Hi everyone,

Happy New Year!  I wish you lots of health and happiness in 2010!

Things are gearing up for the Shanghai World Expo, and I thought you may enjoy seeing where organizers are with the virtual component.

The below news report covers the virtual expo and even shows a sneak peak to the French Pavilion (made with 3DVIA Virtools).

What do you think?

Stay tuned as I’ll be interviewing the French Pavilion developer soon for 3DPerspectives . . .

Best,

Kate

I’ve never been in the same room with so many Internet stars and CEOs.  Even a Queen and French Minister were there!

Yep, I’ve been entranced by LeWeb09 for the past two days.  This is Europe’s #1 Internet conference hosted by the Le Meur couple.

There are MANY pearls to share, but it’s late so I’ll start with my favorite: pearltrees.

If Twitter is the Web’s nervous system, pearltrees is its memory.

Remember that.  (haha)

This little video will explain more, but then I’d like to share some thoughts about pearltrees and see what you think.

Thought #1:  Enfin!  FINALLY a way to stock and share those excellent tweets before they get purged off the Twitter servers!  (Just activate the nifty Twitter connection for this bit of the magic.)

Thought #2:  Ok, this is for PEOPLE to organize their own WWW, but the possibilities for COMPANIES using social media and wanting to track certain topics and projects are great!

Thought #3:  I’ll bet CAD and 3D folks would enjoy and get value out of organizing 3D models and scenes as pearltrees.

Three thoughts are largely sufficient after two days at a conference.

Wait, one more!

Thought #4:  The visuals remind me of some of the visual search engines that Oleg has blogged about, and also those diagrams I used to draw for teen students when I needed to explain tricky subjects.

So, about Thought #4, I asked one of the pearltrees guys where they got the idea for the pearltrees visual organization.  I wanted to know if it’s on purpose that it looks like visual search engine ‘artwork’ or if the function dictated the design, or maybe there was some deep-layered poetic answer.

The answer I got was part function, part poetry.  (pearltrees, please step in here if I’m off; I didn’t take notes.)

But first, here’s a photo of some of us from Dassault Systèmes and pearltrees.

By organizing the WWW around who you are and your interests, you’re in a way writing your own story.  And all stories, even if they take some crazy turns, have a beginning, middle and an end.  Linear.  Lines.  Connecting the first part to the second part, etc.  You can organize your pearls into, let’s say, chapters of a book.

The organization is also like a map.  A map where many different routes are possible.  And the way you set out your pearls shows all the different “travel adventures” you undertake.

Which reminded me of Chris Pirillo’s brilliant keynote.  Chris said that:

Community isn’t in your fingers or a device, it’s in your heart and soul.

And in the end, pearltrees maps your soul’s travels, and helps you to meet kindred souls.

Now how’s that for heavy.

‘Would love to know what you think!

Kate

P.S. Seems pearltrees has a blog.

The other  week at an event organized by the UK Parliament, I met with Damini Kumar, designer, inventor, and lecturer at NUI Maynooth, where she is program director of product design.

Damini was appointed ambassador for the European Year of Creativity and Innovation 2009, along with several CEOs, dancers, musicians, biologists …

The European Year of Creativity and Innovation is a European Commission initiative with the  objective to raise awareness of the importance of creativity and innovation for personal, social and economic development; to disseminate good practices; to stimulate education and research, and to promote policy debate on related issues.

Damini presented the Manifesto for Creativity and Innovation in Europe that was drawn up by the 27 ambassadors.

The manifesto makes seven recommendations to foster creativity and innovation in Europe:

1. Nurture creativity in a lifelong learning process where theory and practice go hand in hand.
2. Make schools and universities places where students and teachers engage in creative thinking and learning by doing.
3. Transform workplaces into learning sites.
4. Promote a strong, independent and diverse cultural sector that can sustain intercultural dialogue.
5. Promote scientific research to understand the world, improve people’s lives and stimulate innovation.
6. Promote design processes, thinking and tools, understanding the needs, emotions, aspirations and abilities of users.
7. Support business innovation that contributes to prosperity and sustainability.

When I read this manifesto, I could not help but think that 3D is key to these recommendations. You don’t picture how? Well, go ahead and add “3D to” at the beginning of each of these recommendations:

1. 3D to nurture creativity in a lifelong learning process where theory and practice go hand in hand.
2. 3D to make schools and universities places where students and teachers engage in creative thinking and learning by doing.
3. 3D to transform workplaces into learning sites.
4. 3D to promote a strong, independent and diverse cultural sector that can sustain intercultural dialogue.
5. 3D to promote scientific research to understand the world, improve people’s lives and stimulate innovation.
6. 3D to promote design processes, thinking and tools, understanding the needs, emotions, aspirations and abilities of users.
7. 3D to support business innovation that contributes to prosperity and sustainability.

Do you agree that 3D is a key to creativity and innovation?

How are you using 3D to foster creativity and innovation?

Valérie

Valerie Ferret works as part of Dassault Systèmes’ Global Affairs and Communities team.