Well,
I’m just trying to stay above water,
you know?
Stay busy, stay working
I was telling you like,
the key to this joint,
the key to staying on top of things
Is to treat everything like it’s your first project
Know what I’m saying?
Like it’s your first day,
like I wasn’t even an intern or nothing
That’s how you try to treat things, like
Just stay Humble
– Notorious B.I.G from My First Song by Jay Z

As a part of the annual review process, the company I work for, Roundarch, requires everyone to collect a bunch of things – updated resumes, bios, project reviews and a one pager.
When I first heard about the one pager, I thought it was stupid. It’s a 1-page powerpoint slide containing a full page design/illustration that represents you. It’s not a bio. It’s supposed to be more visual and creative. Some people treat it like a scrapbook, some make it a parody of something else. Some feature more outside-of-work interests and some feature more work-related content.
The whole point of the one pager is to have something projected in front of the managers and VPs when they conduct your annual review.
I so decided to drop the attitude and have some fun with my one pager. This isn’t a first impression since I’ve been working for Roundarch for over 6 months, but it’s an impression none-the-less so I didn’t want to half ass it. I should treat this like a real project. I should treat it like my ‘first song’.
I choose the parody route for my one pager.
I chose to make myself a Transformer.
Like design, a good parody is all about the details.
I also decided to deliberately break the rules for my one pager and make it a two pager. I think you’ll agree it was a crucial part of the equation (click on the images for full size versions):



For those Photoshop-savy people out there, you’ll see how handy the Multiply layer effect is for things like Tech Spec decoders.

Apple Planning Video-Call iPhone
Stories like this make me smile and laugh at all the companies that try to imitate Apple’s innovation (yes, imitating innovation is an oxymoron).
The key to competing with a company like Apple is not to try to match their products, because what you create will be inherently derivative. It’s like keeping your attention on the person you’re racing against instead of the road you’re running on. You’re bound to slam into a wall or fall into a pothole.
What you have to do it think about the product category you plan on working in and figure out what doesn’t already exist and build that.
Although the similarities between the Palm Pre and the iPhone are strong, what’s so refreshing about the Pre is the features that Palm has created that don’t currently exist on the iPhone such as running multiple applications at once, copy & paste and global search functionality within the OS.
If you haven’t watched the Palm Pre Keynote, have a look (the good stuff starts at Chapter 4).
So while dozens of companies are jumping on the mobile bandwagon and focusing all their attention on making iPhone competitors, Apple is – as usual – years ahead of everyone by focusing on making an innovative product and not merely something that competes with current mobile paradigms.
Don’t like Apple’s game? Make up your own game and play by your own rules.

So the most popular cameras on Flickr are Canon Rebels and iPhones (oh, and Nikons).
I can’t say I’m too surprised. On my iPhone (or any mobile phone with email) all I have to do is email my custom Flickr email address and it posts my shots right to my photostream.
It’s actually become part of the process of shooting photos with my iPhone – shoot-and-email… shoot-and-email….