An uncharitable rant...

I seem to have found myself on multiple mailing lists for multiple charities.
I've just dealt with several letters asking for money - very few solicited!

Now, before I begin this rant, let me say: charities do good work.  Times are tough. We need our charities more than ever.  They need donors more than ever.

BUT...

How many address labels does one person need? Taking into account that Charity A does not know that Charities B, C, & D also send me address labels; Charity A has sent me enough address labels to cater for multiple letters a month.  Who writes letters these days? (Well, I do... but apparently no one else does).  I know address labels are simple, mailable.  But please...

Don't send me crap.
I hate the labels, the calendars.  Last week I got two different envelopes that each had a carry bag in them.  A cheap, unpleasant carry bag.  Dear Charity, please hope I don't actually use it.  It's going to make you look bad and make me feel bad about you.
If you must send me cards, send me nice ones. I'm not sending those cheap and nasty cards to my friends. They are going in the recycling and that's a waste of time, money and resources for both of us.
Try to 'value-add' in a creative way.
I love what the Salvos do; for the Christmas appeal they include a card you can sign and send with your gift (a nice card!).

Dear Charities, please don't address your letter to "Dear Supporter" when I've never supported you before in my life.  See me... I'm not a generic supporter.

Having said that, please don't mail-merge my name into every second paragraph.  I know how to use mail-merge too you know.

I *loved* opening a letter recently that promised "no address labels you'll never use", "no gifts that we can't afford" (yay! good start!), but even though they didn't send me crap, they still managed to send a three page letter! I hate the long letters  - who reads them? Do they advocate for this in fundraising school?

If I decide to send you a cheque, make your form fit in the pre-paid envelope you sent me.  It's a small thing, but I hate having to re-fold the form.

Give me an 'unsubscribe' option.  And don't hide it in the fine print.

Oh how uncharitable can one person be???

In my defence, I have a number of charities I support regularly.
I recommend The Wayside Chapel.
I've been 'friend' for some time and they do good work.  They've never sent me address labels.  But they do have a cool newsletter called "The Verge".
I support Australia for UNHCR.  UNHCR are on the front line of assisting displaced people around the world providing clean water and shelter in times of need. They've also never sent address labels, but they do send email updates and a newsletter.

Supporting charities is such a personal thing. I hope if you're able to, you do.  Don't let an uncharitable rant discourage you!

The Sopranos: Season 6, episode 4

I've started watching The Sopranos season 6 for the first time. I'm up to episode 4 (The Fleshy Part of the Thigh).

It's been a long time since I've sat with these characters.  I *think* season 6 was broadcast on Oz TV after my daughter was born.  I couldn't watch it. Too violent.

Of course, it's still too violent!

But... It's fascinating to come back to these characters in a season where they are questioning their identity.

Hal Holbrook guest stars in episode 4. He plays a 'rocket scientist' who talks about Schrodinger's equation and how we are all part of the same quantum field.  According to the IMDB, "Hal Holbrook is an Emmy- and Tony-Award winning actor who is one of the great craftsman of stage and screen..."  He has a face that you know you've seen somewhere before.  IMDB says "He is best known for his performance as Mark Twain", but I'm sure I've seen him in many things.  His character brings an interesting perspective to this piece.

This episode also focuses on Paulie. This is a character I have always liked, but he is so dark!  In this episode he discovers that his family is not what he thought it was.  Paulie says, "I'm not who I am". I disagree.  In my worldview, we are all who we are.  However, in The Sopranos (a universe where identity is so closely entwined with 'family'), I understand why Paulie feels this way.

I always love the way this show uses music.
Wikipedia says :

• The song that plays as Jason Barone is rowing and Paulie and Patsy come to meet him is the first verse of "The Three Bells" by The Browns. ... .
• The song that Tony plays on the stereo while meeting with Phil is "Foreplay/Long Time" by Boston.
• The song playing during the end credits is a condensed version of "One of These Days" by Pink Floyd.

Tony is visited twice in this episode by a born again Pastor.  I cringe when he talks about humans and dinosaurs living together on a 6,000 year old Earth.  But it is true to the character! I love it when he says, "I think you'll find those people all have an agenda". LOL - don't we all.

And finally, there's some clever camera work in this episode.  The segue from Tony looking at the wind-blown trees to Paulie's meeting with Jason is cleverly done.

How to train your dragon... #blogjune

We took our Miss to see an advanced screening of How to train your dragon 2 today.

Movie Poster

We are late-comers to this franchise.

I haven’t read the books (I know, what kind of librarian am I?!?).

I did not see the first How to train your dragon movie on its theatrical release.  In fact, we only watched the DVD this year.

The reason we bought the DVD is because we had been watching Dragons: Riders of Berk on ABC TV (ABC 3).  We originally started watching because it looked interesting… and further episodes confirmed that it was! Wikipedia and the IMDB tell me that it is an award-winning animated series.

So, that brings us to today…  **text is spoiler free!**

I really enjoyed this movie.  I laughed, I cried.  I was fully engaged and engrossed - and that’s not always something you can say about an animated film.  I should note here that I was an animated film fan before I was a parent, but perhaps my film choices were more selective then than they are now!

I think the tale was pitched a touch too ‘old’ for our Miss 7, though she still loved it.  The main characters are now in their early 20s and they face serious issues.

I love the film review by Peter Debruge in Variety where he writes:
“… this time around, [Director] DeBlois commits to the idea that dangerous acts have serious consequences: Major characters will be asked to make huge sacrifices to protect the ones they love. In that sense, “Dragon” aspires to join the ranks of epic poetry, resulting in scenes that make “Bambi” and “The Lion King” look like mere cartoons..”
The scene Debruge refers to here is the most challenge of the film.  Bring your tissues.  I recommend Debruge’s review - there is plot exposition (of course), but no spoilers for the plot twists.

I wonder, though, if you need to live in a cave to not know the plot twists in this (and any other) movie.  Between trailers and the media are there surprises to be found in film anymore?

Do you read reviews before you see a film? Do you rely on movie trailers?  Our Miss has picked up that trailers do not always accurately reveal what a movie is about.

This trailer is pretty good, but it gives away a major character development… that’s obviously a conscious choice by the film makers.  How much is a ‘spoiler’ and how much is “I’ve gotta see this movie because X happens in it - did you see the trailer?”.  I wonder…




Sequels
The challenge of the sequel for me is: does it honour the original, but build on it? Does it stand alone?  I don’t believe you should have to see all the films in a franchise for a franchise movie to work.  This is one of the slight irritations of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The films don’t really stand alone.  But this movie does.

In addition, as I mentioned, I came to this movie via the TV show.  Do you need to see the TV show to enjoy this movie? Does the movie ignore the TV show? No on both counts. I was very happy about this.

Books
And what of the books?
The book series is written by Cressida Cowell.
Wikipedia notes that: “The plot of the film is almost completely different from the first book in the series.” (!!!)

The Dreamworks iterations borrow the characters and settings from Cowell’s novels.

Cowell wrote of the first movie:
“This is a BIG movie, an epic re-telling of the Hiccup story, and it is different in some ways from the books. Personally, I’m very relaxed about this, because I feel that books and film are different media and sometimes stories change and adapt when they are translated into a new medium. What I really wanted was for Dreamworks to make a wonderful movie. So I was open to the idea of them making changes, particularly because the film keeps true to the spirit and message of the book, the relationship between Stoick and Hiccup, and the characters and the world I created.
Furthermore, I have written eight books in the series now, and I am extremely proud of them. If a movie puts forward a slightly different interpretation of things, it doesn't change the books themselves. There they still are, just the same as they always were. The books are my own complete personal vision of the world and that remains unaltered.”

I really loved this!  While I completely understand authors who are unhappy or upset about movie makers who take their characters and change them, it’s refreshing to hear an author say that the books are still there and nothing will change that.

Of course, we will have to read the books next!

I recommend the movies, when I read the books, I'll let you know!


Related links:

Official website (Dreamworks)
http://www.howtotrainyourdragon.com.au

Cressida Cowell
http://www.cressidacowell.co.uk/index.asp

Hodder Children’s books
http://www.howtotrainyourdragonbooks.com

Cressida Cowell blog
Hiccup goes to Hollywood
Posted on: Monday, December 14, 2009
http://www.cressidacowell.co.uk/pages/blog_01/blog_item.asp?Blog_01ID=169

Cressida Cowell blog
How to Train Your Dragon 2, and Book of Dragons
Posted on: Friday, May 02, 2014
http://www.cressidacowell.co.uk/pages/blog_01/blog_item.asp?Blog_01ID=200

Review:
Debruge, Peter. (16 May 2014) Cannes Film Review: ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’. Variety. http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-how-to-train-your-dragon-2-1201181707/

Wikipedia links
How to train your dragon - book series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Train_Your_Dragon
How to train your dragon - TV series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragons:_Riders_of_Berk
How to train your dragon - Film
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Train_Your_Dragon_(film)

YouTube
How to train your dragon 2 - Official Trailer
http://youtu.be/1Y0erVF9cLI
How to train your dragon 2 - First five minutes
http://youtu.be/bqk6rbhuKd0

IMDB links
How to train your dragon (2010)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0892769/
How to train your dragon 2 (2014)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1646971/
How to train your dragon 3 (2016) [*Risk of spoilers for #2]
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2386490/
Dreamworks Dragons (aka Dragon Riders of Berk)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2325846/

#blogjune

Handmade Canberra...

I've had a thoroughly lovely day exploring the Handmade Markets today with my friend Cathy.

I love going to these markets and to the gorgeous Handmade Shopfront in the City. 

The markets allow a broader range of designers and artisans to sell their wares and each market finds new vendors trying to temp you to buy.

Today I was quite restrained.  However, there were cards from Twice Designs - I love their Thank You cards.

I bought a scarf from Material Pleasures.  I first discovered Material Pleasures when I started working at the ANU in 1998. The ANU student market was one that Material Pleasures attended and I was thrilled to find something in my size.  Today we were captivated by some gorgeous coats and a bright pink pair of Lacroix shoes! ("Lacroix sweetie!").  They were in my size, but I didn't dare try them on. (I would have had to buy them and honestly, what would I do with bright pink Lacroix shoes anyway?!?)

I discovered Big Sistah, Little Sistah at the last markets in March this year.  They make lovely clothes and feature plus sizes.  Among my purchases today, two tunics, including this one.

Look Mama is a company with a sense of humour.  I was particularly looking for this card and I bought a few copies.

Another vendor I discovered at the last markets is Super Trooper Studio.  I love their work, especially their super places collection.  Work colleagues have received their magnetic bookmarks as gifts.

See also: Melbourne, Sydney...

There were many other stalls visited.  Another favourite is Two Alike (https://www.facebook.com/TwoAlikeDesigns).  We love their toy penguins!

Some favourites weren't there today including Ink & Weave. I love Caroline's designs.  We have this design in our house:

As well as viewing all the gorgeous wares, Cathy and I had a wonderful day of walking (must wear better shoes next time), chatting and food.  It was perfect really. :)

Canberra Gourmet... #blogjune

I picked up a copy of Australian Gourmet Traveller today. 

The current issue features Canberra on the cover (text) and so I was wondering what they had to say.
It's a very interesting article about the 'hipster' food scene in Canberra.

I have been to about 5% of the venues mentioned!

June 2014 issue Australian Gourmet Traveller

The current article made mention of the Caramel Popcorn Sundaes recipe from restaurant "Eightysix" which had been featured in the magazine previously. See: http://www.gourmettraveller.com.au/recipes/recipe-search/video/2013/9/caramel-popcorn-sundaes/ (Although it has 'video' in the URL, the video is optional!)

Interestingly, the Caramel Popcorn Sundae is also mentioned in an article about Canberra in the New York Times!  36 Hours in Canberra, Australia by Emma Pearse.

I love that the Sydney Morning Herald has taken this and supplemented it with extra pictures: The New York Times champions the hipster underbelly of Canberra by Henry Belot. (Though I think Henry is a Canberra Times writer).

More venues to check out...

And my Googling has revealed I'm not the only one to blog about these two articles - check out HerCanberra: http://www.hercanberra.com.au/index.php/2014/06/06/canberra-is-officially-cool-the-new-york-times-says-so/

Beat me by 'that much'!
hehehe

#blogjune

25 years ago... #blogjune

Twenty five years ago, on June 4, 1989, the Tiananmen Square Massacre occurred.

It's peculiar how we form memories.  Do you remember where you were when you heard - or saw - the news?

I do.

What's additionally peculiar about it for me, is that it reminds me that's it's twenty five years since I started working in libraries.

My first library job was as a library assistant at the Baillieu Library at The University of Melbourne.  I started in April, 1989.  I worked in the 'orders' section.  As my desk-mate so eloquently put it, we stuck the barcodes on the books.

I moved to Melbourne from country Victoria and stayed with friends of friends while looking for a flat.  The place I stayed at was at the end of Kokaribb Road Carnegie.  I used to catch the train to work from Carnegie station.  There was a "hot bread shop" on the shopping strip on Koornang Road.  Exciting, exotic stuff for a kid from the country.  The things you remember!

We used to play the news on TV while we made dinner.  One day there was the iconic image of the man who stood in front of the tanks.  June 4 (or possibly 5, given the time zones), 1989.

Photo: AP/Jeff Widener via SMH

I didn't know what it was all about really.  I was 19 years old, on my first grand adventure in life.  But I knew it was bad and it was serious.

I was immensely proud of the Australian Government's decision to let the Chinese students stay.  Even if I didn't really understand all the issues, I knew enough to know they were not safe in their own country.

Today, twenty five years on, I followed a link from a Facebook page I follow and really like.  A Mighty Girl is also a website and posts articles about inspiring women and books for girls who want a different perspective. 

Today's article was about the Mother's of Tiananmen Square.

"Zhang Xianling, 76, co-founded the Tiananmen Mothers after her son, Wang Nan, was shot and killed outside Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989." "Wang Nan, was just 19 years old when he was killed by a single bullet to the head."

My 19-year old self had no notion that the people killed that day were 'like me'.  I knew they were students... but I did not realise how many died and how young they were.  It seems Wang Nan was typical... but there were younger students too.

For my 25 years in libraries, there is Zhang Xianling spending 25 years mourning and fighting for justice.




Related links:
Lim, Louisa. (20 May 2014). 25 Years On, Mothers Of Tiananmen Square Dead Seek Answers. http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/05/20/313961978/25-years-on-mothers-of-tiananmen-square-dead-seek-answers

Chan, Minnie. (5 June 2014). Age shall not weary the Tiananmen Mothers in their search for answers. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1525579/age-shall-not-weary-tiananmen-mothers-their-search-answers

Rayman, Noah. (4 June 2014). 5 Things You Should Know About the Tiananmen Square Massacre: TIME looks back in history on the 25th anniversary. http://time.com/2822290/tiananmen-square-massacre-anniversary/
[Warning, graphic pictures]

Iyer, Pico. (13 Apr 1998). The Unknown Rebel: With a single act of defiance, a lone Chinese hero revived the world's image of courage. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988169,00.html

Witty, Patrick. (3 June 2009). Behind the Scenes: Tank Man of Tiananmen. http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/behind-the-scenes-tank-man-of-tiananmen/

AAP. (4 June 2014). Hawke reflects on Tiananmen massacre. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-2648076/Hawke-reflects-Tiananmen-massacre.html

Really fascinating article about how the Chinese migration changed Sydney.
Banham, Cynthia. (26 Dec 2003). Children of the revolution. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/25/1072308628745.html

Makinen, Julie. (5 June 2014). Tiananmen Square mystery: who was 'Tank Man'? http://www.smh.com.au/world/tiananmen-square-mystery-who-was-tank-man-20140605-zryf7.html

#blogjune

Why #blogjune? Why?

This is exactly why I signed up for #blogjune, and maybe why I shouldn't have.

It's day 4, but I'm typing this at 12:30am on day 5. :)

One of my friends who has done #blogjune before said something like "don't be too hard on yourself, pace yourself" etc... And this has always been the 'problem' with my blog: if it's not right / perfect I don't post, so very little gets posted at all!

I really liked this tweet from another #blogjune writer: https://twitter.com/jackielb79/status/472971928441864192 Jackie writes "in which I remember I have a blog"... It's like that for me.

I hope that the habit of #blogjune may bring on some more regular blogging into the future and help me overcome my perfectionistic tendencies.

We can but try, right?

oz_bandicoot... #blogjune

On Twitter, I am @oz_bandicoot.

Why oz_bandicoot?

Oz_bandicoot was 'born' on the blogging site LiveJournal.

I thought long and hard about my public blogging name on LiveJournal.  This was 2004 (yikes) and I'd been blogging privately on LiveJournal, but not done much publicly.

Internet names are hard to choose, I think.  I've never been much for "online handles" or nics.  I'm not really a soul that was born on the Internet.  But I come here to visit and usually the natives are welcoming! I've only had one online nic and that was "RachREL" when I was part of the Usenet group 'aus.tv.x-files' (ATXF) (now part of Google Groups and probably full of spam!).  RachREL was a nic that was coined by $tephen Dann and embraced by the rest of the group (as well as myself).  I think I did a search and there was no "RachREL" on LiveJournal.   It didn't seem right though, to use RachREL.  It belonged to a different place and a time that, even ten years ago, was past.  Not to mention having an intrinsic meaning that belongs to the ATXF world.

So... what then?

I decided oz_bandicoot for a couple of reasons.

oz is pretty obvious! I'm Australian and proud of it. It's a key part of my identity and who I am.  Besides which, plain old "bandicoot" had already been taken! :-)

Bandicoot is, in part, in honour of my mother's father.  Apparently he used to call me a little bandicoot when I was little as I was mischevious and would get into everything!  (Some would say not much has changed - apart from not being little anymore!).

I also *like* bandicoots. When I was a teenager, I had a poster on my wall about saving the Eastern Barred Bandicoot.  Bandicoots are little known Australian marsupials.  They are also found in New Guinea.  They're nocturnal and usually hard to see.  I think this is why most people don't know much about them.  They're not glamourous like koalas or abundant and easy to see like kangaroos.  They're also not really all that cute.  They do, after all, most closely resemble rats!  Many of the varieties of bandicoots are endangered or listed as vulnerable.  This includes the Eastern Barred Bandicoot, as well as the Southern Brown Bandicoot (see also: http://www.sharkbay.org/Southernbrownbandicootfactsheet.aspx) and others.

Bandicoot also has a place as a unique Aussie word.  When I first wrote about choosing this name, ten years ago, I said "These days, Aussie animals are very trendy and I'm sure many kids know bandicoots from Sony's "Crash Bandicoot" game".  I wonder how popular Crash Bandicoot is today?

It's really the personal angle that made me choose the name, but I can relate to the bandicoot being endangered and not well known.  I feel a bit that way myself sometimes!

My LiveJournal user icon was created by my hubby.  He drew an Eastern Barred Bandicoot using a model from The Australian Museum Complete book of Australian Mammals [edited by Ronald Strahan, Cornstalk publishing 1991].  The picture was then scanned and made electronic.  It's wasn't quite what I had in mind, but I liked it. 

Later, we encounted a bandicoot in a car park on the Great Ocean Road and a photo userpic was made.

Even later again, when I joined Twitter and some other online sites, I used oz_bandicoot as my user name.  If I was choosing it today, I'd do away with the underscore.  But underscores were the thing (back in the day).
 
And that, as they say, is how oz_bandicoot got her name! And although this blog post was mostly written in 2004, I think the 2014 version is better.  Sadly, many (all?) of the links from the 2004 post are no more.  I did wonder if Wikpedia had been invented then (it had), because I didn't use Wikipedia links in 2004.  Today, I've replaced some links with Wikipedia ones. 

I'm sorry to say the Eastern Barred Bandicoot is still endangered, but I'm pleased to say that dedicated individuals continue to work to save this little marsupial. 

#blogjune

Email... #blogjune

As I finally posted my #blogjune post last night, I realised... I hadn't checked my work emails all weekend!

Yes, I'm one of those people... I do check my work emails at home.  I'm working on a project at the moment and the main vendor has offices in Ontario, Indiana and Tennessee so I've gotten into the habit of checking emails on a Saturday morning.  Saturday morning will pick up any emails sent on their Friday.  But last Saturday I had to take my daughter to the dentist at 9am and I had an afternoon appointment and Sunday was also busy... yadda, yadda... so, no email checking.

Did the world end? NO.

It got me thinking... maybe I should cut back on the email checking out of hours?

Email, and our ever-increasing access to it has certainly become an issue for workplaces.  Some of the moves in Europe, such as the ban by Volkswagen on delivery to Blackberry devices out of hours have been widely reported.  My Google search today shows a similar approach in France. I wouldn't normally recommend an article from the Times of India, but this one covers the issues well.

Interestingly, when I searched work emails at home on Google, the bulk of the hits were about how to set it up!

One of the business sites I like is Inc.com (well, mainly I follow them on Twitter).

It was very interesting to check out their site archive on 'email'.

Back in 2011, they reported on the company that outlawed email.   Klick, a Toronto-based digital marketing agency was the company  in question. Klick CEO Leerom Segal says:
“In the very early days of Klick we started to recognize some basic challenges with email and wanted to find a better solution... While email makes for a decent communication tool with clients, internally it doesn’t facilitate collaboration and basic workflow. Email has no intelligent mechanisms for prioritization, lacks context, lacks a framework for knowledge management, and saps accountability.”

I tend to agree!

But for most of us, outlawing email isn't an option.

We can 'kill' some of our email traffic.  I love these email "killing" tips from company founders!

We can make email more productive ("Key to Email Productivity? Better Subject Lines") - and I love these ideas! Wonder if I can implement any of them?

I once had an academic tell me that there is no such thing as 'work-life balance'.  That sometimes, work is our focus 100% and sometimes 'life/family/whatever' is our focus 100%.  I get what he was saying... but I still think there's a need for us to be aware of work life balance and of how modern technology blurs the lines between time spend "at" (on?) work, and time spent on non-work.

I'll give the final word here to Suzanne Lucas from her article "France Wants to Ban Work Emails After 6 PM. Should You?".  Lucas writes:
"Long hours are legendary in startups, and many entrepreneurs wear them as a badge of honor. If you're running a startup, you might wish to encourage your people to put down the smartphone now and then and spend some time with their family and friends. But you have to balance that with the knowledge that working harder does get you ahead. And it's a tough world out there."


Related links:
Volkswagen turns off Blackberry email after work hours. 
23 December 2011.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16314901

Lost In Translation: French Rule On Work Email Covers Fewer Workers
by KRISHNADEV CALAMUR
April 10, 2014
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/04/10/301418591/mon-dieu-no-more-work-email-at-home-for-some-french-workers

Ban on after-hours work emails tackles burnout
AFP | May 27, 2014, 02.27 PM IST
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/jobs/Ban-on-after-hours-work-emails-tackles-burnout/articleshow/35629464.cms

Haden, Jeff. (1 Dec 2011). The Company That Outlawed Email. http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/the-company-that-outlawed-email.html

Dumaine, Brian. (May 2014). How to Escape Email Hell: Three founders and their e-mail-killing tips. http://www.inc.com/magazine/201405/brian-dumaine/email-management-tips.html

McKeown, Les. (30 Jan 2014). Key to Email Productivity? Better Subject Lines. http://www.inc.com/les-mckeown/3-simple-letters-that-will-increase-your-email-productivity-immediately.html

Lucas, Suzanne. (10 Apr 2014). France Wants to Ban Work Emails After 6 PM. Should You? http://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/should-work-emails-be-banned-after-6pm.html

#blogjune

Augmented reality ... at McDonalds? #blogjune

I went to McDonald’s for breakfast this morning. (Yeah, don't judge me!)

Imagine my surprise when my tray mat featured an invitation to download the new World Cup Augmented Reality app.

Augmented Reality? At McDonalds?

Augmented Reality (AR) isn't new and in the GLAM sector we've been using it to do all sorts of interesting things for some time now.

However, I've always thought of AR as being a little 'out there', a bit specialised, maybe only for the 'early adopters'. That sort of thing.

So, what’s it doing at McDonald’s? Was AR now mainstream? Have I not been paying attention? 

Copious amounts of googling later and I find… apparently not!

To quote Bruce Sterling "... From now on, when people ask you, “Is AR mainstream yet?” you can say, Hey man, McDonald’s." [1]

Sterling was actually talking about an AR app launched by European McDonald's in 2013. (http://youtu.be/my4JtK3W5vE) McDonald's has experimented with AR in other areas with a "Track my Maccas app" in Australia in 2013. [2]

But now, McDonald's AR has gone global. The Huffington Post reports that: "... By the time the soccer competition begins in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 12 (concluding on July 13), the boxes will be in 119 markets."[3] 

Not only that… I have to say it's the first time I've seen AR promoted on a tray mat!

McDonald's also appears to have learnt from previous outings and now offers the app on both iOS and android platforms.

Many of the write-ups about the new app seem to follow the press release, but there are a few highlights. Ina Fried discusses the use of Qualcomm's Vuforia Technology in the app. [4] She writes: "Augmented reality is one of those things that is perennially around the corner, but Qualcomm VP Jay Wright says it is starting to catch on, particularly with marketers looking to give more life to physical goods."

My google search revealed that there are many uses for AR "out there". Some are still pretty "out there", but some are being used by brands we know - Ikea, Lego, Nivea - to reach out to customers and engage with them.

There's still room for libraries and museums in this space. There's an interesting summary of AR and its application to libraries by Carli Spina over at the American Library Association site [5] and I liked Shelley Mannion's post at the British Library [6].

What are your favourite AR apps?
For those of us who want to know more, where would you suggest we start?

Will I download the McDonald's app. Maybe? It's free... and I'm willing to bet that if there's going to be a good example of AR in the marketplace, this better be it.

References:
[1] Sterling, B. (9 March 2013) Augmented Reality: McDonald’s and Metaio http://www.wired.com/2013/09/augmented-reality-mcdonalds-and-metaio/

[2] http://youtu.be/7iFQQGADjf4; http://www.creativeguerrillamarketing.com/augmented-reality/mcdonalds-augmented-reality-app-shows-whats-inside-your-meal/

[3] Burger Business (20 May 2014) McDonald's Fry Boxes Get World Cup Artwork http://www.huffingtonpost.com/burgerbusiness/mcdonalds-fry-boxes-get-w_b_5357456.htm 

[4] Fried, Ina (20 May 2014). McDonald’s World Cup Promo Uses Augmented Reality to Turn French Fry Boxes Into Soccer Fields. http://recode.net/2014/05/20/mcdonalds-world-cup-promo-uses-augmented-reality-to-turn-fry-boxes-into-soccer-fields/

[5] Spina, Carli. (Feb 2014). Keeping up with… Augmented Reality. http://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/keeping_up_with/ar

[6] Mannion, Shelley. (2012?) British Museum - Augmented Reality: Beyond the Hype. http://www.museum-id.com/idea-detail.asp?id=336

Related links:
McDonalds: 
Burton, Bonnie. (21 May 2014). Gol! McDonald's World Cup app turns boxes of fries into field of dreams. http://www.cnet.com/au/news/play-soccer-with-new-mcdonalds-world-cup-french-fry-boxes/

Jackson, Christopher. (22 May 2014) McDonald’s French Fry Boxes Turns into Soccer Fields with Augmented Reality. http://www.augmentedrealitytrends.com/ar-app/mcdonalds-gol.html

Johnson, Lauren. (20 May 2014). McDonald's Overhauls Packaging for World Cup Digital Push: Also moves from QR codes to augmented reality. http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/mcdonalds-overhauls-packaging-big-digital-world-cup-push-157867

Freeman, Mike. (24 May 2014). McDonald's World Cup app uses new Qualcomm tech: Augmented reality software lets users place objects into soccer app. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/May/24/Qualcomm-augmented-reality-McDonalds-world-cup/

McDonald's app site: http://gol.mcd.com/en.html

AR examples
10 Mind-Blowing Augmented Reality Campaigns
http://www.business2community.com/marketing/10-mind-blowing-augmented-reality-campaigns-0160078#!TeHTq

10 Examples of Augmented Reality in Retail http://www.creativeguerrillamarketing.com/augmented-reality/10-examples-augmented-reality-retail/

10 Rockstar Examples of Augmented Reality for 2014 http://www.creativeguerrillamarketing.com/guerrilla-marketing/10-rockstar-examples-augmented-reality-2014/

#blogjune