David Sibbet

P&G's Visualization Wall Revolutionizes Retail Design Prototyping

Franz Dill, a Procter & Gamble colleague from the Groupware Users Project that The Grove and the Institute for the Future Conducted all during the 1990s, has been freed to write about P&G innovation center that he helped create in Cincinnati by the publication of AG Lafley's new book: 'The Game Changer: How You can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation ...' 

Franz describes a 24 projector wall that allowed P&G to simulate any shelving scheme for review by customers. You can be assured I can imagine all kinds of other applications for this kind of visualization!!! Enjoy Franz's post. He's also tracking a lot of other interesting things.

Click here to read Dill's "P&Gs Beckett Ridge Innovation Center"

Could "Slow Deep" be the Next Counter Culture?

In a recent post in the Future Commons, a blog supported by The Institute for the Future with which The Grove is an affiliate, Eileen Clegg asked a wonderful question about the speed of our current culture related to on-line worlds. I responded and thought the exchange was worth posting here. Eileen wrote:

It seems like most really great work happens in collaboration over a long period of time, through many cycles, as people bump up against differences (of perspective, personal style) and come to understand each other so that diversity becomes productive.

It’s frustrating that we have amazing tools to support deep collaborative work -- but instead of “going deep,” most of us are “spreading thin” --  multiple communities, frequent team changes, hundreds of online connections. Maybe we are (or at least I am) not smart enough to figure out how to engage in a steady, meaningful way across a universe of people and possibilities.

So I’ve been reflecting on loyalty, long-term work partnerships, authenticity, sticking-it-out, patience (personal aspirations...).   I’ve been thinking maybe “deep slow work” is the new counter-culture.

VizThink Was An Inspiring Experience for The Grove

I’m happy to report that the recent VizThink conference, an ambitious attempt to take the visualization field to a new level by inviting practitioners from across the visualization spectrum, succeeded wildly! Over 380 people traveled from all over the globe to the Westin in San Francisco, following the siren song of VizThink Tom Crawford’s web 2.0 marketing and XPlane’s sponsorship and promotion. We all showed up and had a complete blast. Here is The Grove’s little booth, organized and manned by Callie Bloom, our marketing assistant. She’s sitting in front of Tiffany Forner’s wonderful graphic showing how The Grove’s Graphic Guides® create a panoramic effect in a meeting room. We were surrounded by digital tool makers--Brain, Mindjet, Autodesk, Wacom and others and totally held our own. Of course having Second Life up on our display, and our cool new Visual Planning System Agenda Planning Cards didn’t hurt. The deep excitement for me was seeing how our Grove team pulled together in the two sessions we ran.

Brilliant Web 2.0 Video by Kansas State Cultural Anthropolgist

Watch this one and put on your seat belt. Who's Teaching Who?

Second Life Retrospective

I just completely a 40 page illustrated retrospective on my learning from an initial year and half exploring Second Life. I've focused on 12 themes that have posed the most interesting questions and learning in this new medium, which increasingly represents an integrated experience in self-organizing, web 2.0 phenomena, all embedded in a 3D dynamic environment. The paper is too long to include here, but you can down load it by clicking on this link. I would love to hear your comments and reactions here however. The picture below is my SL self, Sunseed Bardeen, contemplating all this in my Deimos studio.

Download SecondLifeRetrospective.pdf (2518.2K)

12TH Annual International Forum of Visual Practitioners Link

I'm at the 12th Annual Visual Practitioners conference and not getting a lot of time to write. But my new blogging ninja friend Nancy White, aka ChocoNancy has thankfully blogged the conference. Click on her name to see what we are doing. Rachel Smith, VP of New Media Consortium also wrote about the conference. Click here to see her blog. After the conference Firehawk Hulin, who presented on Sacred Digital Mirrors at the conference, posted the slide show he made on his web site. Click here to see the wonderful Visual Practitioner community up close and visual!!! .

Pathfinder Gathering: Visualizing Our Commitments for the Next Cycle of the Sun

The longest day of summer, the solstice, is a special time for me. It’s right after my birthday, and for the last six years has been a time for gathering in Santa Cruz with three-dozen or so colleagues in a special Pathfinders Summer Solstice retreat. Our intention is to take stock of the past year and set intentions and commitments for the next cycle of the sun. It was an especially powerful experience for me this year, one that I would like to share.

Honoring Michael Doyle

This last Saturday I had the honor of helping create a histomap of the life of Michael Doyle, my mentor and first supporter in business 30 years ago. He passed away this last January 29, 2007, and his wife Juli and a design team of colleagues created a special memorial day to honor his professional contributions. Some 60 people came from all parts of the collaboration spectrum. We've been keeping a special blog in memory of Michael since he passed, and his history is posted there if you are interested in seeing it. Just click here to go to Remembering Michael Doyle.

Grove Gallery Finished in Third Life

I have finished building out a Grove Gallery on an island sim in Second Life called Third Life Lab.  The Grove is collaborating with Gary Merrill, one of our consulting associates to create this space dedicated to exploring the relationship between virtual worlds and real life, with an eye toward increasing our sense of interrelatedness and appreciation of natural systems.

Time is Ripe for Social Entrepreneurs

I found myself in Aptos, CA recently at an alumni gathering of Coro, the leadership training organization through which I got my start professionally. It stirred my thinking like an ice cream beater on a hot summer afternoon and the results are exciting me almost as much as the ice cream I can remember from those days long ago. I’m beginning to believe that our country can reinvent itself in the civic arena much like we did in the early 1900s after the very uninvolved 1890s when millions were coping with the industrial revolution and the isolation and confusion in the new cities. Robert Putnam’s book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Communities , made this appeal for me several years ago, but I wasn’t optimistic then. I sense a quickening now. Bear with me as I explain something of how Coro has shaped how I look at things.

Coro Alums Using GS Tools