Hello,

here am I first night alone at the Guardian. Deadline is tomorrow to showcase a info-graphic interactive video map about the Iraq war situation, try to show new ways of communication on the online newspaper.

Although this is a huge and ancestral respected newspaper, there are some innovation issues that are a little bit left behind. Due to the amount of people working, and the fact that they spend all their time inside this walls, in not properly a creative hub what concerns apply new channels of communication. What has bin good 100 years ago, is still applied because it is settle and accepted.

And then imagine, I just landed from in the mean-while course at Hyper Island, where we are constantly trying out new approaches, innovative inputs, experimental communication angles, here I see my self needing to shake this peoples ideas a bit. And I must tell I’m being the alenate of Alastair Dant, he is the guy that wants to rock the stone basis of this newspaper. He is one man army, but now he has a shadow, me :)

I feel that there is so much space to push the boundaries at this newspaper. This is like an open source to come up with innovative forms of communication. I believe step by step, and with the perfect arguments, this London team will soon understand that there is a swift of mind that need to be made in order to keep up with the speed of light of the development of technology and human behaviour.

It’s all about communication.

At the moment, and with this small steps of innovation that Alastair is trying hard to give, a new gap is found what concerns communication. Because there are so many various departments at the newspaper, there are decisions needed to be taken that fall into this gap, because is no-ones and everybody’s responsibility.

With this new approach of giving the information to the user, as the interactive maps, that we are working at the moment, there are many decisions, and non the editorials or the tech people fill super confident to take. So this is where I totally see myself, in this gap. As my sister would say, I’m on the hole! It’s more a advertisement attitude that is needed, and marketing mindset, as well as a usability/needs found/interactivity choices that are required at this stage of the process. So here is where I feel super comfortable, because searching the needs, researching the different options to approach, well this is my playground. And with the practice that I got at Hyper, everyday finding the needs to full fill with solutions, I really feel that I can give valid inputs in this decisions and options taken. The other thing here is there although I feel super confident here, and everybody working with me valid my opinion, I think I should take it easy and not try to force anything. I will allways share my opinion and say how I would do it, in a very open way, but then is up to them what to chose.

After all is northing more then human relations, and it will always be!

it’s all about people like us.

mariana