Designing for Play (updated for Web Directions @media)

I gave the latest version of my Designing for Play talk at the @media conference (now run by the amazing John Allsopp / Maxine Sherrin team famed for their other fantastic Web Directions events) in London two weeks ago and was very pleased with the comments and feedback I got.

The sage Scott Berkun even gave me a pat on the back, as well as some useful constructive criticism (I was saying “um” a lot, as the audio will no doubt reveal – this is something I’ve worked on eliminating but I think in this case it was a “tell” that I am still feeling my way through this train of thought.)

Anyway, here is the latest version of the slides:

Designing for Play (at Web Directions @media)

Genghis Khan and his brother Don…

The fourth and final song from our Ukepalooza set was the oft-recorded Dylan classic, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” a tune close observers of this blog and my ukulele adventures would know I’ve been working on for years (it’s really easy to play!):

Another day come and gone, oh well

The third song in our Cheeses & Tequila set was a semi-obscure number by the Replacements called “If Only You Were Lonely.” For equal time I’ll post the Vimeo version here (but then I’ll go and “like” the YouTube version so it shows up on Facebook where people actually notice when I post something):

Finest girl in the world

My partner in Cheese and Tequila, Bill DeRouchey, has been busy putting us up all over the interwebs, so as a followup to that vimeo embed from yesterday of Bill singing the punk classic Anarchy in the UK, here’s a youtube video of the second song from our Ukepalooza set, Big Star’s “I’m in Love with a Girl” (by Alex Chilton, R.I.P.), which I semi-inaudibly dedicated to the lovely B, who could not be there:

That little bit between the two “All that a man can do…” bridges may be first ever live recorded solo.

My life, cheeses and tequila

Samantha Soma, the lovely the talented bride of my partner in ukulele crime, Bill DeRouchey, shot some footage of our Ukepalooza act at WebVisions, where we debuted our duo act known as Cheeses and Tequila.

Bill has now chopped it up into four video segments (one for each song) and posted them to Vimeo, so here’s our opening tune, “Anarchy in the UK”:

It was our first performance together after rehearsing mainly over the internet, so be gentle! 😀