There’s been a lot of good news at IdentityMine in the last couple of weeks: Laurent decided to join the team; we found out about a prominent ranking with Inc. magazine; and there’s been a stream of internal good news.  It’s been a really great month.

All that has made a hard decision even harder for me, but I’ve decided to leave IdentityMine and embark down my own path.

I know.  What am I doing?  IdentityMine has been amazing.  It’s a great company where I’ve learned a lot and made life long fiends.  I’ll really miss it.

On the other hand, venturing out on my own has been a life long ambition.  So right now, I’m mostly just excited about a big challenge and a bet I’ve always wanted to make.  Even though it’s not an easy decision, hopefully I’ve made a good one.

In the meantime, all my best to everyone at IdentityMine.  Any good I do on my own is, in no small way, a reflection of all of you.

USA Today, eat your heart out!  This is an incredibly beautiful animated short that depicts a 1969 interview between John Lennon and a young man who had snuck into his hotel room during John’s “bed-in” for peace phase.  The animation has a unique stream of consciousness approach to illustrating the dialogue that puts it somewhere between cartoon and infographic.  Notice the very sparse use of color (pink, brown) and incredible aesthetic throughout the whole piece.  Also, note the very thoughtful graphics and how they cleverly enhance the meaning of the dialog.  

(More details here.)

Let’s face it readers, you and I are not jocks.  I try to run two or three times a week.  You like racquetball.  Other than that, we’re not really sports people.  Not sports people, that is, except when we catch some serious Olympics fever.  And frankly, moments like this make Olympics fever unavoidable.

After you’ve made time for that (brought to you by Silverlight…yes!), take time to reflect on 84 years of Olympics logos.  My undisputed favorite is Mexico 1968.  I think  that if you look long enough, it might be an optical illusion of some sort.  Yup, there it is.  I just got a flash of the word “Mexico.”

About a year ago, I read this great article in the New Yorker about Banksy. If you don’t know who Banksy is, you’ll want to do the same. It’s a great read, even if it is a little long (it’s the New Yorker after all).

At the time, the masked graffiti ace garnered much of his mystique from his unknown identity. He had a very public yet anonymous profile, the ultimate shrug at the organized art world. Yet his paintings have been selling for six (or even seven?) figures.

Well, I was intrigued, but The Daily Mail appears to have outted our man! Not sure how to take this one. As much as I was dying to uncover the mystery, I think it was more fun when he was anonymous.

Observation from my three year old while watching Beauty and the Beast this morning.

So no updates for a while.  Sorry…I’ve had a really busy month or so, and I still have couple of busy weeks left.  It’s been fun though. I’ve been traveling a lot, including two Remix events: one in the UK and one in China (best of luck with that second link!). 

Both trips were amazing and at both, I had a chance to share a little bit about what I’ve learned about workflow in the year or so since I left Microsoft.  The, last week, Adam Kinney of Channel9 fame gave me a chance to talk a little bit about this stuff on camera.  I think I promised a post about workflow and the Integrator role a while ago–for now, the channel9 video will have to do. 

Also, did you know that Channel 9 had podcasts?  Anyway, I’ll try to keep things a little more current around here.  In the meantime, you see can me in China below–what an amazing trip!.  And then Chad’s got a picture of me in the UK on his blog.  That’s a new pose for me…I didn’t realize I did that in pictures, but I think I’m on to something.

I’ll be speaking this week at MIX in London so if you happen to be in town or, even better, at the conference, be sure to say hi.  I’m really excited for the event.  I’ll be copresenting two sessions with Paul Dawson from Conchango, our “WPF Reader” producing counterparts accross the pond.  They built a reader for the Daily Mail at the same time we were working on readers for the Seattle Post Intelligencer and Forbes.

The first session (which is on Tuesday) is about reading experiences in WPF and the comic book reader that we created.  My portion of this will be similiar to the presentation that Nathan and I gave at MIX in Vegas.  Maybe a little more hands on this time though.

The second session (on Wednesday) is about user centered design and organizing a WPF super team.  In particular, I’ll be talking about the Integrator role.  This will be mostly new content and for those of you who can’t make it, I’ll make a point of posting my portion of the talk (either slides or long form) after Wednesday.  As serious readers of blog know (this means you Mom), the Integrator role is something that I’m pretty passionate about.

We have an emerging summer tradition in our family.  It’s a simple one: go to the Evergreen Speedway Fouth of July Demolition Derby Extravaganza no matter what (because it’s awesome)!  How awesome?  Fortunately our friend Joel caught this pinnacle moment on camera.

Alex just a posted a stirring response to the devastation caused by hurricane Katrina. I related a little too much to his comments. It’s a quick and worthwhile read.