The talks were all recorded, here’s mine! Unfortunately the video and audio desync by a twee bit about halfway through. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In late 2011 I had the incredible opportunity to write an article on jQuery performance techniques for 24ways.org, “the advent calendar for web geeks.” This was a great experience for me as a technical writer (something I hadn’t done much of up until now) and the positive feedback I recieved was overwhelming. I don’t have exact stats on the article, but it’s one of the most highly-commented on articles 24ways have posted, and there’s some GREAT discussion in the comments, too.

24ways have been doing their thing for seven years now, and it’s more than a little bit humbling to see myself listed on the Authors page along with luminaries of the industry like Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer.

Supported by the installation and flash banners, users can play with a Rubik’s Cube on their Facebook timeline, then customise their own and share that across Twitter and Facebook.

We managed the process through a carefully planned and well-documented process of Conceptual Development, Tech R&D, UX Design, Visual Design and Development to bring together this campaign that allows users to access the 3D gameplay across all modern desktop browsers and mobile devices.

Note: this project isn’t currently available online since the campaign ended, I’m working on bringing a static version back up. Feel free to let me know if you want to be notified when that happens! –S.

With access to a wealth of real time data, we created an interactive WebGL experience that dramatically brings to life every detection made by Kaspersky software, happening at that very moment, around the world.We denoted different threats with colours and geometric symbols. Some show the point of detection while others show the source of the threat as well, with bright, arcing trajectories linking source to destination. Users can zoom in and out of either a globe or flat map view to pinpoint the major threats and identify the most infected areas. A breakdown of each country’s level of infection can be triggered with a click, along with the ability to directly select your own country and share statistics through social.

The visualization went on to feature on big screens at Kasperksy Lab events and trade shows around the world, using a specially designed demo mode which takes the audience on an autopilot fly-through that descends down to ground level and right into the heat of the action. The combination of true data and live statistics with an engaging user experience, tells a compelling story and hopefully provides Kaspersky with an eye-catching way to raise brand awareness, showcase their products and possibly remind a few people of their favorite childhood 80’s movies!

In an effort to reach a younger target demographic, UK television network Channel 4 decided to turn to the one media format that all of the kids are using these days.

Animated .gifs.

Yep.

We built this site on Tumblr, but in the process of doing so hacked Tumblr like it was attacking my family. Pushing Tumblr in directions it was never meant to go has become somewhat of a hobby as of late and in the end it turned out to be a near-perfect CMS for this sort of thing. The benefit of pushing all .gif content to followers’ Tumblr Dashboards helped spread the site farther and wider than we ever hoped imaginable. A combination of Tumblr and an S3-powered Backbone application keeps everything humming nice and smoothly.

Google Russia wanted to demonstrate that it does more than simply understand local culture – it actively contributes to it. So we dreamt up a project that took one of the most cherished Russian literary masterpieces of all time and reintroduced it to a modern audience using Google technology.

Together with Google we created a brand new edition of Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece “Anna Karenina” using Google’s exclusive Hangout technology. An online version, narrated live from front cover to back cover by the Russian people.

More than 700 people from all over the world read Leo Tolstoy’s novel on-line on the Internet for 36 hours in a row…

It was an extraordinary event – a relay-race of storytelling, that unified the most disparate people through one extraordinary story: from the Russian President’s Press Secretary to opposition bloggers; from TV stars in Moscow to everyday workers in Russia’s remotest regions.

Here are some results:

• Unprecedented PR Coverage in Russia – 5.4b of impressions (900+ articles in online and offline media, 55 radio spots and 78 TV spots). 6 prime time newsblocks about the project on the biggest Russian channel – First Channel, that covers 90% of population in Russia.
• 6M views of promo video
• 3M playbacks of livestream
• 20 000 followers and 4 mln impressions on Google+ page
• 4x surge in “Karenina” search queries during 2-day livestream

For the launch of James Patterson’s new book Private Vegas, we took the inherent thrill of this novel to a spectacular, new height.

We created the Self-Destructing Book. An integrated campaign designed to bring to life the most thrilling reading experiences ever. We gave people 24 hours to read “Private Vegas” before it self-destructed.

1,000 fans had 24 hours to read an advance digital version of the book until it self­-destructed in a spectacular fashion. Thousand of others followed along and interacted with the readers. Unique codes were created and released in batches throughout the 5 days of the experience.

Readers and online users were connected, and to increase the adrenaline in their race against the clock, people visiting the site were able to “sabotage” the readers’ timers and steal time from them.

The iPad-only reading experience included a menacing page burner that destroyed every page as the user swiped it. To intensify the thrill, a control panel informed readers when someone stole time from them and when other books were destroyed.

In the last couple of years I’ve done this twice: in 2013 for Panic’s Status Board iPad app and most recently for the Pebble Smartwatch.

Wanna have a play?

• If you’re a Status Board user you can add the widget to your own iPad by tapping here.
• If you have a Pebble, oh hey look over here unfortunately due to Pebble shutting down there’s no longer an app store.

And if you have neither device handy but still want to peek under the hood, both codebases are on Github: Status Board | Pebble