Near the tail end of last year, I released what I hope is one of many mobile apps that I will release in my future. Since its release, I’ve been asked more than a few times if I am “worried” because “Adobe killed Flash” – or something to that affect.

Most of the time I reply, “Nope, because Adobe didn’t kill Flash”.

That’s right. Adobe has not killed Flash. It is alive and well and helping developers like me make pretty great apps that run on nearly all the mobile platforms.

Now,this isn’t a sales pitch, but what I wanted to do here was simply try clear up what a lot of clients and fellow developers have been confused about (mostly with the help of some poor PR from Adobe).

Late last year, Adobe announced it was stopping development of the Flash plugin for mobile browsers. That was the announcement. It wasn’t that Flash is dead, or that Flash is being abandoned, or that Flash has lost the battle against html5. No. It was that Adobe was phasing out development of the mobile browser plugins for Flash.

Makes sense right. How many developers do you know that are making Flash websites for phones? Anyone? How about existing sites? Know any sites made in Flash and specifically deigned for phones. Not many I would guess.

So the plugin really ends up being used to display Flash-based sites designed and built for desktops (a really poor expereince on a handheld dveice if you’ve tried it), and Flash video that is increasingly being replaced with HTML5 alternatives. So Adobe did something that wasn’t a shocker and made perfect sense: it killed the mobile browser plugin.

But Flash on mobile IS NOT DEAD.

Yup. You heard me. Flash PLUGIN on mobile? Dead. Flash on mobile? Not dead.

Right now, there are some amazing (and top-rated) apps in app stores that are Flash-built apps. Yup. You can build in Flash (or Flash builder) and package up an actual stand alone app and distribute it.

Once again, this isn’t really meant to sell you on it, I just want to have a place that people will land on and realize that no, Adobe did NOT kill Flash. It killed the mobile browser plugin.

Flash is alive and well and helping us continue to make amazing experiences in the mobile world.

Without plugins.

(and yes, html5 is great too and I love it but that’s a different article).

circa 2003, names have been changed of course...

Steve Jobs has passed away.

It’s an interesting feeling, this dull bruise that sits in my chest today. I feel that I’ve lost someone close, someone so important. I don’t think I have ever felt this for someone I didn’t actually know in person. It’s sad to see such greatness extinguished, to see someone with such impact move on.

He worked for his dreams, for his vision. He shot for the moon and made it happen. People lost faith in him many times, but he didn’t lose faith in himself. He is the shining example of what I think we all need – belief in ourselves.

As part designer, part developer, part artist, I have always been a little hard to place. I have struggled to find my way when all the signs and expectations point to a rigidity to choose a profession. I started company after company to discover that it was hard to find people that got me – that got my curious mix of talents and interests – even when I was trying to lead.

But Steve got it. He understood from the earliest days if him tinkering in the garage with Wozniak, that these machines can’t only be technical marvels, they need to be artistic. They need to be creative while allowing others to create. They need to appear simple, even though they hide tremendous complexities. From time to time he would say in his keynotes that Apple is the intersection of technology and the humanities. In the face of all the engineering-focused Silicon Valley companies, Apple delivered artistic machines.

Why? Because it was what he believed in. And that is the biggest lesson I take from him: believe in yourself, in your ideas, unflinchingly. Don’t worry what others think. Be the eccentric.

Although I never met Steve Jobs, he has met my work, in a very tiny way. I had made an icon for a colleague working at Apple, and one day Steve went on one of his famous tirades, this time about how he thought all the icons in OSX were bad. Then he singled out my icon and said he thought that one was cool. My colleague emailed me shortly after to give me the news – Steve Jobs liked my icon! What was it? It was a red orb with a cursive, lowercase “e” it. It was very simple. Really simple. But it worked for the app. It worked for Steve. He appreciated simplicity and something crafted delicately.

In a time where I am learning every day to trust myself more, to believe in my own vision, my own dreams, and to focus on them, we have lost a supreme example, one of the greatest heroes of dream followers that I know of. To honor his legacy is for me to continue to pursue my own intentions, unflinching in my determination. Be the eccentric. Be me.

Thanks for the lessons Steve.

Hi everyone! It’s been a long time coming, but I can finally tell you all about the project I’ve been toiling away on!

Last year, after I set out to explore a different path for my work, one of the areas I really felt drawn to was the emerging tablet space. iPads and other touch screen devices were just hitting their stride and I knew I wanted to create experiences on them.

I’ve been filling this bucket of ideas I have for years and years and always put it aside to prioritize client work. So, with this new found flexibility I decided to focus my efforts on bringing at least one of these ideas to life.

I’ve started a tiny new company called Kidoodle Apps. The first product is a digital activity book for kids that runs on the iPad and other tablets. It’s a way for your child to use these new magical devices to create stories of their own.

Please go and read more about it here: Secret project revealed: Introducing Kidoodle Apps!

And please share this with as many people as you can! Thanks everyone!

Simon and Donna Beckmann have created a pretty amazing experience, especially for someone like me who began a journey last year to reconnect with my inner artist, to return to a place that is closer to my creative soul. They’ve taken the ruins of a structure that once housed 4 families, in what is now a national park, and built an amazing, minimal, completely off the grid building with a studio for a resident artist as well as accommodations and work space for those attending the creative courses like we did. It’s called Cortijada Los Gazquez. It’s a 20-minute drive from the nearest small town of Velez Blanco.

This house is amazing: a wind turbine generates electricity that gets housed in an array of batteries and powers the house lights, computers and appliances. A solar panel generates energy to heat water and along with wood boilers provides hot water for faucets, showers, and heated floors and towel racks if the season requires it. Grey water from sinks and showers is collected and filtered through organic processes and used to water a nearby field.

Every day Simon must, at a certain time, prepare the boilers so there is hot water for showers and other things. We all make small adjustments so we use less water and electricity and generally waste less energy if possible.

It’s a wondrous system and a testament to living off the grid. These systems are far from perfect, but manage to provide more than enough energy for an entire house of guests – ten of us all together including the Simon and his family.

Simon and Donna are both amazing and accomplished artists. During the day, Simon guided us through exercises designed to help us at once both connect with the process of creating and also detach from one’s own work. On one day we awoke and headed off for a hike in the hills to collect soil and rock which we later used to make paint. On another day we explored the abstract shapes in the shadows of the plant life around us. We played with color, technique, wax, dirt, raw pigment – a fertile playground for new ideas, a safe zone for letting go of your creative habits and experimenting. You are in the flow every day. Creating.

A few days in, I noted in my journal:

I’ve spent the last few days painting flowers. Studying them. Trying to find a voice. It’s been hard, but fun, and there are times when I am fully lost in the flow of it. Painting on my own time scale under the heat of the Spanish sky.

It is watercolor – not a medium I often chose in school because of how little control I feel I have over it: you rely on the water and pigment drying in just such a way but only after years of practice, one masters the ability to understand how the water and paper and pigment work together – but you will always be at the mercy of the inconsistencies of how they interact with each other. To be a watercolor painter is to let go of your pre-conceived notions; the ideas of what you want in your head, and to give into the natural inclinations of the water, pigment, paper and brush. You are never fully in control, you are merely guiding these elements and stopping when you feel the combination is right for you.

There were moments when I felt like a student again, in art school, just enjoying and observing the way the medium moves, the way my mind thinks, the way it becomes so easy to get into the flow when the conditions are so perfect.

During the week of the course, there is also a resident artist that works out of an ideal studio space that looks out on the fields and mountains surrounding the house. The week we were there, the artist in residence was Angie Lewin. Besides creating work in premises, and as part of her residency, Angie gave a wonderful presentation on her work, her influences, her process, her inspirations. I didn’t know much about her before the trip but really fell in love with her work. Throughout the week, we were welcomed into the studio to watch her work, ask her questions, and be inspired by her amazing sketches and experiments as she returned from her daily walk into the mountains. She created wondrous illustrations of the local plant life and was so amazingly prolific during the week. I was in awe!

Image courtesy of Angie Lewin

There is something special about being amongst artists, amongst those that feel the creative calling deep within their souls. This isn’t just a hobby for them, or simply a way to make a living. They have a lifelong yearning to create, to invent, to make the visions in their heads a reality. These are the storytellers; these are the masters that pass their knowledge down through the generations. These are the ones that believe in the power of art.

All around us was beautiful art; Simon and Donna are such talented artists themselves and collect amazing artifacts from their global travels. Inspiration is everywhere: in the landscape, in the sunset, in the art, in the amazing food Donna created every night, in the wine and in the conversation.

It was a wondrous feeling: being amongst these extraordinary artists, at one with their craft, influencing me and inspiring me to move beyond my tried and true crutches and take a risk. My thinking is forever changed; my confidence as an artist so much stronger. These are life-long impressions.

I realize that this trip was full of unknowns: we didn’t know any of the people on the course, we had never been to this area of Spain – so remote feeling. We didn’t know how 6-year old Oscar would fare throughout the adventure. We didn’t know what we would be doing each day. We went in with no expectations and a lot of unknowns and out of these unknowns, with open minds and the will to create, we were given a magical experience.

And as this experience continues to nourish me, as these artists continue to inspire me, as they continue to teach me to both let go of what I have planned and allow the accidents, the randomness to guide and influence the outcome of my work, I am reminded that this is the essence of life as an artist, as an eccentric: like watercolor, you flow with the uncertainties, with the randomness, with the unexpected, and when you feel the balance is right you subtly guide things in a direction that has now become evident.

Space

Flow needs space. It needs breathing room. It can’t be rushed or crammed into a 15 minute slot between two other items on the list. When I was a young art student, getting into the flow was common. For children, its second nature – they lose themselves in their imagination and play in the flow instinctively. For adults, it’s a different story: we are inundated with tasks; trying to cram so many things into our few hours a day.

I realize now that when I was running a company, I had so little space in my day to get into the flow: accounting, employee needs, client needs, creative direction, art direction, technical direction, training new hires, etc. There was little time to breathe, let alone think and far too few of those long stretches of time to really get into the flow of what I love to do. My to-do list was always overflowing and it got to the point where I was not even paying attention to it. The only times I really felt in the flow with any one task was when I would get back to work after the family had gone off to bed. Those midnight hours were great for making some serious headway on business issues and client projects, but not so great on my body, mental health, and creative wellbeing!

Reduce the To Do List and Slow Down!

Now I’m the one-man shop again, and I have been learning to really keep that to do list short! I tend to be pretty ambitious: as a creative person I get a lot of ideas and want to do a lot of things, so I tack them on to the ever growing list of things to do. Most days I would start with so many things on my list, I would feel overwhelmed. If I wasn’t shell-shocked at the length of my list, then I would feel discouraged when I reached the end of the day to find I didn’t get enough done! One day, my wife looks at my list and says “pick one!” I took my wife’s advice; I reduced the list to one or two items.

I began to pick the stuff I love to do, and just focus on that during my work day. I try to keep my work hours as simple and open as possible so I can really sink in and get into it. Slowing down and simplifying really makes a difference here – stop the web browsing, the tweeting, the news reading. Take a deep breath and focus. If I can’t, I try to get away from the distractions – maybe take a slow walk outside just to reset the brain.

Reverse the Cycle

Now I’m feeling the slow reversing of a cycle I would often get stuck in:

• As I tried to accomplish more and more each day, I spent less and less time getting into the flow of my craft.
• As I spent less time in the flow, I learned less, discovered less, I grew less in my skills.
• I began to feel less secure about my design skills, so I tacked on more tasks.
• This lead to even less time getting into the flow, left me feeling rushed and discontent with my execution, more insecure about my skills.
• Rinse and repeat!

You can see the pattern emerging. The cycle goes on and on and eventually leads to massive burnout! As a company leader, I couldn’t break out of this cycle; at least I couldn’t see a way to – there never seemed to be enough time in the day to get everything I needed to done so I could focus!

In contrast, I’ve spent real time designing again. These days I try to focus on maybe just one task at work. Really losing myself in it. The flow. It’s unexplainable how good this feels. What’s more, it’s amazing how this starts to bleed into your personal life. I find more time to be present with my family and friends, to get into the flow with them. I really feel like I am growing again, learning and discovering. Not every day is this flow-love-fest; I have to work constantly at keeping the list short, keeping the focus on the really important tasks, and, most importantly, making time for it.

The Fire

Making a habit of that state of flow has really helped to invigorate my passion for the interactive space again. It has also reignited my energy around the growing list of ideas that I never really spent quality time trying to make into reality – some ideas have been on that list for 10 or more years. I’ll be writing more about this new product in the near future. I’ll also be following up with more of my discoveries along this new and uncharted path I’m on to get back into a place of creative and wellbeing. Stay tuned!

A few months ago I embarked on an adventure of change. After nearly 8 years of running a web production company and focusing on advertising, I found myself somewhere I hadn’t planned to be: directing designers, leading the engineering on some amazing projects for some great clients, and running a company. Over that time, I enjoyed many of the design challenges that come with launching an online ad campaign, making seemingly impossible technical things possible, getting people to take notice of brands and products, and strategizing how your team will build the next great microsite, among other things. I helped create a company that continues to have a great reputation among it’s clients and peers as a solid design parter and technical master.

But in the last few years, I started to notice some things. I was working a lot of hours and doing less and less design. While I built projects that saw millions of people interact with them, they were ad campaign pieces – by nature they have a limited life span and, a temporary connection with people. I missed having a different kind of connection with those that use my work. I craved building more practical things; connecting with people through their use of tools and utilities that they value and use day to day. I longed to design experiences on personal gadgets again, playing with technology to find ways of improving people’s experiences, maybe bettering their lives. I missed fiddling with pixels and discovering those magical accidents along the design journey, of getting in the flow and inventing things. I began to hide behind my technical and directing skills and forgot that I got into this digital business to actually design. For people. One day I woke up and realized I was no longer myself.

It’s a difficult thing to realize the business you’ve built with some great people, great clients and great work, may not be right for you anymore. In recent years, I worked harder and harder to get that feeling of fulfillment I had in the early days, yet I was no longer achieving it. I noticed that I had lost touch with a community of people, of friends, that provided inspiration and creative support. I was no longer enjoying what my company was allowing me to do. This company I helped to build gave me many gifts over the years, many great projects, many great lessons, but the signs were there, change was needed.

So, I began the process of relaunching myself. I wanted to reconnect with my community and peers that inspire my conviction. I wanted to reconnect with my work, I wanted to reconnect with the process of designing and building things that I enjoy building and create moments of delight for people using them, connecting with people again on a deeper level both in my personal life and with my work.

A few months ago, I left the company I helped build to go on a journey of discovery. To redefine myself as a designer of experiences for personal devices. To build products that people use and love. I’m returning to this place that feels good, that connects with me, and hopefully allows me to connect with people through the products I design. I am truly amazed at the great support I’ve received from friends, peers, and clients in this transformation – it encourages and excites me about what lies ahead in my journey.

Thanks everyone, and I hope to reconnect with you along the way.

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  The Very bottom of the 3.5 mile tall web page

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  Photos, videos and tweets were captured on the mountain along with their GPS location and displayed at the same elevation on the site.

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  The site was as tall as Mt. Kilimanjaro - thats 3.5 miles high!

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  The site featured a tour of all the trails up Mt. Kilimanjaro as well as bios on all 15 climbers, details on equipment provided by partners, and coverage about the clean water crisis

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  Along with directing and executing the technical development of the site, I created the strategy for how the media would be captured and transported via satellite to the web servers