Emerge Inc. Blog

Three years ago, I signed up as a member of the New York City chapter of the Interaction Design Association. Each month when the email arrives promoting their next meeting and the renowned speaker that will present, I am jealous that I can’t jump in a cab or subway and join the conversation.

Well, I finally got lucky. IxDA’s regular meeting was scheduled for September 18th, the same time I was in New York City for the Web 2.0 Expo. Nyree and I signed up online and attended our first IxDA meeting.

The meeting was held in the offices of R/GA New York and focused on ways to interact with a computer or software other than with a keyboard and mouse. This included touch screens like on an iPhone and Microsoft Surface, and also included actions such as putting your hands under a infrared sink to turn the water on.

The main presenter was Dan Schafer, author of Designing for Interaction and the upcoming book Designing Gestural Interfaces. Clearly an expert on the subject and literally the person writing the book on the topic.

Talk about a contrast. Just 2 days after Lehman Brothers collapsed and on the day the stock market fell over 500 points, Nyree and I were in New York city for Web 2.0 Expo where optimism abounded.

For the past couple of years, Emerge team members have attended the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. Due to the growth of the conference, organizers decided to create a New York version of the show.

The Web 2.0 Expo provides a glimpse into the future of the Internet. Large companies like Google, Microsoft, E-Bay and Salesforce.com launch new products and divisions. Fast rising start-ups launch their companies, announce venture funding and discuss the market niches they are attacking.

Personally, I enjoy the intense exposure to the many different facets of our industry. On the exhibit floor, hundreds of companies explain how their new software as a service is the next Google or Facebook. In the conference sessions, discussion leaders speak of the best way to display, process and store data, connect with people and build new business models.

Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco is March 31 – April 3, 2009. We are planning to go, so if anyone wants to join us, just let me know. If anyone is interested, but can’t make it to San Francisco, maybe I’ll twitter.

Emerge recently developed a new section for Elyria Schools that enables the community to watch live video of the construction of the new Elyria High School. Elyria School’s set-up 5 cameras to provide a full view of the construction site. Emerge developed an interactive map that enables the website visitor to select an angle and view the live feed from that camera. There is also a ‘View All’ page to view all 5 cameras simultaneously. To view the progress, click here.

While eating a delicious dinner on Thursday with good friends, I received a text message from one of the data centers used to host Emerge client websites. The data center continuously monitors the hosting computers and sends an automated text message as a warning that an issue might arise. The solution is almost always to issue a command to the computer and stop a recurring process and can be done without affecting website visitors.

Fortunately, this doesn’t happen too often because in the old days, say a month ago, this would require 1) calling someone who was sitting near a computer; or 2) calling the data center; or 3) cutting dinner short and running home or to the office.

Thanks to Steve Jobs and Apple, a fourth, even easier option is now available. I simply whipped out my new iPod touch, connected to the restaurant’s free wireless Internet, accessed the server, diagnosed the issue and executed the proper commands. Issue solved, no client’s sites were affected and I continued to enjoy my evening.