript | Random background image' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTqmimXu1XM -->
<script>
    function changeBG(){

        const images = [
            'url("images/kk_00001.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00002.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00003.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00004.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00005.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00006.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00007.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00008.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00009.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00010.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00011.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00012.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00013.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00014.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00015.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00016.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00017.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00018.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00019.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00020.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00021.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00022.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00023.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00024.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00025.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00026.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00027.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00028.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00029.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00030.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00031.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00032.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00033.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00034.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00035.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00036.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00037.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00038.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00039.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00040.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00041.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00042.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00043.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00044.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00045.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00046.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00047.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00048.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00049.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00050.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00051.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00052.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00053.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00054.png")',
            'url("images/kk_00055.png")',
            
        ]
        const section = document.querySelector('section')
        const bg = images[Math.floor(Math.random() * images.length)];
        section.style.backgroundImage = bg;
    }
    setInterval(changeBG, 9000)
</script>

<div id="container">
    <div id="text">Everyday King.<br>Non-stop stream of random photographs<small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small> of Kerry King from Slayer. All day. Every day. Forever.</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

‘Making music’ with MusicLM in AI Test Kitchen

Been having fun with ‘Making music’ with MusicLM in AI Test Kitchen – write a prompt and hit the button. Fun. Unsurprisingly it didn’t have too much problem generating music from well known forms of music e.g., like jazz and rock and dance music, but it wasn’t so great on less known forms or similar prompts (just like a human might be if you were to ask them to create music from your description, perhaps).

Pedestrian wayfinding in the inner city

Wayfinding at pedestrian crossings in Melbourne’s CBD where pedestrians are most likely to be face-down on their phone, much like as I observed as early as 2011 in Busan, South Korea. Like the promoters in Busan, the designers from the City of Melbourne understood the pedestrians and their behaviour – this led to the intentional design and installation of light panels on the ground at pedestrian crossings. Nice one, designers!

Previously, in Busan, South Korea

Advertising taped to the footpath at pedestrian crossings is a common sight in areas of Busan such as Seomyeon that are frequented by youth, young people and university students. As a location for advertising it is ideal. It is one of the rare times busy pedestrians will stop, if only for a short time. That’s long enough to catch their eye with some brightly coloured paper. Placement on the footpath is also more likely to increase the potential for a pedestrian to view the advertisement as they gaze down at their smartphone. Accidental line of sight!

In the following photo from 2011, duct tape residue is all that remains of footpath advertising campaign at this pedestrian crossing in Busan, South Korea.

Duct tape residue is all that remains of footpath advertising campaign at this pedestrian crossing in Busan, South Korea.

Pushuperer for 2 years

I’ve just registered for The Push-Up Challenge 2023. I’ve now been a Pushuperer for 2 years, which is fantastic.

Like the previous year, I’ll be completing 3,144 push-ups in 23 days to raise awareness and funds for mental health. Also like the previous year, I’ll continue to push and power-up to my Push-Up Challenge Playlist – give it a listen and tell me what ya reckon!

Jamming the educator journey #1

One of my goals this year is to streamline the process and improve the experience of educators and other colleagues who engage engage with the outputs (products and services) from projects that I lead and contribute to. It’s not an insignificant task and I’m not starting from scratch, but the big challenge for me is linking all of the disparate processes and closely-related activities together, as well as connect the three different teams within the portfolio who are crucial for success.

As noted by Kate Kaplan in When and How to Create Customer Journey Maps, journey maps create a vision of the entire customer journey, they become a tool for creating cross-department conversation and collaboration. Knowing who is doing what, and when is is crucial – identifying the key touchpoints across each stage and working to assign them to the relevant team(s) means there’s capacity and capability for the work to be done – it also contributes to a frictionless experience for the educator as they’re ‘seamlessly passed’ from team to team throughout their journey.

I worked with other leads and contributors from within the portfolio for a discovery session, which is resulted in a full and rich whiteboard that mapped the educator journey – great stuff!

The 5E (Entice, Enter, Engage, Exit and Extend) based customer journey map scribbled and scrawled on a whiteboard.

Whiteboarding is a great first step to get ideas down. For more flexibility and to better support iteration and input from others something more shareable and collaborative was needed – I went with a Figma-based Figjam to map out the journey!

Figjam was perfect for highly interactive collaborative sessions, but something else a little less messier and suitable for others is needed – I went with a Figma-based design file to map the journey!

Daily whiteboard (blog)

For many educators, opportunities for recognition of their expertise from within their organisation can be limited. With its capacity for public dialogue and conversation, a blog may be one tool that can help increase organisational awareness of an educator and their engagement with peers from outside the organisation – this may better surface their expertise and activity.

Whiteboarding with Tim.

Daily whiteboard (monday.com board for multimedia)

Right now, the challenge is our capacity to easily identify the number of multimedia assets e.g., still and time-based media, that needs to produced for each project that’s being worked on and the capacity of each team member to contribute to that production in the future. e.g., what are they working on now and what can they work on in the future. Each project is already listing milestones and activities for education design, learning design, but not specifically media design – this makes it difficult to efficiently produce content and perceive what’s coming next. This is especially true when team members are reallocated.

Creating a board, and tasks with required granularity, may contribute to overcoming that challenge while boosting efficiency and productivity, and general feeling of calmness.

Customer journey map #1 (daily whiteboard)

Making a start on the customer journey map for the 2023 Teach HQ, Be inspired and the MEA (teaching and learning festival) experience – it’s a first take and will probably require some ‘zooming-in’ with details and most likely a service blueprint, and some iteration. That’s cool because that’s what it’s all about – working it out.

Wayne Coyne revisits the first “Do You Realize??” demo

I was particularly fond of “Talkin’ ‘Bout the Smiling Deathporn Immortality Blues (Everyone Wants to Live Forever)” from Hit to Death in the Future Head by The Flaming Lips but seemingly missed everything else in their catalogue for over 20 years because my attention was elsewhere. Fast forward to 2022, I’m stoked to recently discover the 20 year old Do You Realize?? song by them. I’m glad I did – it’s a good one.