We’re rolling out Teach from Home, a tools & resources hub to help teachers continue teaching during school closures. We’re also establishing a $10M Distance Learning fund to support orgs that help remove barriers for students learning remotely. #COVID19https://t.co/bM7fD4f4oU
To support the hundreds of millions of students and educators currently facing school closures, we're introducing Teach from Home—an initiative providing information, tips, training and tools to help remote teaching and learning. https://t.co/QL2N5zCVmc#TeachFromHomepic.twitter.com/pr9DNllt2M
🌎To launch Google’s new Digital Wellbeing platform I’ve teamed up with Google Creative Labs 👏 and produced a short film to kick it all off. Full credit list here… https://t.co/IstOXm01ujpic.twitter.com/m9fe2tB9om
I recently took a Mindfulness-based emotional intelligence course for leaders called Search Inside Yourself.
It’s a two-day course, and I learnt a ton of really good stuff about Mindfulness, Self awareness, Self management, Motivation, Empathy and Leadership.
Mindfulness is the awareness that arises from paying attention to what’s happening in the present moment in the mind, body and external environment, with an attitude of curiosity and kindness.
– Mindful Nation UK Report
I’m trying to build some new habits around a few of the core ideas that stood out for me personally. Especially five minute meditation, focussed attention, mindful listening, compassionate management and VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) environments.
One thing it’s also made me do is take a long hard look at my phone usage. Everything is now stripped back, simplified. Everything is now better.
I’m back on a 4‑inch phone (iPhone SE). I’m carrying a compact camera (Sony RX100 V). So it’s time for a mobile and apps screenshot post. I haven’t had an excuse to do this for 10 years, to the month.
Oh yeah… one more… the no devices in the bedroom thing. It’s a biggie. I promise. You really should get into that.
There are lots of people writing and thinking about this stuff right now. That’s not what this is about. I’m simply posting a small change I’ve made, that has helped me in some way. You are all smart and understand the why. Next, I’m hoping to try out this kind of approach on social and email usage.
How do the best leaders manage change, stay resilient, and inspire growth? Developed at Google by leading experts in neuroscience, business, and psychology, we teach you the practical mindful leadership and emotional intelligence tools to bring out your best. What began as a mindful leadership initiative within Google has spread to over 30 countries and 100 cities around the world. Our training has been proven to: reduce stress, improve focus, raise peak performance, and improve interpersonal relationships.
Since September 2015, Google has been working with humanitarian organizations to respond to the refugee crisis. On World Refugee Day, we made 2 films to help share an update on a few ongoing initiatives.
It’s Sunday evening and I’m a bit all over the place. My wife and I took a Virgin Atlantic flight on Thursday night from New York and landed at Heathrow on Friday morning. It was a one-way trip.
Wait? What?
After nearly three and half amazing years in New York, I’m back in London. I’m excited to say I’m starting a great new job and will be joining a fantastic team as Head of Production at Google.
Writing that it I can’t help but think I’m about to get found out in the biggest way possible. We’ll see…..
I’m going to miss the team in New York and the city. I don’t have the superlatives to explain how fucking awesome it was (yes, I said awesome… I’m allowed). During my time there I worked on 60+ projects; some big, some small, some successful, some failures. I never thought I’d be given the opportunity to create a new brand for [one of] the biggest companies in the world. But I was. And we did. Along with a bunch of other amazing stuff.
“It also felt like a good moment to tidy up and hit reset on a bunch of stuff. Especially digital things like email, tags, folders and social. I ran FullContact on iCloud, Google, and LinkedIn to merge and de-dupe the data – and hit delete on the old shit. After that I killed Angel List, G+, Instagram, Product Hunt, Snapchat, Squarespace, Tumblr, Twitter, Vimeo, Vine, Youtube and more. From today @hellokinsella is dead. A new and shiny @kinsellaxyz is alive.”
But this isn’t about the work I did. It’s about the work I’m going to do. I’m super excited to be joining a team that is already knocking it out of the park. Here’s a snapshot:
In September 2015, the team worked on a project called Assembly of Youth, which used feature phones and SMS to bring the voices of children around the world directly to their representatives at the United Nations General Congress. It presented them to some of the world’s most influential people in a powerful display in the atrium of the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
In response to the Syrian refugee crisis, the team worked alongside the International Rescue Committee and Mercy Corps to launch the Refugee Info Hub. Built and launched in just 36 hours, the portal brings valuable information to the thousands of refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria and making their way to Europe. Within four months of the Hub’s launch the platform had been used in 18 locations across Europe by more than 30 NGOs, and helped more than 100,000 refugees.
More recently Project Jacquard, which “makes it possible to weave touch and gesture interactivity into any textile using standard, industrial looms”, won the Cannes Product Design Grand Prix.
And this week they launch Project Bloks, “a research project aiming to create an open hardware platform to help developers, designers, and researchers build the next generation of tangible programming experiences for kids”.
Vitro conceived this video wall as part of its campaign for the New York City Marathon.
It shows long distance runner Ryan Hall running at marathon speed across a tunnel in NYC’s Columbus Circle subway station – and challenges the public to keep up.
Sorry about the lack of updates. Work is taking up most of my time at the moment, but here’s some stuff I liked recently. Will try and share more of this kind of stuff in the future. Sound like a plan?
Chrome: SBTV
The first ad in the first break of the new series of X-Factor was this ad for Google Chrome, featuring youth site SBTV, and its founder Jamal Edwards. Inspiring da yoots. Excellent work.
DC Shoes: Ken Block’s Hollywood Megamercial
Gynkhama is back, this time he’s tearing around on the backlots of Universal Studios, California.
TableDrum
A virtual drumkit which syncs the sound of any object to high quality drum samples of your choice. /via Ad Bright
DragonTape HTML5 Mixmaker
Dragontape is an easy to use HTML5 video & sound editor that enables anyone to create mixtape playlists (up to 3 hours long) from YouTube and SoundCloud clips. /via Rubbishcorp http://www.dragontape.com/home
Nike+ City Runs
An installation for Nike retail stores which visualized a year’s worth of runs from the Nike+ website. Made with OpenFrameworks. http://yesyesno.com/nike-city-runs
Watch YouTube With Friends
Possibly the most interesting recent Google+ feature is a new button on YouTube that lets you start a hang out with friends around a video you’re watching. http://mashable.com/2011/08/18/watch-with-friends-youtube/
Wearable Electronic Sensors Stick Like Temporary Tattoos, Present Endless Possiblities
A team of researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign have developed small electronic devices that can be worn on the skin. http://www.geekosystem.com/sensor-temporary-tattoos/
IKEA Lullaby So many things I like I about this. Gorgeous HTML5 website, leading to branded content in Spotify and iTunes. http://demo.fb.se/pr/ikea/lullabies/
INNOVATION / TECHNIQUES
X-Men First Class – NFC Posterscope, Proxama, O2 and Nokia team up. The possibilities are HUGE!
Daft Punk – Anatomy of a Mashup The entire piece is composed from the latest HTML5 and CSS3 technology (canvas, audio, transforms & transitions). http://daftpunk.themaninblue.com/
MIT Mood Meter Isobar have already teamed up with MIT to look at applications for brands.
Androidify Dance Kinect + Android avatar. Love it.
Aurasma Object tracking non-QR AR for iPhone with multiple media (geo-located).
Paper Record Player A paper record player wedding invitation.
Kinect Live Music Performance Chris Vik uses Kinect with Ableton to control sound samples and produce an amazing live music performance.
YooToob Interactive Youtube Music Machine Just use your keyboard. It’s the Youtube interactive music machine.
The Wheels Of Steel Turntables in your browser with HTML5/CSS/JS and some Flash. Needs a kickass browser and machine. http://wheelsofsteel.net/
Human Jukebox This man is an owner of an electronics store in Stockholm. He swallowed a custom-made wireless soundsystem. People then request a song over the internet.
Borg & McEnroe Play Doubles on YouTube Separately, they are alright. But when played simultaneously, they interact perfectly.
The Verbalizer by Breakfast NY Enhancing Google Voice Search. Smart. Fast. Etc.
Face Projection Mapping Responsive projection mapping where everything is triggered by his face. Up close and personal.
Video Time Machine Handpicked popular culture from 1860 – 2011.
RobotFlaneur The idea is simple: pick a city, and every 30 seconds it will take you to a random place and show you the Google StreetView image. Each view is not important. What’s interesting is if you leave it running and occasionally glance at it. You might recognise some views in some cities, otherwise there’s a lot of mundanity: suburbs, motorways, traffic signs. These are the grain of the city and vary wildly. /via Dentsu Blog. http://robotflaneur.com/
Phil Collins: Requirements The site geolocates you, and updates the album artwork depending on the weather. London. 18º. No Jacket required. http://www.philcollinsrequirements.com
CULTURE
Glasto 2011 Nice vid made from 1000s of photos.
Masterchef Synesthesia Swede Mason steps up culture smash.
Three-Toed Sloth Crossing The Road In Costa Rica (Sloth’s Perspective) What’s not to love?