In the world of innovation, the execution is as important as the exercise. If you can’t “sell” the idea with meaningful visualization and functionality, you lose. As part of the AOL Prototyping Team, I learned just how important the “pitch” or execution strategy was to help get support for an idea. One of the last projects I worked on was a blueprint for the future of online news. This included a comprehensive competitive survey, a robust ideation workout and initial visualization exercises. While I didn’t get to see if any of our work will come to fruition (having moved into a new role elsewhere), we stepped into some areas that still haven’t been thoroughly explored.

During the survey phase, we occasionally stumbled across efforts that warranted merit, but not many that were truly pushing the online news experience into the future. AOL itself made some inroads with its dynamic, blog-like approach. USA Today went two-point-oh with a strong emphasis on community (a la Digg), MSNBC has taken some progressive steps and UK’s Times has enriched their visual and user experiences for the better. All said, the jury is still out. Perhaps it hasn’t even been selected yet. Though not necessarily revolutionizing the news experience, but iteratively improving the user experience, the NY Times still reigns champ overall with its powerhouse user base and award-winning infographics.

So the question is where will this sector be in 4 or 5 years? Will we use news in the same way? Will it be highly portable and device-scalable? Will local coverage foster micro-communities? Will we have more immediate and personal relationships with the way we share news? Most likely.

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Transparency and the alpha channel are good friends. Transparency and the web development process, on the other hand, are just getting to know each other.

There was a time when the alternate designs never saw the light of day, so it’s interesting to get a peek behind the scenes at MSNBC, and see how they ended up with the final result.

Brand strategy and design group MultiAdaptor does great work. It’s that simple. They keep it clean, light and current without resorting to gimmicks. Their print portfolio has a retro sensibility while using modern forms. Their client base appears to be strictly British, but diverse enough to keep it interesting, ranging from BBC to Ether Music. Their interactive work also shines brightly, with a focus on capturing the personality of their clients.

Be sure to check out their brilliant executions on websites from Michael Bodiam (the logo!) and Ether Music. Inspiration abound!

Khoi Vihn, the respected leader of the NY Times’ interactive efforts, is engaged in a Q and A on the Times Media and Advertising section, so get over there and inquire. You have until the 25th to do so.

And in case you’ve missed it, check out his excellent blog, Subtraction, as well. 

FontShop just released Fontstruct, an online font building tool.

According to the site, ‘FontStruct is a free font-building tool brought to you by the world’s leading retailer of digital type, FontShop.FontStruct lets you quickly and easily create fonts constructed out of geometrical shapes, which are arranged in a grid pattern, like tiles or bricks.You create ‘FontStructions’ using the ‘FontStructor’ font editor.’

From the TED website:

‘Speaking at the first TED Conference in 1984, Nicholas Negroponte waxes prophetic on the converging fields of technology, entertainment and design. Years before anyone was using the word “convergence,” Negroponte was thinking about TV screens as the “electronic books of the future” and computers as the future of education. In excerpts from his 2-hour talk (this was before TED’s 18-minute time limit), he foreshadowed web interfaces, touchscreen kiosks, the multitouch interface of the iPhone, and his own One Laptop per Child project. Oh, and there’s also a fascinating project called Lip Service, which … well, let’s just say it’s still ahead of us.’

Having sat idle for too long, my old friend and personal design site Filter9 has undergone a transformation. Rather than exist a static collection of music, art and etc, it’s now a flowing collection of music, art and etc that I will be updating continuously as new works roll out.

Featuring my personal art and photography (some of which are available for purchase), it also showcases music from a community of undiscovered artists who forge ahead regardless of the world around them. Oh, and some of my tracks are in there too. (wink).

Here’s to a new F9. Hope you like it.

Adobe has launched an online Beta version of its most famous industry-leading software, titled Photoshop Express. While lagging behind Picnik and FotoFlexer in historical terms, it’s very arrival is a grand statement for the web apps segment. PSE houses a slick interface (which I prefer over PS itself), integration with external services like Facebook, Photobucket and Picasa (what? no Flickr?!), and of course a world-dominating brand that knows no equal.

This Flash-based app gives users a paltry two gigs of storage and offers many of the same, standardized tools Photoshop that users have become intimately familiar with, although with more web-friendly labels. Even though I haven’t yet spent quality time with this product, it looks like a promising beginning in the blazing hot web apps space.

It’s always good to get a jolt on some new work that sets your senses spinning. Bookmarked this awhile back, but it came up in a del.icio.us crawl and I got a fresh take on it tonight. Mr. Doob is a site from an anonymous wizard behind the scenes at Hi-Res who shares some joy in the form of Flash experiments.

Check out the particularly stunning pieces Bump, Depth of Field tests, Fake Materials Wierd, and try not to get dizzy in the full-screen version of Panorama Animated. And he also keeps a running blog, loaded with his “experimentizing” notes.

While NY Magazine online has been consistently one of my favorite sites, it’s been mostly because of their interesting use of typography and graphic treatments. Where their previous site had a sense of dimension and flow, their redesign launched this week does not. It is a clusterfizzle of elegantly designed content. Even though the front page is beautiful in its design sensibility as the route has followed for years, they’ve missed the mark in terms of usability. They have failed on an epic scale to give their audience a scannable page that has depth and compartmentalization. Instead, they’ve delivered a dense, overly-packed ‘tabloidy’ portal with no clear focus. (I think even a few simple heavy lines could have saved the day.)

They do succeed in some areas. The top nav anchors well. Its boldness is refreshing and makes good use of space. The drop down menus are expertly handled, with a clean break between content and utility. The dark top nav bar helps to ground the page and gives quick access to core features. They also succeed on interior pages, where there is more of a traditional column structure. Though, even here there’s still room for better demarcation. All in all, a moderately successful effort that ultimately falls short of being great. If I were to grade the effort, I’d give it a solid B.