2011 was a great year. I had fun traveling and speaking at various conferences: SXSW, Adobe MAX, Facebook F8, AppNation, etc. I got to meet so many interesting people along the way. We won some significant Microsoft business at R/GA. I beefed up my orchestration and production skills at the Berkelee College of Music, and I finished 2 New CDs worth of my own music (actually, almost 3 CDs worth), and, some of my music has been picked up by publishers for licensing deals (for potential use in film/TV, etc.) I made a lot of progress on the development of my new application and business start-up (it’s still too top secret to discuss now), and, in fact, it’s looking like I might have my first customer (fingers crossed.) In that process, I learned a ton about HTML5, jQuery, Facebook application development, OAuth, PHP and even a little iOS – as well as the VC world.

But, none of those things can come close to the happiness I feel from seeing my first daughter, Mia, born on July 27, 2011. That was, and will forever be, the happiest day of my life. I love you Mia. I love you Sonia. 2011 was a beautiful year.

At work, MG kept talking about how great this Path iPhone app is; so, I finally installed it. Do I really need another social network? I rarely ever use Facebook and I haven’t Tweeted in months – who has the time for that stuff? Anyway, I installed Path and started playing with it. Although I will probably never use it much again, I am amazed by it’s clean, beautiful design and fun user experience. Although I can’t find any huge technology or feature innovation (it’s probably in there somewhere, I just can’t find it), the fact that I’m so engaged with the design and I’m interacting with this app, is proof that design and user experience is a powerful differentiator. Is it enough to rise above the competition? In the case of Path, time will tell. But meanwhile, I will be stealing their ideas!

I will be a panelist again this year at APPNATION in San Francisco. Like last year, we’ll be talking about Creative Technology, and specifically, the role of the creative developer. This is always a great conference – hope to see you next December 1st!

I’ve really enjoy reading Ethan Marcotte’s book, Responsive Web Design. It’s so easy to read, and full of great info that you can put to use immediately. In fact, I’ve already started re-constructing many of my web projects so that they can be more “responsive.” As well, at work, we are talking about this a lot and we have just completed a project that is fully “responsive” (well, it’s about 80% there, I’d say – as it supports tablet and desktop perfectly, but needs some work for the mobile phone.) What’s amazing is how simple it is to make a design responsive.

I had just finishing giving a presentation on multi-screen experiences at the Adobe MAX conference – it went really well. My colleague, Yasmin, had a good crowd of people coming up to us afterwards thanking us for the presentation – that always feels good. We tackled things less from the tech side, and more from the creative and strategic approach to solving business challenges (using multiple digital screens.)

After everyone cleared out of the room and I was able to catch my breath, I quickly turned on my iPhone to check my email. The first message I saw, at 4:54pm, read RIP: Steve Jobs. I didn’t believe it at first, but when I clicked on the link to apple.com, and saw the updated image (replacing the announcement of the 4S iPhone announcement), I knew it must be true. Clearly, still in denial, I quickly sent a text to my friend, The Force. Seeing as though he not only works at Apple, but also works on their website, I figured he’d know for sure. Sadly, he confirmed the news.

It sure feels strange knowing Steve is gone; I guess I always thought that one day I get to meet him (then again, I thought the same thing about George Harrison and Michael Jackson.) I love Apple products – I use them almost exclusively. And honestly, I don’t believe they are necessarily the “best;” in fact, I like elements of other products better, and Apple products are the most expensive. But, no product can touch the ease-of-use, and overall magical product ecosystem that IS Apple.

But, more than the products he created, Steve influenced me in his fierce pursuit of perfection and passion for what he did.

I once read an interview with Steve where he was responding to questions about his incredibly high standards. I’ll have to dig up the exact quote, but the essence of it was, “look, we only have this one life, and we spend most of it at work, doing our jobs; so why would you not want to spend this precious time being the best you can be?”

If you’re going to Adobe MAX this year, please come see my presentation and say “hi.” Yasmin and I will be giving a presentation on mulit-screen experiences (description below.) We’ll be talking about overall marketing strategies as well as user experience and technology concepts/best practices. Of course, we’ll be showing of some amazing R/GA work. Hope to see you there.

See how one of the world’s leading digital agencies, R/GA, delivers campaigns that scale across devices, screen resolutions, and operating platforms. This presentation will reveal the best practices and strategic approaches that R/GA deploys. R/GA will showcase successful initiatives and discuss the strategic thinking behind each project, as well as their overall impact.

Another fun F8 this year (although the food was waaay better last year). I’m excited to get my hands on the new timeline.

More details on the main announcement below. Big thanks to Will at work for putting together these links (he’s way more organized than me):

Introduction
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/beta/

Explanation of the new Actions and Objects
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/beta/opengraph/

Updated Analytics Dashboards
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/beta/opengraph/analytics/

The new “lightweight, but necessary” APPROVAL process for your Social apps
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/beta/opengraph/opengraph-approval/

New Dialog Boxes when users add your app
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/beta/authentication/

The “Add to Timeline” Button
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/add-to-timeline/

I’m very tardy in updating my blog, but this time, I do have a good excuse: My beautiful daughter Mia was born just about 3 weeks ago, on July 27, 2011. Her Mom, Sonia and I are very excited (and a little tired) parents for the first time. Mia is only a few days old, but she already inspires everything I do!

Now this is interesting. It’s kinda like Twitter for email. Shortmail hopes to save us all from email for forcing us to keep all email messages under 500 characters! Personally, I believe that restrictions can inspire efficiency and creativity (remember, Sgt. Pepper’s was recorded on a 4-track!) Email is out-of-control; each of my 10 accounts have inboxes with over 200 messages that I don’t have time to read, let alone organize. Why would I want to read any more than 500 characters anyway? However, as Shortmail critics proclaim: by restricting us to many, short conversations, aren’t we just adding to the noise? Using Shortmail, it might take me 3 or 4 emails before I can communicate what I could in just 1 email – maybe? Still, I think the idea has potential – just might not be for everyone, in every situation.