Monsoon brings Climate Change Testimonies to the heart of Copenhagen

“Experts say this global warming is serious, and they are predicting now that by the year 2050, we will be out of party ice.” —David Letterman

Jokes about climate change may not always garner lasting belly aches, but let’s face it, they tend to be more captivating then scatter diagrams and pie charts. So when the UN decided to collaborate with Monsoon for COP, we wanted to build an application that would be fun and interactive; something even Al Gore would appreciate.

We wanted to leverage the power of touch technology to ensure negotiators and leaders participating in Copenhagen heard voices of those affected by the impacts of global warming.  We worked with the UN to create the Climate Wall, an experience that allowed conference attendees to spin a virtual globe and watch real-life stories about climate change.

Sights and sounds from around the globe bear witness to how the changing climate is changing lives.   One of these stories takes us on a virtual journey to the Prey Koki forest, located in a quiet corner of eastern Cambodia. The forest has lost most of its cover to desertification and while planting trees, Buddhist monk So Kon shares the impacts of climate change . “Here in Cambodia our climate is changing. It’s getting hotter and the rainfall is irregular. But we believe that these trees can bring rain and help the farmers with their crops and daily life,” says Kon.

In an era where buzzwords like Corporate Social Responsibility  and CO2 emissions make climate change feel like a distant paradigm, Monsoon’s virtual globe application brings stories from real people like Kon to your fingertips.

The concept was a success and featured on the home of Seal the deal and the UN.   We simply feel blessed that we had the opportunity to make a small contribution in raising awareness about climate change.

See more pictures and view the full application here.

let the touch-tweeting begin

I admit it; I wasn’t among the first on the twitter blog wagon. I put if off, for no good reason really; just like everyone else I haven’t quite perfected the art of bending the space-time continuum to my advantage. Then in the summer of 2008, I bought myself an iPhone and dove thumb-first into twitter.

Fast-forward to today, and I can’t help but want to touchscreen-activate everything and tweet every one of my “lightbulb moments” (eat your heart out Deepak Chopra!).  Yup, my name is John Doe and there is a tech-junkie in me.  Thankfully geek-chic is in, and with Monsoon Company’s latest product launch, my tech-junkie and I are walking the metaphorical red carpet together. Body by touch, brains by tweet.

We are proud to premier the very first Touch Twitter app for Windows7.

Get a taste…scratch that…get a touch here.



The first release of the app brings with it many of the twitter essentials: quick access to tweets via a full feed, the ability to search, post an update, and lots of following/followed views.  Let the touch-tweeting begin!

We’ll be releasing an update to the app with a lot more touch-friendly features shortly.  The ability to share photos, drag Twitterati (or whomever else you choose to follow) into groups, and save searches and trends, to name just a few.

The app is getting media coverage in almost every major tech outlet and blog.  See what Laptop mag and PC World had to say.

To learn more about Monsoon Company’s recent touchscreen projects, follow the links below:

Top 100 colleges app for US News
Notes Application for HP
iPhone app for South by Southwest

my talk on social networking at the Craigslist foundation

Your kid’s future at your fingertips

Monsoon Company collaborated with US News and HP to create a touch-centric Adobe AIR application for America’s Top 100 Colleges. The application provides a fun, interactive way to discover the best National Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges.

Being a boutique consultancy that is focused on touch software, we are always excited to see how touch is evolving in education and e-learning amongst other verticals!

Get the US News app here.

Productivity Myth# 1 "A short email is faster than a phone call"

I’m overwhelmed by the number of debates that focus on how many times you check email.  Personal Productivity Guru’s can’t get enough of it!

After a long day at work and replying to a gazillion emails, I can’t help but wonder how many times does Obama check email?  Would my virtual assistant or admin actually be able to “own” my email?

After years of self-conflict with these questions and a lot of trial and error, I speak with confidence when I say that I’ve found a strategy that works, at least for me.  Sorry Tim Ferris, I just can’t be the bad-ass-book-writing-multiple-language-learning-breakdancing-chinese-kickboxing-ninja that you are by avoiding calls and emails.  Sorry bro, but that s***t just doesn’t work in real life.

What works for me is the “5 minute knock ‘em out” rule (who ever came up with the 15 second or the 1 minute rule, slap em silly and move on.  It never works!).  If you can handle a task by email in 5 minutes….I mean handle it completely without the need for continual debates, do it.  About 30% of my emails fall into this category.  For the remainder, just do what works best for you and stop listening to productivity guru’s that are begging for bragging rights on buzzwords!  Check your email 3 times or 5 times or 10 times a day.  Just try not to be an iPhone whore.

If you get a hunch that a conversation is going to take more than 2 emails, setup a 15 minute call and just handle it.

When you’re at the gym, leave your phone/pda behind and if it gets too tough to use the dial-based-iPod, disable your internet.  Do what ever it takes to discipline yourself to focus on working out and not worrying about sales or marketing or execution.

Ditto when you eat - enjoy a meal. Even God wants you to do this!

It’s been less than 2 weeks since I’ve incorporated this strategy and I’m already starting to save 30-60 minutes a day.  That’s close to 100 hours for the rest of this year - unreal!

Personal Productivity - Note to self

Q: You haven’t called me in ages.
A: I can’t call you because I just don’t have time during the week

Q: Babe, can you come eat dinner already?  I’m warming it up a second time
A: I have a bunch of s**t on my plate; can’t eat right now

Q: You started out with a fire and I was following your blog.  Now I see you write once a month. You’ve lost the other 5 of us…
A: I can’t blog guys…that’s the last thing on my mind!

Q: Why don’t you get help? 
A: I have gotten help but I think I need more…I’m so busy, I don’t even have time to look for help

Q: So you guys planning any vacations?
A: Right after our honeymoon
Q: Haven’t you been married a couple of years
A: Yep, just been crazy busy - maybe this year

Q:You look tense
A: I am
Q: Are you unhappy
A: No, not at all actually, I’m very happy
Q: Then whatup brother?
A: nm much man, I’m just busy!

are just some of my rants that friends and family get to hear.  The last 4-5 years of my life have been madness.  I’ve had a lot of fun - work has been successful and thriving but deep down inside, I’ve lost balance.

Recently on a business trip to Singapore, I had an epiphany.  I was able to get more done in fewer hours and still felt I found the time to intermittently update my twitter status and enjoy meals without my left hand trying to type.  How did I do it?

From the 4 hour work week to the abundance of books and personal productivity software, I’ve realized that nothing has or can help me in getting disciplined.  I’ve made a commitment to myself and this post is nothing more than a note to self that for the remainder of this year, and hopefully beyond I’ll try to master the art of balance, understand and share what personal productivity really means.

There’s probably nothing here you don’t already know, but as a first task to discipline myself, I’m committing myself to echo 10 quick things I will be incorporating in my life over the next few months.  This is no thought-leadership….merely a self proclaimed exercise on how I’m about to change my life….blog, read, love, enjoy, vacation, work and continue to achieve success.  So check back frequently as I write more about how these changes are helping me make an impact in my life and in the lives of others I seem to have grown distant from.

Is impulse shopping dead? That's what Alice said!

Today I had a chance to play with Alice (Who the heck is Alice?…my wife asks).

For those of you who don’t know her, meet Alice - she is the answer to those grueling trips to your supermarket!

Its been about 38 months since my last trip to Costco - I figured out in my first year of membership that we don’t need a bottle (package rather) of ranch that lasts a full year.  Pizza places go out of business in that kinda time! What about TP? With that much toilet paper, how can we ever find room to store our kids? (once we have em).  Somehow between juggling my business and personal life, and therapy, I’ve elegantly delegated my wife’s moral obligation to be taking care of what we need for the house :-)  The problem - she (a seasoned impulse shopper) brings home stuff we don’t ever need.  My dog now has a collar in every color and probably as many treat brands as Tinkerbell!

Truth be told, the long lines make her nervous too and she usually goes to the supermarket next door. Occasionally though, I get a “babe, it’s a girlie***iblankedoutontherestofwhatyousaid***thingy today and could you make that trip to get us some toothpaste” phone call……I mean sacrificing a morning run across the golden gate for what, some paste?  No more! Say no to those infrequent, yet exhaustive trips!

I heard about Alice.com (in beta) on Twitter today.  I’ve eagerly signed up and have setup deliveries for all the toilet paper and paste we’ll ever need!  Of course guys, be savvy - Alice will send you reminders and you can save preferences but do your due diligence.  Even though they offer free shipping, unless you’re willing to wait 2 days without TP and resort to gross alternatives, be selective about your preferences and let Alice do all the work for you.

Amazon has a similar service but I don’t think they ever got it right. Alice.com has found a niche and it strictly focuses on that.  Their funding is limited but given the idea, combined with exposure to the millions who read my personal blog (I’d like to think that), I think Alice is poised for success.

The Aircraft Black Box - powered by Twitter?

My heart goes out to the friends and families of those who were lost in AirFrance Flight 447….I found out pretty early about the incident via someone’s retweet on Twitter.  With the little I’ve followed the story, I know it’s going to be a long time till authorities recover the blackbox, if at all.  Once they do, the little black box might be their only hope to figure out what happened.

With all the technology we have access to, why is it so difficult to track where an aircraft went missing? I don’t mean to write a business plan for American Airlines and I feel kinda morbid writing this post but what if we had Twitter inside the Black Box for every airplane?  What if automatic status messages were posted for each flight?  We’ve managed to get WiFi 35,000 feet above ground - what’s the hold up?

I know what you’re thinking - downtime! (sorry @ev).  But trust me guys, by the time this technology actually gets considered, Twitter would be ready to handle it!

Think about it:

- each time these sophisticated engines do a status check, a tweet is automatically posted
- early warnings are issued when there are system failures
- the onboard GPS posts a tweet, say one per minute, with the exact co-ordinates (ALWAYS letting us see where the aircraft is)
- a secondary mechanism (maybe the on board touchscreen entertainment console) allows passengers to post to the same twitter page

Not only could the ground flight controllers get early warning signs, potentially helping them guide the aircraft to safety but if there is an unfortunate tragedy like flight 447, at least hundreds wouldn’t be left wondering where the aircraft disappeared.

In addition to raising airline safety standards, wouldn’t it just be cool to follow some one’s flight?….full-on with maps and status updates?

I don’t know what the logistics are but I do know that the tiny “powered by twitter” symbol could potentially lead us to the black box or maybe just eliminate the need for one.