Cognizant Designs LLC

Marshall Mcluhan

A godfather to the ideas of digital communication and information surfing is Marshall McLuhan. While I was studying communications in college I found myself totally enthralled by McLuhan’s book “The Medium is The Mesage.” After watching him debate other intellectuals of his time it was clear that his premise would be an important thing to review and study as someone who wants to communicate online.

The idea that my words, images, videos and websites would become a medium by which others learn and interact with me would be something that McLuhan would adopt if he were alive today. It’s amazing to think that McLuhan advocated TV’s in the class room and discussed the idea that in a few years books would be an antiquated form of research and reference because visual learning is so much faster and effective. I personally don’t think that we will ever eliminate books as a form of communication or record keeping. The instability of digital memory is far to great to ever totally eliminate paper records of information.

Reading this book is a good way for designers and developers to get an honest idea of what this communication medium should be doing.

Let me know what you think,

Zach “attack” Meyer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan

Moving and Improving

Attention followers of our blog, we moved!

On Friday September 11th we had an opportunity to finally start transitioning away from the old single page site and allow WordPress to do all of the heavy lifting from now on. Or at least until something flashier and faster comes along to replace it.

There is sort of a strange paradigm in web development and design, you have time to work for everyone accept yourself. This issue often causes company websites to sort of languish in a mire of never progressive soup. Great examples of people who don’t upgrade and don’t really care are cameronmoll and happycog. Both represent amazing minds in the web community and neither one has really changed the theme of their websites in well over 3 years.

This constant self-deprecation can be a sweet kiss of death for many companies. I can personally attest to my constant busy-ness as being the primary cause for my lack of change to the core site. I sincerely wish that I had more time to develop the ideas that have to a slightly more inviting polish. But perhaps my recent move from spineless entrepreneur to full-time web wrangler will grant me some real time to brush my site up.

The other part of the web that is always chasing me is the feeling that my best work is done for clients and not for me. It always feels like my concepts for other people are more well rounded than what I end up assembling for myself. I know that I have a hundred good ideas a day but they are always for others. Perhaps it is my future to be a muse for others and never for myself.

Thank you all for coming by and reading my white noise from time to time.

The Flaccid Launch

The ugly term “soft launch” has been used delicately in the tech industry for quite some time now and, unbeknownst to the public, it really just means, “We have something, it’s not done yet, but we couldn’t wait any longer.” Cue the nasty humping sounds and wah-wah pedal, to accent the appearance of the diseased, lecherous bean counters, making sure everyone knows that just because its not ready doesn’t mean you can’t charge for it.

I believe the car industry tried this trick a while back, and we all know what rave reviews the Taurus received–that’s right consumers, you are all going to pay us to be our beta testers. Long gone are the full years between upgrade. Seems like every January you have the latest release of some awful thing. The software industry appears to be taking business tactics from the music industry, with regards to the timeliness of hot new models being shoved into the public’s face.

Maybe you’re different than I am, but I really don’t want a product, be it hard- or software, that is going to fuck with me for six months before it does what it was supposed to do from the beginning. I’m a “late adopter” for this very reason and, even then, disaster can strike. Enter the latest streak of operating system releases from the leading monopolies.

Snow Leopard is here, and well, I have heard some really great things about the “upgrade” but, for the most part, I am sure there will be kinks to work out, as with any new framework that gets released. Apple’s track record for releasing less buggy OS has been good so far and long gone are the memories of the first incarnation of OSX. But those of us who know better, will wait to upgrade until we get the OS bundled with our new hardware.

Windows 7 likewise, will be released well before the eve of Vista’s third year in the public domain. And due to its fantastic approach of alienating and frustrating users by not having drivers available at launch I am sure that the masses are unlikely to leap all over Bill Gates’ Ken doll luggage.

I think it’s safe to say that anyone would wait for real upgrades. Real honest to goodness changes, improvements and stability bought and paid for by us. Here is the issue I see, with all the tech industry lazily launching whatever they feel is sell able to a public that is so easily distracted by the reputation of brand, there is no real backlash against inferior products. We need to stop buying from these jackasses till they get their act in line. Sony has learned from their mistakes and at least attempt to hold some kind of ethics level with their products.

Lets hope that our consumer future shows a bit more competition and a bit less wang.

Special thanks to the genius at the rantpuppets.com for these little gems of wisdom.