2 Neurones & 1 Camera

Olivier Thereaux

Archives: 2010

Farewell Montreal (Hello London)

2010-12-01

In exactly one month, I will be hopping on a plane to London (UK, not Ontario) to join a new job, a new city, a new life.

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Taking the Bus with the Dalai Lama

2010-10-31

How a blog post got me to talk with the Dalai Lama on the CBC. Sort of…

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06 Octobre 2000~2010: Dix ans d'errance

2010-10-06

Il y a 10 ans aujourd'hui, j'embarquais sur un Paris-Tokyo

À suivre


Contributing to Open Source 101

2010-10-01

On getting lost when you first join an Open Source project

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Octobre 2010: Barcelone

2010-12-28

A Barçelone j'ai laissé un orteil, mon foie et mon sommeil.

À suivre / 7 photos


Cultural adoption

2010-09-29

The Facebook "like" button, in the wild

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Reinventing the Blog

2010-09-21

In the past weeks, my team has been using a live subject for experiments. Unethical, I know, but how fun! We are basically taking the Pheromone Lab, now almost a venerable blog with a year or so in existence, and seeing how we can push it in a completely different direction: as a blog it was a very nice repository of thoughts and ideas. We knew some people were reading, but it felt like a museum in there.

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Can't Touch This

2010-09-09

An article published this morning in the NY Times, titled « To Win Over Users, Gadgets Have to Be Touchable» notes how quickly tactile interfaces have been adopted by consumers, so quickly indeed that they now are frustrated whenever a device does not react, as they would expect, to a swipe or a tap.

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Vieux Québec

2010-12-28

Des fumerolles aux fortifications, de frontenac au parlement, trois fois le tour du vieux Québec

À suivre / 4 photos


Inception'd

2010-08-13

At a turning point in the movie, we are shown a room where a dozen people, all hooked to a machine that lets them share a collective dream, come to sleep a few hours every day. Those people are us.

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Fixing the Bus System

2010-08-04

After moving on my own to 4 large cities in the past 15-ish years, and visiting quite a few more, I can start to list a number of behavior patterns which say a lot about myself, obviously, but also about the urban systems. As a puzzled, stressed and curious newcomer, whether I quickly and fully embrace a system, or whether I avoid it for a long time is an interesting measure of how “usable” the system is. Take public transportation for example.

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Men at Work

2010-08-03

The back-alley of my Montreal appartment has been, for the past month, an observation deck to the work of three different crews adding an extra floor to buildings on the other side of the alley – going from two storeys to the more Montreal-usual three.

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Going to Paris Web 2010!

2010-07-30

Three reasons why I am completely in love with the team behind the Paris Web 2010 conference

À suivre


Montreal

2010-07-31

Eté 2010.

À suivre / 13 photos


The Peter Principle: Why Most Managers Suck

2010-06-30

in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence

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Hoping “Stalker” was more than a bad joke

2010-06-14

Three children play in a field, not far from some ruins. The place is beautiful, eerily quiet.

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New York

2010-07-31

Comment avaler le pavé brûlant et tous les clichés de Manhattan, les hipsters de Williamsburg et la candeur d'Astoria, Queens en une chaude journée?

À suivre / 12 photos


An Exercise in Stereotypes

2010-05-18

Stereotypes in work-roles and groupthink within company subcultures.

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The Web Site: a moribund metaphor

2010-04-29

The Web as an information ecosystem is not in danger. On the other hand, the paradigm of the web "site" as a space you travel to is, I believe, moribund. It is a major shift that finds its origin, among other things, in the development of mobiles.

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From the Museum of Bad UI

2010-04-20

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I don't care where you are right now

2010-04-20

I don't care where you are right now. I really don't.

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iPhoneOS developer agreement: it's not about Flash

2010-04-12

On the iPhone/Flash hooha.

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#ald10: looking for female role models

2010-03-25

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Three Innovation Models

2010-03-22

How can a company remain innovative through its growth? Most simply fail – with a bureaucratic management style that thinks that innovation can be achieved by having bosses yell “be creative” at their staff; other use turnover as an innovation tool: hire creative minds, squeeze out whatever can be squeezed in, then throw away the burnt out zombie and hire new people. But what about companies that seem to succeed in being – and remaining – innovation centers?

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What happened to mashups?

2010-03-07

Mashups were all the rage but a few years ago! Fast forward a few years, and the world mashup is hardly ever uttered - or at least, very seldom without a hint of sarcasm. What happened?

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The Art of No

2010-02-07

Years ago, when I was part of an improv theatre group, we had to abide strictly by one rule: never say "no", but rather, always say "yes, and". The rule was meant to ensure that no-one would kill the flow of improvisation and that everyone's effort would serve to push the skit further and further forward. The "yes, and" rule has been wonderful guidance for my communication style ever since: whenever I stuck to it, I found that I would resolve conflicts and get teams moving forward much easier.

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New address, same old face

2010-02-08

Starting the year with a (virtual) change of address

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Barcelone

2010-04-04

Quelques jours à visiter tant de quartiers de Barça que l'on finit par se dire qu'après tout, on pourrait y vivre.

À suivre / 4 photos


Score two for flexible design

2010-01-02

As the landscape of web-ready devices become less segregated between “Desktop”, “Smartphones” and “Mobile”, and as we advance towards a more continuous ecosystem, we need to learn to design flexible interfaces that can adapt to a wide range of size, resolution, capabilities and modes of use.

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