Hurraiah! Ignite Hyderabad a great success!

Successful organized & managed IGNITE HYDERABAD event Vol on 17th April 2011. What is IGNITE BTW?

Ignite is a global event spread across 100 cities worldwide, organized  by volunteers, where participants are given five minutes to speak  about their ideas and personal or professional passions, accompanied  by 20 slides. Each slide is displayed for 15 seconds, and slides are automatically advanced. The presentations are meant to "ignite" the  audience on a subject, i.e. to generate awareness and to stimulate  thought and action on the subjects presented. The presentations are in  the realm of being inspirational, creative, progressive, transformational, out of the box, etc.

Ignite is independently organized on the local level. Ignite is almost  always free to attend, and is supported financially by sponsorship. Ignite is not elitist in nature and provides platform to anyone who is doing work out of the routine and has ideas to share. http://igniteshow.com. Ignite Hyderabad was held at Lamakaan (creative cultural space) on 17th April 2011. There were 10 amazing inspiring speakers who has ignited Hyderabad. 

Speakers Profile

Each Ignite event has 10 speakers to speak for 5 minutes each. The speaker profile for the inaugural meeting are:

1. Sugandh Rakha, Tech Lead, Amazon, on the topic,  “ I am a person with Stammering”
2. George S. Chandy, mathematician and logician and inventor of One Page Management System (OPMS)
3. Vivek Sign, IIM grad, Presentation Evangelist,on the topic, "Finding the mojo in your powerpoint"
4. AVS Prasad, a homeopathic doctor and a humorous public speaker on the topic, "Public Speaking for Fun"
5. Giridhar Rao, a linguist human rights activist on “Why the World Needs Esperanto?”
6. Jack Jigg ,India's #1 Rock DJ, on topic, “STEP INTO THE MIRROR”
7. Vinay Verma, theatre activist, who also worked with major movies and TV on topic, “ Stage is a World”
8. Ramakrishna Nagasamy, Product Manager, Sum Total System, a Pranik Healer on topic, “How can you heal the world?”.
9. Deepak Mittal, MD of La Belle and founder of youth party Jago party, champion of RTI Act, on the topic, "Politics will always be dirty!"
10. Vijay Ram Kumar, a sweet seller cum environmentalist on topic “Why I do what I do?”

It was a amazing event with live tweets project on the screen, amazing variety of presentations, interaction, networking and what not. We got great response and more than 300 people has joined for this event and will be continuing to organize more events in coming days. I am proud to associate with a great Ignite Hyderabad team and played a key role as a co-curator. It was really a great fun designing all the logos, posters, planning the event, branding, managing social media, inviting speakers, co-ordinating with other team members, brainstorming, etc,

 For more details check face book: www.fb.com/ignitehyd. 

Help Japan... Let us be more Human

A massive magnitude earthquake hit Japan on March 11 causing havoc with blackouts, fire, tsunami and Nuclear Meltdown. Designed some posters to motivate people to donate, help, spread a word, and putting effort to raise funds / donate for Japan and giving moral support.

In times of difficulty, our humanity must compel us to help one another. The Japanese are our brothers and sisters and they need our help in whatever manner we can we must/should gather our resources and offer to them who are in dire need at this time. LET US BE MORE HUMAN... and feel this tragedy***SAVE JAPAN  ***HELP JAPAN

To make donations, here are some links.
Japanese Red cross Society  | Unicef  | Save Children 
American Red Cross  | Doctors Without Boarders 

Storytelling for User Experience...Crafting stories for better design

We all tell stories. It's one of the most natural ways to share information, as old as the human race. Stories help us gather and communicate user research, put a human face on analytic data, communicate design ideas, encourage collaboration and innovation, and create a sense of shared history and purpose. 

Whitney Quesenbery and Kevin Brooks have written a book on “Storytelling for User Experience … Crafting stories for better design” This book looks across the full spectrum of user experience design to discover when and how to use stories to improve our products. Whether you are a researcher, designer, analyst or manager, you will find ideas and techniques you can put to use in your practice. 

I had personally met Whitney Quesenbery and Kevin Brooks at Germany and had a good discussion on this. They have give me a good perspective & how imporant creating peronsas with story telling.  Unfortunately, I was staying in the same hotel where Whitney was staying and got some free time in the mornings to discuss & learn more on Story telling User Experience. I personally thank Whitney Quesenbery and Kevin Brooks for sharing knowledge and guiding me. I have taken some notes and made a graphic to share you folks!

Story telling help to share research and design insights in a compelling and effective way. Struggle to communicate the meaning of a large body of data in a way that everyone just "gets" and want to explore a new, innovative idea, and imagine its future.  Storytelling starts with listening. In formal and informal user research, make time for people to tell you their story. You might be surprised at how many great stories (or story fragments) you'll collect if you let them. Just say "Tell me about that" when you hear the start of a juicy story.

Put some stories together and you might have the spark of a design idea. Maybe you call them user stories, or scenarios, but they are all ways of thinking through not just what will happen, but how the characters (users) will react to the experience. And finally, what's a usability test task, except a story for the participant to finish. Make it dramatic or matter-of-fact, but tell a story that launches them into a situation they want to solve or an experience they want to explore.

Get your own copy of Whitney Quesenbery and Kevin Brooks book on “Storytelling for User Experience … Crafting stories for better design” and know more insights, this book is worth investing.

Festival of Joy... HOLI

Holi is the festival which symbolises India to its core, Colourful, Young, Vibrant and diverse.  This is one of my favorite festivals and it’s also called “Festival of Joy”. 

Holi is celebrated on the Phalgun Purnima (or Pooranmashi, Full Moon) in the month of Phalgun according to the Hindu calendar. A peculiar coincidence this time, it’s the SUPER MOON. Moon at its closest wooing point with Ole Mother Earth! It was so beautiful….

I had a great time celebrating holi together with my wife and we sprinkled colors on my family members, friends & relatives including my doggy “Chocky”! Ooh it’s a great fun all together. 

Experience laser show @ Hyderabad

The lush green environs of Hyderabad Lumbini Park has first ever permanent laser show. This is one example, which i can say a creating "Great Tourist eXperience". Showcasing about Hyderabad history, culture, people, importance, places, etc with Laser lights animating on the water fountain is something to feel & experience live. I really liked the welcome note and the entire 30-40 min sequence of various laser animations, clippings, fountain equalizers, lighting effects. The best part is that a song made on Hyderabad, which welcomes everyone & gives overview about Hyderabad.

I have taken few pics and would like to share you folks! If you plan for Hyderabad, don't give a miss.

Do you know about me?

 

One of my friend rang me "tring tring" and invited me for a talk on New media design. He asked me for a short profile write up and i designed this smart simple design which speaks about my personalty & my passions to an extent. I tried something different with my caricature and few logos which i freak every day rather than tons of text profile propaganda :) Hope, you all like this..!

View this iamge on Flickr: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5256/5513957135_1804b696ca_b.jpg

A Larger Than Life Experience (Toyota Vision)

Toyota Vision Wall at 2011 Detroit Auto Show from PUSH Offices on Vimeo.

Detroit Autoshow 2011, Toyota wanted to tell the story of the all-new Toyota Prius in an engaging way that could extend beyond the show floor. In response, Project: WorldWide’s GPJ and Juxt Interactive developed “Toyota Vision” - a large-scale multi-touch screen installation with remarkable content.

The interactive experience consisted of three side-by-side, 82” multi-touch LCD screens, showing the life span of the product experience from the factory, to the showroom, to the street. When visitors touched the screen, a graphic hand interface appeared, indicating options of exploration - visitors could learn about the creation of Toyota products, read product details and hear from owners. Lovely idea and it created great customer experience...
More on Juxt Interactive website...