So what are they doing? They’re making custom bound journals by marrying technology with just-in-time printing capabilities, using technology to create custom clothing, and making doughnuts (hey innovation needs fuel).

Durham is a great example of how a once industrial town can reinvent itself through an educated populace, creative thinking, and technology/innovation.

Forget the aesthetic of 180-gram vinyl. So yesterday on yesteryear. And nevermind the Internet when it comes to co-creation and consumer ownership of the creative process. The ultimate music aficionado and audio cultural curator is (still) the master of the mix tape. Yup, the cassette. Never has there been a sign of personal affection and affinity for one’s friends and loved ones than taking the time to blend them a mix tape. It take a lot of thought and even more time. It’s a creative pursuit that aurally profiles one’s persona.

And never has there been more of a resurgence of casette-focused labels than today. Just check out: GoldTimers, Hyperdelic, and Retrograde Tapes to start. And of course the granddaddy of them all, ROIR, who’s been issuing cassettes for over thirty years.

Where unfettered creativity still percolates two standard deviations out, and out of view from most. Personal creativity, created alone, shared with another, small group of friends, or like-minded aficionados.

Yesteryear’s castoffs become our cheap tools to craft new and evocative expression. The personal. The building blocks of aural culture. Like today’s fashion designers surreptitiously trolling vintage stores, picking over yesterday for tomorrow’s haute couture, later reconstituted for the H&M and Target racks.

They never left us, we just think we keep leaving them.

OnTheMap is useful for more than work location, however.  It’s a multi-layered mapping tool, with companion data on demographics, earnings, industry characteristics.  We’ve also used it to identify exact metropolitan statistical areas and radius ranges, to find transportation routes, greenspace, and tribal and military lands, and to simply better understand a physical marketplace.

For years, organizations like the Census Bureau relied heavily on point-in-time estimates, tables of statistics and physical and static maps for data exploration like this. As new systems come online, are developed further, and improved over successive versions, our ability to access information from our desktops is not only facilitated but empowered.

The band is selling a customizable CD: Buyers can select 10 tracks from an available 20 to include in their CD, and then choose combinations of and adjust several available graphic components to create their own cover art. Once completed, a buyer’s customized CD is made available on the band’s site, where other buyers can opt to select your production (plus, you get royalties for every purchase of your produced version). The site even tracks purchases made of each version produced, allowing buyers to track how their version is faring against other buyers’ productions.

It’s not only a great idea, but a well executed one – This process, if cumbersome, wouldn’t provide any type of incentive for fans to engage with it. But putting together the CD is simple and fun. Check it out here.

In echo of other comments already made throughout the blogosphere, this is a notable step in the direction of sustainable manufacturing practice. Pantene is Proctor & Gamble’s largest beauty brand, and the move by this established player ought to have ripple effects in consumer demands from and production of consumer packaged goods.

I had the opportunity to attend TEDxRaleigh a few weeks back. While the event was interesting enough, there was one thing that has really stuck with me. As filler, they showed some videos from other TED events, one of which was David Blaine’s TED talk about how he held is breath for 17 minutes. It’s a great video, filled with the trial-and-error of any innovation process.

The moment that really stuck with me is when, after going to great lengths to create the illusion of holding his breath, he has a revelation: Just figure out how to hold your breath for a really long time. There’s the simple solution.

Sometimes, looking for the shortest route from point A to point B isn’t the best solution. More often, you just need to do it. It’s a hard lesson to learn, and even harder to put into practice.

Which is not to say that every meme is a lie…But when dealing with information that can’t necessarily be verified, how can you be sure which is which? For those of you who have ever found yourself questioning whether the Tweet you’re reading is truth or meme, help is on the way. Researchers at Indiana University have developed a tool called Truthy, which analyzes the diffusion of Tweets in order to detect whether they are genuine groundswells of social sentiment or intentional spreading of misinformation.

The tool’s algorithms are complex and use several data input streams, including Truthy-user feedback, to identify misleading memes – a great use of Web 2.0 to improve data analysis system architecture. Check out the tool and see if you can spot any fishy memes!

While I’m sure the system won’t be perfect at first, it’s another attempt to curate the massive amount of information thrown at us via the internet.

The idea is to explore the odds of something happening, and then to calibrate the probability in a comparison. If the topic you explore is included in the database (the four main current topic portals are Health & Illness, Accidents & Death, Relationships & Society, and Daily Life & Activities), you’ll get confirmed probability data on that topic, but you’ll also get leads on unexpected connections, as you compare unrelated events by their likelihood of occurring.

The site also has social and learning functions, and content aside from the odds database (newsletters, blogs, related links, etc.)  We’re just getting started exploring this resource, and brainstorming about how we can apply it to our day-to-day reference needs. It’s actually pretty challenging to think about life in terms of probability statements – thinking up queries to get started. But once you dig into the site, there’s quite a bit to learn – not only the small bites of data, but how to calibrate probability, and new approaches to classifying and comparing phenomena.

Tyler Farwell p. June 2009 - Swiped from Southern Spaces Journal - Click for Source

The Oxford American magazine website published a brief interview with Richard Florida this week, focusing on Southern U.S. cities’ positioning in the quiet competition to draw creative talent to the workforce.

As the interview is part of the magazine’s free online content, rather than published in print, the format of the interview is loose, and questioning posed to the Rise of the Creative Class / Who’s Your City author and sociologist is a little roundabout. However, as always, Florida’s responses are concise and careful and the discussion is interesting. Though Florida often conservatively draws back from prescribing any kind of cultural shifting, instead focusing more in the realm of city planning and corporate creative worker migration, he’s stretching out a bit in communicating his understanding of many creatives’ needs to balance authenticity and contemporary opportunities in their local communities.

There are really so few metropolitan areas in the South that do draw a “creative class” workforce, and have the local economies to support the evolution that is required for continued competition. And these places do have tough days ahead as the recession lingers on (in some southern local economies, a depression has been in place). Though I don’t like the idea of  super-metropolis markets like “Char-Lanta,” “Hou-Orleans,” and “Dal-Austin” evolving in the South, mostly because I see much authenticity being lost as these cities sprawl together in all the wrong ways, I do find myself willing to cast off some tradition for the sake of getting to a place where increased creativity and innovation are happening in my backyard.

It is a tricky balancing act though – we cherish and seek this authenticity, welcoming the idea of a new here while longing for a bit of there.  At times, it seems there’s not much authenticity left in some of these “New South” locales.  We are building and evolving our communities, in the South and elsewhere in the U.S., but it’s challenging to keep a grip on the tools for doing so, and to inform the many little decisions that continually coalesce into larger scale change.

There are ways in which I get really frustrated reading Richard Florida’s analyses, but it definitely gets me thinking and encourages me to consider new perspectives. And I always welcome the opportunity to better inform my decisions, and to gain insight into how to maintain a better grip on the tools we need to encourage positive change in our localities.

Analysts predict that the shoe will be the next big trend in footwear despite its odd appearance. Others are more skeptical, likening them to Uggs, Crocs and Birkenstocks. The irony is that those who wear these “ugly” shoes swear by them.

A few years ago, Crocs were the greatest thing since sliced bread. Those who wore them thought they were comfortable and functional. Those who did not thought they were atrocious, to say the least. Apparently the negative attitudes prevailed, given Crocs Inc. recent trip toward bankruptcy. Considering that attitudes towards toning footwear reflect those surrounding Crocs, it will be interesting to see if toning footwear takes that same trip.