Monthnotes for October 2015

October is coming to a close, and this pretty much means a massive end-of-year sprint as I’ll be off for a vacation in a couple of weeks, so lots of things should be out of the door by then.

In self-directed stuff…

Dearsouvenir app screenshotOur release of Dearsouvenir has been delayed a bit on the last mile. On the plus side, the magazine looks amazing and comes in at a whopping 264 pages, times two languages. Also, with Will’s massive (and patient!) support we just submitted a complementary app to the iOS app store that’ll help you actually find all the souvenirs while on the go.

To the left, you see a screenshot of the list view of the cities featured in both the first issue of the magazine as well as in v1.0 of the app.

I’m super excited.

Understanding the Connected Home, the ebook with thoughts on living in tomorrow’s connected home that I co-wrote (and in fact am still co-writing as it continues to expand) with Michelle has been triggering all kinds of interesting conversations. Can’t wait to dig in further.

Over at Interaction16 we’re about to announce another brilliant keynote and some other exciting news. It’s been such a pleasure to be working with this group, and I couldn’t be happier that this project has another 5 months or so to go.

In client work…

Very happy to have kicked off a half-year project together with Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino (Designswarm) (always a pleasure!) for Bosch Software Innovations. It’s all about building stronger bridges between the and developer community and the whole thing will culminate in a conference in March 16. Keep an eye on the Bosch SI website and @boschSI for updates starting next week.

Working with current office mates Syspons, I’ll be spending some time looking into German international development and cooperation funding and innovation networks in East Africa for a German ministry. Very excited about this one.

In miscellaneous…

Not at all work-related, but we prototyped a first installment of A la Card, a new fun salon-style event format where we pair dinner courses with games. Our first menu:

  • Lavosh & triple-letter-score dips roast Z10ucchini rolls
  • Settler squash with chili & cilantro sauce, lentil walnut salad, Catan sheep cheese & hand-made Swabian lye rolls
  • Pistachio & rica baklava with raki straight from Istanbul

Thanks to Alper, Clare and Matt to help prototyping, and to Ben & Cam for the inspiration.

Shout outs

Cisco kindly invited me to join the grand opening of openBerlin, their IoT Lab in Berlin. It looks like it’s a serious, large-scale effort and the new campus is here to stay. It’s good to see this kind of commitment to the development of IoT in Berlin. Welcome!

Coming up

In November, I’ll be headed to London Mozfest to talk connected home as part of the Global Village, a connected home track that Ian Forrester of BBC R&D and Jon Rogers of University Dundee curate, and will be hosting some shennanigans around connected homes – especially the kitchen – with Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino. We call it Kitchen @ HomeLab and might just launch something new there and then. (Tease, tease!) First-hour supporters of ThingsCon Marcel Schouwenaar and Harm van Beek of The Incredible Machine will join to run workshops on IoT, ethics and the IoT Manifesto. Should be good fun!

ThingsCon Amsterdam will be taking place in December, once more curated by the lovely Amsterdam crew around Iskander, Monique, Marcel and their teams. Alas I won’t be able to attend (because vacation), but the line-up is shaping up to be fantastic. Just last night I remotely joined the advisory board dinner meeting and I can’t recommend this highly enough.

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