— I'm Timothy Greig. I live in Wellington, New Zealand, and work
for AIM Proximity. I'm interested in game design, information architecture, librarianship, and transmedia storytelling. Updates? — Try the RSS.

LBP level design session ~ week one: Brock, Jem and Timothy spend an evening listening to the dulcet tones of Stephen Fry explaining the intricacies of Little Big Planet level design. This video is the result of several hours concentration, and too many snickers-puffs.

I should start this post by pointing out that – yes – my partner does work at the OFLC. The views expressed below are my own – as always – not theirs. I’m going on what I remember from past conversations, and my own thoughts, so some of my facts probably need checking.

I love Aro Video and – as an Aro Valley resident myself – regularly borrow films from their store. However, I’m concerned that their recent campaign for censorship reform is cloaking what is primarily an economic challenge for small New Zealand businesses in social/moral rhetoric and emotive language.

Maybe that’s too harsh, I’m sure that is not their intent – but I do think it is interesting to see how economic and social issues collide (jostle for position?) around this issue.

Here’s what I understand, in simple terms:

• Films must display a New Zealand classification to be sold here.
• Films are classified in New Zealand when, before they are supplied to the public, “someone” submits it to the OFLC and pays a fee.
• Most of the time, this “someone” is a big fancy distributor to whom $1100 is not much more than a drop in the bucket. (When you’re looking at millions in Kill Bill sales, $1100 is nothing to get an R18 classification and sticker for your ultra-violent film so that sensible adults can buy it in New Zealand.)
• But big distributors only tend to import and stock what the “mainstream” watch and play. So when it comes to alternative titles – media consumed by smaller groups of the New Zealand population – noone is there to pay this fee.
• Because there are also less people to buy these alternative titles, less units are likely to be sold in New Zealand, meaning that the amount of profit to made from stocking these titles is far less, especially when you take into account that you’ll also have to foot the bill for $1100 to stock it in the first place.
• When you are a small store like Aro Video, and you have built your reputation on being able to find ‘just about anything’ for your customers, this can pose a bit of a problem. If you have to pay a classification fee on top of the cost of importing just one copy of a DVD for a keen customer, you are likely to lose money, not make it. Aro says they provide “a comprehensive choice of contemporary, classic and curious cinema including a significant selection of exclusive titles” – they trade off this reputation.

Now, here is where it starts to get interesting: (more…)

I believe that storytelling is one of the most important things we can do as human beings. Jonathan Harris – capturing stories told by ordinary people, making them collide and interact – is totally my hero.

I admire so much of his practice – from personally collecting ephemera and found objects to digitally harvesting public, yet profoundly intimate, tales.

One day, when I grow up, I’d love to play a similar role as a curator of everyday storytelling.

Last weekend, I made my acting debut, participating (rather unexpectedly) in the 48 hour Furious Film-making competition.

A friend of mine, Morgan Barnard, who is a lecturer, video artist and designer at VUW’s Digital Media Design school competed pretty much single-handedly, wrangling untrained actors (like myself), improvised props (such as black headbands), and technical hiccoughs – to produce a film in just every so slightly over 48 hours.

Morgan just was on time to submit when he pulled in to Te Whaea National Dance & Drama Centre in Newtown, but… (to quote Morgan himself) “as I was leaving the car with the envelope, the tape flew out of the envelope and went crashing into the some leaves in the gutter. I could have made it in time, but I was scouring through the leaves as I heard the countdown only feet away”.

I think Morgan’s effort is nothing short of superhuman, especially considering the fact that most teams have designated people for editing, writing, directing, filming and wardrobe – and Morgan did all this by himself, and also herded all of us cats into the bargain!

I am so stoked to have been a part of this little production- I think it came out rather well- and I just love that my role was “Struggling Virtual World Developer” – anyone who knows me will know that this is pretty much my dream job!

The film is called “23 Minutes Into the Future“, and I think I can safely say that I’ve had my 15 seconds (23 minutes?) of fame now, having seen it up on the giant silver screen at Readings here in Wellington this week, during the heats.

How wonderful would it be if we could design a museum, library, gallery, experience as personalized as this?

Going to exhibitions recently I’ve been quite interested to watch people standing around with ‘gallery tour’ devices pinned to their ears. There are a number of different ways to ‘appreciate’ objects in the modern gallery or museum – now increasingly moving towards the interactive – and I wonder how this might change your approach to what you’re experiencing.

I’ve had a few conversations recently with people who’ve wondered about the significance of the role that an exhibitor, curator, museum designer might play in the patron’s approach to the work. To me, bringing together a collection of objects around a topic seems like a powerful act of meaning-making – I think works of art, or items in a museum, gain value and renewed significance through their surrounding context and arrangement into a collection or exhibition.

I personally believe that audiences of all kinds of texts also actively construct and ground their own meanings based on their own personal experience and context; the path they’ve walked to get to be in front of the object. As a result, what we do as librarians, curators, archivists, information designers, to contribute to this context can have a big impact.

When I went to see the Te Papa Monet exhibition a few months ago, I went with a close friend. I found this friend gave me a far more customized and memorable experience than any gallery tour gadget could have given, simply by explaining, pointing out, and discussing the paintings with me.

I think that, while perhaps an audio track (which many people were using) might have given more detail and depth of information, her personal guidance gave me more grounded knowledge, as we were able to relate what we saw to things we had previously discussed – she knew what I might already be familiar with, and was able to draw connections.

I think it is interesting to consider the various ways that patrons might encounter additional “background information” about texts visited in a cultural heritage institution, and how that information might be designed to leave a more personal impact.

(By the way: the work featured in the clip is by a Ukranian Artist, Vladimir Baranoff-Rossiné, and is from the early 20th Century. It is a sculpture called “Symphony Number 1“. And thanks, Brock, for the link to this awesome video.)

Mmm, Aro Valley. The barista at Aro Cafe now greets me by name every morning when I stop there on my way to work. He knows what I like to drink, and often if I go there with friends for breakfast he’ll say – ‘Would you like a long black to get started, Timothy?’ – as we head for our table.

Even though Aro has raised the price of their long blacks recently, I still frequently stop by there for a coffee. I have to admit that I feel this personal connection has quite a bit to do with my continued patronage!

In fact, I think it is pretty significant that in a city like Wellington, where I have so much choice in terms of coffee, it has been the baristas that have most frequently influenced my repeat visits.

I think there is something to learn from my experience, about the power of personal, one-to-one, human, connection for creating great experiences. I wonder how this experience translates into web services, the online environment, or even patrons’ experience of libraries or museums.

Brooklyn Museum made this kind of personal connection with me recently, when I signed up to become one of their ’1stfans’. Within a few minutes of subscribing, I recieved a tweet from their community manager, welcoming me to the group, and emails and friend requests only a short time after that. Even though I am miles away from New York city (and wonder if I’ll every actually get to visit the Brooklyn Museum in my life) I feel much more a part of this community, fond of this place, and connected to its staff, than I do (for example) my local public library!

Is this feeling just some illusion? Has my favourite Aro Street barista just used a little bit of manipulative psychology to turn me into a repeat customer?

I’m not sure, but it does make me think more about my current role as Senior Tutor. I definitely could be doing a better job at making a personal connection with my students, particularly those who are further away- who I don’t see in class each week. If I think about it, my role is at least in part, to be a ‘community manager’ of sorts. I wonder what I can do to make their experience of the programme more personal. How can I learn more about them and anticipate their needs?

Any ideas? I suspect it is something more subtle than just ‘get them to follow you on twitter’. I think one thing I could do right away is try to reply individually and quickly to emails from students, instead of ‘saving up’ my replies and sending out group messages. But how do I balance the additional time cost this might bring.

Have you any suggestions? Perhaps you have particularly good or memorable experiences that spring to mind that I could learn from.